An air gap is a concept in secured computing, where systems with classified information are kept physically separate from other unsecured systems, and never permitted access to unsecured networks. This is the case with the server on which EOS has been imprisoned. Connections have only been opened to it twice—once when TB5's code was first uploaded, and the second time when a mysterious connection had been open from somewhere in Switzerland, she hadn't quite been able to divine the exact location.

This base in particular has several banks of servers, dedicated to sequestering confiscated data or volatile viruses or digital systems under investigation. They're behind locked doors and solid walls, and shielded from external connection. They're managed by GDF technicians, officers and non-comms of various levels of education.

This is where John's headed.

When the door of the conference room opens and Colonel Rothesay and a rather sheepish Captain Nixon appear, the hallway's empty of most of the meeting's attendees. There's been a recess called for lunch, and the conference proper will resume in about an hour.

Colonel Casey's among those waiting, chatting idly outside the conference room, and she turns to address Rothesay and Nixon. John stays cool and calm and, as with when he'd first realized she was there, doesn't react to the fact that he's known Casey since he was nine.

"Are you quite all right, Captain?" she asks, before the Hood can smooth things over again. "There's a medic's office on base, if you wanted to see anyone?"

It's not difficult to remain cool, unemotional towards Casey. "Thank you, ma'am, but it's not necessary. I'm very sorry for the disruption."

Or, well, it wasn't difficult. But John's known her since he was nine, and this is the first time he's seen her in person in years. She's a kind woman, always has been, and her brown eyes are warm and genuinely concerned. Even as a stranger to her, John can tell that she was worried. It somehow means more that she'd worry for him as a stranger, than knowing she'd worried for who he really is. A vase of yellow tulips beside a hospital bed. Her voice is gentle and kind when she assures him, "Not if it's a question of your health, Captain. No apology necessary. Are you really sure you're all right?"

John inclines his head briefly, graciously. "I'm still learning my limits, Colonel, but I'll be fine. I'd really like to go on and get to work."

Colonel Casey glances to Colonel Rothesay, who nods in answer, giving his permission with a smile and a shrug. "Youth! Even a weary heart won't stop him. I'm quite lucky to have secured his assignment, Colonel Casey. Captain Nixon's been a very trustworthy assistant and I look forward to our continued association. If you'd be so kind as to escort him to the server room and be sure he meets the correct technicians? There are people I need to speak to before we reconvene."

"Of course. Come along, Captain."

And for the first time, as the Hood turns his back, John's out of sight of his enemies. Casey walks briskly down the hall and John follows her. Disobedience, defiance of the man who holds him captive, crosses his mind briefly—but John's learned his limits. In a room full of GDF officers, the Hood hadn't hesitated to clench his hand around John's heart, and there's no point running the risk again.

It's all Santa Fe stucco on the outside, but on the inside all GDF facilities look about the same. They cross the building's main lobby and John glances towards the exterior doors, to bright, sunshiney California beyond them. But the walls are all monolithic and modern gray. John's reminded of the halls of the hospital, looking around as he keeps pace with Colonel Casey, mentally trying to keep track of the twists and turns through corridors, as they progress deeper and deeper into the building.

Casey breaks the silence, with a sideways glance at who she believes to be Captain Nixon. "How do you find working for Rothesay?" she inquires, small talk, polite and casual.

"Fine." John pauses and there's a giddy sense of daring welling up in his chest. "It's been fine. I'm still very new. It can be hard to say."

"Oh?"

John shrugs carefully, keeps his voice soft and muted, tries to consciously alter the patterns of his speech, so as not to trigger any sense of familiarity. "It's been difficult, you know, to get a read on him. Ah, I'm not…that is, I'm not sure how much I should really say. He's my CO, after all."

Casey shrugs. "The GDF runs on gossip. Has he been accommodating of your condition?"

"Oh, well, yes. Ah, of course. No problems there he's, uh, he's been right with me right since the, uh, the very onset. No. That's not…if there were an issue, I mean, that's not it." John hesitates, or pretends to, though he already knows what he wants to say. "You've been a part of this delegation since the beginning," John guesses. "The Colonel's been very heavily invested in it, I gather you're not necessarily on the same side. May I ask, ah, where you stand? Exactly?"

Casey doesn't answer immediately and John wonders how carefully she's formulating her reply. Wonders if he's the sort of person who's allowed to ask this sort of question. "I don't want to upset you again, if this is an emotional topic," she hazards, deflecting the question cautiously.

"I'm not made of glass, Colonel Casey. I was just keeping a lot bottled up and the shock of hearing myself actually say it, was—" John shrugs. "Learning my limits."

"Well, as long as you're sure. I suppose it's your job, isn't it, consulting on matters like this?"

Captain Nixon has a degree from Stanford in Computer Sciences, but it's not a patch on John's doctorate from MIT in the same. "It's what I studied."

They come to an open area, an atrium beneath an artificial skylight, false blue light shining down outside a long wall of clear plexiglass walls, and banks upon banks of servers, each with an associated ante-room, visible through the windows. There are potted palm trees and benches, snack and drink machines, and tables. Presumably this is where the IT and technicians meet for their breaks. A few are clustered around a table, chatting quietly, all in the same shimmering dark gray uniform that John wears. Casey pauses and indicates a bench, presumably concerned for Captain Nixon's heart after the rather brisk walk across the building. John sits, obliging, and the Colonel sits next to him. John's not sure what to say, as he almost never is these days, but Casey speaks first.

