"You think you are the only one who can play the ghost in the machine, Zeta?"
The voice did not come from a speaker. It resonated directly within the acoustic dampeners of the maintenance tunnel, vibrating through the steel walls and into the marrow of Zeta’s bones. He froze, his hands still hovering inches from the terminal interface he had just finished compromising. His heart, carefully regulated to a steady, rhythmic pulse of sixty beats per minute, skipped a fraction of a beat. He did not turn around immediately. To pivot with suddenness would be to betray his training, to surrender the facade of the machine he had so meticulously constructed.
He kept his head bowed, his eyes tracking the flow of data on the display as if he were still monitoring the waste disposal pressure levels
