Stephanie soon made herself known to the others. Sandy, of course, was happy to see her again.

“Hi, mum!”, she said, slapping her on the back. “How goes it?”

Stephanie, to her amazement, ignored her completely.

Hurt, Sandy went to walk away.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was you doing this”, Stephanie said. “You always hated your little brother. It’s why you got Lisa to turn him into a girl in the first place.”

“Mum, please!”, said Sandy. “You know I’d do anything for Shan.”

“For Shan, yes”, Stephanie said, “but not Sam, as ‘she’ was before. You’ve always hated him, and that won’t change. Perhaps, subconsciously, you are doing this.”

Sandy shivered. “You’re as sadistic and twisted as ever”, she said.

“Why thank you”, Stephanie said. “That’s the first time you’ve paid me a compliment for ages.”

“It wasn’t meant to be…”, Sandy muttered, walking away.

“I’ll need to keep an eye on her…”, said Stephanie, quietly.

Finding an empty desk in one of the offices, Stephanie went to work.

Hours later, Stephanie had drawn a real blank. The attacks were so methodical, so unexpected that there was absolutely no clue to the perpetrator. Stephanie next reviewed the full list of maids, as well as where they were currently working. Was it someone trying to get a friend or family member released?

Shan had given Stephanie access to Stacey’s computers, and she had the full list. She also knew about L1, the university student with brain damage. This gave her an idea…

Lisa was sitting up in the medical bay, reading.

“You and Shan managed to create a complete personality for someone, didn’t you?”

“Yes, why?”, said Lisa, shifting painfully on her cot.

“As part of the initial experiment, did you record anyone else?”

“Come to think of it, yes, we did. Stacey used her… Stacey!”

“My thinking exactly”, said Stephanie. “How perfect was the database?”

“From Samoto’s standpoint, perfect. It’s everything Stacey did or knew since she started here. The system also has access to all her notes and research papers. Only thing she won’t have is a personality, and even that might rebuild once she’s ‘rebooted’…”

Lisa leaned over and explained to Stephanie how to fit the programming rig onto Stacey. Luckily, she was still conscious, just unresponsive, so the programming rig should still work. It had been unnerving people how she could just be lying there staring off into space like that…

The rig now fitted, Stephanie called in Sandy to help with the reload.

Coached by Lisa, the pair loaded the files relating to Stacey into the AI, making sure every piece of info was available to it.

Taking a deep breath, Stephanie pressed the activation button…

For hours, nothing seemed to be happening.

There was no reaction to the lights of the programming rig, or movement from the sounds.

Then Stacey sat up on the cot…

Removing the rig, Stacey stared at Sandy and Lisa, completely ignoring Stephanie to start with.

“Took you damn long enough…”, she said. She then saw Stephanie for the first time. “Who’s the sexy broad?”

Taken aback, Stephanie replied, “This ‘broad’ just saved your life, sister! A bit more respect would be appreciated!” She did, however, completely defuse the situation, by bending down and kissing Stacey.

“Nice to meet you at last”, she said, holding out her hand. “Stephanie Hillier.”

Stacey looked at Sandy.

“My mum”, said Sandy, simply. “Shan’s mum, and your new chief of security, just in case you wondered. She’s also a genius with computers.”

Shan then walked into the medical bay, ostensibly to check up on Lisa. She saw Stacey sitting up, and cried…

“My mind had shut down due to the torture”, Stacey told them all later. “It had given me a form of locked-in syndrome, trapping me in my own body. Someone started feeding my life history back into me, presumably you two, and it sort of signalled that it was ‘safe to come out’.”

She then turned to Lisa.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Paralysed from the waist down”, said Lisa, simply.

“Shit…”

Stacey was exhausted, so she settled back down on the cot and was soon asleep again. She would try and help the others find the attacker but, right now, she was too tired to do anything.

She was also the best person to research the maid ‘problem’, as Stephanie had already deduced.

She suddenly remembered that they had kept the helmet that she had been sealed in, as well as the rest of the kit.

Perhaps there was a clue there.

For a moment, she wondered whether she was still wearing the helmet, and this rescue was the hallucination. Then, she decided she was too tired to care and settled back down on the cot. She was asleep within minutes…