With a thud, Hammer’s weapon landed on the withered earth that must once have been a flower bed. Wave slowly raised her hands and straightened up and the hacker remained rigid in his position.

A shadow stepped out of the light and approached them with deliberate steps. In complete contrast, Wave’s mind raced. Why was the Security Corps here? Surely Ember hadn’t ...? No, Wave just didn’t want to believe that.

Should she try to escape? She could make it, but Hammer? The Sec had already scanned their bio-IDs for sure, so escaping was twice as pointless. The Secs would find her almost anywhere in the city. No, before she would think of escaping, she had to find out what was going on here.

She focused on the shadow, a man by the figure, shielding her eyes from the glaring light of the spotlight drones that hovered silently around her, and slowly she made out more. The man wore a long black coat, in whose pockets he casually sank his hands, and a hat with a narrow brim.

"Bronto shit," whispered Wave. "Secs with hats are the worst-"

"Good evening!" the man spoke with an energetic voice, and at the same time, his words were repeated by the loudspeaker of one of the drones. "My name is Sergeant Lambert and you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent and if I’m honest, I prefer it that way. I’ll make you talk later."

Wave’s lens automatically displayed the Sec’s data to prove his legitimacy. Standing before her was Sergeant Auguste Lambert, Security Corps, Task Force for Robotics and Cybercrime.

With his hands still in his pockets, he approached the hacker and delivered a kick that knocked him to the ground. There was a clatter and a crunch, the rags flew away, revealing more parts of his body, no flesh but metal.

"You son of a bitch could show up in person instead of always sending your puppets. Men, do you have his position?"

A robot? That wasn’t the real hacker at all? He had sent a robot or controlled it the way they did every night in the Arena?

Sergeant Lambert tapped his ear and turned to Wave and Hammer. "How stupid can you be to meet with a wanted criminal in the middle of the night? And in Rosewater to boot. Was this a suicide attempt or were you just trying to screw up your future?" He raised his hand as if to wave away any possible answer. "No, don’t answer that." Then he beckoned more Secs with two fingers. "Take them away. We’ll find out at the department what they were doing here." He turned and made his way back out of the cone of light.

"Wave," Aki’s voice rang out. "What does this mean for our mission now?"

"We’ll figure it out, Aki," Wave pressed out quietly through her teeth. "Now shut up."

Too late, for Lambert had stopped.

"Did I just hear the name Aki?" he muttered. "And that voice ..." He mumbled something else, quite as if he were talking to himself, running his hand under his hat to scratch himself.

A Sec appeared behind Wave, a second by Hammer. The Sec scanned her from top to bottom and Wave rolled her eyes. Of course, he found nothing. How could he, she had escaped from her apartment with only what she wore on her body. Then he grabbed her arms and pulled them down roughly.

Now he would put the electronic handcuffs on her, she already knew that from her trip to the Citadel, even if that happened years ago. There was a beep and the cuffs closed around her wrists. She certainly hadn’t missed their uncomfortable pressure. Forcefully, he yanked on her arms. How unnecessary, she did not resist after all. She gritted her teeth and let him lead her away.

Wave went through her options. Of course, she wanted to finish her mission and help Aki but was that even possible after the meeting with a hacker? If they held Wave for days, was Aki still in her hearing aid? What if they took it from her? If she talked to the Secs, would they even believe her?

She came to the conclusion that she had no choice but to escape, going into hiding in one of the Gray Zones, where she could go unnoticed for a while. At least she would try, it couldn’t get worse if she was caught again.

But against an unknown number of armed Security Corps men, surrounded and blinded, there was nothing she could do for now but surrender and dutifully follow. Escaping would be easier if they were already on the move, with only one or maybe two Secs in their hover car. With her synth suit, she would simply ...

"Wait!" ordered Lambert, and his men stopped. "Take only him away. I still have a talk to have with the young lady."

Damn!

"Hammer ..."

"It’s okay, Wave. I’ll get out of this somehow, don’t worry about me. I’ll see what I can do for you ..."

"Shut up!" the Sec snapped at him, giving him a shove and pushing him rudely out of the cone of light.

What would Hammer be able to do? He wasn’t Ember after all. And they wanted to keep her out, anyway. Well, if she wasn’t already part of this. Wave hoped that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. Damn! Why had she dragged Hammer into this, too? She could have just told him to enjoy his evening with Marielle instead of worrying about her. Most of all, he shouldn’t have accompanied her to a place like this.

