Margaret's body is somehow the best and most functional body in this entire facility and that's messed up even by her currently lowered standards!

The final stairs are reached at least, and Margaret's back in the cargo area. "You got it, Margaret," Catherine says. "Good job. Now we can see if we can find anything about the security cypher to get to the DUNBAT."

"Right. Yes."

She goes back up to the research lab and starts poking the computers that was complaining about lack of network again.

"There was a person in a coma down there," she says hollowly. "Covered in structure gel."

"Alive? The last messages in the system are from four months ago," Catherine says.

"Breathing, at least. I don't know if--there was anything left of them."

"Wow," Catherine says.

The two computers in the research lab and the one in the scan lab contain active data displays now. The one in the scan lab contains a list of locally stored resources: a scan of Imogene Reed and Guy Konrad, and a set of virtual environments: a beach, a copy of the scan room, a water floatation sensory isolation tank. The research lab's two computers look to be a work computer, and a simulation setup console, with inputs for two data chips, neither currently connected. The work computer contains, among other things, a schedule of scans--and a list of suicides.

Chun, Catherine [Jul 4]

Ivashkin, Nicolai [Jul 5]

Hill, Jasper [Jul 6]

Lindwall, Sarah [Jul 7]

Pedersen, Ian [Jul 8]

Wolchezk, Heather [Jul 10]

Sarang, Mark [Jul 12] ((Suicide))

ARK Project on hold as Strohmeir investigates the death of Sarang.

Alvaro, Emily [Jul 31]

Reed, Imogen [Jul 31]

Meuron, Louise [Aug 1] ((Suicide))

Davis, Jessica [Aug 3]

Strasky, Peter [Aug 4]

Grau, Nathan [Aug 5] ((Suicide))

Komorebi, Maggie [Aug 8]

Masters, Nadine [Aug 9]

Hart, Vanessa [Aug 10]

Fourqurean, Keith [Aug 11]

Finley, Gavin [Aug 12] ((Suicide))

Rogers, Baxter [Aug 17]

Josic, Chris [Aug 18]

Goya, Javid [Aug 19]

Krier, Astrid [Aug 20] ((Suicide))

Koster, Alice [Aug 24]

Wan, Brandon [Aug 25]

Bass, Robin [Aug 26] ((Suicide))

Strohmeier reprimanded me - one more death and we're out.

Cronstedt, Dorian [Aug 29]

Fisher, Martin [Aug 30]

Jonsdottir, Vigdis [Aug 31]

Frost, Matthew [Sep 1]

Konrad, Guy [Sep 7] ((Suicide))

ARK project on hold - indefinitely.

Under scheduled scans is another list of names:  Joaquin Defreine, John Strohmeier, Richard Thabo, Jane Adams, Aashish Shankar, Marishika Daviau, and Shawn Evans.

"I found a list of everyone you scanned." She reads it off, including the notes about the suicides.

"Sarang, he had something to do with this? I always thought he knew better than that. He seemed like the only person who got it deeply, other than Reed," Catherine says. "But...there were only seven left? Damnit, Strohmeier. August was months before they had the issues the logs are talking about here, they left it that long?"

"Yeah." She wishes she had something better to say. "I'm sorry."

It looks like Strohmeier was a casualty of his own hesitation. She should maybe have some kind of emotion about that but it isn't happening.

Catherine sighs. "Until we launch the ark, none of them...none of us are really safe, anyway. We need to stay focused on that. If there's no one around to ask in person, is there anything left in the scan library? I had some offline backups planned off the research room, maybe we have something on chip still from when I was copying them to the ARK. If part of the security team is on there, they might know the cypher."

"There's Imogene Reed and Guy Konrad; would either of them have known?"

"No, I doubt it. Reed was a mechatronics engineer, and Konrad was a wrangler here. Neither of them would be likely to know much about the security setup," Catherine says.

"Would you have put copies of the scans anywhere other than the ARK?" If not, they may have done an equivalent of locking their keys in their car, except that both the keys and the car are other people's brains.

"Yeah, there should be a storage room off the research lab, I was planning to have offline backups there," Catherine says.

"Great." Off she goes to the storage room. If past Catherine was anything like present Catherine, they'll be well-organized and clearly labeled.

Perhaps they were, but the large racks of data modules seem to have suffered a rough time in the last few months. The support equipment they're plugged into here is offline, which seems to have been where the labels was, and a power line fallen from the ceiling has shorted across several banks. Finally, Margaret finds a single working chip, the size of a portable hard drive, labeled "Scan Data #12" which looks intact. It looks like it'd fit the slot on the simulation computer nearby in the research lab.

She plugs it in and brings up the file system while asking Catherine, "What names should I be looking for here?"

"I'm not sure, anyone on the security team is worth a shot," Catherine says. "Cronstedt, Overseer Fourqueen, maybe, or Grau? Or one of the Warnglers, Strohmeier could pull them in if he needed a little muscle to break something up."

The sim computer pulls up a message "Loading: Slot 2: Scans" for a moment, then shows a list:

That turns out to be a useful list compared to Catherine's suggestions. Lindwall's a payload technician, Sarang an intelligence analyst and data scientist, Bass a field service technician, Koster a payload engineer, Wolchezk a site service engineer, Strasky a dispatcher, and Komorebi a medical expert...but Brandon Wan was a wrangler, apparently seconded to Strohmeier after arriving as a "refugee" from Delta, another site Margaret hasn't visited yet.

"Looks like our best bet is Brandon Wan. Important question: are the people in the ARK already conscious?"

"Right now? Hard to say. I don't know if it's active," Catherine says.

"Okay. Well, we might end up with two Brandons--and two Robins--but if you're sure there's no other way forward I'll run him."

She's trying hard not to freak out about this. It's not that she expects having two of Brandon to cause any horrible trouble, but she can't ask him in advance and it would be so reasonable of him to be mad at her about it.

"Well, we shouldn't need to run Robin, and we'd only have an extra Brandon as long as we keep him running," Catherine says. "He's still in the ARK either way, this would just be...a spare copy for a while to help get the ARK launched."

"I told the Robin in my pocket I'd run her at least long enough to tell her if she was in the ARK or not. I guess we can't know what Brandon wants until we ask him, but we shouldn't fork someone without being prepared for the possibility that both forks will want to live."

"If he wants to, sure," Catherine says.