She found her alcove in the crowded, basement-level common area: two basic chairs and a circular table big enough for back-to-back screens. Welga ignored the physical interface and grabbed a network tether for her wrist. News alerts kept popping up in the center of her visual. Welga moved the distractions to the upper left. She entered the code word to bring up the live joint intelligence report, which incorporated information from domestic and foreign sources. The agency’s WAI compiled the document as reports came in, and the page count ticked up every few seconds.

The Machinehood had attacked at multiple raw-material sites around the world, and the timing had enough gaps for travel. The same operatives could have caused more than one incident; however, the analysts hadn’t found any obvious names from sub-orb or regular flight passenger lists. The report also confirmed that the Machinehood had camouflage technology. No surprise. Welga had seen it firsthand. That meant that their faces weren’t known unless they were dead. They could wear regular clothes and travel like humans. I wish I had a recording of the one that I saw.

Welga skimmed past the details of the domestic strikes. She’d witnessed two of the Machinehood’s attacks personally. Did it mean anything? You two again, the operative had said. They recognized her from the first attack, but they hadn’t expected her at the refinery. A coincidence, then.

No usable genetic material had been left at any site. The explosions had burned away most of the blood, and what remained had decomposed faster than average—another technology the world hadn’t seen before. Unless some other shield had thought to steal a sample, hers was the only one in the world. Not just lucky, damn lucky. The electromechanical organs hadn’t survived, either. The lab techs had started analysis of the smart-metal. Not totally unknown stuff, but the details were in a different compartment that she couldn’t access.

Welga glanced at the small container of hexagonal yellow pills, about two millimeters wide, on her table: flow. Every alcove had them, since any analyst would need them for their work. They’d expect her to observe her restriction, one she’d been used to for the past two decades.

“I will not have my bad genes lead to your deaths, too,” her mother had declared on her deathbed.