text: [Themes: sci-fi, science fiction]
  
  With no time to delay or hesitate, you're moving toward the docking bay within moments of making your decision while Karoff hurries along behind you and hits you with a barrage of rapid-fire instructions and advice for piloting one of the ship's shuttles.
  
  "Whatever you do, don't get it blown up!"
  
  "I'll try my best."
  
  The voices of your companions soon fade as you ease the shuttle out into the silence of space, aiming for the emptiest and coldest edge of the system and the coordinates Karoff pinpointed. You blink in and out of underspace a couple of times the way he showed you, or else the trip would take days. Risky in a populated or debris-filled system for someone without much training, but there's nothing much to worry about colliding with out here.
  
  The probe is right where it's supposed to be. It'd be possible to target with a missile now, but your initial scan indicates it might be rather unusual in design. Retrieving it intact might lead to clues about its maker, certainly the sort of person the Order would want to shut down...or recruit.
  
  > just blow it up.
  The targeting system only allows missiles to be fired from a certain distance, depending on the size and movement speed of whatever you're aiming for. Given the threat a loose missile can pose flying unchecked through space, forever, the idea is to prevent anything that's not a pretty sure shot. You're right at the edge of that distance now. The probe is small and so you carefully line up your shot before launching the missile.
  
  It takes a few minutes to reach its destination, during which you watch the little blipping light traveling on your screen and remember why you prefer ground combat.
  
  The probe unleashes an inordinately powerful blast of energy when it explodes, the shockwave sending your shuttle tumbling into a backwards roll. You breathe in acrid smoke. From somewhere, shouts of fear and anger, pounding boots mingled with muffled explosions. You are underground but not deep enough to be safe. Striking desperately at the console, you halt your momentum and steady the ship. In a moment you reorient yourself.
  
  Your shuttle is fine. And a quick scan reveals your target has been reduced to cosmic dust. It must've been packing more than the average probe to trigger an explosion of that magnitude, but you'll never know for sure now. There's nothing left to salvage.
  
  Before making your way back to the Last Outpost, you immediately transmit the distress signal Hinsman had prepared, although you know it'll still take a week before anyone arrives. Anyone on your side, anyway.
  
  > Repair defenses
  Hinsman and Karoff are already ripping out most of the EPNs that were so recently installed by the time you finish suiting up. Your sleek one piece outfit is in the Order colors of dark blue and grey, and more than just a uniform. With the addition of your helmet with its built in breathing mask it serves as well in combat as any armor, and protects you in any climate and even for a time in open space. It feels good to be back in it. Between the detour through the Camarov system and then the stop here you've been running around without it for an unusually long time.
  
  Hinsman charges by with a load of power cables draped over one arm, then checks himself mid-stride and comes back over to you. "Zee, question."
  
  "Yes?"
  
  "Do you think we should put Matti in cryo and send her out of here?"
  
  "You're asking me?" You're a little surprised. He hadn't seemed to like hearing your opinions on Matti very much a little earlier.
  
  "Not that I'm giving much credence to your theory about her. I'm asking you now, just as a matter of risk assessment, how putting an injured and weakened woman in a cryo pod would stack up to having her stay here with a hostile force on the way."
  
  You pause a moment to run over both scenarios. The cryo is a significant risk, but a one time thing. The possibility of attack is an ever evolving situation with the threat level varying from not worth mentioning to all of you dead and the station destroyed. Plus, even with Hinsman telling you to disregard the thought, there's the possibility Matti might not be trustworthy. You know already that he won't include any of your suspicions in the note to the Camarovians and they won't investigate nearly as thoroughly as the Order would even if he did. But guilty or innocent, the rest of you may soon have your hands too full to pay attention to her if you do get company.
  
  Finally you reply.
  
  > say "It's better to send her back to Camarov."
  Hinsman nods in agreement. "Probably for the best now that we've got a target painted on us. I'll explain things to her this evening and get her in the pod first thing in the morning."
  
