She and Gabe had determined that it would be easiest and safest for all parties to transmit the plan information to Icarus electronically. Physical contact would never be necessary, and Sol felt comfortably capable of erasing all signs of their presence in the computer system - and an analyst spending time at her desk was far less conspicuous than an analyst wandering around the station and poking into places she wasn't supposed to be.

Any delving into restricted areas was left up to Gabe. He was much better at it, and he never failed to remember the smallest detail of what he'd seen, where he'd stepped, what he'd moved, what he'd touched.

The computer beeped response and Sol opened the new message from Icarus.

Sol checked her desk for the time. Fifteen minutes past the hour - her orientation with the IA security official was in half an hour, and she'd already done all the communicating with Icarus that they needed to do. Not bad, Harrison. Let's not be late.

Hale could surely become accustomed to defeat.

The first level of security was entirely automated, and politely asked her for a password. The previous script had called for a leisurely bypass, but now she simply sidestepped the request and entered.

"Harrison, is it? One of the analysts from the Command School?"

"Yes, sir."

"...are you sure?"

The security program immediately sent notification to host, and Sol went with it, following the hops and quietly slowing it down. Instead of milliseconds, it took almost a full minute for it to return to the main server, and by then she had control over it. When she arrived, she earnestly informed the program that there had been an unauthorized request for access, and provided a sufficiently distant server as the location of the breach. The program obediently allocated resources to locate the intruder, and Sol slipped down into the root directory unnoticed.

"They sent you together."

"..."

"And you think I'm going to let you leave."

The system was more complex here, and she had to try more than once to access the higher levels. A bad time to be clumsy; at this access, any failed attempts were reported automatically. They're probably just dumping to a log file. Just get it done. She wasted a few precious moments initiating some diversionary prodding, choosing sites far enough away on the network to would generate traffic and extend processing response time and still call on the local resources. The going was harder, and her work became less scalpel and more sledge as she forced herself to move faster.

"I know what you did."

"We didn't know what else to do."

"Four years is a long time."

"Yes."

"Four hours isn't."

"...no."

She was browsing the directories so quickly she almost missed it, had to back up and redisplay. All but two of her prods had been disabled now - she wouldn't be able to use this desk much longer. That didn't concern her unduly, but fighting her way back into the system would be problematic at best.

"He's here with you."

"Yes."

"Then take him with you. Leave. And don't ever come back here again."

The listing for the appropriate directory came up, and, at long last, the files began to come through. She filtered them into a dummy directory on the temporary server, and then into the folder Icarus had specified. For a corporate system, it was running pretty slowly. Wonder why. Maybe they have resource issues. The transfer completed, and she sat back and took a deep breath and counted off another 42 seconds until the intrusion countermeasure tracer tagged the desk and shut it down.

Sol promptly stood and picked up the darkened terminal and exited the room. She would dispose of it elsewhere. It wouldn't matter if they found it. It was none of Melissa Harrison's business. This desk was registered to Ami Fujino.