Keri fought to keep her hands from shaking as she stood in front of a section of featureless white wall, shifting from foot to foot and breathing in short, nervous breaths. The corridor was ill-lit, as all the corridors were inside the facility, the strip lighting failing to chase away the shadows that stole into every nook and cranny. It looked exactly as all the others did; gloomy, pale, and without any features such as signs or maps to help you get your bearings. For all she knew, this was the exact same patch of corridor they had first entered through.

She wondered how long it would take the others to get into position: the first she would know about it would be when the wall slid aside. There were no coms allowed inside the Terminal, no radios or any sort of equipment that would allow the streaming of data through the air. Only a sequence of cameras scattered throughout the facility had any broadcasting functions, and that only a short-range form capable of reaching nearby stickscreens.

Even hard-wired communication devices were strictly limited. They had been thorough in ensuring the AI would have no opportunity to broadcast itself out into the wider world before they had confirmed it was safe themselves, dividing even the power grid into sections. Each area was powered by its own collection of MOF cells, and none were linked to the wider grid of the outside world, a security measure taken even though all knowledge of physical laws stated there was no way an AI could broadcast even a hundredth of the data from which it was constructed down anything like power lines.

Everything was isolated in this place, everything trapped in the material realm. For any two things to interact with one another, be it machine or man, they had to be physically brought together. Only the hardpoints reached outwards, thick cables the outlying threads of a world-straddling web, and these were isolated themselves from anything within the facility.

Keri flicked her Corps display on and off in the air in front of her, marveling at the blank display, and waited.

The Programmer had explained his plan to them in something of a rush. It was brief, and to the point.

And insane, Keri thought to herself. A bead of sweat trickled down her back despite the cool.

She had tried, as the others were splitting up and heading to their assigned positions, to ascertain whether the Programmer had been the one sending the inexplicable messages that had brought them all this way, but he appeared mystified by her indirect questions. If it really had been him he was hiding it, and she couldn't imagine why that would be so.

The data sphere rested in her hand, feeling far heavier than its physical mass. She stared at it.

The wall slid open without warning, bright natural light briefly dazzling her before the contacts they had been thankfully supplied with adjusted to the glare. The sound of breeze and birdsong entered with the light. She stepped tentatively out.

The wall was only meant to open when the Butcher was far enough away to ensure her safety. Initially, at least. Still, she half expected to feel metallic fingers wrapping around her throats the instant she stepped outside.

She breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened, stepping out onto the grass and feeling the sun upon her face. The forest was tranquil, a sense of peace at odds with the danger she knew lurked somewhere within.

Move, she told herself.

Every step away from the dark opening and the safety behind her felt heavy. She felt her muscles tense as if to run when the entrance, after several seconds, slid closed again with a hiss.

Now there was truly no one but herself and, somewhere, the Butcher. The birdsong in the trees had turned to laughter, nature itself mocking this fragile biological that believed it could go up against cold, hard machinery. Insects flew at her, buzzing around or diving towards her in chaotic, swirling paths she could spare no time to follow. All her senses strained, waiting for that first sight or sound that would tell her the Butcher was nearby.

She approached the first corner carefully, slowly, attempting to keep as much of her body as possible concealed. Trembling, she peered at the area around the corner. Nothing. Releasing another deep breath, she stepped forward.

She advanced along the next section of wall slowly, pressing herself against it as if this would do her any good, and as she did so she could feel the roughness of the surface of the Terminal buildings, the rivets and fixings and divots that were completely imperceptible to sight. She didn't pretend to understand how, but the pure, sleek whiteness of the facility was an illusion that interfered with wavelengths far beyond the range of the naked eye. Her fingers told the reality.

The trees across from the cleared area around the Terminal swayed in a sudden powerful gust of wind, leaves whipping into the air to spin and whirl all around. Something small darted through the foliage below, startled and drawing her eye.

When she looked back the Butcher was there, rounding a corner far ahead. It stopped, staring at her as she stared at it. Time froze for a moment.

Everything became a blur. Keri turned and sprinted back the way she had come, flying past the point she had exited and racing on. She forced herself to keep going, to stay focused on what was ahead and not to think about what was approaching from behind. The world was reduced to white and green fuzz in her peripheral vision, only the path she was running in focus, though she kept a corner of her mind calm, processing the visual data as fast as possible for that one discrepancy that would signal, hopefully, safety.

It came after the next bend, a patch of darkness in the otherwise smooth white to her right hand side. She sprinted for it; Andreas’ face peered out, shouting something at her. She allowed herself to become conscious of the heavy footsteps close behind.

Adrenaline and fear gave power to her right arm as it lifted and launched the data sphere towards Andreas, sending it curving directly into his outstretched palms. He didn't wait, grabbing the sphere and disappearing into the gloom in the same instant.

Keri heard the footsteps behind her falter, and she allowed herself to look back even as she continued running.

The Butcher had stopped in front of the still-open entrance, looking from it to her and back again. It was clearly wary, suspicious. It looked, in fact, the most human she had ever seen.

The machine-man took one more step towards her, sending her heart leaping into her throat, before hesitating a final time, then turning and ducking into the Terminal itself. Its heavy footsteps echoed back as it disappeared into the darkness.

Keri took a few seconds, folding over and drawing deep breaths as sweat dripped from her brow and her heart seemed about to burst out of her chest. She knew she couldn't waste any time, however, and forced herself to stand straight again and dive into the facility. The wall slid closed behind her, blocking the natural light and leaving her once more in the artificial gloom. She headed left, away from the way the Butcher had gone.

