"Tell me where they're holding my sister."

The assassin, who had been watching Torc write and arrange code on one of his holographic displays, turned toward Crypto.

"I did what you wanted," said the hacker. "I helped you find a way to get rid of your 'virus.' Now tell me where she is."

"Once it's gone," Revenant replied.

Crypto shook his head. "No- You give me her location now."

He wasn't about to take the chance that whatever untested program Torc was working on could kill Revenant - temporarily, or for good - or cause him to forget. There was too much uncertainty around the scientist's method- even around how Revenant's processor worked. Crypto preferred not to take chances.

"And then," said the assassin, "what's to stop all of you from going back on your word?"

"I won't," Crypto responded firmly. "Never thought the two of us could end up here, heh- but I want this to work out for you. And, I want your help breaking into the facility to get her."

"Why…?"

"I want us both to have back what they took from us," the hacker answered. "For all that you've done- that I've done, they are the greater evil. We're stronger against them together than either of us alone."

"I want to help, too," Wattson piped up.

Both Crypto and Revenant turned to look at her with a sense of unease- Crypto out of concern for the engineer's safety; Revenant out of concern for his own in the presence of someone who knew the fine details of how his mechanical body worked.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

The engineer frowned in confusion. "I can handle myself. Haven't I proven myself in the Games?"

"Of course you have," Crypto replied quickly. "It's just-"

"I don't want you anywhere near me," Revenant snarled before the hacker could finish his thought.

Wattson tilted her head. She stepped out from behind Torc and his holographic displays, walked around the table, and lowered herself into the chair across from the assassin.

"Why are you so sure that I want to hurt you? I don't."

"You're an engineer," he growled. There was a long silence between them, interrupted here and there by Torc muttering to himself as he rearranged blocks of code on one of his screens. Wattson waited patiently for the simulacrum to finish his statement, but it seemed that was all he intended to say.

"So… you don't like engineers? That's a strange position for a robot to take… But I- I guess it's the same as a human who doesn't like doctors - and I don't like doctors - so maybe it makes sense!"

Cade burst out laughing at her reasoning. She gave the enforcer a confused look. Revenant glared at him for a brief moment, before his attention returned to Wattson.

"It's not the same," he hissed. "Not unless your doctors have ever immobilized you and taken you apart, piece by piece, while you were unable to stop them- or they flooded your mind with false, meaningless data to keep you under their control. Or-"

"That's enough."

Crypto cut him off. "She gets the point. Stop scaring her."

"It's okay, Crypto. I'm not scared." Wattson regarded Revenant with sadness in her eyes.

"Engineers are supposed to fix things. Being an engineer used to mean taking responsibility to solve the universe's problems… To come up with a way, to figure it out. We designed and built every amazing thing that we take for granted now- and then, somewhere, we lost our way. Engineering lost its meaning… It stopped being about fixing things and building a better world. Now it's only about companies and their profits."

She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in front of her on the table. For as long as she could remember, she'd dreamed of being an inventor- of harnessing the intricate workings of complex systems and processes to make things better around her. Electricity, with its order, its purpose, and its beauty, had always drawn her to it. It was freeing- a structure of pure energy, one which appeared wild and chaotic to the unknowing observer. In reality, it was always following the path of least resistance home, to ground… One only needed to be able to see the pathways, how they connected and how they fit together.

Wattson wondered if there was another person out there somewhere who could see the patterns and connections in mankind, like she saw in circuits- who would figure out how to fix humanity and set their future on the right track.

The assassin didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he seemed to be intently focused on scratching at the surface of the table. This time, at least, he was being significantly less violent about it- his body language was guarded, but not hostile.

"I… get electricity," Wattson finally continued after a long pause. "It- it falls into place for me - all the little things just fall into place. People don't make sense to me like that… There's no schematic for being human."

She sighed. "Realizing that engineering had changed from a world of discovery and ingenuity to an industry of profit was sad, for me, but for you… It set the circumstances of your existence, it- it defined your entire life. We have so much to learn from machines like you… I understand the current, I understand what makes all the moving parts work, but I don't understand. I want to- I really do."

Revenant looked up from the marks that he was making on the table for a brief moment.

"You're a strange skinbag," he replied in a low growl.

Wattson shrugged. "People have called me meaner things."

The simulacrum shifted his attention to Torc. "How much longer is this going to take?"

"I'm going as fast as I can!"

Torc raised his hands in front of him in a gesture of exasperation. "Do you realize what I'm trying to do here? I'm writing a program to do a task that's never been done before, to be run by a control system unlike anything I've ever seen, in a programming language that I don't think has been used for at least a hundred years. And I don't want to make a mistake, okay?"

The scientist took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, groaning in frustration. Moments later, he was back to muttering - sometimes excitedly, sometimes angrily - at his holographic screens as he hunched over them, one arm folded across his chest, the other raising a hand to his chin. Wattson smiled- the number of times she'd seen Crypto hunched over his laptop late at night, looking exactly like that as he worked on some project… In fact, at the other end of the table, he was working intently on something right now.

