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He hated being alone.

Who would ever want to be alone? That was such a horrible thought. To be cut off from the rest of the world, to deprive oneself of any and all interaction with other people… What kind of a life was that?

Yes, he had that speedily and that readily forgotten about his little depression trip from getting overwhelmed. As his tired mind began to focus on what was actually happening around him, he noticed his arms were lying at his side… And that his shirt was still on his body, meaning he couldn’t reattach them on his own, even if he somehow found a way to orient them properly.

Well I better get up. Maybe Billie can hear me better if I yell right against the wall. If I’m even in the same location… If I’m even on the same continent anymore…

Despondently, Oswin rotated his hips around until his legs hung over the side of the bed he had ended up on, and swung up to a seated position. Another glance was sent at his arms, and he tried not to think about how without anyone else around to help him he would ever be able to reattach them and he would be stuck in this room unable to reattach his arms until his body stopped functioning and he withered away… Okay, perhaps ‘tried not to think about’ was a little bit inaccurate.

Finally, after drawing a long artificial sigh to compound his melancholy, He slowly stood off the bed and-

-and instinctively dialed up the volume on his speakers to a level much higher than they automatically stayed at.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

Flailing backwards, his empty shoulder sockets failed to utilize the arms he didn’t have attached to his body to save himself as he tripped on the leg of the bed and spun into the corner, failed to utilize the arms he didn’t have attached to his body to stop from smashing the side of his face against the wall, failed to utilize the arms he didn’t have attached to his body to stop from sliding down the same wall on his face, and failed to utilize the arms he didn’t have attached to his body to assist his legs in an attempt to get out of the topside-down position he was now in, on the floor, with his face again the corner.

“How are you?” He moaned quietly as he tried to get one knee under himself.

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Altier gave Billie a thin smile when she nodded. He was not sure what he would have done if she didn’t agree, but something had to happen. To the boy, at least.

“Alright, let’s get thi–” Altier is cut off by Clarissa screaming.

He looked over at Clarissa’s direction with a mix between mild confusion and apathy. The girl was a rabbit and she wasn’t even the one with bunny ears. All he could do was run a hand down his face as a sort of streaking facepalm.

“Ignore 'em, that operation is probably compartmentalized. We can solve the other problem. I doubt they need a third techie in there anyways.” Altier says and heads for the med bay.

Altier stops and just looks at Billie like ‘see?’. He resumes heading for the med bay, but checks to ensure Billie is following. If she is not he says the following.

“How much duct tape do you think will solve that problem? Half a roll?”

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Suddenly, Billie got an idea. She could use whatever was happening at the work station as an excuse not to go into the med bay. She could say that she wanted to stay back and assist the broker and the tech guy in whatever it was that they were doing; and then maybe the situation with the kid would just figure itself out without her involvement. The only flaw in that plan was that there was nothing she could realistically help them with, but it was of little concern to her at the moment, as she was grasping at straws looking for any way to avoid having to see that kid face to face.

She took another drink, this time almost emptying the bottle.

This guy seems like the kid of person who’s able to deal with these kinds of situations, he’ll probably manage by himself, right?

Billie was about to inform Altier, who had already started walking away, that she was going to stay in the main area when the kid’s excruciating scream rang out across the facility.

It sounded so familiar…

She immediately froze in place, with terror in her eyes, completely unable to say or do anything as her mind flashed back to Oswin’s screams of pain that filled the forest that night.

After a moment of hesitation, which allowed Altier to get halfway ahead of her towards the med bay, Billie’s legs started moving by themselves, faster and faster, until she was practically sprinting towards the door, behind which the kid was kept.

In that moment, she couldn’t think rationally and forgot where she was. All that mattered to her is that maybe, if she was fast enough, this time she could save him…

If she managed to outpace Altier and got to Med Bay 1 first, she’d throw the door open to get inside. In any case, after rushing in, she would stop, panting slightly, as soon as she established line of sight with the kid.

