Max walked down a deserted hallway, periodically glancing down at the phone in his palm as it tracked the GPS signal from Juliana's Maskey. He had a pretty good idea of where she was headed, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure. He consciously slowed his pace as he approached the winding flight of stairs that led to the building's basement; his company kept every other ceiling light off during non-working hours as a part of their new energy efficiency initiative, and he wasn't particularly keen on falling headfirst down a dark staircase. 

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he paused in front of a large glass door mounted in a black metal frame. The words Restricted area: authorized access only were printed on it in uninviting block letters. Max unclipped his badge from his belt and swiped it in the card reader beside the door. Hearing a long beep followed by the click of a lock, he pushed the door open and stepped into a long, sterile hallway. 

The first office door on Max's right sported the name of its owner in elegant gold lettering. Dr. Madeline Faye-Thornton, Design Lead. It was made of solid, light-colored wood, in sharp contrast to the glass and white tile all around it. Max remembered his wife's insistence on having it that way. I can't work in a place that looks like a cross between a hospital and a prison! she'd protested. Max had made some counterargument about uniformity and his vision for the building's design, but Maddie eventually got her way. Maddie always got her way. 

Stopping himself before he could be overcome by thoughts of his wife, Max slowly pushed open the door to her office. Just as he'd suspected, Juliana sat in her leather office chair, staring intently at the configuration of three monitors in front of her. Even dressed in a simple white t-shirt and leggings with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, she managed to look extraordinarily put together. 

"It's awfully early for you to be down here. My day staff hasn't even clocked in yet." 

"It's not like I have anywhere better to be... or anything better to be doing," Juliana muttered monotonously without turning her eyes away from the screens. Seeing her acting so uncharacteristically apathetic filled Max with a strange fear. 

"I'd consider sleeping something better to be doing," Max offered, stepping into the office and closing the heavy door behind him. 

"Then why are you here? Does the CEO often have to show up to work before any of his employees?" 

"Not the first time I've slept in my office," Max smiled sadly. "Gosh, maybe that's what it was. I should've spent more time with her. All those nights the poor woman came home to an empty house..." 

"Sentiment," Juliana chuckled, shaking her head as she looked up at Max. "It doesn't look good on you either." 

"I don't suppose it does," Max nodded in agreement, relief washing over him as he watched a measure of life return to the queen's eyes. He walked around Maddie's desk, looking over Juliana's shoulder. "So, what are you up to?" 

"I'm looking at the blueprints for those weapons you sold Nelson. I can figure out the drones, the carcopters, and the androids from an engineering perspective, but these pattern-recognition algorithms that make them work are way above my pay grade. I wish I had Maddie or Commander Dev or someone else who specializes in these things... " 

"Hey. What are you trying to accomplish with this? Other than stressing yourself out."

"I need to understand the enemy's capabilities. It would be even better if I could find a weakness, but your wife is a genius. I don't think she's the kind of person who leaves loopholes." 

"All of her robotics designs are put together by a ten-person team of some of the best computer scientists and engineers in the country. It's ridiculous for you to expect yourself to be able to pick them apart all by yourself." 

"I think I'd have more success if I could see the actual lab." Juliana's gaze rose to the heavy, white door on the opposite side of the office. 

Max's lips tensed into a knowing smile- he'd been expecting this request. Noticing his hesitation, Juliana continued. "Don't worry- I'm not going to leak your designs. Thornton Tech is the single driving force behind Arcana's technology industry- I wouldn't sabotage my country's economy like that." She paused for a moment after the words my country, unsure of whether she even had the right to call it that anymore. No, she still held the title of Queen. Nelson was only Regent- and as long as he was only Regent, there was still hope. 

"I trust you. But business trusts no one," Max explained as he walked up to the door, pulled out his ID, and tapped it on the handle. "That's why I'm going to need to be down here with you." 

"I understand." Juliana rose from her seat with almost artificial-looking grace and followed Max through the door. Maddie's office and the lab behind it were so different that it would be impossible to predict they belonged to the same person. While the office was the definition of homely, complete with an embroidered armchair and an artificial fireplace, the lab was a warehouse-style expanse filled with state of the art computers connected via a jumble of wires to a series of machines at various stages of completeness. 

"Here," Max tapped on a square table near the door and watched as the screen embedded into its surface came to life. "Maddie keeps an interactive map of the lab running on this thing for her interns. It'll help you find what you need." 

"Thanks." Juliana looked down at the map on her screen, zooming in on the section labeled Weapons Technology. "Those drones that come with your carcopters- my lasers could barely penetrate any part of them other than the exposed cameras. Do you know what kind of metal they're made out of?"