Revenant's claws raked across the metal table with a screech that made her wince.

"It's taking time because you're so incredible," she said softly. "There are billions of humans, and machines- but even among hybrid beings, there's never been another like you."

"'Hybrid beings?'" Cade cut in. "Don't lump cyborgs and simulacrums into the same category. Do you really think that me, Torc, or Crypto are anything like-?"

"I'm not a cyborg," Crypto interrupted, momentarily looking up from his laptop. "Having a neural interface doesn't make me any less human. It's something added; nothing taken away."

"No part of me is human," hissed Revenant. "I want nothing to do with your kind."

"But human, machine- one is made of carbon and the other is made of silicon." Wattson stepped in quickly before the argument could escalate.

"Other than that, what is the difference, really? We all interact with the world around us, and we form thoughts, feelings, and opinions about it. Do you know what makes that possible?"

She paused for a moment. Cade and Crypto exchanged glances.

"Electricity. Electrical energy is the unifying plane between humans and machines. It travels through neurons and between cells to give biological creatures their life and consciousness, and it also travels through the circuits and semiconductors of a machine. Our bodies are made of different molecules, and our minds work differently, but the same energy connects us."

"Bravo! Well said!" Torc clapped his hands and nodded in approval. Wattson quickly looked down at her hands- the scientist was drawing attention to her in a way that felt awkward. Thankfully, his reaction lasted only a couple of seconds; then he was once again focused on the code he was writing. Cade grunted in a way that was likely a disagreement, but said nothing.

Revenant was back to scratching at the tabletop. From Crypto's angle, it looked like he was making tally marks- his kill count, perhaps. Wattson reached across the table and laid one hand lightly on top of the assassin's forearm. His other hand immediately caught her wrist- she opened her mouth to cry out, but closed it without making a sound when he did nothing further. He meant her no harm, at least for the moment; it was merely an instinctive response. Cade and Crypto watched him closely, prepared for the worst regardless.

"What are you doing, skin-suit…?"

"It must be really hard, being the only one."

The engineer looked up at him with a contemplative expression. She stood out among humans. She saw pathways and connections in circuitry that were invisible to other people, and though she liked to believe that she'd gotten pretty good at it, verbal communication was a constant struggle for her. Language simply lacked the level of detail for her to express what she saw in her head… It was a collective effort developed by the majority, for the majority, and most people just couldn't see what she saw. She was wired differently, and there were no words to explain something that almost nobody would ever experience.

Even with that, Wattson doubted that she understood what it was like for Revenant. Autistic savants were few and far in between, but she wasn't the first of them.

The assassin was unimpressed with her display of compassion. With a dismissive grunt, he pulled away from her, got up from the table, and began pacing the length of the room. Spending so much time waiting and doing nothing was giving him the sense that there was searing energy building inside him. Long periods of downtime like this were difficult to tolerate.

Wattson's eyes followed him, confused. "What did I do wrong?"

Revenant ignored her. She looked down at her hands and sighed. Crypto, seeing her reaction, slid his chair around to her side of the table so that he could put a comforting hand on her back. She smiled and pulled him into a hug.

"You're a good friend," she said quietly. The hacker smiled. Wattson was too kind for this world, with all of its violence and corporate corruption.

As Crypto finally let go of her and leaned back, something that he noticed from the corner of his eye compelled him to turn and stare. Those scratches that Revenant had been making on the tabletop- when he hadn't been able to see them well, he'd assumed that they were tally marks. Now that the assassin had moved away, the programmer could see that it was really a set of coordinates he'd scratched into the metal surface. Crypto brought his laptop over to the other side of the table and looked them up.

A distribution center came up on the search, located right at the edge of Solace City's government and commercial sectors. According to public records, it belonged to a company that supplied mechanical parts for vehicles and spacecraft. Strange- was Revenant leading him on some useless chase just to mess with him? Crypto wouldn't put it past the simulacrum…

His gut feeling, however, told him that there was more to it. On a whim, he looked up the building's utility records. They had a history of consuming far more electricity than such a warehouse should need- sure enough, something wasn't right here.

Next, he started looking into the company that owned the distribution center. They had a sleek, clean website, rattling off specifications for the parts they produced and why other companies should want to buy them, an order form… To the public eye, nothing would have appeared out of the ordinary. As Crypto combed through their business records, though, it became more and more apparent that the company didn't really exist. They'd done a hundred thousand credits' worth of sales in the past year- a corporation that size should have done closer to a hundred million. Whoever owned the building was using that company as a front to hide something else.

That conclusion led him to search for the blueprints to the building. If it was, in fact, a distribution center, he'd expect to see large, open areas, minimally interrupted by the structure's core support frame. What was on the drawings looked nothing like a commercial facility- it was laid out more like a prison, with several small rooms in rows, separated by reinforced concrete walls.

