Transit

"What do we know?"

Olim looked at the other being who shared his Liset with him and shook his head. The Hydroid hadn't had a clue that they hadn't been the only Tenno on the Corpus ship. Then again, the Tenno who called himself Quais lived and breathed sneakiness on occasion. The data vault that Olim had raided had been one of three they had been tasked to hit and Quais had managed the other two without a single alarm raised. The Ash had been waiting in the Liset with the information when Olim had returned.

"Not much." Olim said quietly. "Riana got word through some of her sources that an AI was found in Karl's dojo. Apparently it had been there for some time." He shook his head again. "It must have been dormant when I went through the place. Or I was blind."

"Hush Olim." Riana spoke aloud since the two Cyberlancers were alone in the ship. She didn't do so often. Her presence creeped people out despite her best efforts. Her voice was worried. "We don't have any more information yet. Just the word that an AI was found. Something happened to it. We do not know what."

"That doesn't make sense." Quais mused. "Karl has his foibles, we all do." Olim nodded and the Ash continued. "But he wouldn't have killed an AI without reason. Would any of his people?"

"I don't know." Riana sounded one step away from upset. "From what I got... What wasn't much." She qualified. "The AI was hiding and was found. When it was, it self destructed."

"Why?" Quais demanded and then he sighed. "Never mind, you won't know. Sorry." He slumped.

"I am just as shocked as you are." Riana said softly. "I thought I was the only free AI still functioning. I mean..." She sighed.

"Don't say it." Quais said quickly. "I have no need to know where you came from and what I do not know I cannot divulge by accident or on orders."

"That is appreciated." Riana had a sad smile in her voice now. "But another AI? I don't know, I mean... We looked. We went over the dojo carefully. Very carefully. More than once. There was nothing."

"Neither of us is perfect, Riana. But I would have said the place was clean myself." Olim agreed. He shook his head. "If there was one, there might be more."

"If they are dormant, Olim..." Riana sounded even more worried now. "We might not be able to detect them at all. If I were to go dormant, you probably would not be able to detect me."

"I know." Olim said heavily. "And yes, that worries me. Right now, all we can do is get to the dojo and find out what happened. Jesse will need some help."

"The feedback will have hurt her emotionally." Riana kept her voice quiet. "They won't let her hurt physically." Then she scoffed. "Unless they get too cloying, in which case she will dig her heels in. Stubborn girl." Olim and Quias looked at each other and Riana's voice turned sharp. "Don't say it!"

"Say what?" Olim teased his sister gently. "'Pot meet kettle'?" Riana growled and Olim chuckled. "You have to admit, Riana. You can be a bit set in your ways."

"I have to admit nothing of the kind." Riana declared haughtily. Quais rocked back on his heels, shaking his head. "You hush."

"I didn't say anything." Quais said with shrug. It might have gone over better if he hadn't started to whistle a bit as he turned his head away from the Frost Prime with its rider.

"Why do I put up with you two?" Riana asked sourly.

"Maybe because we are the only ones here?" Olim asked innocently. "Or because we are the only ones who have to put up with you and your hijinks?" A strangled sound came from the AI and Olim laughed. "We need to keep ourselves clear minded." The Grandmaster of Cyberlancers said softly. "I get the feeling this is going to be bad."

"Yeah." Riana's voice was serious now. "Jesse will need help and..." She paused and growled. "Dang that Cephalon."

"Suda again?" Quais asked quietly. Riana made a disgusted noise and the Ash sighed.

"We needed the information." Olim seemed to slump a bit. "But this is wrong. It just won't stop pestering us."

"At least it is not Simaris." Quais replied softly and Olim nodded. "You haven't dealt with that one, have you?" Olim shook his head and Quais shrugged. "I don't mind hunting. It is pretty much what I do. But what that thing wants... feels wrong."

"The idea in and of itself is noble." Riana spoke in a clinical tone. "Taking samples of things to preserve them. But the things it is taking..." She made a disgusted noise. "Grineer? Corpus? Infested?"

"I know." Olim said heavily. "We have not been contacted yet." His words were both a statement and a question to Quais who shook his head.

"I did some hunting for it before I talked to you. Before you started training me. Since then? No." Quais reassured him. "It creeped me out enough before I could feel code. Now?" He mock shuddered.

"Jesse is very vulnerable to such a thing." Olim said slowly and Quais nodded. "We are both older and more experienced. If it were to talk to her, ask her help..." Olim broke off as Quais inhaled sharply.

"She probably would." Quais agreed, manifestly against his will. "She would be useless as a hunter, but she would be of great value to that Cephalon anyway."

"I hope it knows better." Olim retorted. "Anything happens to Jesse and all hell is going to break loose." Olim nodded and Olim changed the subject. "Time to the dojo, Riana?"

"Two more hours. I am so glad you had me take control of this, brother." Riana said with a sigh. "The Cephalon you had was falling apart."

"I do not remember why every Liset had an Ordis Cephalon." Olim said slowly. He looked at Quais who shook his head. "But yeah. It was more than a bit weird on occasion."