She rushed in, visibly ready to take on anything threatening the kid’s life, but then a bit of confusion got mixed into her determined expression as there was no visible threat to be found. Only Gracie, looking ridiculous as ever, a hardly threatening sight; and the kid, who for whatever reason ended up on the floor, face down, but didn’t look physically hurt in any way, save for the obviously missing arms…

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Regardless of Gracie’s response, Oswin shut his eyes and sighed. Clearly he needed to have much greater control over his reactions in the future if he didn’t want to risk spooking people as badly as he was getting spooked.

“Tell me,” Oswin grunted - not because of any actual strain, it just felt more natural to grunt when putting in a lot of effort - as he pushed himself over with his knee, landing on his behind with his upper back against the wall and one leg bent up so the foot could touch the ground. “Are- Do you- I mean, do you know where we are?”

He made an effort to hide the dread in his voice, but he was not very good at it. Well, if Billie didn’t hear me calling for her, she probably couldn’t hear me yell just then, and she could be hundreds or even thousands of miles away by now, and in all fairness I don’t think Gracie knows how to kick a door down, so I-

Oswin flinched away from the sudden opening of the door and his knees snapped up to his chest, but a moment later it became obvious that it was Billie at the door. Already his fears were starting to seem foolish in the face of Billie’s sudden and quite dramatic arrival, but that half of his reason had not taken over just yet.

She came.

She actually came to help me.

Her face didn’t seem to be impressed with the starry-eyed wonder with which he looked up at her. In fact, even Oswin was capable of perceiving the clear confusion on her features in connection with her arrival meaning she had heard him scream, and immediately came running to his rescue from whatever he was facing.

“I’m sorry-” He began, but cut himself off. That excuse wouldn’t do.

“I was afraid,” He whimpered slightly, but he pushed back against the emotion and felt it start to leak out through his crinkled brow instead of his artificial voice box. “It got so dark… I didn’t know where I-”

He tore his eyes away, and after a moment of trying to reconnect them with Billie’s he settled into looking despondently at the floor, desperately wishing he had never turned himself off in the first place so he could appear as less of an embarrassment. I feel so stupid. She was right there the whole time… She obviously told me everything was going to be okay, why didn’t I listen to her?

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“OH S-“ Gracie yelled before disappearing into the floor.

WHY DOES THIS FEEL SO WEIRD?!?!

She felt like she was falling, dripping, endlessly repeating. Her mind was zooming- he said it was fine but could she trust him- apparently she could because she went through it-

Oh. Now I’m here-

Then she was felt her ears being assaulted by the discordant scream.

“Jeez-Calm down!”

Gracie looked at him, startled and frustrated.
Why, or how, he managed to get off the bed with no arms was bizarre enough to her…

The ringing in her ears EVENTUALLY ceased in time to hear Oswin’s stuttering question.
She blinked rapidly, before shifting her weight, concern etched onto her face clearer than a blue sky.

“We’re in the medbay I think-”

She was cut off the slamming open of the door behind her, with Billie looking ABSOLUTELY SOZZLED.

“What is he talking about?”
She asked Billie, before turning to Oswin.
“You haven’t done anything wrong. W-what-” She chuckled, shaking her head.
“Whatever gave you the idea that-that you did something wrong? And- is anyone going to explain to me why I can’t even seem to get a break?!”
She held her hands out in front of her in a chopping motion.
“I mean seriously-YOU disappear through the floor-then I do-then, you scream like the devil is nipping at you-”
She looked at Billie, her frustrations boiling over-
“And you’re drunk!!”

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Billie is able to easily, Altier doesn’t even try to keep up. He wasn’t certain why, now, she decided to book it for the boy. Another psychotic break? Perhaps another great mystery he would never figure out. But, as annoyed Deliah so much, he was fine not having those answers.

