Jesse absorbed the mission parameters, her combat subroutines cataloging variables, calculating odds of success. The statistics were grim. Infiltration of a secured penthouse facility controlled by androids with unknown capabilities. Retrieval of an encryption key from a scientist who might no longer be conscious. Destruction of a weapons system that predated her own creation.
"Where's Hans Smirnov?" she asked, her scratchy voice cutting through the briefing room's silence.
Voss's expression shifted—not much, just a tightening around the eyes. Confirmation that he'd been waiting for her to ask. "Institutionalized. Black-site psychiatric facility in St. Petersburg. He's been deteriorating for years. The man who designed SENTINEL is losing his mind piece by piece."
"And the encryption receipt?"
"Missing for thirty years. Cold War dead-drop protocol. Either Smirnov still has it, or it's somewhere in the penthouse archives." Voss pulled up new holographic displays—medical records, psychological evaluations, photographs of an aging Soviet scientist whose eyes had the hollow look of someone staring into an abyss.
Jesse's neural implants processed the data stream automatically, but her human consciousness caught something the machines almost missed. Hans Smirnov had been Voss's contemporary. They'd worked together during the Cold War's final years. There was history here—the kind of history that made people make impossible decisions.
"You want me to retrieve him," Jesse said. Not a question. "Bring him back online long enough to decrypt the system."
"If necessary," Voss replied. "But priority one is stopping SENTINEL's activation sequence. Smirnov is secondary. The facility is primary. If you have to choose between them—"
"I destroy the facility," Jesse finished. She understood the calculus of black-site operations. One old man's consciousness against a weapon that could reshape global power dynamics. The math was simple. The ethics were not.
Her right hand trembled again. The neural degradation was accelerating. She could feel it now—a pressure building behind her optical implants, her human synapses struggling to keep pace with her machine processing. How much longer did she have before the distinction between her thoughts and her implants' processing became meaningless?
"Medical clearance in thirty minutes," Voss said. "Then you suit up. We deploy you to Moscow in four hours."
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