Her terminal beeped. A log entry, date-stamped thirty years ago.

The reply came back as a single line:

On the screen, a single line appeared:

Her fingers flew, pasting the shutdown script from the sysadmin’s old file into the root prompt. She hit enter just as the station’s artificial gravity flickered.

PATCHED: screen 4.08.00 privilege escalation (CVE-2017-5618)

NEMATODE NEURAL CORE: SHUTDOWN CONFIRMED. PURGING.