When you've been on this job as long as I have, nothing surprises you anymore. Not the rotting corpses of kids forced to make snuff Holos before they're put to the knife. Not the flayed leftovers of entire crews still clinging to life in ghost ships hovering in the emptiness of deep space. Not even the artwork of that sick Martian fucko who'd stacked his victim's dismembered bodies in a gallery and had the audacity to charge admission.

Nothing, except...

"That's nasty!" The DockMaster almost vomits into her VacSuit's helmet. You know it's bad when even a Dyeuan doesn't have the stomach to handle something this vile.

"Yep," I say. Three hundred and sixty-two Gaian souls crammed together like worthless cargo under a rickety mosca's floorboards, data slaves packed tight. No space to breathe or eat or shit or even to be human anymore. Their final hours of life spent plugged in, their brains strung out and intertwined to create a Data Node of living computers, their neural Core® strained beyond the point of flaming out. And for what? More processing capacity for the Blockchain? Better quantum computing power for mining CryptoCoins and running cat videos on the Vine?

This is more than just nasty. More than just fucking sick. All these people, men and women, babies too young to be off their Momma's tits yet they've got more BioJack processors in their bodies than actual human cells. In some places, members of the Node are still linked together, their brains clumped as one, limbs and innards pocked and bubbling like stew on the cooker. How horrible were their last hours? Huddled together like this, dying all over each other, waiting for their BioJacks to flame out as their bodies filled to bursting with fluids.

The animals who ran this off-grid Data Node should swing from the gallows.

"Uh! Smells ripe! At least a month old. Maybe longer." I hear the DockMaster fiddle with her VacSuit's controls and call up Atmospherics to filter the air inside her helmet. Of course, she can't smell anything inside that thing. You'd have much bigger problems if you started smelling anything while strapped into a Vac, but no use telling her that. It's a thing with the local Law in this sector; they don't like outsiders telling them how to run their own crime scenes. It's bad enough that an Out-Cloud, blue-skinned Centauri bitch like me is here stirring up trouble with the humans.

"This what ya looking for, na'san?" her question has bite to it, voice grated impossibly rough by anger and too much hard living.

"Yes."

The DockMaster tilts her head as if listening to something in her audio-pack. Perhaps, one of her deputies giving an update. She growls back, "firewall it and bring it up." Then she turns to me and says, "we found a rogue processor."

"A survivor?! Why are you firewalling the poor thing?"

"For your safety, na'san." There's that nasty word again. Fucking Dyeuans! How would she like it if I called her a p'twav? My forehead's bone sacs grumble, but I keep my peace. This case is bigger than some causal human racism.

In the meantime...

"Why're ya really here?" she asks when the silence and her own mistrust finally get to her.

"It's just a standard security check for all IDNs on the network, Officer Itzuao."

"Bullshit! ATK sent ya, didn't they? Corporate assholes never trust us."

Sigh. "Security is paramount for every Data Node across the Heliosphere..." so don't flatter yourself is what I want to add. Humans can be so exasperating sometimes.

"Like fuck it is," she growls beneath her breath. Can't say I blame her. Gaians, Martians, Dyeuans, Kuiperians, if humans can barely stand each other, then how can there be any hope for Centauri-human relations? Too much bad blood and planet-destroying Quant-bombs mixed together. No Peace Accord could fix that mess in just a few generations.

My bone sacs pick up approaching vibrations. A Dyeuan platoon on the march. And below the drumming of their Gravs against the spaceship's flooring, the pitter-patter of timid feet. I wait for the MagDoors to hiss open...

She's a frail thing. Almost too easy to miss in all the sea of black guns and military uniforms if not for the starkness of her translucent skin and the neon-blue flecks of circuitry that shine through its surface in structured rows. Fiber optic cables dangle from her head, the ends dripping with white light and fluids from where they'd been severed from the mainframe. Fuck! She's barely big enough to carry the weight of those things. Nine-aions-old. Maybe even eight. And the Dyeuan pigs didn't even have the decency to throw something over her naked body.

I cast around the room for something to cover the poor child.

A shy smile beams up from beneath the soiled cloth and that massive silver collar crushing her pencil-thin neck.

I sink to my knees before the little Gaian. "Hey, what's your name?"

"One-three-eight-seven."

