Move 21 Recap
Iawa and Sasha enter the room where Mikodez is being held; the door disappears behind them. Mikodez wakes up and asks, "Are we finally off the station?" Sasha replies, "Not yet. Ashari's monitoring the situation. I get to explain the ways you have fucked up." She lists seven crimes. The sixth is "Imsayed met you, and explained that he's your little brother. You panicked and attacked him"; the seventh is that he failed to report that Imsayed had a potentially deadly concussion. Sasha asks, "Either you are criminally negligent, or you meant to kill him. Which one is it?" Mikodez says he wouldn't attack his younger siblings, and asks, "What can I fix? I won't let the mothling go back for experiments." He adds that Remi's journals didn't use the high calendar: "That's not something that anyone should have in their possession, ever." Sasha is unimpressed, and tells the grid to begin making furniture in the room disappear. She asks again, "Why did you hide the fact that Imsayed was hurt?" Mikodez ignores the question, asking, "Did everyone's first missions include complimentary implausible clone twins, or am I just special?" Sasha answers, "I got an entire fucking ship full of people who think I'm lawful property. At least Strashik's friendly. Or did you think he was going to steal your identity, somehow? Is that why you tried to kill him?" Mikodez tries out several different responses, while watching Iawa for a reaction, including "I'm okay with him stealing my identity so long as I get to watch" and "What kind of connotation does 'Strashik' have, anyway? How did he have the time to arrange for a tryst already?" Sasha replies coldly, "I'm not sleeping with your brother, Mishka. I'll thank you not to use that language again." She has now removed all of the room's features except for the desk and chair she is using. She warns, "You still haven't explained why you didn't report that your brother was injured. You've got a finite number of chances. Ashari won't be as patient, and you'll find waiting for them very boring." She then suggests that she should do something about Mikodez' implant.
Iawa is concerned that Sasha is about to attempt amateur brain surgery, and asks what exactly she plans to do. Sasha explains that "if you don't have ideological objections to feeding the augment fake times" you can circumvent an augment's firewall, adding, "The last team I was on, there was a finance analyst who kept stealing people's lunches. We made his augment play 'Andan in the Bathtub,' on a loop." Iawa asks what Sasha intends to do once she has control of Mikodez' augment. Sasha says, "I'm going to make a backup and then revert to factory standard. If I know Shuos wannabes, the storage is going to be more or less bulging with games." Iawa says, "That sounds fair," and Sasha sets to work.
After a little while, Sasha gains control of the augment. She takes a second stimulant, then begins the process of copying files from Mikodez' augment to a suitably firewalled part of the grid. She notices that the augment has a large number of encrypted files of a standard Shuos type, and concludes that Mikodez is spying on the rebellion for the Shuos. Sasha messages Ashari, "avrayens running shuos code, come asap, you have entrance privs." She then attacks Mikodez, hoping to restrain him with the cable ties in her pocket. They fight.
Iawa, who is confused and disturbed by the sudden attack, removes two sedative patches from the first-aid kit and debates whether to flee with Mikodez or appeal to Ashari. Since there is no clear way to escape the room without Sasha's assistance, Iawa decides to sedate both Mikodez and Sasha. As Sasha slips into unconsciousness, she instructs the grid to trigger the room's sprinkler system. Iawa sedates Mikodez next; meanwhile, Sasha briefly regains consciousness and signals the grid to turn the sprinklers off again. Iawa calls Ashari, informing them that "interrogation got way out of hand" and Mikodez and Sasha will be sedated for the next five minutes. Iawa rips up a bandage and ties the hands of Mikodez and Sasha, rather sloppily.
Sasha wakes up, still confused from the influence of the sedative. She is soaking wet and shivering. She asks, "Iawa, are you Shuos too?" and then realizes that if Iawa really is a Shuos agent this question is dangerous.
