The dakini appeared on the large screen, and the room fell silent. The prisoner’s expression was bland. She looks… young. Vulnerable. Welga had expected someone with the confident smirk of a soldier, but Khandro resembled a teenager more than a veteran.

The director turned to face the crowd. “Ninety percent of the world’s high-altitude drones are down. Sixty percent of communications satellites are out, too. We have old cables that we can use to talk to the UK, France, Japan, and China directly. Those countries have lines out to others in Asia and Europe. They know we have this Machinehood operative in custody. Thanks to Agents Ramírez and Olafson, we are the only nation in the world—that we know of—to have a live capture. I know you’re all burning with questions, but we’re doing things the old-fashioned way, no comms to those agents while they’re in the room. The camera feed is the only concession.”

The interrogators identified themselves, the date, and the location, then asked, “What is your name?”

“Khandro.”

“Where do you live?”

“One.”

A collective gasp rippled through the room.

“Eko-Yi!” someone yelled from the back.

The director flicked a new section of the general analysis report to Welga. “Eka and yi mean one in Sanskrit and Mandarin.”

That confirmed the suspicion that the station colony supported the Machinehood. While she and Olafson had been chasing down Dr. Smith, Operation Organica’s analysts had reviewed her notes and the connection between Smith and Josephine Lee. They had leapfrogged several steps ahead. That goddamn stella crash had cost her and Olafson hours of missed developments.

Olafson slipped a tether over his wrist and began entering notes from their excursion into a report. Welga could see the director’s focus shift back and forth from screen to visual, keeping track of both sets of information as they came in. She did the same, augmenting Olafson’s information with her own point of view as necessary.

“Why did you attack Jane Santiago?” the interrogator continued, failing to follow up on the connection to the space station.

People around Welga groaned at the missed opportunity.

“Her people attacked me, and I defended myself. We believe that she is responsible for crimes against human- and machine-kind. We believe that the governments of Earth have failed to protect their people from criminals like her.”

“Are you human or AI?”

“I am both.”

The second agent spoke. “In what ways are you human?”

“I have a mother and father. I was born into the world, like you. I have a soul.”

“And what makes you an AI?”

“My body contains a collection of machine intelligences. We coexist.”