“Then I’ll get the screen handle,” said Kira. “If we’ve gotten all we’re going to get, I’d rather have it in here with us than down there by itself.”

“Take your gun,” said Heron. Her expression was unreadable in the dark, and the link, from what Kira could tell, was silent. “There might be more fish monsters.”

“Thanks,” said Kira. She checked Afa’s pulse and breathing, almost by reflex at this point, and went downstairs. The poison gas, they’d discovered, was heavier than air, so the top floor was the safest place to be. Kira turned on the flashlight on the edge of her gun, comforted to have the rifle leading the way in case anybody was actually down there. The halls were dark, the stairs empty, the building silent except for the soft sound of drips and the lapping of water. Computer towers loomed around her in the data center, casting long shadows as the beam of her flashlight danced over them. The smears of blood from the earlier battle turned the scene from eerie to menacing, and Kira walked softly, holding her breath as she passed between the monoliths. Exhaust swirled around her shins and ankles, and the air tasted bitter. She found the handle, unplugged it from the server, and retreated upstairs as fast as she dared. When she got back to their camp she sat down on her bedroll, grabbed the second screen, and plugged in the cable.

“You’re going to read it now?” asked Heron.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Good point,” said Heron, and sat down behind her, peering over her shoulder.

Kira blinked as the screen flared to life, and dialed down the brightness to a tolerable level. A small icon in the center of the screen told her it was still trying to connect to the other handle, and she held her breath as the little hexagon spun around and around and around. It paused, then spun again. “Oh, come on,” she whispered. A minute later it stopped. CONNECTION COMPLETE. She opened the download folder and scrolled through the massive list, eventually giving up and just opening the search tab. “What do I look for?”

“The Trust?” offered Heron. “RM? Expiration? Your own name?’”

Kira typed in K-I-R-A and hit search. The little hexagon spun around but returned nothing. “What?”

“Maybe you’re in there under a different name.”

“I’ll try my father.” She typed his surname: D-H-U-R-V-A-S-U-L-A. The hexagon spun again, the machine thinking quickly, and soon it was spitting out results, file after file sliding by so fast she couldn’t even read the titles. She stopped it at 3,748 results and cleared the search. “We’ll have to narrow that down, I guess. How about . . .” She thought, chewing on her lip, then typed a new word:

F-A-I-L-S-A-F-E.