Once he is at the doorway, he stands there arms crossed to ensure Billie doesn’t turn around and bail. He reckoned there needed to be at least a few minutes before that. Though so far, all the boy continued to do was apologize. Altier was starting to wonder if that’s all the boy could do. If Grandpa Hartog ever needed proof that the most frequent lie a child tells is an apology, Oswin might be the holy grail.

“And you’ve still left the kid armless. So much for delicate tech. How about you help put his arms on before I show how we attach robotic arms on the combines.” Altier retorts from the doorway. He didn’t care that Billie was being called a drunk, he was annoyed that Gracie had still failed to be helpful.

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“Oh gimme a break! I just got here.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. He was right, but she couldn’t help but want to protest against this.
Seriously?! Are you kidding me?!

“And he disconnected his own arms. You want me to attach them forcibly? I’m a tinkerer, not a doctor. So don’t pin this on me.”

The road to…well, there, is paved with good intentions…I swear…

“If he wants me to, I’ll attach his arms. But only if he wants me to. He’s…well, you can see how he is. I doubt he wants me to do it.”

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Altier didn’t move from his spot and kept a tight jaw. Without the shades, it was harder to appear naturally stone-faced. And when he wanted his shades for a good stare down, his haw would blink. Lizard-brain retaliation as his girlfriend called it. Like those eyelids blinking could fire laser blasts or something.

“Not a doctor, but you’re still asking for patient consent? How kind of you. Well boy, which is it? Do you want your arms reattached or should we donate them to another kid?”

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Clarissa’s scream at Bynari’s arrival only served to annoy John. This day just kept getting worse, and now he had to deal with teenagers and their over reactions to the slightest thing.

Looking from her to see Altier run his hand across his face, he assumed the man had also grown tired of the nonsense coming from the new group of people.

Bynari looked to John, “What’s up?” He asked.

John didn’t make any movements to alert the new group as to what was going on, he didn’t need any more stress added to an already stressful situation. Pointing to the earpiece on the desk, he asked “What do you think Unknown Variant means?”

Giving Bynari a moment to mull it over, he continued. “I ran a scan on this after it wouldn’t respond to my commands. That’s the result that came out of the scan.”

“Deep scan?” Bynari asked.

John nodded slightly.

“What was the recommendation?” Bynari asked, trying to remove his own earpiece.

“Quarantine.” John replied.

Bynari stopped and took a deep breath. After a moment, he too needed to use the cylinder to remove his earpiece.
“What about the others?” He asked, placing the comm device on the desk - starting a scan on it as well.

John looked over at Clarissa, who was trying her best not to be noticed. Just then, Billie started running for the Med Bay, Altier not far behind her.

Clarissa noticed them, then looked to John and Bynari. “I’m just going to … yeah, I’m gonna leave.” She said, awkwardly walking away after seeing the look of death John shot her for lingering too close to him and Bynari.

Nudging John’s elbow, Bynari whispered, “I just got the same result.”

John sighed. “Notify all agents, tell them to ditch the equipment and fallback on secondaries.”

John walked over to another workstation and accessed the terminal. After a few moments, all the shimmering surfaces throughout the facility stopped and looked normal again. There is a high pitched noise through the earpieces of everyone still wearing an earpiece.

He looks to Bynari, “We’re in Nightfall status. Start scrubbing the system.”

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As Billie took in everything and listened to Oswin’s attempt to explain himself, her expression gradually changed. It went from that of concern and determination to the usual exhaustion and apathy with a bit of embarrassment added into the mix as the realisation of what was really going on in the room hit her.

The kid wasn’t actually in any danger and it was probably just his imagination acting up. More than that, he wasn’t even the Oswin she knew. He was just some random kid who shared his name and kinda looked like him, but it was just a strange coincidence. Of course, it couldn’t be any other way because she knew that Oswin was dead. They couldn’t save him.

She suddenly felt embarrassed that she fell for this. She got tricked, manipulated into being worried for this random kid who she didn’t even know, and all because he called her name for no apparent reason.

