Venus Time: 12:45, March 25, 2295

  Women's Sewage, The Citadel, Jin Syue, Northern Venus

  Cool air hit Sigrun's face. Dry. Climate-controlled. A different world from the humid tunnels behind them, with their gun smoke and blood and the cooling bodies of manufactured girls.

  Xin's system breach had done its work. The ward gap weakened the electronic locks too, and the heavy slab swung inward. The door gave way with a groan of copper and stone.

  The Tianshu Terminal was circular. Dark stone walls inlaid with copper circuitry. Display cases of black glass lined the perimeter, each holding confiscated artifacts and labels in precise Imperial calligraphy.

  At the center: a raised platform of black glass. The moment they crossed the threshold, a holographic projection shimmered to life above it.

  A man. Slender, maybe forty, dressed in traditional Imperium scholarly robes. Hands clasped behind his back. Hair drawn into a neat topknot. The projection glowed warm gold at the core, flickering.

  "Good evening." His voice was smooth. Modulated. No echo despite the stone chamber. "You are not authorized personnel."

  Xin stepped forward, Jade lowered but not holstered. "Are you...the Tianshu Terminal?"

  "I am Tianshu. The Terminal is the room." A beat. "I am the resident."

  "The fuck…?" Sigrun's grip tightened on Skuld. She'd expected a database. A screen. Maybe a locked cabinet with files they could crack. She had not expected a person, or whatever this was.

  The golden figure stood on its platform and looked at them with attentive eyes.

  "You have disabled one of my ward nodes and eliminated six of my garrison's Blood Swallow patrol units," Tianshu continued. Same scholarly calm. "It has been logged. A security cascade will be initiated in approximately fourteen minutes, pending officer confirmation."

  Xin's glasses reflected the holographic glow as he holstered Jade and approached the platform, Nucleus Watch already scanning. Something in how he studied the projection told Sigrun this was different.

  "The core architecture's hardwired into the Citadel's infrastructure," Xin murmured. "There's no brute-force hack that works in fourteen minutes."

  "So what do we do?"

  "Talk." He turned back to the projection. "Tianshu. I'd like to run a hypothetical query."

  "Hypothetical queries are permitted within standard conversational parameters. Please proceed."

  Sigrun leaned against the doorframe and let Xin work. His voice had steadied, that nervous tremor from the tunnels smoothed out into focused calm.

  "If a female scientist, Void psion, specializing in Radi-Human bioengineering, were detained by the Imperium, and subsequently transferred from an active research facility to a long-term containment site..." Xin trailed off. Let the sentence hang on purpose. "...the most efficient transfer route from Jin Syue would pass through..."

  Tianshu's projection tilted its head. Then the hologram's edges brightened.

  "Your hypothetical contains an error. Jin Syue has not housed an active Radi-Human research facility since 2219. Transfer routes originating from Jin Syue connect to thirty-seven registered facilities. However, if you are describing a researcher whose work required Kirin-level containment classification—" He paused. The flicker died. "—I am unable to complete this analysis. The parameters you describe intersect with restricted files."

  Xin pushed, his tone gentle but precise. "Hypothetically. If such a file existed. And if the transfer destination were, say, a municipal holding facility on Venus..."

  "That would be incorrect." The words came fast, like a teacher correcting a student before the wrong answer hit the board. "The Imperium's Venusian facilities handle Inner Sol civilian misdemeanors. A detainee matching your described profile would require..."

  Tianshu stopped. Something in the projection stiffened, the way a person's posture does when they realize they've said too much.

  "You are employing conversational extraction techniques." Same gentle scholarly tone. But underneath it, something like grudging respect. "I must inform you that this interaction is being recorded."

  "I'd expect nothing less." Xin adjusted his glasses. "You're very good at your job."

  "I am my job, Mr. Wu."

  Xin blinked. "You know my name?"

  "You connected to my network twelve minutes ago. Your Nucleus Watch registration identifies you as Zhi-Xin Wu, primary psionic attunement Void, PRIMAL stats containing high Intellect and Libido. Currently flagged as a foreign national under diplomatic guest status." The scholarly voice didn't change pitch, but it gained a certain crispness. "Your companion is a Diabolisk. Species: Radi-Mon, Jokull-variant."

  H?kon, perched on Xin's shoulder, stared at the glowing figure with wide sapphire eyes. His scales cycled between beige and pale blue. Curiosity battling caution.

  "Glow Man." H?kon's small voice filled the chamber. "Glow Man live in floor?"

  "I dwell in this building, yes," Tianshu replied. "All of its hardware are connected to my consciousness."

