text: "Andy! I've been trying to reach you since forever!" Kathy said, again in that hushed manner.
  
  "What's the matter?"
  
  "So you don't know yet," she declared.
  
  "The fire in the lab? Brendon told me. Why are you whispering?"
  
  "I'm not supposed to be talking to you. Just listen, okay? It's about Raphael."
  
  "Raphael? Good god! Was he damaged?"
  
  "There is no fire."
  
  "No fire? Then what… Oh, please don't tell me Sheng and his team are taking shortcuts again! If they've messed up the boot sequence again, I'll personally—"
  
  "It's nothing to do with the boot. It's Raphael. We can't find him."
  
  For a while, I didn't say anything.
  
  "Andy, you there?"
  
  "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
  
  "We can't find Raphael."
  
  "What do you mean you can't find him? It's not like he could have stepped out for a stroll!" Raphael did not have legs: we had removed them from the sexbot before fitting the core inside it. Like me, Raphael was confined to a wheelchair, except in his case it was permanent. "Did you check the CT room? Someone might have taken him for scanning and left him there."
  
  "Andy, you are not listening to me. We had a breakin at the lab. I don't know the details, but they think the core was taken."
  
  "The core was taken…"
  
  She whispered, "You there?"
  
  "Yes, yes, I'm here! I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. No, wait! Start over please. Somebody broke into the lab and stole Raphael?"
  
  "Just the core. They left the body behind."
  
  "You are joking right? Please tell me you are."
  
  A sigh of exasperation from the other end. "As I said, I don't have all the details. I'm just telling you what they told me."
  
  "When did this happen?"
  
  "I don't know. They are still going through the tapes."
  
  "They?"
  
  "Dan and Valery. Both are in the server room. They've locked off the entire second floor. They want to keep a lid on it until they decide what to do. Valery told me not to talk to anybody… er, including you. She was very clear about that last part. She said she was going to inform you herself."
  
  "What's Valery doing there? And how the heck does Halicom get to know about this before I do?" I said, starting to get angry.
  
  "No clue. She was here when I got in."
  
  "Who discovered the theft?"
  
  "She told me it was Sheng."
  
  "I don't frikkin' believe this! Sheng starts at six. Why didn't he call me?"
  
  "Ask him yourself. I think they've quarantined him in one of the cabins. I was about t— Hey look, I gotta go now. She just stepped out of the server room. You didn't hear this from me, okay? Wait… Is that…? Yeah, it's that lawyer fella all right. The buff guy, whatshisname. She is walking over to meet him. And guess who else is here. Your girlfriend."
  
  Jane was there? I got why Gary had to be summoned: Martinez would have called him in for legal advice. He didn't live too far away. But Jane? "She's not my—" I stopped short as the realization hit me. "Kathy, are you telling me they are having a board meeting?"
  
  "Sure looks like it."
  
  Without me. They are having a board meeting without me. My anger vanished in an instant, replaced by an icy clenching in my stomach.
  
  Shit.
  
  She had one last thing to say before hanging up. "Andy? Valery—she's up to something. She was asking me a lot of questions about Raphael. About containment and directives and logs… a bunch of other stuff. I can't go into details right now. I'd watch out if I were you."