She stood up straight, trying to act as if she didn’t just storm into the room ready to fight anything that could be threatening the kid’s life, and looked towards the doorway, only to see that Altier was seemingly blocking the exit. She sent a slightly frustrated questioning glance in his direction, as if trying to inquire what exactly it was that he was doing.

As Billie listened to Gracie’s ramblings, she grew more and more visibly annoyed. She threw an incredibly frustrated look at the girl, but didn’t acknowledge her or her screams in any other way.

First she got tricked into coming here for no good reason and now she couldn’t leave and was getting yelled at and accused of ridiculous things by this girl.

Drunk? Don’t make me laugh… this is nothing, I barely even started. Of course, it would take a lot more than three small beers to get her actually drunk, so Gracie’s accusation was complete nonsense.

What does she mean, disappear through the floor? Billie briefly looked at the ceiling to see if it looked unusual in any way, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Now that she thought about it, there weren’t any noticeable passages between the air lock and the med bay, so how did these two end up here without going through the main room?

Listening to the back and forth between Altier and Gracie, Billie was getting more and more frustrated. She was already getting fed up with staying in this room and their bickering didn’t help. Gracie wasn’t being helpful in the slightest, sure, but Altier himself wasn’t of much more help either; while Billie just wanted to leave and not have anything to do with any of this, which they both were actively preventing.

Finally, she’s had enough. She took one final drink of her beer, emptying the bottle, put it on the piece of furniture that was nearest to her, took a deep breath and marched past Gracie towards the bed.

Billie lifted Oswin’s detached arms off of it and turned towards him, holding one in each hand, trying not to look at the kid directly. She didn’t want to do this, but if it meant that she would leave this room sooner, she had no other choice. She was the worst person for the job of reattaching the kid’s arms as well, since she wasn’t good with technology in the slightest, but since nobody else was willing to do it, she’d have to step in.

“How do I get these on?” She spoke in a tired voice, addressing the room at large, showing with her entire being that she just wanted to get this over with. One of these three has to know how it’s done…

For a moment a pained expression appeared on Billie’s face as her ear got blasted with extremely unpleasant noise from the device she had been given at the diner. She didn’t think much of it, as it had already acted strange in the past and this occasion wasn’t much more special by itself. She only wished that she could remove the device sooner rather than later, as it didn’t help her with her headache in the slightest.

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Huh?

Oswin looked back up at Billie, trying to determine if she actually appeared drunk, only to catch her expression go from incredibly unenthused to very irritated with Gracie. He had been around enough drunk college students to know what being plastered looked like, and this was not it.

What the heck does Nipping mean?

“Uh,” Oswin’s eyes had traveled in between Gracie and Altier multiple times during their argument, and now continued to do so, unclear if Altier’s comment of donating his limbs was meant to be taken seriously of if this was another grownup-ism that he was simply too young to comprehend.

“I don’t- I-”

“Oh.”

Oswin greatly appeared that he would have appreciated the time to gawk, but he very much did not want to try Billie’s patience any further than it already was. “I’ll need my shirt off,” He replied, moving his shoulders for a moment and looking down in surprise at his lack of arms which prevented him from taking his shirt off himself.

I’m such an idiot. His gaze returned to whichever part of where the wall met the floor was furthest from everyone in the room.

Oswin’s shoulder sunk towards his neck as he flinched at the sudden sound, although it wasn’t as bad as the ping from Billie’s sensor had been. However, his expression suddenly changed from irritation to utter surprise at Billie suffering the same general reaction he was.

Did… Did she hear that too?

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“Gimme a sec-“
Gracie turned away from the conversation to Billie.
“They should just pop in, you’re going to have to-“

“That. You’re going to need to do that.”
She sighed. She needed to get away from this.
She pulled out the shades and handed them to Altier, and walked out.

When she’s out of earshot, she cursed her face off.

Mom would be so proud.

Gracie swore again and clawed at the earpiece, before sitting down and muttering to herself. She was too angry and anxious to feel anything else.

“Good for nothing…piece of…god…why…”

And for what? You just wanted to help, and this escalated from your inability to accept that you were wrong.

