The camera in Wilken’s armor sent video into the team feed as Wilken moved forward. She went through the lock and into the corridor, and I noted no damage, just a few scuffs and scrapes on walls and floor, signs of normal use. Abene, Hirune, Miki, and then Brais and Ejiro followed, with Gerth bringing up the rear. I split my attention into seven streams, one for each human’s helmet camera plus Miki. I was listening in on the team feed and comm, but that was all coming through Miki, too. Abene said, “Miki, are you picking up anything?”

“No, Don Abene,” Miki said. It was scanning for signal activity from any resident systems. Since this facility had been built by GrayCris, I was expecting the kind of HubSystem and SecSystem I was used to, or something compatible. There were lots of security cameras everywhere, they just weren’t active. Miki was right, there was nothing but dead air in here, no facility feed activity despite the power for lights and environmentals.

Maybe they thought the systems would be lonely if they were left active, Rin, Miki said. What do you think?

I wondered if ART had thought I was this stupid when it had been riding around in my head. Maybe, but the chances were good that if that had been the case, ART would have said so.

That might be true, I said, because I knew now if I didn’t answer all Miki’s questions it might accidentally rat me out to the nearest human. But then I remembered this place had been meant to collapse and burn up in the atmosphere before GI had put in the claim on it. I added, GrayCris might have removed the central cores for the resident systems when they pulled out. They’d want to cut their losses. Sec- and HubSystems that could run a facility this complex would be hugely expensive. I didn’t know about GrayCris, but the company that owned me would never have left that much cash behind.

And Miki said, “Don Abene, maybe GrayCris removed the central cores for the resident systems when they pulled out. They would want to cut their losses.”

For fuck’s sake.

“That makes sense,” Hirune said. She had been poking at her comm, and added, “There’s some interference, maybe shielding? I can’t pick up the station traffic anymore, though I can still hear Kader and Vibol on our shuttle’s feed.”

Ejiro pulled a sample of the signal interference into his feed to study it. “Yes, we know the shielding’s pretty heavy, probably due to the disturbances in the atmosphere.” As if on cue, a burst of signal static blotted out the comm and feed for 1.3 seconds.

Heavy weather, Vibol commented over the comm. Watch out for rain.