Weizza's "package" turned out to be a freight container stashed in a waterside warehouse. Marcos pulled the van into the building and shut the rolling door behind them.

"Unload the cargo," Weizza nodded to Marcos and Ba Kuang. The two men wrestled out a complete satellite base station rig. Behind it was a palette covered in Chinese writing, plus the words: "Compact Clean Room Kit."

"Assemble the clean room first. You can set up the base station while I assemble the control module." Weizza turned to the others. "Robert, how is your payload progressing."

"Great, actually. The exploit works end to end, I found an old copy of the satellite firmware to test it against. As long as they haven't patched the vulnerability, I can own it as soon as we connect."

"Hmm. We shall see." Weizza tapped her foot impatiently while Marcos and Ba Kuang puzzled over the assembly diagram.

Once they finished construction Weizza changed into her scrubs.

"Assembling the control module will take two hours. No one disturb me." She retreated into the clean room with a stack of electronics and her lens goggles.

"I'm going to secure the perimeter," Marcos announced, and headed to the door with his backpack.

Julian sat on the edge of a loading dock. Alice sat down next to him.

"I'm so glad you're safe son. What happened to you?"

Julian shook his head. "It's been a crazy nightmare. I was on a field trip to Den Hague when the strike in London happened. I was absorbing the magnitude of it when a Blackmountain goon drugged and abducted me.

"I woke up at a cabin staffed by some lunatic, one of dad's old war pals. He was all mood swings and violent outbursts. I couldn't give him what he wanted; I thought I was going to die there.

"And Mom, I– I killed him." Julian clenched his eyes shut. He shook and began to weep silently.

Alice put her arms around her son for the first time in years. "It's okay honey. You only did what you had to. I know it feels wrong, but killing someone out of necessity doesn't make you a bad person."

Julian stopped shaking. He looked up with red eyes.

"How many have you killed?" There was surprising steel in his voice for a man who had just been crying.

Alice looked levelly at her son. "What does that matter Julian?"

"Another evasion Mom? Typical. It matters because I can't accept moral absolution from a murderer."

"Julian, murder is something done with hostile intent. You're right, I have killed. But only in defense. The first was an assassin I caught standing over your bed with a gun. Should I have let him finish his job Julian?"

"No Mom, but I know your training. You could have incapacitated him, let the courts decide his sentence."

"Julian, you are too young to understand this, but when someone threatens your child, instinct takes over. Maybe I could have stopped him without killing him, but that's a risk I wasn't going to take."

"Sure. You said that was the first. What about the others, did you have to kill all of them too?"

Alice looked away. When she turned back there were tears in her eyes.

"I didn't come over here to pick a fight Julian. I came because I love you, and I saw you're in pain. I know I haven't always been there for your, but I'm here now."

"Maybe I don't want your sympathy right now, Mom. You built a city-killing weapon and Dad got me abducted by mercenaries. And somewhere along the way I became a killer. The two of you have done enough for me lately."

"Julian, that's not–"

"Not what? Fair? You know what's not fair? Having actual psychos for parents." Julian stood and stormed off to the other side of the warehouse.

Alice sat frozen in disbelief. She knew Julian had drifted, but never imagined that reaction.

Nadeja sat down next to her. "I heard what he said. I'm sorry Ms. Yang. Julian has been through a lot, I think he's just looking for someone to blame."

"You've known him all of three days and now you're the expert huh?" Alice's words dripped venom.

"Look, I was only trying to help."

"You'll forgive me if I don't take advice from my son's latest fuck buddy."

Nadeja raised an arm to slap Alice, but stopped when she saw the knife in Alice's hand. The women locked eyes; Nadeja was defiant, but there was an feral gleam in Alice's stare that scared her.

"Jesus Alice. Maybe you really have gone nuts. Put the pig sticker down before you hurt somebody." Marcos had returned from his patrol and was standing over the two of them, one hand on his holstered gun.

Alice blinked twice, then folded the knife and put it back in her pocket. The anger drained out of her.

"I... I'm sorry," Alice said to Nadeja. "I don't know what came over me. The number of times I've been attacked the last few days; I'm not thinking right."

Nadeja shook her head incredulously and went to be with Julian.

Marcos crouched down next to Alice. "You alright?" There was genuine concern in his voice.

The adrenaline rush passed and Alice suddenly felt very tired. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Just need a little rest, I think. I'm going to go lay down in the van while Weizza does her thing. Wake me when we connect to Petbe."

She stumbled over to the van and collapsed in the back row. Sleep came immediately.

***

Alice woke to the sounds of shouting in the warehouse.

"Your 'contact' played us Robert. It does not work." Weizza advanced until she was inches from Robert's face.

"The part is to spec, you must have assembled it wrong!" Robert shouted back.

Uncharacteristic backbone, Alice thought. Better defuse this before someone does something regrettable.

Alice slammed the van door. The two of them looked her way.

"What's going on?" Alice asked.

"Weizza mounted the assembly we picked up, but the module errors every time I try to log in," Robert explained. "She thinks there's something wrong with the part we had fabricated, I think her rushed soldering job in that dollar store clean-room is to blame."

"Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?" Alice asked.

Robert shrugged. "I don't know why that would make a difference."

"Humor me Robert."

He muttered something about sophisticated electronics but did as asked, flipping a switch on a nearby worktable.

"Son of a bitch," Robert swore, "it's working."

"Sweet!" Alice exclaimed. "Let's hook up the antenna and take back Petbe."

"We connected the base station while you slept." Weizza responded. "We can do it now."

Alice's heart raced. She hurried to the worktable and watched over Robert's shoulder as commands scrolled by. Startup ran smoothly, and the now familiar "Waiting for Connection" and "Beacon Acquired" statuses flashed by. Then came something new:

"ACCESS DENIED."

"What?!" Alice exclaimed. "Robert, what's going on, is there an issue with the secure enclave?"

"No Alice, I ran a full diagnostic. I was even able to do a test run against our copy of the satellite software. It's fine."

"Well, try it again." The floor seemed further away somehow. Robert said something in reply, but she couldn't quite make it out. Everything was muffled, like someone had turned down the volume on the room. Her left arm felt numb.

Robert repeated the login attempt, but the result was the same.

"I think they found what we found Alice. We're locked out– Woah!"

Robert caught Alice as she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.