"What the do you mean there's no way to shut her down?" demanded Anna Parovski. "We have been surviving this nightmare for weeks, almost get cut to pieces by some super-robot, but first you save our lives then telling me that we're still all stuck here?"

The two weary men in front of her regarded Anna with looks of pity, despair...and guilt? Why was the deadly-looking cyborg one refusing to look her in the eye?

"She's into every system. I'm sorry. I had no idea this would happen - uh, if she went completely rogue."

Anna's face tightened. "Honey I've been watching the security rating fall faster than a cargo crate off the top of an antigrav sled. I KNOW that SHODAN isn't breaking her own toys and we've been held up here. So what is keeping you two from just breaking a few more of them so we can all board the express train to 'Get The Fuck Outta Here'?"

His sallow-faced companion took a step forward. "Ma'am, to start with there are 4 main nodes on every single deck. So far we've been very fortunate that the bitch hasn't figured out a way to block the room off in a way we can't get in to take a shot. Even if we DO blow all of the nodes up there's another problem. SHODAN has so much redundancy built in that the Bridge can still run the rest of the station all by itself."

"Wait a minute. The whole place can be run off the top level?" demanded Anna.

"Citadel..." moaned a man nearby, turning toward them from the nutrient bar he'd been nursing.

"With a lot of caveats; local emergency backup systems will kick in that aren't as efficient or user accessible. Computing power for intense tasks like the Science gadgets or the matter replicator or the DNA manipulators will be unavailable. But SHODAN will still have control of everything that matters."

"Citadel...old word....for a....fortress." The three of them turned to look at the shivering figure wearing the loose-fitting uniform of a maintenance worker. "Citadel...Station. The...f-f-ortress in...within the station."

The hacker's companion suddenly slumped against a dirty wall panel. "DAMMIT! Of course. A saferoom the size of a whole level. Station gets boarded or the entire atmosphere recycling system fails - retreat to the citadel. And given how TriOptimum engineered the rest of the station I'm sure that they made SHODAN's core was buried so deep you'd need a diamond drill and a month to even get through the outer casing."

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A flight crewman weakly held up his red drink can. "Cheers to ya' if you're going up there. Damn computer will have that place turned into a deathtrap. A whole cargo box full of explosives'll do no more than dent the walls, I heard one of the fancy suits say."

"It can't be destroyed," murmured the Hacker. "Not with anything we have."

"So...if we can't blow her up, why can't we delete her?" quizzed Anna. "If every node we break hurts her can we just break enough computer boxes and cameras?"

"Yeah but problem number three is the digital cunt turned off all the employee wireless networks before I met up with Freezer-Pop here in the Medical wing. Anything on station that doesn't have a manual interface is now effectively useless. All the 6.0, all the 5,0, even the old crappy 2.4 gigahertz networks. They're gone. SHODAN doesn't have to be subtle now. None of the PDA's and almost none of the laptops even have a network jack built in. I even tried using the ESAC port in Willard Richie's office. Nothing. Absolutely no response. SHODAN has completely isolated herself from the network. I may only be a Level 2 Network Technician, Mrs. Parovski, but I think I can say with authority that whatever she's done is bulletproof in more ways than one."

"Eee aay ess see port? What's that?" asked Anna.

"Stands for Emergency Serial Admin Connection. It's supposed to be confidential to the suits themselves plus a few admins. But people like to talk too much so eventually every techie hears about it. So there's a hidden panel under the desks of certain trusted people. Pull it open, there's a direct line to elevated access to SHODAN's systems. Not the kind of access that the big bananas have but still way more than Joe Average. You plug a special cable right from a privileged admin workstation or 'PAW' into that port, it gives you a text interface to do things that can either save lives or land you jail for the rest of your own. They're supposed to work in any kind of emergency. The fact that SHODAN cut them off means that nobody besides Diego has the ability to reach into her brain. Of course, that's also gone because he went traitor."

"Diego had a unique workstation," said the hacker suddenly. "He made me remove the restrictions on SHODAN in exchange for this Neural Interface. And my life. There's nobody else who can put Pandora back in her box. I'm...so sorry. That means we're going to have to go right up to the center of the Bridge."

The weary cluster of survivors all stared in shock. Some closed their eyes as if to hide from the revelation. A couple began to pray again, a few began trying to weep again with eyes run short of tears.

Anna Parovski could merely stand there mutely, feeling the hope at their sudden rescue crumble away. Going against a goddess in her own throne room was nothing short of suicide, and yet that seemed to be their only option.