So, while Tasha was topping off her tank, I slipped out of the maintenance bay, past the larger bay where confused civilians were being lined up in front of a set of doors marked “Processing,” and into the metallurgy wing. My agent badge gave me sufficient clearance to access any region of the base.

But the odd thing was, there did not seem to be any people actually in the base. I checked the workshops, the smelting rooms, the laboratories—and everywhere I looked, I only found automated equipment. There were more robot arms and manipulators than I had ever seen in one place before, but no human beings. I supposed the arms were being worked by telepresence—but when I checked the base schematics, I could not find any operating booths. Needless to say, Phil was nowhere to be found either.

I stopped at an info terminal and did a search on “Phil Morton.” There wasn’t much there—just a notation with the date of the lab raid operation and the word “PROCESSED.”

Disappointed, I headed back to rejoin Tasha.