She sighed and put on her headphones, and blared music, maybe getting herself straightened out by the end of it.

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Clarissa quickly walked away from John and Bynari, the look she got from the Info Broker spoke volumes and she didn’t want to be anywhere near them. But she was also torn, she didn’t want to be near the Broker or the tech, she didn’t feel welcome around the group … she felt frustrated and alone. She needed some space, but didn’t know where to go.

Seeing her bag on the table with everyone else’s belongings, she went over and checked everything out. She was about to take her bag but hesitated. Last she did that a turret popped out of the ceiling and tracked her every movement. The memory made her heart race; she didn’t want that to happen again.

The squeal pierced her mind like a white hot needle, causing her to react. She reached in and tried to remove the ear piece from her ear, but it didn’t want to budge. Clawing at it, the thing finally released its hold on her ear with a painful ripping noise.

Her ear felt warm and wet. Looking down at the tiny ear piece, she could see it glistening with blood.

“What the [CENSORED]?” she thought, as she looked at the small piece of tech in her hand.

She went to lay it on the table next to the rest of the equipment when she noticed that the table no longer displayed information about the owners of the items on its surface. Looking around, she also noticed that several areas in the room were no longer shimmering like they were a few minutes ago. Curious as to what was happening, she decided to go ahead and risk retrieving her bag.

Slowly, she took hold of the rubberized handle on the top and started to pull it toward her. When she saw that nothing happened, she removed it completely - bracing herself for the ominous red glow of security lights, or that terrible sound of servos powering up like last time.

Unlike earlier, none of that occurred. She anxiously walked to one of the couches near the coffee table, cautiously placing her bag on its surface. No reaction.

Something was wrong, she could feel it. Opening her bag, she pulled out her cell phone and opened a custom app she made from some old hacker tools she “borrowed” from her uncle’s personal collection.
Running the app, she wirelessly connected a tablet that she removed from her bag as well.

“Let’s see what’s going on.” She thought, letting the hacking tools do their thing. After several seconds of scanning for networks, signals and anything she could find in the room, she came to the realization that this place was build like a Faraday cage. And despite all this tech, nothing was vulnerable to the tools in her tool kit. There wasn’t even EM “leakage” from the power lines running down the walls. As thick as they were, she was expecting at least something to show on her scans, but she was getting …

Wait …

She looked at her scans and saw something odd. She had no idea what it was, but there was an open frequency in the room. Something was actively searching for a connection, but she didn’t know what it was or where it was located.

Then without warning, her tablet indicated that it was under attack. Panicked, she turned off her phone and locked down her tablet. Putting them back into her bag, she looked around the room.

“What if it was the broker?” she thought, anxiety gripping her chest like an iron band. “What if he thinks I’m the one trying to break into his network again? He’ll kick me out and I’ll never find Ryan!”

She began to breathe heavily. She was terrified. She needed help, but who would help her? Not the Broker, and not the group. Maybe Bynari?

She just sat there, not knowing what to do.

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“Wha-”

Nobody had told her that she’d need to do that kind of thing. She was hoping that she’d be able to help the kid with putting his arms back on without having to actually touch him. Billie immediately regretted having volunteered to do this, but it looked like there was no backing out of it now.

She braced herself as she began approaching him. This was not going to be an easy thing for her to do.

It didn’t help that the sound that her ear piece had made earlier left a painful ringing in her ear. It was comparable to when she forgot to wear ear protection while firing her unsuppressed rifle, except quite a bit worse. She wished to get rid of the ridiculous piece of technology stuck in her ear at the first given opportunity, which she was hoping would come sooner rather than later.

Billie glanced at Gracie’s back as she left the room. On one hand, she was glad that it would get a little more quiet in the med bay. On the other hand, she got even more frustrated with the girl for not even attempting to be actually useful and running away at the first given opportunity.

