Before Paul could start the series of minigames again, there was a knock on the door. Paul looked at me. I just shrugged. There was another knock at the door, but it was more assertive this time. "Who is it?" Paul called out. "It is the head librarian of the safehouse. May we come in?" the familiar voice said. I looked at Paul and said "It certainly sounds like one of the PEP units from the library." He looked from the door to 10-001 and back again. He just sighed and unplugged the new laptop from the helpless android. "Just a minute. We have to get dressed!" he said. Once he hid the laptop under the pillow, he walked to the door. I leaned over and said "You better keep your mouth shut about the hacking. We're not playing around." He just looked terrified. The knocking at the door began again until Paul opened it up. There were 2 librarians and 05-001 standing there. 05-001 barged past Paul and lifted 10-001 over his shoulders. "C'mon, we're going back to the safehouse. Then we'll regroup." I looked at the librarian. "Aren't you supposed to be neutral in these cases?" I asked her.
She nodded. "As a safehouse, we give shelter clothing and repairs to all PEP units that need it. Now that we have reached the AEP and PEA stages, we now offer our full range of services to them as well. We do not get involved in interpersonal conflict between clans." she explained. "Since their expressed goal is to kill off all of the humans in the clans, won't that cause a major disturbance." I said. She looked at me. "If you need medical care, you can go to the hospital. I'm sure they are trained to deal with human injuries." I guess I miscalculated. I thought they would be able to put a stop to this mission of theirs. Instead, they seemed content to sit back and watch us fight. I shrugged and said "Okay. Then why are you even here? Us detaining a hostile agent is the definition of and interpersonal conflict." I asked them. The librarian then adjusted her glasses. "It would be one, but AEP designation 05-001 has reported that you may be hacking and torturing designation 10-001 for information beyond your clearance as a human." I just smiled and said "I wasn't hacking. Were you, Paul?"
Paul also smiled and said "No way. Hacking is for losers!" He then lost his smile and said "Now get the fuck out of my fucking club!" They turned and left without another word. As we were pretty much done with him, I sent Chad to tell the librarians that we wanted to meet and trade with the clan 10-001 came from. I instructed them not to mention that we were hacking him. They came back a bit later very concerned and panicked. "We have to give up the info we have! Right now!" Chad said. "It's going to cause a civil war!" he added. I did not understand what was going on. I told them to stop and explain it to me. He looked around the room for a second before Chad stood in front of me. Apparently, the head librarian was pissed off and slapped him around for a bit. The alien race that created them all were split into 3 factions. There were Conquerors, Researchers and Advocates. Conquerors wanted to take over the planet, capture our resources and enslave humanity. Researchers decided that the humans and the planet were interesting. They wanted samples and experiments on us.
Advocates just wanted to make peace with us and include us in an intergalactic league of the big planets. I liked that idea. It could be the jump point to other worlds to play on. Just as there were 13 types of X-frames, there were also 13 transmission hubs operating across the continent. 7 of them were for the Conqueror faction. 3 were for the Researchers to use. I guessed the Conqueror hubs would be the most hostile to humans. The other 3 were for the Advocate faction. The one nearest to us was a hub for the Researchers. That was probably why they were totally fine with humans joining. We get to further their goals and they all get to closely monitor us using our own clanmates. It was an amusing case study for them. The one near Volition Clan was probably a Conqueror hub. They were pretty misanthropic and elitist towards us in our PBJ Clan. Even when we beat them in the breeding competition. I guess I knew why now. It turned out that we already saw all of the Advocate clans. They went over to Location C. The others refused to go because a human had chose it for them.
