She walks up to the door, lifts her foot, pulls it back, and then kicks out. 

The door flies off the frame, shattering on something beyond. The Courser does not wait for that, but charges inside, looking around for the synth.

Thek hears the door shatter upstairs. "No! I'm not done!" She whispers to herself. 

She analyses the broken synth in front of her. Still so much left to be put back together, and no one around knew how to do it right. She couldn't just...leave him!

The man takes her hand between his skeletal ones. "If you have to run, run. I'll be here when you get back." His half-finished mouth curls into a comforting smile. Thek shakes her head. "Thek, you don't know if you can stop a Courser." 

"We'll find out, won't we?" Thek says stubbornly and gets back to reattaching his leg.

The Courser can hear voices. Coming from below. They knew she was here, so the basement wasn't soundproofed. Means there is no need to attempt secrecy.

The Courser lifts her foot once more, this time aiming for the floor above the voices.

"Eep!" Thek yelps when a foot comes through her ceiling.

"Go, Thek!" Fredrick says, pushing her away, but Thek just clambers onto the table to shield his body with her own, just in time for debris to start falling.

The Courser is kicking its way through the floor. Rude.

Once the hole was sufficiently wide enough, the Courser simply falls through, landing easily on her feet.

"T6-59," she says.

Thek looks up but remains crouched over Fredrick.

"You can wait there, I've got to fix his leg."

"This is not a negotiation."

The Courser takes out a gun, already set to paralyze, and levels it at the runaway.

She goes to fire but-

Thek throws her hand out, desperately hoping this works.

It does.

The Courser can't move.

Thek peeks out of one eye, then both eyes open hugely.  "Oh. Well."

Fredrick laughs, sounding mostly relieved. "Well then!"

Thek doesn't laugh, but she does grin.

"Apparently my super-hacking covers all synths. You'd think the Institute would make sure their secret police were protected," she says.

The Courser glares furiously at her.

In all the Courser's time hunting synths, she had never been defeated. Never.

Thek hops off the table, squinting at the Courser. "Would you mind waiting a few minutes, Fred? I wanna investigate her."

Fredrick waves his hand. "Go right ahead. I'm not going anywhere."

Thek gets a bit closer, wiggling her fingers. It may not actually do anything, but it makes her feel like she's hacking quicker.

"K9-56, huh? Do you think they knew they were giving you a number that sounds like a dog?"

The Courser continues to glare.

"K9? Kay-nine? Canine? No?" Thek pouts. "No sense of humour in this one."

Information flies through Thek's brain, but she sees every scrap of it.

"You've taken some time trying to find me. I did my job pretty well, then."

A slight flinch, like the Courser is fighting back.

Thek redoubles her control, focusing on keeping K9 rooted to the spot.

"Okay, maaaaaaybe I underestimated how much the Institute programs into you lot."

Then, through her digging, Thek finds a tiny line of code. Like a glitch in the system, but it feels like-

It feels like warmth?

K9-56 can't find anyway to get out of T6-59's control. How did the synth become so powerful?

"Practice," Thek replies.

She ignores the look of scorn the Courser sends her, focused on the tiny line of code. She pulls it gently up through the vicious Institute firewalls, cradling it like a baby bird.

tiredtiredtiredtiredtiredtiredtired

"Why?"

mustbemorethanthismorethanmurdermorethancold

"They don't like that you question their orders, do they?"

iwanttobe-

"Want to be what?"