We never did Hub maints. Or had to open the main server! So I had to just figure this out. There’s got to be a way to open it. The cube was half my height, even with my hip. Long as my arm on each side. And, smooth glass. No metal plate to catch a code.

I carefully looked on each side. Nothing.

Maybe brute force. All the mechs are working the first room. Nothings broken in here. Yet.

Rows of biomes neatly sat with clear tubes going from one to the next. They look open, but it’s all capped off with containments.

I lifted one and threw it at the cube. It stopped and floated back into place. Maints are automated here? That’s a problem!

So, I pulled tubes out. Stuck my hand in and stirred. Lights flickered. Went down the line and shoved my hand into each one. Knocked one off and it broke! So why couldn’t I damage the server?

A mech came in and I dropped a biome on it. Biome media leaked out where the spider-like legs joined.

Another one came. As they came, I dropped biomes, until I was shaky and sweaty and half the room was full of glass shards and blue goo.

I waved up the progs again. Studied. I could get a prog screen to write. I shoved the nearest biome onto the floor and sat on the shelf. What can I do?

The lights were flickering, so I did some damage. This is a weapons facility. Can I design a weapon?

I thought of Mican. He’s an enemy. But there’s a security prog.

If I activate it, it might stop me. No go. But why isn’t it running?

I looked in there where I left Mican. All these walls are clear. His ship’s gone. He’s gone. Now I felt nervous! Did it repair his ship?

How big is this place? I opened the next door. And the next. This is much larger than any facility I ever saw! Even on Elshar Mashai where the Alliance HQ is! The thought came to me, Unified servers are much larger than Alliance, and they have extra capacity to be expanded. What if they expanded it beyond a normal server, or even a Hub? Numbers ran through my head.

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Servers have limits. You overload them, your server goes down! I ran every prog on the menu, then wrote a very bad prog, like a beginner. A prog to manufacture. Maintenance mechs. A first aid mech to carry Farley for me. I sent it to him. Suits. Biomes for replacement. And data seeding for the new biomes. But, when you write those kind of progs, mistakes will kill the data instead of fixing your problem. I want to kill data!

So I had the mechs clean the biomes. There are very strong sterilizing chemicals that will kill any algae, no matter how its bred to resist that. I wrote it as if I were writing it for Esteerr. That’s about the most hostile environment for living servers known. And I had to do this in one of my classes. The simulation was, what if you were captured by a slaver and had to bring down his slaver server? They are Alliance. They use our progs. How would you do it?

I wrote it as I did for that class, and I was added to the curriculum because of how I wrote it. If I can recreate it from memory! I worked on it for weeks, and had access to a lot of databases on how to do parts of it. Diplomats have to know some of the same stuff biome engineers study, for operative work. You learn a bit of everything.

The first aid mech came back with Farley. He wasn’t shaking. “Farley, you okay, Love?” I tried to lift his arm. Stasis. I didn’t want to let go but I can’t use the prog screen with frostbite!

I had a good cry. Wrote a lock prog for the door.

At times, I just wanted to give up! But, I have to finish. So Mican can’t win. My utter hatred of Mican pushed me on. One routine at a time. A few lines of code to do one task. That’s how any prog is written. Sometimes you can’t see the big picture--

But, in my telepathy, I saw the lines. Connecting lines between one module of code and another. They have colors. This is like what happened with the healer progs! I can see the big picture!

I made a first aid mech to hold me and a warm containment so I could hold my husband. He’s frozen. He died. He can’t feel me near him. But like a kid with a surreal teddy bear, I had to have him near me.

I woke up from a dream that Farley and I walked in a garden. It was so real!

I didn’t search the facility to look for Mican. It’s a mistake. I know it is. But I worked on the prog. I knew where I needed to go with this. I saw the connections, the most part of the prog. I can do this. For Farley. So Mican can’t win!

Finally, I got enough written to test. I waved. Nothing. Nothing?