“Welcome to the party,” Rembrandt said. He beckoned them past the barricades and armies of cops to one small door in the apartment complex. “We just finished the security sweep.”

He gestured to a humanoid machine standing by the side of the door, visibly pockmarked by repeated impacts, gunshots, and explosions.

“Meet Braig the Disarm Drone,” Rembrandt said. “Already did a full sweep of the apartment, checked it for any tripwires, sensors, pressure triggers, that kind of thing. Building looks clear.”

“What about bio-triggers?”

“What about them?”

“Kor Tekaji’s a biologist,” Corey said. “If she has traps she might have them set to trigger on biological responses like heartbeats, body temperature, that kind of thing.”

Rembrandt looked at Corey for a second and raised an angular eyebrow.

“Sounds like her thing,” Rembrandt said. “Any volunteers to go check?”

No hands went up.

“Thought so,” Rembrandt said. He held up his datapad. “Officer To Vo La Su, could you search the currently deployed officers for someone with a lot of excessive force citations? Maybe some suspicions of domestic abuse?”

“To Vo’s back to work already?”

“Already? We’ve been chasing her off with a stick for swaps now,” Rembrandt said. “We wanted her to stay hidden longer, but Annin’s spectacular failure has us low on manpower.”

“We’ll have to check in with her later,” Corey said. Doprel nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

Their recently re-remerged associate sent over a file on some of the officers present. Rembrandt selected one whose wife and kids showed up with bruises suspiciously often and sent him in first. Corey watched the cop walk in with only a slight pang of guilt.

“That feels a little unethical,” Corey said.

“Who gives a shit,” Rembrandt said.

“I like this secret agent better than the other one,” Kamak said.

“Lucky me.”

The slightly unethical action had slightly ethical results. The chosen wifebeater/cop returned from his exploratory mission without a scratch. He had patrolled the apartment, opened some drawers, and even tried to use Kor’s computer. Nothing had exploded, shot acid at him, or sprayed poison gas, so they were assuming the coast was clear. They had done every scan and test they had access to now, the only thing left was to go inside.

Kamak made it exactly three steps inside before he heard a click.

“Careless.”

Kamak agreed, but he didn’t like the source of that voice. He turned and saw that a TV screen on the living room wall had clicked to life. The glowing screen projected the purple face of Kor Tekaji right back at him.

“Relatively clever, recognizing that I might use biometric triggers,” Kor said. “But you failed to consider my sensors would use your personal vital signs as the trigger.”

“So is this trap going to melt me with acid, or what?” Kamak said. “Because I would rather deal with that than your monologuing.”

Kor Tekaji’s haughty posture broke in about two seconds. Kamak had that effect on people.

“Is this all you are? Violence and sarcasm?”

“Also drinking,” Kamak said. “That’s pretty much it. Violence, sarcasm, and drinking.”

“How did you ever achieve anything?” Kor said. She now appeared genuinely baffled. “How did you stumble your way into the kind of greatness I spent decades working towards?”

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“Probably because when I want to kill someone I just kill them instead of building elaborate traps just to talk at them,” Kamak said.

“It is more efficient,” Farsus said. “You could’ve killed us all, but instead you’ve chosen to ask ridiculous questions.”

“I’m considering raiding your fridge,” Tooley said, as she idly looked around the apparently non-lethal apartment. “You got any beer?”

From the look on her face, Kor was regretting not rigging up an acid trap right now.

“No,” Kor said, as much to herself as them. “You don’t-”

“No you don’t have any beer, or ‘no’ something else,” Tooley said.

“I am going to enjoy peeling your flesh off your face,” Kor said. “But no. You die last. Only after the entire universe sees you for the failures you really are-”

“Oh, so your plan is to turn the whole universe against us,” Corey said. “That worked out real well for the last guy who tried it.”

“I am not Morrakesh.”

“Morrakesh isn’t Morrakesh anymore either, really,” Kamak said. “Not after we got done with it.”

“Maybe you can ask the scattered subatomic particles that used to be Morrakesh for some advice,” Doprel snapped.