Could this be where the Syndicate sent people that they wanted to disappear…?

"Revenant," said the hacker, "is this where they're holding Mila?"

"Took you long enough," the assassin replied as he continued to pace back and forth across the room.

Crypto raised his eyebrows. The building was located in a place that was easily accessible to the public. He could have walked right past it without even knowing… Who would have thought that an ordinary warehouse concealed a Syndicate prison?

"They have cameras around the perimeter, and automated turrets inside all of the entrances. If you don't have the right security code - or you're stupid enough to enter it wrong, they'll gun you down. The building is patrolled by robot guards - not sentient, not even intelligent; just your standard military robot - and overseen by… higher-level Syndicate employees. Most are human. One or two are like me- except that they still think they're human…"

The hacker looked up at him in surprise. Since when did Revenant voluntarily give useful information to anyone?

"Think you have a chance of surviving long enough to find anyone in there, skin-suit? I'd bet all my winnings from the Games, you die within fifteen minutes of breaching the perimeter."

Hearing their conversation, Cade leaped up from his chair and rushed around the table so fast that he nearly tripped over his own feet. He came up behind Crypto and looked at the screen over the programmer's shoulder.

"That's the Syndicate holding compound?"

"One of them," Revenant confirmed.

"I want a list of any buildings where they're keeping prisoners, and what kind of security measures they have," Cade demanded. "I'm going to get a team together to launch a coordinated attack and let their prisoners out."

"You'll do no such thing," Crypto snapped in a fierce, but quiet, tone. "Not until I get my sister out safely."

"Crypto, look at the big picture. With this information, we could free hundreds - if not thousands - of people who know the truth about the Syndicate. We pull this off, we have a real chance of overthrowing them!" Cade looked into his friend's eyes with hard determination.

"I'm aware," the hacker answered, "and my family comes first."

"AHA!"

Torc's sudden exclamation caused them both to drop the argument - at least, for the moment - and turn toward him. He was grinning maniacally as he keyed something into the display of code, after which he stepped back and looked it up and down. As quickly as it appeared, the wide grin vanished from his face.

"Cade, Crypto, stop yapping. Revenant, quit pacing around the room like a caged animal and sit down- you're all driving me nuts! Oh, I finally found the missing semicolon in this code, by the way. It should be ready to go- just need to give it a good once-over for errors…"

Revenant glared at the man, but did as he was told. "Hurry up," he growled.

"Do you really think that rushing me is going to make this process go any faster?"

The scientist's excitement at having come up with a potential solution to a previously unseen problem wasn't quite masked by the exasperation in his tone. As he continued, he sounded distant, distracted; clearly much more interested in what he was doing than in the words: "Do I need to remind you that nothing like this has ever been attempted in the history of robotics, organic computers, brain/computer interfaces…? I'd say that looking over your code and coming up with a solution on the same day is making damn good time!"

Wattson glanced from Torc to Revenant and back again.

"What will happen if it doesn't work?" she asked uneasily. "It won't do anything bad to him… will it?"

Her gaze fell over Crypto for a moment, who shrugged. He could get into any security system known to man- something that simulacrum technology had little to do with.

"Hard to say, without any frame of reference to go off of," Torc answered absently. "He might remain exactly as he is now- yeah, that's probably what would happen! If it doesn't work, nothing will change. Well, everything seems to be in order!"

He looked at Revenant with a triumphant smile. "Are you ready?"

The assassin responded with a single firm nod. "Do it."

Wattson got up and walked over to stand beside him. He turned and glared at her threateningly as soon as she came close. Undeterred, the engineer reached out, slowly, cautiously, and put one hand on his shoulder.

"What is your problem, skin-suit…?"

"I'd think it would be scary, being reprogrammed," she replied softly. "If it works, they're removing a part of you that you've never been without, and if it doesn't, they don't know what will happen… I remember going into surgery, and it was scary. I want you to know that you're not alone. I'm here."

She smiled at him. Revenant scoffed. "If that's what you think of as scary, you've never experienced true, existential terror."

Crypto approached from his other side. "Thank you," he said, "for finding my sister. You're a real piece of work- but you came through with what I needed the most. There's no one I'd rather have at my side in this conflict against the Syndicate."

"Whatever you say, skinbag," the assassin responded dismissively.

"Right, then," said Torc. "You're going to power down. When you come back online, you should no longer be able to sense the presence of your human counterpart."

He'd closed all of the holographic screens except two, which he moved so that they overlapped. They merged together into a single display. Torc entered a command on the keypad at the bottom of the holographic screen.

Static cut across Revenant's vision. System diagnostic messages flickered at the edges of it. The world around him seemed to grow distant, and he felt himself becoming more and more disconnected from it- slowly, as if he was moving through quicksand.

System status: -

Power level status:-

Shutting down.

His mechanical body was still and silent, slumped over the table. Torc unconsciously held his breath as he waited to see if his code would work. Cade positioned himself near the door, pistol at the ready, in case it didn't.