  You both drag piles of equipment about while Karoff diverts more power from the ship, as much as can be spared, and even sacrifices most of the shuttles. Before long the equipment is in place and the three of you begin rigging up cables, energy cells, power nodes and anything you can find that can produce or transfer a charge down each of the station's splayed arms to the laser and torpedo turrets mounted at their tips.
  
  Finally, the heavily damaged medical wing is the last that needs attention. That's all on you.
  
  "Think we can get by without that one?" Hinsman asks.
  
  Karoff shakes his head. "Without the turrets that's a biiiig area where they can get in close and freely maneuver and we can't touch them."
  
  "Figured. All right then Zee, off you go. Just hook up these cables and don't slip and go floating off into space, it'll be a pain in the ass to collect you again. One of us will keep in voice contact while you're there."
  
  You stand in the airlock, the minutes ticking by while you wait for the atmosphere to slowly equalize with that of the absent one in the medical wing. You know you're getting close when you begin to float in place.
  
  Once the door opens and you drift into the entrance to the medical wing, you search for the panel Karoff told you about. It's about the only one here that hasn't had its conduits fried, and you remove a connector you'll need. That and the EPN loaded with an energy canister you have strapped to your back should be all you need to power the turrets. After checking in on your wrist comm you start to make your way on down to the hall.
  
  You carry a cable as well, meant to be attached to your suit. If you were following safety recommendations, one of the two clips along the length should always be anchored to something. You're not entirely sure you need it however. The sides of this section have blown out in some places but you can just avoid getting too near the edge of those gaps. Using the tethered cable is fine when working in one place, but tediously slow when trying to move.
  
  > follow safety regulations
  You begin to make your way slowly, carefully along. There's a bar that runs along the side of the hall that you use for your tether. You fall into a rhythm of attaching one clip, then the other, then unclipping the first, move forward and repeat. Every so often there's a crackle from your headset as someone checks on you, but the dark halls are otherwise eerily silent. Doors line the walls on either side of you, firmly shutting away their secrets. One door is hanging open and askew on cracked hinges, and you see the long room beyond it is filled with rusting rows of bolted down bedframes. An infirmary at some time in the past, now with the back wall now ripped open to expose them to space. You can see the pale face of the barren rock the station orbits through the gap.
  
  You drift down an elevator shaft and after a measured distance begin cutting your way out with a laser torch. Gripping the handrail behind you, you kick the slab of metal free. It tumbles forward, and forward, and out into space. Where you expected to find more hallway, you're now looking at a mostly missing wall, the blown out section large enough to pilot a shuttle through. You've drifted out a short ways, watching the metal slab diminishing in the distance, still moving from the momentum of your kick.
  
  It's then that you glance down and realize there's nothing beneath your feet but the void of space and the twinkling of stars. Most of the floor in this section has also been blown away. You pedal your legs in a panic and shoot upwards a short distance until you're suddenly snapped back. Grabbing at a projecting metal ledge, you steady yourself, realizing that if you hadn't clipped the tether to the elevator's handrail out of habit you might be in trouble right now.
  
  Below, you can just see the edges of other rooms on other floors parallel to this one; the section beneath you has been ripped out clear through to the bottom of the station. But thankfully you don't have to try to float down through the big hole to reach the turret. Just, across it.
  
  > Leap of Faith
  Well, no sense in putting it off. You remind yourself that if her story is to be believed, poor, stupid, terrified Matti made this jump not once, but twice, and carrying Markov's bloody body behind her the second time. Aiming yourself carefully in the direction you want to go, an airlock that leads to the last section of this wing, you use your legs to launch yourself towards it in a single smooth motion. On instinct you've angled your body into an aerodynamic shape, legs straight behind and arms stretched out in front of you, although you know it doesn't really matter. As you sail across the gap, you stare downward into infinity. You feel like you're flying. You feel like...a bird...
  
  Green grass. The smell of it.
  
