He banged against the bars a few more times, before turning away to pace.

She did an hour’s worth of work in six minutes. She put up signs to warn about the concrete and the setting tiles.

“You might be the worst of the first generation members of Cauldron,” the man in the cell said. “Because they at least seemed to think what they were doing was for a greater good. But I’ve been around just long enough to see hints of personality in what you do and how. There’s something there and… you don’t even try to be a force for good.”

Good. ‘Greater good’.

“Fuck you!” the cell’s occupant screamed. “Fuck. I’m going to be smelling those fumes for hours.

He would be fine.

There were more tasks to be done. A sweep for stowaways. A brush through the power facility. Every pass through, she tried to find the secret ways a creative person might try to enter. A shaft with power lines running through it. A water pipe with insufficient pressure.

She checked the exterior as well, and did her circuit around the crater. The facility had been built around the crater, whole sections set above, and that part had been dismantled in the heat of battle, dropped on Scion. The one part of the facility that hadn’t been rebuilt. Instead, she had damaged it further, then sealed it, to ensure that if there was a speck of alien matter behind, it would be gone. It was a column of solid metal all the way down, now.

There was no place left in her creation that she could not enter. She brushed her way through the dormitories, where the night shifts were resting, and through the kitchens, where the early morning shifts were eating and talking. Those who were in no shape to talk were being patiently fed. In the dormitories, someone was sleeping poorly, chewing on fingers until they bled without waking up. She rang a bell. In the dining hall, a pair of men were getting belligerent. Bell. The anger was gone in that moment, the fight forgotten, anger replaced by fear and alarm. They would be checked over. If there was a need, they would enjoy a long sleep, followed by waking up to the feeling of accomplishment.

Her circuit took fourteen minutes and thirty seconds. When she returned to the floor where operations were being conducted, she found oversight was there, already partway through assignments.

She brushed her way past Teacher’s beard. It had grown longer. He wore a stylized suit with a long body, draping down to the mid-thigh. A different cut from a different Earth. Latin phrases were stitched into the breast pocket, lapels, and cuffs.

“Hello, my dear,” Teacher said. He motioned. “Board.”

She was at the board before it was even picked up, working on it. She worked on it more as it was carried to Teacher.

“Almost done,” he said.