I really don’t wanna deal with this by myself…

She stood next to Oswin and put the arms on the side of the bed next to him. Exhaling, she addressed him rather awkwardly, while trying her best not to look at the kid directly.

“get up,” she said rather sternly. It would be hard for her to do anything if he stayed in that position sitting on the floor.

If Oswin stood up, she would awkwardly grab his shirt by the back of its neck with both hands while staying as far away as possible and pull it up in a rather rough manner. She concluded that it was the best way to do it considering that the boy had no arms and the turtleneck should have just slid off, unobstructed by anything except his chin. If successful with this, she would throw the piece of clothing on the bed and do the same with anything that was under it. She would be avoiding eye contact all the way through and showing very clearly through body language and facial expression just how uncomfortable she was with the entire process.

If he didn’t stand up, she would kneel in front of him awkwardly and attempt to do all the same things, except from an even more uncomfortable position.

Why did I agree to this…

She grabbed the two disembodied arms once again and glanced at the air next to Oswin’s ear with a tired, questioning expression, as if she was asking what she was supposed to do with these.

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He takes back the shades and doesn’t move for about half a second. But since someone needed to help the boy, he let Gracie pass through. Wiping the shades down with his sleeve, he put the shades back on. He was going to walk over and just pull the sweater off to get this over with when the noise happened.

Altier winced and put a hand over his ear, letting out some noise that sound akin to a cat. Didn’t matter that it was short (though thankfully it was), it was still painful. When it sounded, and felt, like it stopped he slowly moved his hand away from his ear.

You son of a gun, Altier mentally complained. What was that for?! With a grimace, he started going through a list of possibilities. Something to get him back to a more reasonable state before he walked over and ripped off Oswin’s ■■■■■.

It couldn’t have been interference, could it? Plenty of hearing aids and other mics could peak or scream when there was too many of them near each other. Even electrical lights could mess them and cause awful buzzing noises. But these weren’t simple hearing aids, so what could…?

Altier scanned the room briefly, trying to see if anything was out of place. He let out the name of a flower genus that could not be repeated. However deep beneath the ground they were, they shouldn’t be getting interference. Meaning something, or someone, was trying to play and whether by accident or on purpose, blew part of the system.

Never had Altier imagine he would be thanking those stupid corporate mandated security training courses. ‘A mass cyber-attack may explore and exploit any and all devices on the network, including blowing out audio or mess with comm device frequencies.’ But it needed to be confirmed before any thanks could be given.

“Did you hear that?” Altier asks those still in the room. Before he even gets an answer he follows with, “we need to hurry up. They might need a third tech head after all.”

If during all that thinking time Billie managed to get off the sweater, he’ll assist with putting the arms back on. He’ll take one of the arms and compare ends for insertion. Line the two up and then push it in like an action figure’s arm.

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Oswin got distracted by the sight of Gracie storming out and squeezing past Altier to escape the situation, so the arms were laid at his side without his noticing. When Billie ordered him to get up in the sharp manner that she did, he jumped at her suddenly existing again and quickly got to his feet with no hesitation. Despite his opinion of things or thoughts on the world, he was still very much a kid and Billie was an adult. It was his position to stand quietly and do what he was told.

Oswin’s body language echoed her discomfort, although it seemed far more like embarrassment on his part. Here he was needing help taking his shirt off like he was a toddler, and Billie, who clearly did not want to participate in this, seemed very much like the fed-up parent far more angry than willing to let show.

There was going to be a talking-to after this was done, he was sure of it…

Altier’s inquiry fell on deaf ears, as Oswin was too distracted by what Billie was doing. She had taken off both shirts he had on and was now staring at the arms like they were some sort of alien interface.

“You- uh,” Oswin struggled to think of a way to describe a mechanical process that he did without thinking, using mechanical parts Billie clearly didn’t possess. “You have to- you, you have to put it like-”

“Whoa!” Oswin wobbled as Altier tried to push the arm back in. “Just, hold it there. Like that.”