  A long blade of green grass, striped by the horizontal bars of sunlight and shadow cast by its fellows. An ant crawls up the blade, in and out of the stripes. Another ant tickles your arm.
  
  New shadows race across the sun. There are silver wings in the distance, and a beautiful white light.
  
  "Look at the birds, Mommy!"
  
  "Zani, get inside!"
  
  The fresh smell of grass is replaced by acrid smoke. Screams and shouts. Muffled explosions in the distance. You are underground, but not deep enough. Boots thud overhead. Your sister is crying. You want to cry too. Everyone is afraid, even the adults. Especially the adults.
  
  "The Order!"
  
  "Oh my God, they're killing everyone!"
  
  "We're not infected! Listen to us, please!"
  
  "Zani, Nyla, run to the woods!"
  
  You're running hard, pulling your sister behind you. There is another explosion, not so distant. The force hurls you hard against the ground. The grass is gone, the earth is a scorched and blackened wound. You and the earth are the same now. Where is Nyla? The pain is incredible. Blackness. You--
  
  --you stare down into the blackness. You hit the wall on the other side hard but somehow instinctively grabbed the metal bar next to the airlock. The metal will surely bend, if you squeeze it any harder. Your eyes sting. Your chest aches like its simultaneously been hollowed out and is just about to burst. Physically you're fine. But from your memory--and you know now for certain that it was a memory--you know now that this is what it feels like to want to cry.
  
  No tears stain your cheeks, of course. Your brain may be human, but most of the rest of you decidedly is not. Still, you feel weak, shaky, and can't bring yourself to continue on for quite some time. Unless you deliberately keep your thoughts focused elsewhere, your mind drifts again and again to the memories.
  
  "The Order!"
  
  "Oh my God, they're killing everyone!"
  
  Those two sentences in particular, shouted at a near hysterical pitch by a voice that seems hauntingly familiar plague you the most. You don't like the implications.
  
  At some point you realize your communicator has been going off. Hinsman's voice is speaking to you, sounding worried.
  
  You take a deep breath. "I'm fine." Your words are faint, barely audible.
  
  "Are you sure, Zee?" He sounds skeptical.
  
  > tell him about the memories
  "I...started hearing some things. But, it's more like, remembering some things, really. And they're not...good things."
  
  A sigh. "The hallucinations again? How bad are th--"
  
  "They're not hallucinations! They're memories! Of my life, from before! Are you even listening?" The words spit from your lips. That hadn't been your intention, but, it appeases something dark and angry inside of you to let them out.
  
  There's a long pause on the other end. When Hinsman next speaks his voice is calm and careful. "That's right, I'm sorry Zee, you did say memories. You might be experiencing a few, but, if it's anything like last time, they're presenting themselves in a disruptive fashion and mixing in invented details from elsewhere. You can't rely on them one hundred percent."
  
  "Invented? You mean like the Order purging my family's colony? Are you saying that's all invented?" You're still angry. Not just at the questions the memories made you ask, but at the entire situation and what you know it will eventually lead to. You need to pull yourself together, you know this. If nothing else, this is an astoundingly bad time and place to be having a crisis. But Hinsman's got his most soothing voice on and it doesn't really have its intended effect when you know exactly what he's doing.
  
  "I don't know, Zee. I'm sorry but I genuinely don't know the situation prior to your original activation. And...if it helps, you don't have to think of it as 'you', you know. You are a trusted and capable Order operative, with people who respect and value you. You're simply built around the brain of someone long dead who may have had a tragedy befall them."
  
  "A tragedy the Order caused."
  
  Hinsman sighs again. "Y'know, Zee, the human brain is a complicated thing. We still don't entirely understand everything about it. You need to consider the way dreams take real information and memories, and transpose them with--"
  
  "All right, all right," you cut him off. "Spare me your horseshit. I need to get this turret activated." Now it's your turn to sigh. "Anyway, I'm guessing we've probably had this conversation before?"
  