"Leave us alone!" ordered Sergeant Lambert.

Gradually, the lights of the spotlight drones went out and the night returned. The Sec who had pushed her around squeezed past her and disappeared into the darkness. Instead, Lambert walked toward her and around her with crunching steps until he stood ten feet in front of her. She could hear the distance, in fact, she had to, because, after the burst of light, all she could see now was blackness.

"Anna Nethuf ... well, well." A red light flickered in the darkness and formed a rectangle behind the Sergeant. No, it was ... a cube, and it was growing. Wave instinctively took a step back.

"Freeze!" commanded Lambert, then the red substance enveloped him. Wave held her breath as the red matter reached her and touched the bare skin of her face. It felt like cold jello. Apparently, the sort that gave an unpleasant and tingling sensation when you dipped your face into it. Her hair crackled and a faint whiff of coked-up electronics rose to her nose. Wave squinted, expecting something worse to follow. But that was all, that happened. Now the billowing dark-red light the cube cast inside completely enveloped them both.

"You’ve been pretty quiet the last few years, why a relapse now of all times?"

Wave stayed silent, biding her time until his colleagues would be gone, or would be far enough away for her to break free of her bonds and escape. Well, the latter also depended on what ammunition he would use to stop her. Whether it pierced her synth suit or just hurt like hell when she climbed up one of the pillars and tried to find a window to the outside. A way out that wasn’t guarded, to begin with.

"We can talk freely here, Ms. Nethuf. Within this force field, we are undisturbed and none of our words can get out or be monitored."

"Can you please not call me by that name? It brings up bad memories. Wave will do."

The Sergeant pushed his hat up and scratched it. Except for the receding hairline that made him look older, his face was young. He was probably not much older than herself, in his early thirties at most. The hooked nose and his slightly bushy eyebrows matched his stern demeanor perfectly, though. And that stale name? Ember had explained to her that in the past, the Security Corps had thawed out veterans or pre-cop officers because the new recruits lacked discipline and, more importantly, field experience. Was Lambert such a guy, woken from cryogenic sleep?

"All right." Lambert adjusted his hat again. "Wave. Are you going to tell me what this nighttime meeting was about?"

Was this his way? To play clueless first and see how the suspects behaved? It should be fine with her because it bought her more time. Behind her back, she yanked open her synth suit at the sleeves.

She felt the synthetic honeycombs retract. Down the fingertips, over the knuckles, then the palm and the back of the hand. At the wrist, they got no further, stopped by the tight cuffs. Now came the difficult part, which she had practiced for hours with Ember, back when she had gotten the suit for her birthday. By then she was less critical of the idea of Wave having to mess with the Secs and free herself.

"Didn’t you tell us to keep quiet until we got to the department?" Wave replied flippantly, as the suit’s pent-up honeycombs slid under the handcuff, which widened in the process to fit the new thickness of her arm. A prisoner, after all, should only be restrained, not injured. For Wave to get rid of the restraints, she had to pull her hand out at the exact moment the honeycombs continued to move toward the button.

"Just think of this as my department office." With a wave of his hand, Lambert made a virtual red chair appear in front of him, and with a second, a table. At that moment, it was time and Wave pulled her hand up, and the other down in the opposite direction. Now she was free.

Lambert raised an eyebrow and Wave held her breath. Had he noticed?

"These handcuffs are really uncomfortable, aren’t they?"

Wave nodded in agreement and exhaled in relief.

"Well, you’ll get rid of them faster if you cooperate. Why don’t you start by telling me what’s your business with this guy?" Lambert pointed roughly in the direction where the robot must have been lying.

Wave just stared at him, waiting for the right moment to run away. She recalled the layout of the courtyard, where the pillars stood, and where the doors behind the railings led into freedom.

"I have a theory about that. How about you just nod or shake your head?"

Wave shrugged. She would play his game, after all.

"Our mutual friend, F34RLESS INV3STIG4TR, is always looking for new ways to flood our channels with his 'news'."

FEARwho? No, that hadn’t been a question yet, so she just kept listening.

"So far, it’s only happening via pictures and poorly written text. Those don’t take up much of our bandwidth, but if he finds more supporters for his delusions who also lend him their voices, especially a well-known one, then this disturbance takes on a whole other dimension."

What was he talking about? Wave was starting to wonder if he really didn’t know why she and Hammer had met with the hacker in the first place. Then Ember really hadn’t tipped off the Security Corps?