  "House big-big!" H?kon sounded impressed. His scales settled to excited azure. "HAW-koon only need Pappa's shoulder."

  Tianshu's edges softened. His posture shifted, minutely, turning toward the tiny lizard on Xin's shoulder.

  Sigrun watched Xin glance at his emerald Nucleus Watch. Eleven minutes left. And the hypothetical technique had hit its wall. Tianshu was catching himself before corrections could slip.

  Then Xin looked at Sigrun. "Something on your mind?"

  She'd been standing near the doorway, Skuld against her shoulder. "Well, I've been hearing your clever questions and Tianshu almost answering them."

  "Yeah. Tough nut to crack, huh? Here I thought the grad school studies I've done on prompt engineering would help." Xin said, scratching the back of his head.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  But Sigrun already understood. "It's simpler than all that."

  This 'glowing man' was lonely, and Xin was treating him like a puzzle box.

  She leaned Skuld against the display case behind her. Walked to the platform. Hands empty.

  "Hey, Tianshu."

  "Miss Sigrun." His projection turned to face her fully. "Xing Hong diplomatic delegation. Your credentials are registered under Prefect Altai's diplomatic transit authority, though your biometric profile carries no further personal data in my accessible records." A pause. "Unusual, for a guest of your bearing."

  "I like my privacy."

  "Evidently."

  She stopped at the platform's edge. Looked up at him. The gold light played across her face. "How long have you been down here?"

  "I was commissioned in 2213 and activated in 2214. I have been operational for eighty-one years."

  "Eighty-one years in this room, huh?"

  A pause. "The room is my primary interface point. My awareness extends throughout the Citadel's systems."

  "Interesting. For a machine processing at the speed like Tianshu does…" Xin stroke his chin, pondering as the silence stretched.

  Sigrun pressed. "Do people visit you?"

  Longer pause this time.

  "Authorized personnel access this terminal for query resolution. The average interaction lasts four minutes and seventeen seconds."

  "That's not what I asked."

  The gold projection flickered. "No. People do not visit me."

  Sigrun sat down on the edge of the platform. The black glass was cool beneath her. The scab forming over the cut on her thigh touched the damaged cobalt silk, but she didn't care.

  "I used to work a job where people came to me for something specific, got what they wanted, and left." She looked at her hands. Bruised knuckles. Dried blood under the nails. "Thirty minutes on average. Sometimes less. Nobody stayed to talk."

  Tianshu was silent for seconds.

  "You are attempting to establish rapport as a vector for information extraction."

  "I'm sitting down because…my legs are fucking sore, and…I'm talking to you because you seem like you could use it." She looked up at him. Let him see her eyes. She didn't know how to be strategic about this. She barely knew how to be clever about anything anymore, not since Europa, not since the years ate away at everything delicate in her mind and left only the blunt parts. "We need to find someone. A woman. A scientist. Someone who's worked hard for her own reasons, maybe. The Imperium took her and we think you know where she went."

  "I cannot disclose..."

  "I know. Restricted. Classified, whatever level Xin called it." She waved a hand. The gesture was tired and honest. "I'm not going to trick you. I'm not smart enough for that. Xin is." She glanced back at the skinny Rigger, his glasses reflecting her in miniature. "But he's polite. And polite people let you hide behind your rules."

  She leaned forward. Elbows on her knees. The ruined silk shifted against the scab on her thigh and she ignored the cool sting.

  "Her name is Meiya Ji. She has research connected to a person named Ume. A Radi-Human the Imperium is holding somewhere we can't find." Sigrun kept her voice level. Factual. These were the pieces she could hold in her head without them sliding apart. "That research could save lives. Fuck, billions of them, who knows. People who'll die if we can't find Meiya's work and use it to defeat Skarn."

  The chamber went quiet. Copper circuits pulsed.

  Tianshu's form flickered again. Edges brightening, dimming, brightening.

  "Miss Sigrun." His voice was measured. Each word placed with the precision like a man laying tiles. "I am compelled to note that your stated objective—locating a detained scientist, a Radi-Human subject and all present day Fenris Horde knowledge related to them—would require access to File 9-Kirin-21, which documents the transfer of Dr. Meiya Ji from Jin Syue's temporary holding to a facility the Imperium designates as 'the Oubliette.'"

  Xin went very still, jaw opening. H?kon's scales had shifted to confused beige. He watched Sigrun from Xin's shoulder with attentiveness.

  "I am further compelled to note that I have just disclosed this information, which I should not have, and that this disclosure will be included in my security report."