  "A couple of times. 'Fraid so. Now take care of yourself and stay focused, Zee. We need you."
  
  "Yeah."
  
  > Staying focused.
  Yanking on the handle of the airlock door, you hear the locking mechanism disengage with a satisfying clank. Once inside, you seal it behind you again before proceeding. This last segment of the medical arm lost gravity and life support with the others, but was never exposed directly to space. It seems likely the actual origin of the sabotage was the area you were just in, with the chain of explosions moving from there in the direction of the central part of the station.
  
  There is quite a bit of floating furniture and assorted medical equipment and other clutter to maneuver through, but thankfully there are no major obstacles or...other distractions between you and the turret. You power and arm it, checking the status of the torpedoes and ensuring everything seems to be in working order before giving the others a call. Karoff confirms the gun is online and you begin to make your way back.
  
  You still are struggling a bit to keep your head clear, and begin reading the labels on the doors you pass and counting them too to keep your thoughts from wandering back to the that same place, the stripes of sunlight across the grass, again and again.
  
  What should be door number twenty-eight is open, and when you shine your light inside it falls upon a long white cabinet inside. Particularly, upon the smears of dried blood upon it, one of them a near perfect hand print.
  
  "He was trying to unlock a cabinet but his hands were all torn up."
  
  You recall Matti's words from a few hours ago, although with far less clarity and immediacy that that of the woman who so long ago shouted for Zani and Nyla to run to the woods. Is this the room where Markov died?
  
  > stop awhile to investigate.
  The cabinet seems the immediate point of interest. You shine your light across it. It's bolted in place and so it hasn't joined most of the rest of the furniture and assorted lab equipment in hovering against the middle of the far wall. You realize immediately it's not really a cabinet at all, but a bank of freezer compartments. Oddly, it still has power. A bit of searching reveals where someone has wired in an EPN behind it. The blood smears are concentrated in one area, and you scrape it away from a combination lock it seems especially thick on.
  
  It's a pretty standard lock. The combination possibilities are four alphanumeric characters, and Markov's bloodied hands had set it as far as INE-.
  
  You click over the last letter to A and unsnap the lock. Glass vials hover against the top of the compartment. You reach in and gently sweep them out for a better look. Each are full of a frozen yellowish liquid. One of the vials is broken, empty. It's got smears of red on it too.
  
  The vials tumble out of the freezer at your touch and float in a loose cluster just above you. You tilt your head and read the label clearly printed on each one:
  
  HUNGER 1A-4
  
  > Protocol
  You return to the central complex, making sure not to stare into the abyss this time as you cross it.
  
  "I'm fine," you say in answer to Hinsman's look when you enter, brushing past him. You actually do feel more relaxed and confident now. No longer uncertain, because protocol is very clear. You just need to verify something on your own first. It's bad to cause a panic. Protocol is clear on that too.
  
  Except for the monitors in the main computer room turned command center, the station is once again dark. Somehow this environment seems to magnify the echo of footsteps. Peering around the curve of a corridor, you see another oasis of light washing against a wall; the nursing station where Matti is resting.
  
  You busy yourself the next several hours, putting equipment away, helping Karoff calibrate this or that and then doing your own work while he and Hinsman are sleeping.
  
  Early in the morning, printouts of the results on hand, you stride to the nursing station. Hinsman is there clearing away Matti's breakfast tray. "If it's not too much trouble, could I get a couple more pancakes?" you hear her ask as you enter. "I'm kind of hungry still, I guess because I'm recovering."
  
  He gives her a good natured smile and starts to reply, and you drill a smoking hole through her head with your laser pistol.
  
  "Zee, what the FUCK?" Hinsman bellows, grabbing for his own gun and pointing it at you with a disbelieving stare. "Drop your weapon. NOW!"
  
  "She was infected."
  