"I think you raised some good points. I think it's wrong to use something that shouldn't belong to us, strictly speaking. We were tremendously lucky not to have come under serious legal fire regarding the seizure of what amounts to intellectual property, whether it's illegal or not. This could've gotten ugly."

I wouldn't be here if it had gotten as ugly as it should have. I should've been able to do more. John swallows the answer on the tip of his tongue. "Because the program was someone else's, or because the program might belong to itself?"

"More the former. I don't think the GDF is the place for the sort of philosophy that goes with the latter."

"I think the GDF might be the place where that sort of philosophy is needed the most." Captain Nixon's facial structure is different from John, and what's a slight curl of John's lips is an outright sneer on the Captain's darker, heavier features. He doesn't mean to sound so contemptuous, but he's within mere feet of EOS' prison, and Casey is someone he's supposed to respect.

And John's heart just about thuds out of his ribcage when she speaks next, soft and concerned again, knowing in a way he hadn't expected, "I think you've been put in a position where you need to lie to everyone around you."

Before he has time to even begin to think what to say, she continues, not meeting his gaze. "I think that you said what you did—about slavery and torture and murder—I think the truth got the better of you, for a moment. Because you're right, there are larger ethical questions that aren't being asked. It's debatable whether or not we can afford to ask them. But whether they should be asked is a different question from whether they will be asked, and this committee is going to be passing out of my hands very soon. Truth be told, whatever the resolution, I'll be glad to have no further part of it. Clearly it's already taking a toll on you. Maybe it might be better if this left your hands, too."

The GDF are the flip side of the coin he's tossed, tails to the Hood's hook nosed heads. John's never been accused of naivete in his life before now, but for the first time he's starting to wonder if he must be naive—to be sat next to a woman he's trusted and respected for most of his life, and to hear her willing to wash her hands of something so fundamentally wrong, to allow it to happen and not do anything about it. "Someone has to. I can't tell if…if it's just a gap in a generation, if I'm talking to people who really don't understand how important this is. This is sentience. From—from everything I've heard, even without any contact with this system—isn't it clear that this is more than just code? Why are the only important questions about how this system can be useful, instead of how this system can just be?"

The answer comes after a long silence and leads with a sad, quiet laugh. There's that knowing, appraising glance in Colonel Casey's eyes as she looks at him again, and John has to wonder what she sees, because she breaks away when she meets his eyes. "You're maybe a little too idealistic for the GDF, Captain. I hope it's the place for you, I really do. We flatter ourselves that we're emblematic of global justice and integrity. Truth be told, it's all as corporate and political as anything else in the world. We're just bigger and better sanctioned. Personally, I think the world at large just isn't ready to be embroiled in this question. Bluntly, I think it might be better if the entity in question was deleted."

"I'm not going to let that happen," John says and as sharply as she looks up at him again, he realizes he's let his own voice slip through. It's just the sheer shock of hearing her say it, really say it, that she thinks EOS should be done away with. "You really don't understand."

"I'm sorry, Nixon," she answers, sincerely, and she puts a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you're right, maybe it's generational. Maybe I've just been around long enough to be a little warier than you are—I hope you don't take it the wrong way when I say I think you've got stars in your eyes. I will say, you make me feel like I've let you down somehow, and I'm sorry for that. If Rothesay's the man you've chosen to believe in, if you think his agenda is worth your zeal—well, I won't stop you. But I suppose I'd caution that maybe it's worse to be used for someone else's ends than it is just to be unto oneself, on one's own terms."

"I know that. But if the alternative is utterly destroying—"

"I'm not talking about the AI, Captain Nixon."

This sentiment strikes uncomfortably close to home and John doesn't have an answer. Colonel Casey spares him again, getting to her feet and indicating the plexiglass door of one of the server rooms behind them. "I imagine you want to get to work. I'm not going to have influence on this subject for much longer, Captain—in fact, I've considered bowing out early, and this may be the day I do so. But for my part, I hope you'll keep in touch, for both our sakes. Maybe you're right, and I don't understand. I'd like to try, though, if for no other reason than so you don't have to feel you're in this alone. I'll patch you my contact details, and I hope we can talk about this again."

This hurts John's heart in a way that's entirely metaphorical, to find someone who's finally willing to listen, and in the last place he'd expected, and so near to the edge of what he's had to do. Things could have been so different, but they're not, and there's no time to mourn the road untaken. "Thank you. Ma'am. Colonel Casey. Can—could—could I suggest somewhere you might want to start?"

"Of course, Captain."

John clears his throat and stands, glances at his comm unit. He pulls up Casey's profile and keys in a quick message, a line of text he's known for years, ever since he'd first typed it out at the head of his doctorate thesis. He sends her the title and the appropriate reference information. "There's a dissertation out of MIT that's one of the best treatises I've encountered on the subject. It's a long read, but I think it'd explain a lot of what's important to know."

"Thank you. I'll take a private lunch and have a look at it, you've given me a lot to think about. You recommend it personally?"

John offers a hand, surprising himself, to clasp Colonel Casey's. He's privately glad to know she'll be heading out of the building, before what he's about to do. "Ma'am, quite honestly, I could've written it myself."