Ricketts's antibodies and glucose metabolism had both gone critical while she'd slept. If she was reading the display right Phocoena had been able to compensate for the glucose to some extent, but the immune problems were out of its league. And an entirely new readout had appeared on the diagnostic panel, cryptic and completely unexpected: something called AND was increasing over time in Rickett's body. She tapped the label and invoked the system glossary: AND expanded into Anomalous Nucleotide Duplex, which told her nothing. But there was a dotted horizontal line etched near the top of the y-axis, some critical threshold that Ricketts was approaching but had not yet met; and the label on that feature was one she knew.

Metastasis.

It can't be long now, Clarke thought. Then, hating herself: Maybe long enough...

"Still there?" Ricketts asked.

"Yes."

"It's lonely in here."

Under the cowl, maybe. Or inside his own failing flesh.

"Talk to me."

Go ahead. You know you want an opening.

"About what?"

"Anything. Just—anything."

You can't exploit someone if you don't even ask...

She took a breath. "You know what you said about the, the shredders? How someone was using them to try and crash everything?"

"Yes."

"I don't think they're supposed to crash the system at all," she said.

A brief silence. "But that's what they do. Ask anyone."

"That's not all they do. Taka said they breach dams and short out static-fields and who knows what. That one on the board was sitting in her MI for God knows how long, and it never even peeped until she'd figured out Seppuku. They're attacking a lot of targets through the network, and they need the network to get to them."

She looked into the darkness, past the telemetry panel, past the faint shimmer of reflecting membrane. Ricketts's head was a dim crescent, its edges rough and smooth in equal measure: outlined hints of disheveled hair and contoured plastic. She couldn't see his face. The headset would have covered his eyes even if her caps had been in. His body was an invisible suggestion of dark mass, too distant for the meager light of the display. It did not move.

She continued: "The shredders try to crash everything they can get their teeth into, so we just assume that whoever bred them wants them to succeed. But I think they're counting on the firewalls and the—exorcists, right...?"

"Right."

"Maybe they're counting on those defenses to hold. Maybe they don't want the network to collapse because they use it themselves. Maybe they just send the—the shredders out to kick up mud and noise, and keep everyone busy so they can sneak around and do their own thing without getting noticed."

She waited for him to take the bait.

Finally: "Big twisted story."

"Yeah. It is."

"But Shredders still shred everything. And breeders not here to ask. So no way to tell."