Andreas would be leading it a merry chase now, she knew, and provided nothing went wrong it would soon be Anisa’s turn, then Cassandra. All with the intent of drawing the Butcher to a very specific place, to a very specific room.

It worked.

The Programmer had been confident the Butcher’s first priority would be the data sphere above all else, and it made sense. Still, that hadn't prevented her mind playing out scenarios in which the aug didn’t go for the sphere and instead continued after her, snapping her neck the instant it caught up.

She jogged along the passages as fast as she could manage, but it still took far longer than she would have liked.

“How are they?” she asked once she finally reached what the Programmer had termed the observation room, the forward wall of which consisted of a line of instrumental displays beneath rows and rows of stickscreens showing various locations around the facility.

The man spared a brief second to look over his shoulder at her before turning back to the screens.

“They’re nearly there,” he said.

Keri followed his gaze towards one of the screens that showed a wide, bare room with a single huge cylinder in the centre. The cylinder was perforated with holes all around, and surrounded by fine wire, as if fenced in. Yellow signs affixed at various locations around it screamed some kind of warning that was illegible from here.

The walls and floor of the room consisted of large, square metal tiles with deep grooves separating each one, pale grey and uniformly bare, with large, round indentations scattered around at seemingly random intervals. Keri saw no reason to think the ceiling, out of sight due to the angle of the camera, was dissimilar. At opposite ends of the circle stood two open doorways.

Anisa was walking across the room, glancing back over her shoulder as she headed from one entrance to the other. The data sphere was held in her hand.

“Where is it?” said Keri, scanning the other stickscreens for any sign of the Butcher.

“There,” said the Programmer, pointing at a stickscreen higher up.

The Butcher was moving more cautiously now, perhaps aware that he was being led. Still, he kept coming, heading towards the sounds of Anisa’s footsteps he could hear clearly despite the fact that they would be inaudible at this distance to any human ears. He had only been kept at bay through the Programmer’s knowledge of the Terminal’s layout, using its mazelike nature to disorientate the aug.

A thought struck Keri.

“Hey, what if the Butcher had just decided to punch its way through the walls?” she asked.

“Huh?” said the Programmer. “Well, he didn’t last time. Not much, anyway. Besides, it’s chasing, not heading for an immobile target. It makes the most sense that it would follow.”

“Uh… yeah,” Keri replied, unconvinced. Still, it was too late to think about it now.

“It’s going in,” said the Programmer in a hushed voice. He raised his hand above a large red icon on the display in front of him.

The Butcher was at the edge of the room now, standing on the cusp of the entrance and staring across the space towards where Anisa stood, looking back. The woman stood tall as she locked eyes with the creature, holding the data sphere up so that it could see it clearly.

The Butcher looked from the sphere to the cylinder and back.

“It knows,” said the Programmer.

Keri was not surprised. The Butcher would have only had to run a brief scan to determine that the cylinder in the centre of the room was a superconducting EHFM. An Extremely High Field Magnet. Ordinarily, the room would be used to induce a diamagnetic effect when entirely frictionless experiments were to be carried out. Ordinarily, nothing would be allowed into the room without exacting inspection first. Ordinarily.

“Set the bait,” hissed the Programmer between clenched teeth.

This would be the key, Keri knew. If the Butcher refused to go in they would have accomplished nothing except allow it to run free around the inside of the Terminal. If it refused to go in, they would have no choice but to get out.

The two of them watched as Anisa slowly lowered the sphere, not taking her eyes off the Butcher for a second. The Butcher’s eyes followed it as it rolled from her hands, clattering across the floor to come to a stop near the centre cylinder.

“It’s scanning it,” said the Programmer. Keri couldn’t tell which of the numerous readouts he was getting this information from.

Come on, she thought.

All it needed was to confirm with its own senses that the data-sphere was indeed the actual one it was hunting. That should be enough to make it decide.

“No…” said the Programmer. “How…?”

The Butcher was walking away from the room.

“How did it…?”

The Programmer’s words were cut off as with a sudden blur of movement the Butcher was heading back towards the room, flying across the floor and grabbing the sphere in one quick movement.

“Hit it!” shouted Keri, watching in horror as the Butcher headed unerringly towards Anisa.

The Programmer slammed his palm onto the button icon, almost too late.

The Butcher smashed into the door that came down an instant before it got through, rebounding heavily off the reinforced material designed to block not only physical forces but intense magnetic fields. It spun around as the whirr of the generator kicked in, a loud, ever increasing high pitched noise that built in intensity and could be heard even in the observation room from which Keri watched. The Butcher lurched frantically towards the doorway it had entered from, but this also was closed. It spun one last time, fixing its gaze on the cylinder in the centre of the room that it must have sensed was rapidly building charge.

“Can it break it?” Keri asked breathlessly.

“Maybe,” replied the Programmer. “If it had time. But it doesn’t…”

As the Programmer finished speaking the screen showed the Butcher lifting, rising into the air and spinning without control as powerful forces pushed and pulled at it. Keri thought that, for one brief second, its silver eyes looked directly into hers through the camera, rage palpable within them. Then it had passed, and the Butcher span ineffectively through the air as its body began to convulse under the powerful field passing through it, as the pathways and charges that maintained the links between its mind and body were warped and distorted by the exponentially more powerful energies pouring into it.

It was some time before it went limp.