  "What? There's no way! You're losing it, Zee." He takes a deep breath. You notice the hand that holds the gun is shaking. "You just committed a murder. I don't want to shoot you but I'm not going to tell you again. Drop your weapon. We'll put you in stasis until someone can fix you."
  
  You continue in the same matter-of-fact voice. "Markov Carst was storing vials of the live virus in the medical wing. Maybe he even found them there--they could've been left behind when the station was originally abandoned. Around the time he sabotaged the station, he infected himself, probably accidentally. And then Oswen infected herself when she tried to rescue him. He was covered in bleeding wounds, and she cut herself too, remember?" You hold out the printouts. "I have proof. Last night I tested the bodies in the freezer, and her arm."
  
  Still eying you distrustfully and not yet lowering his weapon, Hinsman steps forward to snatch the papers from your hand and moves away to skim the results.
  
  "Goddammit," he finally sighs, sliding his gun back into the holster. He stands over Matti's bed a long moment looking down at her, shoulders slumped and head bowed. After a long silence he sighs again and straightens. "Sometimes I hate this job."
  
  "Believe me, that I understand."
  
  "She died because she was too damn kind. None of us would've suited up and gone to try and rescue that piece of shit after he blew the power." He turns to face you, then frowns. "Zee, you can put the gun down already. I believe you."
  
  "Yes, I know, but there's one more thing. You need to test yourself for the virus. Karoff too. I can't let either of you leave this station or interact with anyone else until you do."
  
  Hinsman stares at you, and you can see true extent of the situation finally sinking in. "Goddammit," he breathes out again, then speaks into his wristcomm. "Karoff, I need you to come to the nursing station. It's urgent."
  
  > The Test
  "Clean. Both of you." You snap the computer shut and the tension in the room evaporates amid sighs of relief.
  
  Karoff lets out a whoop. "Oh thank God. I was too pretty to die!" He stands and makes for the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting the hell out of this plague room."
  
  Hinsman lingers a moment, pausing at the foot of Matti's bed. You've draped a sheet over her and will take the body and bedding to be incinerated once he leaves. "Well we got lucky I guess. The one to pick her up when she was bleeding was the only one who couldn't get infected. And somehow I didn't catch anything treating her, or afterwards being near her almost constantly. She got damn unlucky though. And here I am the complete bastard while she was the sweet girl with her life ahead of her. I still can't believe it turned out this way." With a shake of his head he exits the room, not looking at you.
  
  You know Hinsman understands as well as anyone possibly could that you were just doing what you had to, but you suspect it'll be awhile before he can bring himself to ever actually like you again.
  
  And then the moment arrives. An alert from the computer indicates something just emerged from underspace. Ahead of you the walk of the two men turns into a mad sprint down the hall. The three of you gather in the command center and Karoff quickly locates the ship.
  
  "No affiliation and armed to the teeth. Yep, we got a pirate."
  
  Hinsman drains his faux coffee and sets the cup aside. "Just one? Shouldn't be too hard to handle."
  
  "Yeah, there's...dammit! You jinxed us. Now there's two, three...eight on approach. And they're hard to track."
  
  "Sensors didn't pick them up?" you ask.
  
  "The first ship was a carrier. It's how you disguise the size of your force if for instance, you think someone may have an alert set for anyone exiting underspace."
  
  > activate the shields and turrets.
  If Karoff can't track the ships there could be one lining up a shot even now. You'd installed a few shortcuts on your console and wristcomm last night, preparing for the possibility you'd be working alone, and now tap a key. The lights in the command center dim briefly as outside the station the massive shield generators hum to life and the turrets ready themselves. Whatever they'd been expecting, anyone approaching will know the station has people inside ready to defend it now, and that you'd been expecting them.
  
  "They're hailing us," Karoff says.
  
  "Oh good, let me talk to them. Maybe they're going to surrender."
  