“Enough! I have no idea what luck or coincidence propelled you imbeciles to fame, but I am going to rewrite that legacy in blood,” Kor said.

“God, are you hearing yourself, lady? What kind of bullshit are you spouting?”

“Maybe that’s just how people from her culture talk,” Tooley said.

“No, the Belrood are fairly standard in their speech patterns,” Farsus said.

“And you think how you talk is normal?”

“Well, maybe in the context of us having a secret agent backtracing your connection to try and locate you,” Kamak said. Rembrandt had started as soon as Kor had called in, and just given Kamak the thumbs up that his work was done. “Already in the eastern sector of the Ncut galaxy, damn, you’re really booking it.”

“See you soon,” Corey said.

After a half second of bewildered staring, Kor’s connection abruptly and unsurprisingly shut down.

“Good job keeping her talking,” Rembrandt said. “Even if it was a bit unorthodox.”

“Egomaniacs love to get the last word,” Kamak said. “As long as you keep talking, so will they.”

“I am sometimes shocked how often deliberately frustrating our enemies is a valid tactic,” Farsus said.

“Sounds wrong, but what would I know, I’ve never saved the universe,” Rembrandt said. He tapped through the screen he’d been collecting information on. “Ncut galaxy, huh. Gateway to the intergalactic backwoods.”

“What the hell does she want out there?”

“A place to lie low, probably. We just finished analyzing some of the data from Annin’s mishap,” Rembrandt said. He held up a small disk in a silvery hand, and displayed a holographic image of Kor Tekaji. The graphic was overlaid with small highlights, illuminating her heart, eyes, and mouth. “She had the foresight to consult with some other genetic engineering experts, and Annin made sure her people were set up to capture biometric data.”

The highlighted areas on the hologram blinked in tandem with a series of autonomic bodily functions -her heartbeat, blinking, breathing, and other reflexive patterns.

“Even changing into another species doesn’t change everything about her body,” Rembrandt said. “Now that we have a comprehensive set of data, we can track her more easily.”

“The average security camera can analyze someones heartbeat?”

“With some assistance, yes,” Rembrandt said. “It’s just not something we usually look for, and even if it were, we had nothing to compare it to before now.”

“And so now your plan is, what?” Tooley said. “Tap into every security camera in the universe?”

“No, only the ones near people associated with males connected to you,” Rembrandt said. “Kor has a very narrow target profile.”

Kamak thought of the legion of dead officers back in the studio, and raised an eyebrow at Rembrandt.

“Under normal circumstances,” the agent admitted.

“Well, that almost sounds impressive,” Kamak said. “Almost. Kor just proved she can track the exact same kind of shit. She probably knows some way to work around it.”

“That’s why we’re focused on autonomic functions,” Ghost stressed. “These are things the brain has little to no conscious control over. The only way to alter them would be to alter her nervous sytem, which seems to be at risk of melting already.”

Their bio-scans had also picked up extensive neurological damage as a result of the gene editing Kor performed on herself. Less than would be expected for such frequent and extensive modifications, but still a considerable amount of damage.

“A cycle ago we were assuming it was impossible for someone to completely edit their DNA,” Kamak said. “I’m not taking anything for granted.”

“Fair.”

“I think the agent has a point, actually,” Farsus said. “Underneath all of Kor Tekaji’s psychoses there is an underlying ego, largely focused on her own superior intellect. She would not make direct changes to her own mind or any extension thereof.”

“Makes sense,” Kamak said. Rembrandt was more than a little offended at how quickly Kamak changed gears, but he kept his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted was more snark. “What are you thinking?”

“You are correct in that Kor will be keenly aware of this new vulnerability,” Farsus said. “But she will take other methods to circumvent it.”

“What other methods could there be?” Rembrandt said. “Every security system built in the past forty solars can track her now.”

As Rembdrandt watched, every member of the crew turned to glare at Corey. Though he would never admit it, it took Rembrandt a few seconds to catch on.

“Ah.”

“Kor Tekaji’s headed for the one place in the universe with connections to us, and a tech level low enough for her to go unnoticed,” Corey Vash said. “Earth.”