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Y ou?” Rian asks, incredulous. “Or the people you work for?”

I shrug. Same difference. “The people who hired me suspected Fetor wasn’t exactly an angel benefactor. So, they wrote some code that can correct the mistakes he purposefully made. Crypto-locked, of course, so it can’t be overwritten.”

Rian doesn’t like this plan, I can tell. It’s butting up against his own ignorances, his own blind spots.

I talk fast. “All it requires is an upload; think of it like a technical patch. It doesn’t alter the nanobots in any way, but it does force them to continue the good programming without reverting to the bad. I could get technical, but—”

“But I wouldn’t understand it.”

I nod slowly, watching Rian’s face. He can’t know everything, and that grieves him.

He meets my eyes. “But you’ve looked at the code?”

I nod again.

“And you know it’s good?” he asks.

“Yes.” Quiet. Certain.

He’s nodding now, mostly to himself, and I can see that he’s willing to believe me.

Oh, that’s going to make betraying him later hurt.

But for now? “I read every line of both codes,” I say. “Fetor’s version and my client’s. And theirs is good. It’s true. It does what you want, what we want. It will save Earth.”

He looks me right in the eye, and he believes every single word I’ve said.

He believes .

In me.

Fuck.

“So, what do we do?” he asks.

We.

Oof.

“The plan from your side is too far in motion to stop now,” I say. “And believe me, my side’s been trying.”

Rian frowns at that.

I count the list down with my fingers. “Allies have tried to hack in to the system and rewrite the code; they’ve contacted various people higher up than you to convince them to delay or at least more closely examine the program, and—”

“Wait,” Rian interrupts. “You’ve contacted my superiors?”

“Not me personally,” I say. “They brought me in when they figured that you were the highest person in a position of power who might be willing to listen to reason.”

Rian’s emphatically shaking his head now. “No, no, see, who did you—I mean your people—I mean, whoever. Who was contacted? Snyder? Turner? They would have done something, I know—”

“Look, all I know is that of the half dozen or so people who were contacted, at least half of them knew the code was corrupted and didn’t care. And the other half either didn’t believe the evidence or suspected something worse.”

“Knew and didn’t...”

“Shocking, but some politicians don’t actually give a fuck about the people they’re supposed to serve.”

“But—”

“But Fetor has friends. And I’d bet Glory that at least some of them are on his payroll.”

“That’s corruption! I need names; I need to root this out—”

“You need to focus,” I say gently. “And recognize that this is all coming down to you and what you can do to actually help others in this precise moment. Because even if you had the names of the people who stand to make a profit from this little scheme, there are others. Corrupt politicians in a government are like cockroaches in a kitchen. You can never get them all. And the ones you see are just the dumb ones that don’t know where to run when the lights cut on.” I stare at him, marveling. “You really have no idea how rare you are.”

“Me?”

“Someone who both gives a damn and is willing to put forth effort for said damn.” I shake myself back into the moment. “Bad analogy. Anyway, I can see why this is all coming down to you; that’s all. That’s a compliment, by the way.”

He doesn’t seem to care.

But really, it is kind of miraculous. The group I’m working for successfully spotted a problem, but they could never get it changed in a meaningful way without aid from someone on the inside. Someone like Rian.

“Why you?” Rian asks. “Why did they pick you to deliver this message to me?”

I shrug. “They figured I could get the job done.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, long enough to make me consider getting a yellow ready-eat, even if I need to ration them out a bit. I’ll have no chance any time soon to restock.

Finally, Rian says, “I have to get back to my office.”

“Your office on Rigel-Earth?” I ask.

He nods. “I can call the committee together, and we can come up with a reason to delay the launch—”

“That’s not going to work,” I say.

“Why not? I know it’s not ideal, and any delay will cast everything in a negative light, and—”

“And Strom Fetor may be the galaxy’s biggest, richest asshole, but he’s not entirely stupid,” I say. “You delay for any reason, and it’s not just optics. If Fetor knows that his code is going to be overwritten, he’ll just release his bots early.”

“No, he can’t...” Rian’s voice trails off as his mind plays a picture of what I’ve suggested. Everything else aside, Fetor knows that nanobots are highly regulated for a reason, and that reason is that once microscopic robots are released, they’re hard to contain. Scratch that; not hard, impossible. And these motherfuckers are designed to be even more so.

“The bots are already locked and loaded at Fetor’s office on Sol-Earth, right?” I say, knowing the answer.

If Fetor gets word of delay, all he has to do is push the button. Oops, nanobots released. He can chalk it up to an accident or whatever; it doesn’t matter.

He has the contract, the government approval, the bills to back him up.

Even if he did release the bots a little early, they’ve already been approved. And— technically —releasing them early wouldn’t be illegal.

“Fuck,” Rian mutters.

“See?” I say. “ That is why I kidnapped you.”

Rian frowns.

“We are going to have to break in to Fetor’s offices,” I say. “I’ve got the coding to update the nanobots. All we have to do is get in before they’re released; I’ll overwrite the code, and then—”

“ We, ” Rian says.

I nod. “We. I’m coming with you.”

“You are not. I’m going to my office and will assemble a team of people I can trust, and— Why are you laughing?”

“You’re not going to your office,” I say, still chuckling.

“There are procedures to this sort of thing,” Rian shoots back. “Yes, it will be...complicated. But I know I can— Stop laughing at me!”

I can’t contain myself; I’m doubled over, howling as I stand up and head to the corridor. Rian follows. “Do you really think I would kidnap you for a conference meeting?” I say, heading toward the bridge. “Do you think I’d go to this much effort just to talk?”

I swing open the bulkhead door. The carbonglass windows of my ship’s bridge show the cloudy interior of a portal passage. Rian’s mouth drops open.

“We’ve been in a portal for three hours,” I say. “We’ll reach Sol-Earth with enough time to beat Fetor to the office, I hope. I need your clearance, of course, to get in the door, but once we’re in, we’re in. I’ll replace the code, Fetor will never know the difference until it’s too late, and crisis averted. Also, once that happens, I get paid.”

Rian silently crosses the bridge. He puts his hand up to the carbonglass.

He thought we were still on Rigel-Earth.

We’re already lightyears away.

Heading full speed on the path I set.