Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three...

Her heart was racing, her arms were burning, drops of sweat fell down on the floor. But she didn't care. Exercise was her prayer, her daily meditation. Her daily routine was perfected through the years -- she made sure that she could not think about anything while doing it.

Fifty. She finished her last push-up and turned over. Her PAD, laying by her bedside table, beeped. Doesn't matter, she would deal with it later.

One, two, three...


She drank a bottle of water in one swoop, picked up her PAD and walked into the shower. The cold water ran down her body as she read the last message.


She wondered what the problem might have been. They had been on the last stretch of programming Vergil. After the experiment with the Outcast there was little left to do, just work with the Ageira programmers to implement the data they got from it. What could have possibly gone wrong?


"Nick. What's the matter?" she said as she walked into the professor's office. He was sitting by his desk, looking at the ceiling. His console was open. He turned towards her as she entered.

"Oh, good to see you," he said and sighed. "We have a problem, big problem. I received this about an hour ago," he pointed to his console. "Come and take a look."

She walked up, clearly sensing something had been wrong. Indeed, the lab just on the other side of the transplas pane, usually filled with Wisp and Ageira scientists and techs stood empty, unusual for this time of the day. The screen displayed a message, she immediately recognised Cryer's formatting and style.

Quote:

Dear Professor Nagrebetskiy,

This message is sent to inform you that Cryer Pharmaceuticals will, starting tomorrow, begin reacquisition of the Wisp Innovations assets. Due to the recent withdrawal of over 65% of Wisp's funding from the Board, we must ensure that your company remains afloat and does not bring any further losses to Cryer.

Tomorrow our own research team will visit your wing of Atka to retrieve the current files, projects, research materials and other assets. Do not be afraid however, as you will also immediately receive employment contracts from Cryer Pharmaceuticals and you will be allowed to work on your previous projects. Please note, though, that with this change the intellectual property rights are now transferred from Wisp Innovations and its individual scientists to Cryer Pharmaceuticals.

Yours sincerely,
Michiel van de Wall
Cryer Pharmaceuticals
Human Resources Department

"These snakes," she whispered. "I guess that whatever he's talking about also includes Vergil, right?" Just a silent nod was the answer.

She walked around the room, her fists clenched in anger. Like a true Corsair, first her emotions dictated to immediately find a ship, fly to the Cryer HQ on Denver and cut up everyone responsible for the decision. But then her Wisp security pilot senses kicked in and she started thinking of a plan to get out of this mess.

"That's just the first part of it though," he sighed again and tapped a few buttons to bring out another window on the console's screen.

"Oh, please, tell me there's more," she rolled her eyes and walked up to the console again.

"These are the results of my medical examination that I had done, er, a few days ago. They just came in." If Jera had turned and looked into his eye right now, she could have spotted the true terror in them. Instead, she read through the document. Her eyes raced through it, one, twice...

And then a thought started creeping in. An unwanted one, a painful one, a scary one. But it came, and it hit like a truck. "Oh gods... Nick... I'm... I'm so sorry..."


He was still sitting in his chair, looking at the ceiling. She was sitting on the floor, with her back against the wall and her legs curled up, parsing what she had read just minutes before. She tried holding back tears, but a few escaped.

"You know..." She looked up at him immediately as he started speaking. "There is a way to deal with this. Only one that I can see. But..."

She stood up. "I'll do it, you know I will. What is it?"

He turned to her and smiled. "I know you will. But it will be difficult and very uncertain. I prepared for something like this, but "

She rubbed her eyes. "What is it?"

He sighed again and explained his plan.


Next day, she stood up the moment she heard her PAD beeping. It was early morning according to the station time, around 3:30 AM. She activated Vergil as she dressed. Elephant. Skyscraper. Maple leaf. Eagle. As the system logged her in, she set up some basic precautions Bagbiter taught her to make sure her network traffic on Atka would be left unseen and scanned for nearby Vergil nodes. Amidst the small constellation that appeared, she found Nick.

I hope you're well rested cause the stakes are high and we only get one shot at this. I'm at the medbay at 7A. Everything's prepared.

She confirmed, collected her belongings and waved her PAD in front of the reader in her room, letting her out. She still maintained her violet level clearance, the highest in the Wisp wing of Atka. It made sure none of her traffic was logged. This was probably the last time she got to use it, as the Cryer techs would probably downgrade her and everyone in Wisp as the acquisition progresses.

Are you scared? she asked as she walked through the dark corridors.

I have full faith in you, you know that.

That's not what I asked. He hesitated for a moment, but eventually, he responded.

As hell.


She walked into the medbay, the same she first took Vergil in. She made sure nobody followed her, no alarms tripped and no security software would flag her as an intruder before she could leave. Of course she would still appear on the cameras, but by the time anyone would check them, she'd already be long gone. The professor was already there, with a shaved head, sitting on a hospital bed. Near the bed there was a table with all manner of surgical equipment. Scalpels, needles, pharmaceuticals and other things she could not name were there. Above the bed towered a menacing form of a neurosurgical assistance machine, looking like a giant robotic octopus.

"Ready?" he asked and rubbed his hands. She nodded. He undressed his top laid on the bed.