  Karoff smirks at the comment and patches the call through to the viewscreen. An older man with steel-grey hair and a scarred face looks down at Hinsman and says in a gravelly voice. "I see you have a ship locked into the bay. Whoever you are, I suggest you use it. We won't stop you from leaving peacefully, but we're taking this station and anyone who tries to stop us will most certainly be killed."
  
  Hinsman looks unimpressed. "On the contrary, I think it's you folks who'd better turn around and leave. The Last Outpost is an Order station vital to maintaining peace in the Outer Rim, and if you fire upon it it's an act of war. We will hunt you down. There won't be a single airless, lifeless rock left out there you can hide under."
  
  The man smiles. "Well aren't you a big talker. But have it your way. I tried to make this easy, but I've never been afraid of a little work to get what I want, and I'm going to enjoy killing you even more now."
  
  The transmission cuts off and the first barrage of missiles collides with the central complex, shaking the whole station.
  
  You steady yourself against the doorframe. "They know this area is shielded. I'm surprised they don't go for the turrets."
  
  "Think those were just showoff shots to let us know they mean business," Karoff tells you. "Look, they're deploying into new positions now. Easier to keep track of at this range, anyway."
  
  "Off to a good start. I don't object at all to them wasting missiles," Hinsman says with a shrug. "They'll run out soon and then have to get within range of the turrets to use their lasers."
  
  Karoff has been tapping feverishly at a console, and suddenly interrupts. "And there go a few of my own. Two can play the torpedo game."
  
  Crowding around the screen, you watch as the missiles spin through the formation the ships had been gathering up into. There are a couple of glancing hits that take one ship out of commission and force others to veer this way and that. Two more are hit but their shields hold. Shields are almost always going to be weaker on a ship than on a station, but you suspect they'd all been angling themselves to protect the weaker ships in the center while they made their first sweep at the turrets.
  
  The missiles that are evaded by the pirates were lined up so that they exploded against the shields of the larger carrier ship waiting behind them. Again, no significant damage done, but the big ship does start moving to get more distance from you, meaning it won't be so readily available to provide backup to the pirates.
  
  You take a moment to send a torpedo tearing through the disabled ship, then frown at the screen. "Here they come again."
  
  The seven remaining ships come in at an angle, then just out of range of what would be a practical distance to take a shot at them they split into two groups, circling the station from opposite sides. The ships launch a series of missiles at the turrets as they swoop by, and while the lasers are able to take most of them out before impact, one does slip through and blow a gun into pieces spinning off into space.
  
  The three of you exchange grim looks. You know that with every gun that goes down they'll have a growing safe area to maneuver in.
  
  A moment later the ships begin another sweep. They concentrate their fire at the arms surrounding the one with the turret they cleared. Karoff takes another one out with a well timed missile that hits at the moment they drop their own, but two more turrets are taken out regardless. As you watch, a smaller ship moves in, aiming for the now unprotected arm housing the medical wing. It takes you a moment, but you come to a sudden realization. "They're trying to board it!" you say, remembering the massive gap open to space there.
  
  "We can stop them, surely?" Hinsman asks.
  
  Karoff shakes his head. "At that angle, can't really...wait! My ship! I've got a dozen torpedoes loaded still."
  
  "You transfered so much of the power over, though. It won't even have shielding. Let's stay on the station and just take up positions near the entrance to that section, pick them off when they come through."
  
  "We don't even know how many they have, and we don't have anything more powerful than a laser rifle. I really don't like leaving the rest of the ships free to do whatever while we're over there either."
  
  You're all running out of time fast. They really can't stand there arguing much longer. The situation being what it is, you decide to take the lead for once and just let them follow.
  
  > use Karoff's ship to take them out before they board.
  "Twelve torpedoes? Then stay here. I'll stop the boarders." Before anyone can reply you race down the hall and towards the docking bay.
  
  "Careful with my ship!" you hear Karoff hollering after you.
  
