Sterile white light bathed every corner of Flora's high-security wing, giving it the clinical sheen of a laboratory and the cold menace of a place designed for psychological warfare. Within its innermost chamber, Mod sat chained to a contoured metal chair. Restraints clamped his wrists and ankles, leaving him immobilized in the center of the interrogation cell.
The soundproofed walls reflected the overhead fluorescents. Nearby, advanced scanning devices glowed on a rolling cart: mind-scanning probes, chemical injectors, and other implements capable of prying out secrets by force. A faint antiseptic smell lingered.
Professor Villanova, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, stood before Mod with two lieutenants at his flanks. Their expressions were measured. Neither triumph nor pity. Just patience.
"You've provoked us quite thoroughly, haven't you?" He nodded toward a digital pad listing the rebel incursions, sabotage logs, and the stolen EVA capsule. "I want the coordinates of your main base. And the location of our property. Make it easy on yourself."
Mod swallowed the anger. A dull ache wrapped his shoulders. "You'll find nothing."
Villanova's smile crept upward. "Stubbornness is admirable in small doses. But everyone breaks eventually." He snapped his fingers at the nearest lieutenant, who rolled the cart closer.
"If you'd prefer the difficult path, so be it," Villanova said. "We have time, and methods more civilized than you might expect."
He turned to the narrow window set into the cell's outer wall. For a moment he was still, hands clasped behind his back, looking at nothing in particular. "Arcadia was fourteen months from full atmospheric collapse when I took over Flora's environmental division," he said, his voice quieter now, more considered. "Fourteen months. The protesters were holding signs. The government was holding hearings. No one was actually going to do anything." He let that sit. "I did something." He turned back, and the detachment returned to his face, smooth and complete. "I am not a monster. I am what it took. Now." He nodded toward the cart. "Where were we."
The unspoken promise of psychic interrogation hung in the frigid air. Mod kept his gaze forward. He had to hold out long enough for his allies to reach him. The only question was how long that would take.
Miles away, in a hidden sub-basement, Aphrodite stood before the rebel group. The space smelled of dust and old motor oil. A holo-map glowed on the wall, detailing Flora's interior. The EVA capsule stood upright in the corner.
"We can't bring EVA online without Mod," she said. "His biometrics are essential. And Genara's code won't hold indefinitely." She didn't say the rest: that she'd left him behind. That she had made a call, and it had been the right call, and she was going to live with it.
Rook checked his handheld. "We move tonight."
Cache came forward through the group. His plating was damaged from the last mission: splintered panels, one servo catching on every other step. He stopped beside Aphrodite.
In a small medical alcove off the main room, Naomi worked on him by lamplight. Painkiller injection at the coupling. A patch on the worst of the servo damage. "This won't hold under heavy stress," she said. "You understand?"
Cache pressed his muzzle against her arm.
She patted his flank and stepped back. The team gathered their gear.
Midnight. Acid rain streaked the gloom, tapping off twisted steel. Two squads advanced on Flora's facility. Rook's group hit the perimeter with false signals, pulling guards toward phantom infiltration points. Aphrodite guided Cache and a small team through a lesser-watched gate.
Holographic illusions covered the security feeds. Confused guards ran the wrong direction. The team moved through a half-collapsed utility tunnel in single file, footsteps in shallow water.
Cache was at the front. His programs jammed the recognition cycles of two drones that passed overhead. The team pressed on, weapons up, heading for the sub-levels.
They found the holding wing. Reinforced walls. Bulletproof glass on the cell doors. The specific smell of a place designed to make time feel very long.
A cluster of guards came around a corner station. Before they could register what they were seeing, Aphrodite and her squad moved. Two guards down. A third disarmed. A fourth stopped by Cache's jaws on his weapon wrist, twisting it free before he could shout. The corridor went quiet.
Cache pressed his muzzle to the gap under a sealed door. Low growl.
Aphrodite hit the lock with a code injector. A tense three seconds. The door slid open.
Mod was in the center of the room. Arms clamped. Eyes half-shut. Bruises on his face and arms. Alive.
Aphrodite hit the manual release on the clamps. Cache went to him.
He put a hand on Cache's head. Held it there.
"I knew you'd find me," he said. "I kept thinking: Cache knows where they put people. He'll work it out." He wasn't explaining it to Cache. He was just saying it out loud, finally, because Cache was there.
The chamber's shadows moved. A bipedal AIHR sentinel came out of the corner, advanced plating, built-in weapons, moving fast. It locked onto Aphrodite and Cache.
The fight was short and brutal. Cache took a hit that nearly put him down. Aphrodite fired stun pulses. Mod grabbed a fallen guard's baton and jammed it into the sentinel's core. It dropped in a shower of sparks.
Then the main alarm went off.
Security Lockdown. Intruders Detected. Doors slamming in sequence.
Villanova's voice came through the PA system:
"You truly believed you could take back your friend so easily? The real infiltration has just begun. Enjoy your final moments in my gas-choked halls."
A thin mist began rolling down the corridor. Sedation gas, curling low. The rebels pressed half-broken masks to their faces.
Mod was still unsteady on his feet. Aphrodite took his arm. They moved.
An old maintenance tunnel appeared on the blueprint. If they could reach it before the gas filled their zone. Mod hit the blast door lock with code fragments he remembered from the last infiltration. Cache jammed the drone signals. The door opened.
The back corridor was clear. They went through.
Three more troopers in the next junction. Short, loud exchange. Cache pushed through the jamming, Aphrodite fired in controlled bursts, and then the side door opened to a rush of night air and rain.
The main gates were momentarily unguarded. A rebel truck sat idling near the perimeter fence, covering fire from the secondary squad.
They climbed in. The truck moved.
Under a collapsed overpass, the rebels regrouped. Rain hammered the rubble. Mod took a step onto the concrete, supported by Naomi and Aphrodite, wincing.
Cache limped forward and pressed his muzzle to Mod's leg. His plating flickered. The patch was beginning to degrade.
Then the city's emergency broadcast crackled on every comm device:
"You think your dog is your savior," Villanova said. "You have no idea what we built inside him. Enjoy your short-lived triumph."
Nobody spoke.
Mod sank onto a battered crate, hand moving to Cache's muzzle. "We'll remove it," he said. "We'll free him, like we'll free Genara."
Aphrodite crouched on the other side of Cache. She put one hand flat on his plating, checking the damaged section without looking like she was checking it. "I'll find the override thread," she said. Not a vow. A status update. "Naomi and I started mapping it before the last mission. I know where the code branches."
Cache turned his head toward her. She didn't say anything else. She didn't need to.
Lightning flashed over Arcadia's skyline. Below the partial patch of cleaner sky the Florabytes had carved out, the rest of the city still choked.
Mod ran a hand along Cache's frame, feeling the new components Chronos had forced into him. He didn't know yet what they did. He didn't know if they could be removed. He didn't know if the loyalty was still real or if something in those new parts was already reporting their location.
He looked at Cache's sensor eyes. Cache looked back.
"I'm going to need you to trust me," Mod said. "And I'm going to need you to tell me if something feels wrong."
Cache held his gaze for a long moment. Then he pressed his head into Mod's palm, once, deliberate.
Mod hoped that was still Cache choosing to do that. He didn't know for sure. He kept moving.