She confirmed. Nick was now in her system. I'm starting the connection. Whatever you do, don't panic and don't try to override me. It could be disastrous. You understand? She confirmed and he ran a Vergil program some Ageira programmer wrote for him a few weeks before.

Her hand moved. Then her arm. She wasn't the one in control. At least not fully. She understood she could move her body on her own, override whatever Nick was doing. But he said not to. So she didn't. She tried to prevent the panic gathering in her throat. She was his surrogate.

This is... so different. She understood him perfectly, for her it also seemed extremely strange. The professor moved every part of her body, trying to familiarise himself with her arms, her legs, her eyes and ears, her skin. Her way of seeing, understanding and experiencing the world. He walked her body to the tap in the room and let it run. It took a few tries. He leaned her body forward and tried to take a sip of the water. His movements got more fluid, more precise. He washed her hands.

Okay. I think I understand everything now. Let's start. He walked her to himself on the bed. Seeing myself from this perspective is something... Oh my.

He began with more basic tasks. He washed his arms down with cold water and disinfected them. He set up the drip which would inject him constantly with a special mix of painkillers and other pharmaceuticals, making sure he would stay awake and functional throughout the entire operation. After making sure everything was set up correctly and properly, he began the actual operation. By now, her hands were just as effective at this as his own.

One other thing standing on the table was what looked like a large transplas jar with numerous cables inside. She had already seen things like this before, in the professor's research labs. They were containers used to store live brains of animals, but it was the first time one would be used for a human. He used her body to mount it in a special receptacle in the neurosurgery robot.

So far so good. I will run the bot now, it should do everything by itself but should I lose consciousness or something unexpected would happen, there are instructions on its operation screen for emergency situations. I hope you won't have to use those, but I have no idea how this will go. Ready?

She confirmed. He walked her body to the bot and started the program. The bot closed itself around Nick's head.

She felt his mind now as well. Nick continued to remain conscious, as the bot was cutting his skin and eventually leading to opening of his skull. Each cut, a tiny bit of pain went through the thick layer of painkillers. He rushed to close off the pain receptors manually through Vergil. She admired his reaction time. The more powerful the mind, the better Vergil can be, she thought to herself. She got lost in his mind, lost track of time. Eventually the bot got to severing nerves and attaching them to the cables in the container. Each connection round took a fraction of a second, each was a little sting of pain. Each time, he closed the pain receptor and remained fully focused.

Hours passed. She paid close attention to what she was feeling of his mind. At one point, the connection round took longer, and Nick remained unconscious for longer than two seconds. Almost as she was about to stand up and take initiative, he came back. I have a good feeling about this.

More connections, more stings of pain. Yet with each one closer to their goal. Just a moment more, just a minute...

And then it was done. The bot opened its claws. Nick's head was massacred. She inadvertently turned away from the sight of his open head and clean cut skull.

We... he paused as he looked through her eyes at the bot. The container was there, now filled with some sort of liquid and with a brain, a fully functional human organ, inside. She spoke the first words since the start of this operation.

"Have we done it?"


It was late, way later than she anticipated. She completely lost track of time, but the entire surgery took more than six hours. The Cryer would be here any minute and they'd have to disappear before that. She locked the door to the medbay, with Nagrebetskiy's body still in it, with her own card, making sure nobody below her clearance could enter. She carried the container in a suitcase, it barely fit but it was the best she had at hand. She prayed that nothing inside would shatter.

She walked nervously down the corridor. If the Cryer delegation hadn't already been here, she had a shot at reaching the Security Division fighter bays, getting into her own Eagle and getting out of Atka. Her hopes were quickly shattered though as she left the lift and found two suited Cryer officials with several secmen nearby. One of them approached her.

"Miss? Are you one of the security pilots working for Wisp?" He must have known everyone who walked around this wing of Atka in regular clothing was either an exec, an intern or a security pilot. And she look neither like an exec nor an intern.

She tried to compose herself. "I was, correct. My resignation papers are in my office. Have a nice day." She tried to dodge him.

"I'm sorry, if you are resigning, I will need your card or your security chip. Here, please," he extended a reader. She looked at the reader and then at the official. "Please," he hurried her.

She sighed and waved her chip, waiving her violet level clearance. Now she was little more than one of the freelancers visiting Atka for refuel and repair. That is, aside from the fact Nagrebetskiy's body was about to be discovered. "Thank you," the official said. "We have arranged a transport for all ex-employees of Wisp, it will drop you off straight at New Tokyo."

"Thanks, I have a friend picking me up. Have a nice day." She walked away furiously, however now instead of going to the security division bays she headed straight for the public hangar.

Change of plans. We'll have to find a friend who was kind enough to leave his ship with as little security as possible.

I'll leave this to you, you're the expert in this regard.


After about twenty minutes of searching through the public hangar she only found one ship suitable to her goals. It was an old, beat up Scimitar, the only thing whose owner was negligent enough not to put any safety mechanisms into his ship apart from a simple physical lock. She was able to circumvent that easily with a monoknife and got in.

I left Cryer a little present. I wiped all of my data about Vergil from the Wisp servers. We of course had backups elsewhere, but they're a few weeks old and don't have the most recent developments in them. It will take them a while to get it back..

She smiled and started up the hijacked ship. She spoofed an undock request and started up the engines. The undock request was accepted, and they were off.

I suppose the two of us are all that remains.