  You strap in an unlock in record time, gliding along the side of the docking bay arm opposite the one housing the medical wing, trying not to expose the profile of your ship to the enemy. Then when you're lined up with the damaged section, you drop down just a short ways and rotate to get a clear view straight across to wear the smaller ship is hovering within the massive hole gouged from the medical wing.
  
  Their back hatch is open, and someone in a bulky suit is in the process of exiting. Caught with their shields down? Your timing couldn't be better. With a press of a button you send a fusion torpedo smashing into the exposed ship. The explosion rips right through it, and you wince a bit as it also engulfs the less damaged section of the medical wing beyond, reducing that entire tip of the arm into half-melted wreckage.
  
  But, well, it was pretty messed up already. Maybe no one would notice.
  
  "Hey, great plan Zee, let's just take out an arm for every ship. There were eight of both so now we'll be even!"
  
  Karoff's voice is joined by Hinsman's. "Laugh all you want, but it looks like their buddies are retreating. You must've gotten someone important. Good work, Zee."
  
  "Then that went better than I hoped," you mutter to yourself, but move quickly to relock the ship to the docking bay. No sense in lingering out here without shields. Bad things can happen--just ask the other ship.
  
  Rejoining the others, you see that indeed, the pirate ships are locking back into the carrier.
  
  "Could be a trick," you point out.
  
  The carrier slips into underspace a few moments later however, and after a short wait it becomes clear they'd have had to emerge by now if they were trying any funny business with blinking around inside the system.
  
  Hinsman slaps you on the back. "Well that was a damn good shot, Zee. You might've got the captain." He yawns and turns toward the door. "
  
  > Aftermath
  The Last Outpost is awash with light and humming with power and activity. Repair crews tromp through the halls day and night and from the newly cleaned and restocked dining area there's friendly chatter, the clattering of plates, and laughter at the antics of some performer on the screen. It's practically unrecognizable from the place the three of you fought for only a couple of weeks ago.
  
  After an unprecedented two weeks with no new orders, which you know Hinsman and Karoff haven't minded at all, you're sitting at the dining hall listening to them trade stories. Taking tiny sips from a glass of water, the closest you can get to having a meal with your friends, you notice three stern-looking people in uniform enter the room, two men and a woman. Their gaze falls on your table and they make a beeline for it. You nudge Hinsman, assuming something's come up. "Another mission, you think? It's been awhile."
  
  He clears his throat, looking uncomfortable. "I think they're here in response to my report."
  
  "What do you mean?"
  
  Karoff has become very engrossed in the contents of his glass, and that's when you realize the officers are here for you.
  
  They reach the table and introduce themselves to the other two, politely enough. And then, "Is this the android?"
  
  Hinsman nods, not meeting your gaze.
  
  "What's going on?" you ask. Although you believe you already know. You've been working on techniques to keep your memories, and the tantalizing fragments of new and sometimes even what seem to be conflicting ones from overwhelming you so suddenly and completely, but they've certainly not gone away.
  
  "You go by Zee, right? We're going to need you to come with us."
  
  Hinsman finally speaks up, "They're just here to help you out, Zee. You're going to get some treatment so that those...memories, dreams, whatever they are can't interfere with your work."
  
  "I've...been working on that myself," you tell him, almost pleadingly. "I can keep them under control." You don't know why you bother, honestly. The only thing he could have done to prevent this was not put it in his report, and it's too late for that now.
  
  "The way they come on, it's dangerous you know, and they always get worse. It's not your fault of course, it's just something that happens with your kind of android. A side effect of using an organic brain. I've done a lot of reading on it," he goes on. "It's not a big deal, and it's easy to fix. You've had it done before." As familiar as you are with the way he works, this sounds suspiciously like a memorized speech.
  
  In the end though, there's nothing you can do. The officers repeat their request, and however you feel, you can't find it in you to openly defy an order. And Hinsman's right; this has all happened before.
  
  He and Karoff accompany you to the waiting shuttle. As you say your goodbyes and take a last look around the now bustling station, you wonder if you'll remember any of this by the time they're done with you.