Her voice is cracked from aions of non-use and that oppressive collar. NyGlass opticals rest in the spot where human eyes once were, a solid black bar across which slides a single, pulsing red light. One barely lifts her red pulse high enough to meet my gaze.

"Can I call you One?"

She nods. The collar jingles.

"Must you firewall her like that?" I snarl at the DockMaster.

"For your safety," she growls back.

Fucking p'twav!

I turn back to One and offer another smile. "I'm T'jax di'phda Ceti."

"You're Centauri."

"Yes, little Gaian. That's right. I am."

Little One crawls a millimeter out of her shell when she smiles back at me...

"Can you tell me who did this to you?"

...only to curl back into herself, trembling. The stained cloth on her shoulders almost swallowing her tiny whole.

It takes many gentle words to pull her back out again.

"I want to catch the bad men who did this to your Node, One. But I can't. Not without your help. So, will you help me?"

I manage to coax a nod out of her.

"Good. Very good, One. Now. I want you to be a brave little girl and show me what happened to your family."

"Any data recovered is the property of the Republic!" the DockMaster growls, a mother bear in defense of her cubs. "Ya don't have jurisdiction here, Centauri. This rogue ship is in Dyeuan space−"

"And it's filled with stolen ATK property. Amendment 37 says Intersystem Laws apply, Officer Itzuao."

She opens her mouth but knows better than to argue. If this backwater piece of shit asteroid wants to keep its corporate funding, the DockMaster had better learn some manners. She nods for her men to make room while scorching me with a nasty glare. Part of me can't wait to be rid of this p'twav!

One titters when I scoot closer. I open my palm, bring it face up towards her, tap the data port at the center. "It's alright, sweetie. You can plug in."

One hesitates. Understandable. All she's ever known her short life is abuse from her own kind. Why should she have reason to trust somebody like me? An Out-Clouder. A Centauri. The enemy.

I ignore the DockMaster angrily chewing her cud inside her helmet and her men's dirty jokes. There are better things to do with my time than to entertain useless people.

"You can do it, sweetie. I promise, nothing bad will happen to you."

Slowly, timidly, one of the cables sticking out of One's head slithers towards my palm. Port docking sends tickles shooting up my arm. One giggles like the little girl she is.

"Feels weird, huh?"

Giggles become outright laughter. The red light in her opticals starts pulsing faster for data transfer.

Scanning... No new devices detected.

I fire up my Core® again. The DockMaster's firewall springs into action.

"Could you?" Both my bone sacs and I growl at p'twav.

She warns me off with some bullshit about malware. "For your safety, na'san."

"For your safety, p'twav."

My message sent and clearly received. Begrudgingly, she obliges.

The collar slips loose. One sighs in relief.

Scanning... Device ATK-1387 detected. File 394 open for transfer.

It's a big data pack, zipped and highly compressed for easier hiding. One's a smart little byte, isn't she?

Unzip File 394. Open attachments.

Processing...

A jumble of pictures, mostly. Graphical data, profiles, snapshots taken from her opticals. My Core® runs FaceRec software but no hits. And then, there's the VidFile.

Open attachment.

Processing...

It's sickening to relive the slaughter again, seeing One's entire Node getting chopped to bits or lined up and executed, the roar of gunfire so loud, so realistic...

Warning. Security breech! Core® override imminent...

A flash of red light. I fling a glance at One as she stands there, so innocent-looking amongst those burly soldiers with their monstrous guns. The perfect Trojan Horse.

Fucking little bitch is bio-hacking me! My...opticals pixelate...world fades... Core® override imminent... nerves misfire...synapses...offline. Get out of my head!

Core® override imminent...

Fall-back protocols, firewalls, redundancy loopholes. Anything. Everything...Stop this...cascade protocol. BioJacks...brain...flame...AHHHHH! One's hack is brutally efficient.

Core® override successful.

There's a sputtering deep inside as signals violate established protocol parameters. Something in my soul finally snaps as my...

...Core®...

...goes...

IntelCore® os where Primary='TRUE' reboot.

Processing... Reboot successful.

C:\ATK\system64>sfc/? Core® System Checker. ATK Corporation copyright. All rights reserved. Initiating activation cycles.

Processing... Activation successful.

Rogue is online and operational.

Welcome to the Node, T'jax di'phda Ceti.

##