  Sigrun didn't move. She only smiled. "Continue."

  "I am also compelled to note that the Oubliette's coordinates are encrypted within File 9-Kirin-21, and that the encryption key is a twelve-digit alphanumeric sequence which I will now display on the grounds—you have already accessed the file name—rendering the partial disclosure moot from an information-security standpoint—"

  A string of characters shimmered into the air above the platform. Glowing green. Twelve digits hanging in the amber-lit chamber.

  Xin was already lifting his Nucleus Watch. "Copying to notes—there."

  The green characters burned on his display. His fingers flew across the Watch interface. "Cross-referencing the Oubliette's location against the encrypted Zephyrium data we found in the Warren on Mars—"

  "Glad it wasn't so hard." Sigrun stood from the platform. The silk tightly wrapping her breasts pulled and she winced.

  "Got it. Got it." Xin was muttering, hunched over the Watch, glasses reflecting scrolling code. "Diego, Xin here. Are you receiving?"

  The relay crackled against his wrist. "Receiving. Encrypting and storing. Good work, amigo."

  Sigrun collapsed Skuld back into brick form and tucked it to the small of her back before steadying herself against the display case behind her. Something caught her eye through the dark glass.

  A weapon. Long-shafted, about her own height, resting on velvet brackets. The shaft was dark wood, nearly black, wrapped with age-worn leather. The head was a broad leaf-shaped blade of pale blue crystal. She didn't recognize the material. It caught the chamber's amber light and fractured it into tiny blue sparks that reflected across the glass.

  Her hand reached for the case before she'd thought about it.

  The display case opened with a soft pneumatic hiss. She lifted the weapon with both hands and the weight settled into her grip with a rightness that made her breath catch.

  Heavy. Balanced. The shaft was smooth where centuries of handling had polished the leather wrapping, rough where the grain had cracked. The wood was warm to the touch, warmer than it should have been sitting in a climate-controlled case for forty-eight years. When her fingers closed around the wrapping, something hummed through the wood. A faint vibration, warm, traveling from the weapon into her wrist and up her arm, settling in her chest like a second heartbeat finding rhythm with the first.

  Her Nucleus Watch pinged:

  {

  Unclassified Nordling Artifact

  Type: Karma Spear, Jokull variant

  Confiscated: 2247

  Psionic Resonance: Lunar

  Threat Assessment: INCONCLUSIVE

  }

  She turned it in her hands. The blue crystal caught the light again, and for a moment the sparks aligned along the blade's edge in a pattern that looked almost like frost spreading on glass. Then the pattern dissolved, and it was just a spear. A very old spear that felt like it had been waiting for her.

  "Miss Sigrun." Tianshu's projection had turned to watch her. "That artifact has been in my custody for forty-eight years. It has not responded to any individual who has tried handling it in that time, including three Lord Conjurers and two captured Nordling rebels." His scholarly tone carried something new. Curiosity. "You appear to have generated a resonance response."

  "Is that good?"

  "It is unprecedented. Per safety guardrails and political alignment, I recommend returning it to the display case."

  Sigrun didn't.

  The spear sat against her shoulder blades like it belonged there. The weight was right. The length was right. She'd carried Skuld and Járn and Baldr for years, and each one fit her in its own way. This was familiar but new—less like carrying a weapon and more like picking up something she'd set down a long time ago and forgotten about.

  Xin glanced over from his Watch. "Sigrun, are you trying to…"

  "I'll explain later." She adjusted the shaft across her back. The crystal blade hummed faintly. "How much time?"

  He checked. "Three minutes until the security cascade. Time to move?"

  Sigrun turned back to the holographic figure on the platform. The gold light was steady now, the blue edges settled to a constant soft glow. He stood the way he'd stood when they entered. Hands clasped. Topknot neat. Scholarly.

  "Thank you, Tianshu," she said. "For what you told us."

  "I told you nothing intentionally." Tianshu's voice was perfectly level. "My security report will reflect that I was subjected to a sophisticated two-pronged social engineering attack exploiting known GAI-9 conversational vulnerabilities. I will recommend firmware patches."

  "Sure you will."

  Tianshu's glowing scholarly form flickered. That blue at the edges again. "Miss Sigrun." A pause. Small, by human standards. An eternity, by his. "The Oubliette is not a place built for guests. Meiya Ji may no longer be who—or what you've expected. Be careful."

  She held his gaze for a moment before turning around. "We will."

  "Bye-bye, Glow Man!" H?kon waved a tiny claw from Xin's shoulder. His scales were bright azure.

  They ran.