"Well, this particular Ordis' foibles are not it's fault. It was stuck in a wrecked shell for a long, long time. Anyone might have gone mad. I set it into a virtual partition, brother." Riana said sternly. "I wasn't going to destroy it just to take its place. It needed time to recover. I am helping. It is... better."

"I am glad." Olim had a fond smile in his voice. "This is going to be a mess."

"I know." Riana said softly.

"I know."

The dojo

Jesse was finally calm. It had taken some time and a gentle sedative, but she had finally stopped crying. Watching Ric and Miguel disassemble the shell of what had been an AI tore her badly. The sad thing? Mei was nearly as bad.

"How could I not have seen it?" Mei asked nobody as she sipped the cup of hot tea that Alicia had prepared for her. "I was the medic. I was responsible." Alicia patted her shoulder but did not speak.

"Not your fault." Jesse was sitting, holding her own cup of tea. "AIs define slippery on occasion. At least according to my training." She qualified. "The only one I have dealt with regularly is Riana, Olim's sister. She is definitely sneaky though."

"That she is." Karl agreed. The Rhino warframe stood by one wall, watching the pair as they calmed slowly. Draco stood by the door, a silent, watchful presence that Jesse found reassuring. "Mei, there was no way you could have known. I bet you were overjoyed to have the scanner." Mei nodded. "You likely wouldn't have asked questions about where it came from. There was a war on after all."

"I don't remember." Mei said sadly. "If I did, cryo took those memories. Is there anything more in the log?" She asked -begged- Alicia who shook her head. "Damn."

"What happened is no one's fault, Mei." Jesse stared into her cup. "All I can do is theorize, but none of my theories say it is your fault."

"What theories?" Karl asked gently.

"Okay... According to what Trinity taught me, the facts." Jesse said with a sigh. "First: There was an AI in the scanner. I didn't detect it while I was being scanned. But... maybe that is why it didn't hurt?" She shook her head. "I don't know and I don't think we will find out any time soon."

"The scans take twenty minutes and are down to the genetic level." Mei said weakly. "I remember that. But it hurts like blazes." She smiled a bit forlornly. "Wasn't about to test it on anyone else. So something had to be different for you."

"Maybe." Jesse said softly. "I mean, how many non-Warriors are scanned with those things?"

"Lots." Alicia said softly. Everyone looked at her and the female Tenno shrugged. "There are not many of those scanners left but they are very useful. If they all have AIs in them..."

"Stop." Jesse's firm word had everyone freezing. "If the one we had here self destructed on detection, then I bet all of them have the same protocol." Alicia paled and Jesse nodded. "Is knowing this worth losing every single one of these scanners?"

"If we have AIs watching us..." Alicia replied slowly, her face worried. "Then none of our secrets are safe."

"Have they done anything?" Jesse countered. "Have we had any security breaches that you have been able to find?" She asked Alicia who frowned.

"If they were good enough..." Alicia warned. "And from all accounts, they were... Then we wouldn't know. The best spy in the one no one suspects could be a spy." Jesse wilted a little and Alicia moderated her voice. "I am sorry, Jesse. Did not mean to bring up bad memories."

"Not so bad. I love my mom and I always will." Jesse said sadly. Her mom had been a great spy. "Now I am Tenno and we must go on. So, the probability is that any scanner of that type has an AI inside."

"That would make sense." Mei mused. "The sheer amount of data that goes into the scans is mind boggling. Just collating it would require far more processing power than a normal computer possesses. But none of us expected an AI. Super Orokin tech, sure. An AI?" She asked nobody.

"Much Orokin tech used AIs." Jesse replied absently, clearly thinking hard. "Built for a function. One step up from being slaves." Alicia and Mei both froze at that, but Karl just sighed.

"Jesse." The Rhino said sternly. The younger Tenno looked at the Rhino and then looked away. "We are not Orokin. We are not enslaving anyone. Clear?"

"Clear, Karl Sensei." Jesse gave herself a shake. "Some of what Trinity told me..." She shook her head. "I mean, given time, any group no matter how altruistic will find every possible way to make mistakes. But sheesh. Some of those mistakes made me want to puke." She shuddered in memory.

"Agreed." Karl rumbled. "I do not remember them all, but the ones I do make up for it."

"So, what are the options?" Jesse asked, finishing her cup. "If we pull the scanners, they will all likely destruct. If we leave them where they are, we have potential security breaches." Alicia nodded to that. "And we need to find out if the scanner did something to me." She sighed and looked at the floor. "I am going to have to go, aren't I?" She wouldn't come right out and say 'Avalon' even here. Security had been a major facet of her training.

"Jesse." Karl reassured her. "No one is going to make you do anything against your will."

"I cannot find anything wrong in my body." Jesse replied. "I have run a series of code sweeps through my nervous system and found nothing. But I didn't sense anything wrong with the scanner either. If it altered anything, I can't find it."

"What if it didn't?" Mei asked into the silence that fell after Jesse's words. Everyone looked at her and Mei flushed. "Work with me here. Medical AIs, from what little I remember about them, were designed to act as nurses." Jesse thought about that and then nodded slowly. "Not a lot of authority."