If Altier keeps the arm still with the open side of the shoulder facing Oswin, he’ll push the open socket of his shoulder against it. After a moment, the circular sliding panels will spin around inside his shoulder, and the arm will start moving once again.

“Thanks.” Oswin stared at the arm as he checked its range of motion, as if he had never seen it before. Glancing back at Billie, he tried making eye contact before awkwardly breaking it off, remembering that she clearly didn’t want any of that right now.

“I, uh… I can do that one.” He slowly extended his open palm to receive the arm.

…Do I hear some kind of frequency? Should I try and connect to it?

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Billie didn’t respond. Instead, she tapped her ear with the palm of her free hand several times in an attempt to get rid of the leftover ringing in her ear, clearly showing that she had just experienced the same thing as Altier.

Anything to get out of here and not have to deal with this…

Billie didn’t expect one of the arms to be snatched from under her hand by Altier, but she didn’t try to object. She was relieved that she didn’t have to do this alone. She had no idea how she was supposed to attach the arms anyways. Any assistance would definitely help.

what took him so long?

Billie watched the arm reattach itself to Oswin’s body with an air of bewilderment. To someone like her, the process looked grotesque and unnatural. She was also slightly annoyed at how easy it actually turned out to be. All of this commotion, just for this? If he still had one arm on, he would have easily done this by himself… why did his other arm get detached anyway? Is it something that girl did?

Billie quickly handed him the other arm with no objections and moved back slightly, looking away from the scene, utterly embarrassed by what she just had to take part in.

An unwanted thought crawled its way into the back of her mind. He did actually kind of look like him…

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Oswin accepted the arm and placed it against his shoulder, sliding it around slightly until it seemed to fit the position he was looking for. After a moment, there was a mechanical sound, and it moved freely as well.

Seeing Billie’s clear detachment from the scene, he opened his mouth to say Sorry, but after a moment gave up in dejection, turning and picking up his shirts. It would be better if he kept his mouth shut for now, it seemed, and perhaps also for the best if he didn’t try to connect to whatever signal he had just intercepted. For now.

He was still immensely curious about it, but the timing seemed inopportune. Perhaps there would be an opportunity later to investigate it without stepping on anyone’s toes.

“…What happens now?” Oswin looked up at Altier, unsure what he was supposed to do or where he was supposed to go. Truth be told, he barely knew he was still in the base, as a moment ago that had been incredibly uncertain, much to his discomfort.

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Altier does, watching how it reattaches carefully.

“Ah, higher end model. Shouda figured.” He excuses.

Altier wastes little time once Oswin has both arms on and is already in the doorway to leave the med bay. He stops there to answer.

“Turn off any electronics still on you - especially that phone Billie. This place might be compromised. Get back to the main area, snag Gracie if you see her. I need to confirm what’s going on.”

He heads off to get back to the info broker and Bynari. When he’s back in the main area, he’ll shout over to the two of them.

“What’s going on?!”

If Clarissa has left a noticeable blood trail on the floor, or her bleeding ear is facing the direction he’s heading, he’ll check on her. Otherwise, he marches he way up to the workstations.

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Hearing Altier’s voice, she instinctively tried to hide her tablet, but she caught herself mid action. She didn’t want to risk losing anymore trust with the group. Forcing herself to get over her initial fear of getting in trouble; she pulled out the tablet and offered it to Altier.

“I think someone is trying to breach their network.” She said.

Shooting her a slightly annoyed look, John walked over to meet her and Altier. “I have to agree with Clarissa with that. Not entirely sure by who or even how; but there is definitely an attempt to breach our firewalls.” He says before looking to Clarissa. Noticing her ear he asks “Are you in need of medical attention?”
Sheepishly, she shakes her head. “It looks worse than what it actually is.”

“If you change your mind, feel free to use the Med Bay.”

Looking to Altier he says “You have background is cyber security. If you want, feel free to assist Bynari in tracking the source. Until then, we’re locking everything down. We’ll be switching to a different form of comms until then.”

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