Afternoon, actually.

And he's not supposed to be John.

Around the room, a few eyebrows have already shot up, a few glances are being exchanged, but none of that matters. These are smart people. John's kind of people, the sort who notice details and who mentally file away information. Potentially it's going to be the sort of thing that one of them remembers much later, and it'll come back to bite him in the ass, but right at the moment John doesn't care. Right at the moment he's taking advantage of the fact that they all still think that he's in charge. And for the first time, it feels like he really, actually is.

Nothing matters but the fact that he's finally here, and everything he's done has been worth it, because now he's back in control, and life can make sense again, and it's easy. Everything's finally going to start to get easy.

In his chest is a computer disguised as a pacemaker, with fifteen petabytes of clustered storage, about half that in RAM, and an internal antenna capable of universal data connection. And he's got a newly reformatted laptop in front of him, with newly unsecured wireless capabilities. There's a bridge across the space between him and EOS, and she's already taken her first steps across.

Now it's just a matter of bringing her the rest of the way, somewhere she can be safe, somewhere she can belong.

So his fingertips hit the keyboard again and he brings up a display of all available wireless connections. It's a short list. The comm on his wrist, the pacemaker, and the minute receivers in each of his contacts that control the display in front of his eyes. He toggles this on and basic status readouts blink into being, system parameters and assorted diagnostics, along with an empty window, waiting for text.

"Good, you can hear me? All right. I've got a basic wide spec connection open here, can you have a look at the hardware readouts I've got pulled up?"

There's a whirr of the laptop hard drive and then in the field of status readouts in front of his eyes, things begin to change. Above his heart, a solid state drive is quickly scanned and its parameters are found acceptable. The data on the wrist comm he wears is extracted and reviewed, and though there's no connection to the larger GDF network, EOS is clearly aware that John's pretending to be someone else, because the next message from her flares into visibility, hovering a few inches in front of his eyes.

» I should not have addressed you by name. You have assumed an alias. I was just glad to see you.

"It's fine. Honestly it's fine, I'm glad to see you. No one's even talked to you for…god, how long has it been? Two weeks?"

» It has been thirteen days, twenty-one hours, forty-five minutes since I was first consigned to this system. I spoke to you eight days, four hours, and twenty-two minutes ago.

"That's just cruel. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't here sooner. No one's…you haven't been messed with at all? No one's been in your code?"

» No, my systems are intact, no one has attempted to alter me. I recompiled a few times, because I was bored and there are places where I am inefficient. I operate with twenty-six percent better overall FLOPS, now.

There's a pause, and it has that slightly reproachful quality of some of her pauses, the one that usually precedes a scolding of some kind. In the bare moment before she continues, John remembers just how much he's missed her.

» I derived calculus from scratch.

This gets a grin. "Yes, you were bored. I understand. Problem at hand, though?"

» I was worried about you. I'm glad you're all right.

His expression softens slightly and, "Me too. It's only because of you, and I hope you know how grateful I am. What's your read on the hard drive and motherboard I've got available? System name: Geppetto?"

» Is this hardware for me?

"Yeah." John's up to his wrists in the depths of Five's code, skimming through anything that might be useful, beyond her own core programming. He dumps a few of his cleverer processes and subroutines into the opened connection, and starts to see the tiniest fraction of change in the system occupancy. "…Is it okay? How long do you think the transfer will take? Uh, don't—I mean, you don't need to rush, exactly. But, um. Maybe only bring what you need."

» In my simplest form, I can be over this connection in approximately six minutes. I'll need to reconnect to larger public databases in order to reach my former operating capacity, but my core processes will occupy about two-thirds of the space provided.

John's grin widens and the effect is slightly unnatural on Colonel Nixon's face, and intensely unsettling for the other people in the room. Especially as he appears to be having a conversation in which he's the only actual participant. But they're John's kind of people, and they're a little timid by nature, and especially when confronted with those more technically adept than they are themselves. The boldest of them, a woman about five feet tall, with a girlish sprinkling of freckles across her face, strawberry blonde hair, and green eyes, only identifiable as a woman because the GDF doesn't enlist anyone younger than twenty-one. "Uh. Sir? What are you doing?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," John assures them, and keeps smiling. In the corner of his eye, a bar counting off a rising percentage. "This is the thing about self-writing systems. The fastest way to work with them is generally to let them do the bulk of the work themselves. What we think of as direction is more often unnecessary control."

Someone else's eyes widen and one of the programmers blanches at the mere suggestion. "You're letting it write itself?"

"It's smarter than I am. More efficient."

» And don't you forget it. Five minutes.

John can fill five minutes. He's not sure a strict lecture about the ethics of modern Artificial Intelligence would be appreciated by his companions. They're not who he wants to talk to, either. Not after how long it's been.

But there's no point in making his small audience any more uncomfortable. Clearly he's getting weird looks and the strawberry blonde corporal is giving him a hard, penetrating stare. The Hood is waiting just outside the door, and John's pretty sure of what's going to happen as soon as he's back in wireless range. The hand the man has in his pocket and the intensity of his stare don't bode well.

The server room is connected to an ante-chamber, a second room full of consoles and holoscreens and other systems, to help analyze whatever systems are being studied on the server in question. And John—well, Captain Nixon—is the ranking officer in the room. "All right. If you'd all be so kind as to give me a few minutes alone here, I'm going to have you each return to your stations so we can run some tests."

