Tasìa peeked through the vent before opening it. Felicité sat alone in the break room below her.

The pulse of blue lights lit up the break room every few seconds. Thankfully, the klaxons were not on.

Tasìa studied the Argentinian woman. She was hunched over the table. TRS-80 set between her thumbs. Her head turned away, distracted.

She must be feeling out of the loop, Tasìa surmised from Felicité's body language.

If General Kutuzov, or León, or the other spook, Javier, had contacted her already, Felicité would be more engaged in her current actions.

At the moment, she just appeared to be listless and bored.

Tasìa opened the vent. Gripped the lip and pushed her way down. She closed the vent trap just enough so she could swing a thigh over and grip the side of the duct before she closed the vent all the way.

As the duct lip only jutted out of the ceiling by eight inches, it was a tightly agile maneuver she accomplished.

Tasìa somersaulted down to the floor to avoid a table beneath the vent.

Back on her feet, she approached Felicité. None of her actions caught the Argentinian's attention as the blonde was lost in deep thought.

Tasìa pulled the tiny drive disk from her pocket. She placed it in front of Felicité.

"Therein is the entire server backup data array. Mission accomplished."

Felicité stared at the card for several seconds as if she wished it would go away. She finally looked up.

"Did you meet - did you run into anyone?"

Tasìa grinned at this remark. Her assumption had been correct. No contact. Felicité had been left out of the loop.

Tasìa shrugged off the question.

"Don't be silly. How would I have met our objective then? I was in and out. Like a ghost. It helped that they appeared a bit understaffed."

Felicité muttered under her breath, "shit," voiced so supple in its delivery Tasìa would have definitely missed it if she had not expected the reaction.

"Why didn't you link me in," Felicité asked. Her tone of voice raised.

"I tried to while I was inside. They have ways of blocking anything going out that is not going out through their system."

Tasìa eyed the vending machines. She could really use a cup of coffee at the moment. She took out her ID from her breast pocket, and swiped the coffee machine.

"Even at the lowest frequencies," Felicité asked.

"Yep. I tried them all."

"Those morons," Felicité said with exasperation in her voice.

"What? I know you must be anxious having been stuck here this whole time, under these circumstances, but, Felicité, you acting - are you alright?"

Paz glanced over to the pulsing blue lights emitting from LED strips along the corridor.

"I guess not," she conceded.

Felicité grew still though her fingers were clenched together stiff. She was again lost in thought.

Tasìa wondered how long it would be before they contacted Felicité. Perhaps not at all. Perhaps, in their eyes, she had already served her part.

Tasìa changed the subject.

"So, what's going on over here," Tasìa asked. "I overheard the spooks talking about a lockdown here in Spore Isolation. "

"Some doctor attempted suicide."

Tasìa got a funny feeling. If it was merely a suicide attempt inside the SIU that would not explain what the soldiers, the dogs, and the drones were doing all over the courtyard.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Have they done a headcount? Have they noticed me gone?"

Felicité shook her head as if it took a great effort on her part to concentrate on the here and now.

"Not at all concerned about us," she murmured. "One duty officer told me to stay put here, and to tell you to do likewise when you got back from taking a shit."

She hid her concerns from Felicité with a smile.

"Nice cover."

"Thought you would appreciate it."

"So," Tasìa said as she tapped the tiny drive disk. "Do you want to put it in and see what's on it?"

With a sudden jerk of attention Felicité's hands became animated once more.

"I apologize, del Alma-Gris. I have been so out of it."

"Are you losing sleep over the hit fee?"

"'fraid so. It has really taken the wind out of my sails. I strode around the dorm like a badass. Unimpressed with the way the other women conduct themselves. The worst their reputation, the more they turned out to be bullshit.

"Then I find out, someone is willing to spend actual gold on my head. That someone has a reputation as a first-tier spook. Shit gets real, right?"

Felicité looked down at her TRS-80.

"What do we have here? The file layout has been entirely bypassed. Odd. I've known administrators who have been fired, or worse, incarcerated for far less of an infraction of due diligence than this."

Tasìa shrugged.

"It's how I found it."

"Where did you find this?"

"On the body of their IT specialist."

Tasìa could see the calculations spinning in Felicité's head by the taut frown on her face. Felicité watched her in turn with a sideways glance.

"I have to be honest with you, del Alma-Gris. I would not have guessed by your manner and your composure you have run into any dead bodies, or anything suggesting an experience of a traumatic nature. What are you made of?"

Tasìa grinned as she held her arms across her torso almost haughty in her demeanor.

"Try running a B&E crew through the abandoned mansions tucked inside the hill lands of Esconda Vida where the lethal drones and robots patrol as I have and you will see firsthand how cheap life can be.

"Which reminds me, Felicité. I brought you a gift. A little protection."

Tasìa removed the sheath from her calf. She handed Felicité the stiletto.

"Nice blade. Thank you. Quite thoughtful of you, actually."

Now Tasìa smiled, warmly. Felicité in her present mood was going to be a hard sell.

"I have some ideas on how we can extract the layout of the complex from that data array by using some relative coordinate values I verified as geometrically sound on my way back over here."

As she spoke, Tasìa watched the Argentinian's eyes glaze over.

"Felicité, this is important. I know you don't think it is relevant, now. But you need a Plan B. If Kutuzov was planning to bring you over, he would have informed you that I was on my way back. It appears to me, you have served your purpose as far as he is concerned. I'm sorry."

Felicité, otherwise exceptional in her physical appearance, made just about the ugliest face Tasìa had ever seen.

"Look. Look, Felicité. There are two things that should have you absolutely elated right now. The General is not having anything done to you because you are with me.

"Two, even without Kutuzov's assistance, we have everything we need, right here, to get us out of this shit hole."

Felicité nodded. A slackened grin crossed her face.

"So, you knew all along that I was lying to you?"

"Did you have any other choice," Tasìa asked her in turn.

"No."

"Then, don't worry about it. How we go from here is all that matters."

"All right. Let's put all of that behind us. It doesn't serve either of our interests to let it strain our professional relationship."

Tasìa put a hand on Felicité's shoulder as she leaned lower, and spoke softly.

"Felicité, have you ever heard of a file, or a project entitled, the Sigrid Rosa?"

The Argentinian nodded. Her lips squirmed.

"Yes. Yes. I have"

"It's in there. The master file for that project. I'm going to need you to decrypt it for me."

Felicité looked hesitant, pained even.

"What's the problem," Tasìa asked.

Felicité studied the view of the window in front of her for several seconds, growing more and more annoyed in her appearance with each second that passed.

"I chase after, intercept, acquire, and examine secret documents every single day. It's my lifeblood. My raison d'etre. I breathe the shit. I live for it. But, the Sigrid Rosa, Tasìa? It is another level of evil altogether. Real fucked-up-shit.

"Barely anything I come across fazes me, in the least. But that?

"I have to know why you ask me about that?"

Tasìa raised her own voice in annoyance. In spite of working things out just a moment ago, it appeared to her Felicité was ducking matters again.

"What's the problem?" She asked; her lips held tight.

"The Sigrid Rosa, Tasìa. The Preemie Harvest. You have never heard of the Preemie Harvest? If you were deep in Intel, you'd avoid like hell ever bringing that up"

Tasìa pulled out Heloïste's PA. She showed Felicité the mugshot picture of herself bearing the legend - Tasìa del Alma-Gris, the Sigrid Rosa.

Felicité's lips sputtered. "Okay. I'm confused."

The blue lights stopped pulsing in the corridor.

"We'll talk later," Felicité said. There was a glare of hostility in her eyes. "They will be coming back to escort us soon."