Field Commander Ileana was fed up with Agent Wadim's constant complaints.

"I don't know!" she shouted as the manchild started on a new tirade. "Because the building is a dump?!"

The three of them filled the old landlord's musty apartment elbow-to-elbow. There was little enough space for their equipment, which seemed to resent being in 107 Bayksu Way almost as much as them. They lost communication with the CheckPoint network most hours of the day, and between the two sets of cameras they had managed to setup in the SEC's apartment, neither had remained online for more than half an hour.

Special Entity Zero-One did not want to be watched, and that more than anything made Ileana want to pull out her hair and scream.

"How can we work like this?" Agent Wadim asked as he slapped his monitor for a third time. Their access to the Command Room had just cut out, which meant all they could do was sit on their thumbs.

"We adapt," Ileana said, though the words were merely lip service. There was nothing they or anyone else could do, and she suspected Special Class Dr. Gavril wanted as much. The man had lost his mind.

But Ileana still shot Agent Ilie an embarrassed look, a lamb amongst wolves. She had not offered a word of protest since her reassignment to Active Observation.

"I might as well knock on the door," Agent Wadim continued, his bloated chest heaving with frustration. "Hello? Any monsters inside? No? Might I come in then?"

"Hilarious," Ileana said, dryly.

She stared at the various error messages that obscured her screen for a few more moments and then struggled to her feet amidst the mechanical clutter. She restrained the urge to kick her computer, but her eyes lingered on Agent Wadim's round head.

"Some lunch," Ileana said after she prevailed over her frustration. Agent Ilie perked up at the word.

"I wouldn't be able to swallow," Agent Wadim said, which brightened Ileana's mood some. The man had all the table-manners of an undomesticated boar. "We are done, finished."

Ileana left him to his melancholy, though her own followed her into the kitchen. Everything was a disaster.

"Should I heat some water?" Agent Ilie asked when there came a knock at the front door.

"If its that woman again," Ileana muttered under her breath. "And yes, Ilie. Some tea. Thank you."

Ileana had introduced herself as the landlord's estranged daughter the day before, and while most of the tenants had met her with a delightful indifference, Mrs. Baysh of Room #101 had come knocking at least four times to report various work that had to be done on the building now that someone with a little responsibility was here.

Ileana stomped towards the door as Agent Ilie filled a rusted kettle with water behind her. They had not had a chance to buy certain necessities, and a new kettle would certainly be one of them.

Such foolish thoughts filled Ileana's head as she unlatched the door, pried it open ever so slightly, and saw three men, each dressed in nondescript black coats and ties, hovering immediately beside the entrance.

Her first instinct was to yank the door shut, but someone on the other side was too well-trained for that. A truncheon wrapped in black leather shot out like a wedge, and in the next moment the door was shoved open.

The three men entered the apartment as one body. Their black coats and ties were indistinguishable from one another, as was the look of passive indifference on their faces.

"Good afternoon, sister," one of the KSC agents said with a polite bow. He was an older man, but there was no white to his hair or slouch to his posture.

"What the..." Agent Wadim called out from beside his monitor.

One of the KSC agent's closed the door behind them and latched it shut. He blocked the exit while the other two looked around the cluttered apartment with mock curiosity.

"I am Agent Jaska with the Kurtsk Security Commission." The older man gestured to the other agents with a gaunt and skeletal hand. "These are Agents Who and Cares."

Ileana had watched the three men force their way inside with a muted acceptance. She offered Agent Wadim and Ilie a castaway look and found the same distant horror on their faces.

Because the KSC did not make house calls. They were the government's cleaners, and Special Entity Zero-One had made a mess.

"Is that tea I smell?" Agent Jaska asked. He smiled for each of them in turn, his cheeks pinched in a manic display of warmth. "I would have a cup. And a chair."

The menace was left unspoken, but Ilie, Ileana, and Wadim all rushed to obey. Ilie filled one of the landlord's mugs with shaky hands, Ileana yanked a chair out from beside the hastily setup servers, and Wadim knocked over a few monitors in his haste to stand up.

"Thank you," Agent Jaska said. He took the steaming mug from Ilie, sat down on Ileana's proferred chair, and promptly poured the tea onto the dusty floorboards.

Nobody breathed.

"I think I have been thoroughly threatening, no?" Agent Jaska asked with another ear-to-ear smile. "We can start talking. We. I do not think I have heard a word out of any of you."

"Why are you here?" Ileana asked, terrified of the answer. But it had to be asked.

"To destroy the Special Entity," Agent Jaska said. He pointed at the ceiling, which meant the KSC knew everything. It had been foolish to think Zero-One's escape could have been covered up, but Special Class Dr. Gavril had insisted on secrecy.

"Or the Special Entity Candidate, to be specific."

"Special Class Dr. Gavril... wanted to... observe." Ileana chose each word carefully. She watched Agent Jaska's impassive face for some sign, but his expression remained blank. "He felt... We could learn much."

"Learn. Much." Agent Jaska repeated each word, slow and deliberate. There was no anger to his voice, but Ileana still broke out into a sweat, worried she had doomed herself.

"The science experiment has ended. We are here to clean up."

Some small part of Agent Jaska's mask cracked, and in that moment Ileana fully understood the danger they were all in, understood the violence this pleasant older man was capable of.

"The Good Dr. Gavril has been taken into our company, but we believe he has been compromised," Agent Jaska continued. "Our cleanup cannot be delayed, but Dr. Gavril has demonstrated an... unnatural stubbornness."

"W-we're here to help, of course."

Agent Wadim's words were met with such a weighty silence that Ileana felt her shoulders sag.

"Good," Agent Jaska said, simply. "That is in your best interest. Because if our cleanup faces difficulties, this entire city will have to be... sterilized."

And there it was. The truth. Because ever since Special Entity Zero-One had escaped, Ileana had never dreamed the Command Room would be able to regain control. The efforts that had been taken to contain Zero-One in the Solca City View Mall over ten years ago would not be achieved in her lifetime, and it would mean the death of hundreds, of thousands.

"W-what can we d-do?" Ileana asked. She could scarcely force the words out.

Agent Jaska smiled widely for her as his mask slipped back into place.

"You can tell us everything that has happened. No matter how small the detail."