"When I arrived, you were about to give him the Master Voice Data of Aki, weren’t you?"

"The master-what?" Oops, now she had said something after all.

Lambert furrowed his brow, tapped against his ear, and mumbled something again. Was there someone in his ear too, whispering all the time?

"That’s ... strange. You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?"

It was kind of reassuring that he recognized the obvious. He was probably one of the few capable Secs she’d encountered so far, besides Ember’s dad and Ember herself, if she could already be counted.

"But maybe you just don’t know the term. The Master Voice Data contains all the word combinations to make a voice speak any text without seeming artificial or choppy."

Uh-huh. She had to look at him like a brontosaurus looks at freshly discovered grass. Happily surprised and dopey.

Lambert tapped his ear again, then sighed.

"You actually have no idea what that means." Then he pushed his hat up with his index finger and muttered to himself as if he’d forgotten she was standing right in front of him. "Low match on the hacker’s name. High match on Aki."

Matches? Something rang in her head. Wave tried to remember what he meant. Ember had explained that to her at some point, hadn’t she? Questioning techniques, maybe? Something about a body’s reaction to certain terms or something. And she hadn’t even realized she was reacting. Bummer.

"What about my Master Voice Data?" rang out Aki’s voice, scaring the hell out of Wave.

"Aki!" Couldn’t he just shut his mouth? Why did he have to speak up at the worst time possible?

Lambert looked at her. "What was that?"

Now it was over. If he was measuring and evaluating her every word and movement, she couldn’t lie at him and get away with it. Should she tell the truth, then?

"That was Aki." She rolled her eyes. "The real Aki."

"Aki’s dead," Lambert said firmly. But then his expression brightened and he tapped his ear again. This would surely drive her crazy at some point. "Aki’s not dead?"

"Wave," Aki spoke up. "Now the cat’s out of the bag."

"Yes, it is. Thanks for nothing, Aki."

"If the cat’s out of the bag, will you finally tell me why you met with F34RLESS INV3STIG4TR?"

By now, that name did look kinda familiar to her, and she remembered why. That bullshit conspiracy news that had somehow saved her life. She certainly wasn’t going to tell that to Lambert, though. Now she had to think about how she could still salvage this situation without ending up in jail or losing Aki.

"I want reassurances," she demanded.

"A deal? So you do have connections to the hacker? Give us information about him and you get off with a smaller punishment."

"I have no idea who this stupid hacker even is." She wanted to stomp but controlled herself. "I found out about him for the first time today. And I don’t want a deal. I want ..." She had a flash of thought. "... your help?"

"My help?" Lambert looked confused. Wave was too, and what Lambert’s analyzer thought about the veracity of her statements, she didn’t even want to know.

"Let’s assume that Aki actually still exists, even if the whole world thinks he’s dead," Wave tentatively tried a bit of truth.

"Yeah?" Lambert eyed her for a few moments. "So he’s still alive. At least that’s what you think. Although CCR has officially announced otherwise. What gives you that idea?"

"Since yesterday, since the moment of his death, I’ve been hearing him in my head."

"In your head?"

"Not directly. In my hearing aid, which I got because ... uh that’s a long story."

Lambert completely took off his hat this time and stroked his head once from front to back. His brown hair was cropped short, and the receding hairline wasn’t quite as bad as she’d assumed after all.

"It’s really good that we can’t be overheard here. My colleagues would think I’m crazy for even listening to this."

"It’s not crazy," Aki said. "I’m still here, for real. Even though I’ve actually died. At least I think so."

"So Aki lives in your hearing aid?" His expression twisted, and Wave wasn’t quite sure if he was going insane now or about to start laughing. He regained his composure and became serious again. "How could that be possible?"

"That’s why we wanted to meet with the hacker. We kind of assumed he could answer that for us. Even if, in retrospect, it was a stupid idea, as you can see for yourself."

That turned the Sergeant’s serious expression into a slight smile. "And how exactly do you imagine my help? Am I supposed to climb inside the hearing aid now and see if Aki is really in it?"

"You can do that?"

The sergeant raised his eyebrows and looked at her with pity. "How about you just tell me the story, from the beginning? After all, it’s my job to listen to my suspects. If you promise not to run away, I’ll even take off those uncomfortable handcuffs."

"Yeah ..." Wave awkwardly raised her freed hands in the air, earning a scowl from the Sergeant.