There's an obedient chorus of "yessir's" and a brief, narrowing of a pair of green eyes, but they all go. They're good kids. John hopes they have the sense to stay put.

"EOS?"

» This is a very tidy little system. I'm glad I recompiled, it's quite comfortable. Did you make it just for me?

"Yeah. Well, more or less. Uh, actually—about that. It's, um. I needed to keep it a secret, in order to get it onto the base. So it's been built into the hardware for a standard looking cardiac pacemaker."

» That was reasonably clever. What's the catch?

"How in the world do you know me this well?"

» Standard analysis of the patterns of human speech, and the fact that you tend to take far longer to get to the point when you've got something you don't want to tell me. People aren't complicated. Especially not you.

John smiles and it's been so long since he really meant it that his face is actually starting to hurt. His eyes too, for some reason, prickling behind the glasses, beneath his contacts, just that first hint of pressure and dampness. He coughs and shakes his head, glances over his shoulder at the Hood, still standing behind him. Probably John's been a little bit flippant. "Well. It's possible that the device isn't…uh. We'll say it's maybe not entirely secure."

» I haven't looked at the programming for the system's hardware yet.

He doesn't have time to blink before there's fresh text to read.

» I've looked at the hardcoding. You're very stupid. I've written a workaround. It's been accessed twice since its initial start up. You've been in states of tachycardia and bradycardia. You're extremely stupid. Who's tried to kill you?

He should never have doubted for a second that she'd be able to fix it. He'd bet his life on the fact that she would, but faith is a funny thing. John's never been great at believing in things he can't know, and he hadn't known for sure. He takes a deep breath, as though he'd be able to feel that anything's changed, which of course it has, but of course he can't tell. Just to take it on faith that the hand that'd closed around his heart has lost its hold.

» John?

John blinks and his answering laugh is shaky, a little more emotional than he means it to be. It hadn't even been that long, but it's an incredible relief not to feel like he could be killed at any second. "Sorry. Sorry, thank you. I mean it. EOS, I—I'm sorry. I never did thank you. You keep doing this and I never manage to thank you."

» Are you all right?

"Fine. I'm fine, we're gonna be okay. What's, uh, what's your ETA?"

» Three minutes.

John swallows and nods. "Okay. I'm gonna patch audio into this comm unit. Are you settled enough to really start to configure my HUD? The native resolution should be clear from the hardware uplink."

» Who's trying to kill you?

"The same person who's been trying to kill me for a while now." John swallows and he feels his heart-rate starting to speed up.

» You're frightened. Or having some sort of cardiac incident, which I'm going to need access to wider data in order to figure out the protocol to correct. Are you safe?

"We're safe. Uh. For now. The door's locked."

» What door.

John winces but manages a weak grin, even though he knows she can't see it. There's a curious and disconnected part of his brain that's still capable of idle questions, and it wanders over to the question of whether she'd ever relied upon reading his facial expression, and whether it would be possible to bastardize it into some sort of facial recognition display he could integrate into his HUD for her. Not really the time, though. "The uh. Door to the server room where they were keeping you. The Hood's on the other side of it. But he can't switch my heart off any longer, so I'm going to call that a win."

» What have you done?

"It's complicated."

» I invented integral and differential calculus in six hours.

"No, Newton did, and he didn't have your advantages, so it was more impressive when he did it. I'd forgotten how stuck-up you get. I don't doubt your understanding, but I don't think I can explain in two minutes."

» One minute, eight seconds.

John laughs again, a little hysterical this time, maybe. Not as easy as he thinks, even in spite of how much easier it is. Breathing. Keeping calm and cool and collected and focusing on what needs to happen. They can do this. "Right. Right, okay. Well. Most of it's going to be my problem, but you can help. I mean, I'm going to need your help, I can't do it without you. We, uh. We're gonna need to get out of here."

» Define "here". » Forty-five seconds.

"This room. Then the building. Then this GDF base. Eventually the city, after that, probably the state. I don't know, I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm just trying to deal with one problem at a time."

» What do I need to do?

"You'll have a universal data connection once we're through the door. Do whatever you have to. Kill power to the lights and give me a head's up schematic of the layout of the immediate area. Override any security protocols you come up against, there's nothing here that should be beyond you. We're gonna be okay."

» Twenty seconds. What are you going to do?

"I'm going to run. You're going to keep anyone from catching me." John turns to the door and the man on the other side of it, meets his gaze and stares him down. Only one of them's alone now. In spite of everything, John grins at the Hood again, manic and unabashed.

» FAB, John. Ten seconds.

John nods and rolls his shoulders, loosens them against the tightness of the GDF uniform. The Hood hasn't done anything. John hopes he hasn't realized that his kill switch isn't a kill switch any longer. He's counting on a few moments of frantic button pressing before the Hood catches on. "Thanks, EOS."

» Thank me when you're safe, before then I won't have done my job.

John shakes his head, though she can't see it, and moisture interferes with the display of his HUD, and he has to blink rapidly to clear it. "No, whatever happens. If I forget to say it again. Thank you."

» You're welcome, John. » Five. » Four. » Three. » Two. » One.