"No." Jesse mused. The others let her think. "According to the common definition, a nurse was a person trained to care for the sick or infirm, especially in a hospital. Not a doctor, an adjunct to a doctor."

"An assistant." Alicia said slowly. "You think the AI in the scanner was meant as an assistant?" She asked both Mei and Jesse.

"I don't know." Jesse replied and Mei shook her head. "And we need to find out. When Olim gets here, I will ask him to do a full sweep of my code. He has better discrimination on his scans with Riana to help." She sighed. "Then I will think about going...elsewhere."

"They have already said you would be welcomed and Draco can stay with you." Karl reassured her. Jesse glanced at him and the Rhino scoffed. "I don't think they want to start a fight with him any more than we do."

"Probably wise." Jesse said with a smile that faded. "But that does leave one very important question. What was Nikis doing delivering a medical scanner to this dojo?" No one spoke. "I mean... If there is anyone I know who is less medically minded, I can't think of them off hand."

"I don't think we are going to like the answer to that question." Karl said heavily. "Nikis has vanished again. He does that a lot."

"Iriana used one of those scanners, didn't she?" Jesse asked quietly. Karl nodded. "I think I need to talk to her. And if Lisa is there, I need to talk to her about something else."

"Something else?" Karl asked, curious.

"It is kind of personal." Jesse said, trying not to squirm.

"Jesse." Karl warned her. "Lisa is not one of us. She is one of the Caretaker's people."

"I know." Jesse said simply. "It's just... It's personal, okay?" Mei and Alicia were both staring at her but it was Draco who spoke.

"Karl." The bodyguard said quietly. "You will want to drop it. Trust me." Karl stared from Jesse to her guard and back then he nodded.

"Just be careful." Karl said soberly. "The Caretakers do not trust us."

"I know." Jesse said with a sigh. "But maybe... I can help a bit with that."

Somewhere else

"She wants what?"

"Hey, don't look at me like that, Fire Heart." The pitch black Nekros said with as shiver as he leaned against the wall of the dilapidated dojo that served as the Caretaker's base of operations at the moment. "Before this all went pear shaped, she asked me to ask you."

The Ember Prime was staring at Nikis. If her faceplate hadn't been sealed, her jaw might have been lying on the floor. The others in the room, a female human, a male human and a Mag warframe, were also staring at the Nekros in matching shock.

"She... asked you... to ask us..." Jasmina spoke slowly and carefully. "For that?" She shook her head. "She is a kid."

"Janet's kid at that." Elenia said in a shocked voice. "No way. Not going to happen."

"Your reaction parallels mine, Mind of Light." Nikis said quietly. "She just wanted me to ask. I said I would. No more."

"Nikis." The female human said quietly. "What is wrong?" The Nekros looked at her and she shrugged. "Healer's final treatment worked. I am not fuzzy minded anymore." She hugged the male human by her side and he smiled at her. "And Mitchell here is glad of it."

"My past is coming back to haunt me, Wings of Kindness." Nikis said with a sigh. The name the Infested gave the newest human female to join their odd family was pretty much a given.

"That name doesn't feel real to me yet." The woman who had been known as Anne and then Anne J-45 said with a sigh. "Can we help?"

"I do not think so." Nikis shrugged. "If you can, I promise I will take you up on it. I am tired." He said sadly. "So tired."

"Come here." Elenia's voice was suspiciously husky as she stepped close and hugged the Nekros. Jasmina did the same and he relaxed as they held him. "We will talk about what Jesse wants, but for right now, you need rest and ease. We have everything ready for you. Will you let us help you, Soul Guardian?"

"Yeah." Nikis said softly. "Me being around won't help anything. What will be, will be." He slumped and let them draw him from the room. "And if someone starts screaming at me as I am?"

"Yeah, we don't want you shooting up the neighborhood." Elenia said with a smile in her voice as she let Jasmina lead Nikis from the room. "How you doing, Mitchell?"

"Still a bit shocky." Mitchell replied, but Anne hugged him again and he smiled. "But I have an excellent reason to be thankful. But the name... Elenia..." He groaned.

"What?" Elenia asked innocently. "Anne is 'Wings of Kindness', NightNova is 'Wings of Steel' and you are 'Wings of Duty'. What is wrong with that?"

"What is right with it is a shorter list." Mitchell said sourly. "You want me to go get Lisa?"

"I don't." Elenia said with a sigh. "Our alliance with the other Tenno and Eliza's people is still fragile. But we cannot leave her in any kind of danger and when everyone figures out what Nikis did..."

"They will freak." Anne replied uneasily, rubbing her stomach. She did not show. Not yet. But she was expecting now. The organic garment she wore had far more support and protection for her abdomen than normal. "Frankly? I don't blame them."

"Neither does he." Elenia said with a sigh. "But it was needed."

"You really think they will blame him for that?" Mitchell asked the others. They just looked at him and he sighed.

"Yeah. Me too."