Tom managed a grin where he was dangling, his initial worry about an AI doomsday scenario fading away, replaced by glee that he’d finally gotten his reply. “You’re here! It’s so great you’re here!” he said to the air.

STOP sending gnomes. I mean it!

Tom laughed, giddy. The hand wasn’t crushing him, just giving him a scare. “Medusa, meet me online.”

I do not want to talk to you. Stop trying to contact me.

“Online. Once. Only once. Hear me out.”

No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Mordred. Stay out of our system. If I see gnomes again, I will come back here and kill you.

“Nah, I don’t think so. You might kill me one day, but it won’t be over gnomes.”

You underestimate how annoying it is seeing them everywhere!

“No,” Tom said honestly. “I know exactly how annoying it is. But I still believe you won’t kill me over it. People kill over money and power and love, but no one kills over gnomes.”

I AM NOT JOKING!

“Neither am I. Meet me. Come talk to me, and I’ll leave you alone.”

The machine drew him up closer, so he was staring into the empty space where eyes might’ve been. You promise me one thing. Swear it to me: you won’t interface with the Citadel’s systems again. Then I’ll come.

“I swear,” Tom said.

The machine released him so abruptly, he tumbled right off the hanger and smacked to the floor. Tom pulled himself to his feet, eyes on the exosuit, but it had gone totally immobile. Medusa had left the system as quickly as she’d come.

TOM’S NEXT FLY-ALONG with Heather was supposed to be an easy mission, a milk run. It was the rare day when Vik, Tom, and Wyatt all had their fly-alongs together. A handful of American Combatants and India-based Combatants were guarding harvesters, those ships that collected hydrocarbons from the atmospheres of gaseous bodies such as the atmospheres of Jupiter’s moons.

Heather took advantage of the opportunity to pry into Tom’s thoughts.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure Enslow is the one who told Marsh what I was doing. You can tell me if it was. I want to know, she thought to him as they did a slingshot around Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.

Can’t you get over it? Tom wondered.

She ruined my career, Heather almost snarled back in his thoughts.

Heather ruined her own career, he couldn’t help thinking. Wyatt just noticed what was happening. Then he winced at what his thoughts had betrayed.

Heather thought, Ha! So it was Enslow! I’ll destroy her for this.

No, you won’t, Tom thought. Wyatt may seem like a wimp, but, trust me, you don’t wanna mess with her.