"It's a titanium alloy, I believe- aerospace grade. It's no surprise you weren't able to cut through it. Don't ask me for the details, though. I failed physics in high school - this engineering stuff is Greek to me," Max chuckled. 

"It's not a problem." Juliana looked up from the map and smiled broadly- her first genuine smile since arriving at Thornton Tech. "According to this map, she's got samples of it over there." She made her way deeper into the facility with Max following close behind until she arrived at a U-shaped workstation with rows of drawers underneath it. Reaching into one labeled carcopter drones- March, she pulled out a square sheet of metal that measured about half a foot on each side. Setting it carefully down on the steel work surface, she tugged on her bracelet and waited for her suit to wash over her body. 

"Man, I've always wanted to see you do that in person," Max shook his head in disbelief at the now fully suited-up Juliana. "It's incredible... nanotech?" 

"Yes," Juliana smiled proudly. "Commander Dev and I realized that most of Project PROB's logistical issues stemmed from a difficulty in getting our suits on in time. Linking them to our PW's solves that problem." 

"People like you and Maddie..." Max sighed as Juliana removed one of her thick, black gloves and started cutting it open with a long pair of scissors to expose the laser shooter and its battery inside. "You see a problem and you just... fix it. You guys make me feel so incompetent." 

"Max... you run a multi-billion dollar technology company. You employ hundreds of engineers. If it weren't for people like you, people like your wife wouldn't have the resources to solve problems." Juliana finished cutting the laser shooter out of her glove and placed it on the table beside the sheet of metal. Bending over, she began to rummage through more of the drawers. 

"That's the kind of thing my mom used to say," Max replied. "She's an idealist- I have no idea how she managed to stay that way, being married to a tech billionaire for thirty years. Every time I'd go to her crying because my dad yelled at me about my deplorable grades, she'd tell me that everyone had their place in the world. That I was smart in a way school couldn't measure." 

"You don't sound like you believe her." Juliana was lining up batteries and circuit wires of various shapes and sizes on the workstation in front of her. She'd opened a spreadsheet on the desktop in front of her and was in the process of creating rows for each of the power combinations she was testing. 

"Do you?" 

"Maddie understands machines. You understand people. They only test for one of those in physics class. I think your mother has a point." 

"Well, my dad was the total opposite. He believed that the only people who matter are the people who make things. If you weren't an engineer, you were useless to him. And I can't discredit his philosophy, because... well, because whether I like it or not, it built this company." 

"E. L. Thornton," Juliana said emphatically, looking up from her work and turning around to face Max. "Self-made billionaire. Nobel laureate. Responsible for putting personal electronics in nearly every home in America. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in the shadow of a giant like that. To believe that your life won't be worth anything unless you live it exactly like he did. To preface every major decision with is this what he would have done? instead of is this what I really want to do?" 

"You're the daughter of a thousand year old dynasty. Judging from the way you're talking about it, I think you know exactly what it's like to live in a shadow," Max smiled sadly. 

"And if I'd colored inside the lines like the one thousand years of VanderSchee monarchs before me, the Order of Chance would still be a state secret and Roy, Ravenna, and I would be busy dividing Europe amongst ourselves. Sometimes, it's not so bad not to live up to expectations. Another American man taught me that," Juliana said, a nostalgic look in her eye. 

"He changed you for the better. I can see that," Max nodded in approval before a dark look came over his face. "I wish I could say the same about Maddie and myself."

"Would you stop it?" Juliana snapped. "Your wife was kidnapped. You're acting like she left you, or something. It's totally absurd... unless there's a part of the story you haven't told me." 

For a few moments, the two of them stared at each other expectantly. From the moment she arrived, Juliana had known that something was up with Max. He wasn't his usual carefree, confident self- even though he now knew that his wife was safe. With so many engineers to choose from, it made absolutely no sense that Ravenna would pick a high-profile target like Maddie Thornton. When questioned about what might make Maddie special to a cyborg, Max had been silent. All the facts suggested that he hadn't been completely forthright about his wife, and the time for diplomatically dancing around the subject was over. Juliana was going to need any information that could help her situation, and she didn't mind stepping on a few toes to get it. 

"Fine," Max inhaled sharply, realizing that Juliana wasn't going to back down. "You're right. There's something I haven't told you. I don't see how it could help, but..." 

"I'll decide how it could help," Juliana insisted. For the past couple of days, Max had been extremely open about his feelings and his past. Now, she realized that he'd been playing a game to avoid having to open up about his real secrets, and she wasn't going to allow him to hide any longer. "Please. Tell me."