The Restoration Project

Interlude III

"We need to leave now," The Scientist said, his short legs trying to keep up with Sergeant Trike's long stride as they traversed the halls outside The Scientist's lab.

"It's too dark to leave now," Sergeant Trike grumbled. The Scientist agreed—it had taken far longer to stabilize Diamond than he would have liked. Even then, Diamond's prognosis wasn't looking good.

"Since when have you been scared of the dark?" The Scientist challenged.

"Since they," Sergeant Trike said, pointing a thick finger at the Suit's tower, "are watching me like a hawk. No thanks to your actions."

"Don't blame me for your troubles," The Scientist said.

"You are my troubles!" Sergeant Trike replied.

"Listen, when we started this you knew what was involved. Those Suits are not fit to run this city. They're scared and power hungry and they're going to be the death of us all if we don't fix it," The Scientist said. He was glad Sergeant Trike stopped walking; it gave him a chance to catch his breath.

"You never said it would be like this. That I would be skulking around my own town," Sergeant Trike refuted.

"For now! This has been like, what, two days? What's two days compared to years of running this place?" The Scientist had no ambition for power and he didn't want to depose the Suits just to inherit their troubles. If that happened, in all likelihood, he would turn out just like them. No, he didn't want the power, but Sergeant Trike, for some reason, did. It made for an excellent motivator.

"I get it. And I know you want to leave now, but I can't just pull our guys together and go. It'll have to wait till morning," Sergeant Trike said, and then began striding down the hall again.

The Scientist huffed, partly out of frustration that Sergeant Trike wasn't listening to him, partly out of having to run to catch up again. "If we don't leave tonight, there's no guarantee she'll be there in the morning."

"Is there any guarantee she'll be there right now? Perry's word that they'll be at this Walther guy's place is flimsy at best. It happened almost two days ago. They could be halfway down the coast by now for all we know," Sergeant Trike replied.

"All the more reason to find out now. The longer we wait, the further away she'll get," The Scientist pointed out.

"And that's not my problem. My problem is protecting this City. This little experiment of yours doesn't pose much of a threat compared to everything else out there," Sergeant Trike said.

Sergeant Trike didn't know how wrong he was. If The Scientist's little experiment proved correct and his N3 had passed along the same coding into this woman, it meant both sides of his experiment worked. Olaf already had all the tools and parts he needed to fulfil his end of the bargain, but it was only half of the solution. Temporary control, limited by the range of the device sending the signal was one thing, but full control via the nanobots themselves was something else entirely. And a much bigger threat to anyone that opposed it.

"So what do you propose then? We just sit around and wait here till morning?" The Scientist challenged.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I recommend," Sergeant Trike replied, and stopped outside a door. "Now, do you mind?"

The Scientist followed his gaze to the door and the symbol of a man on the front. Sergeant Trike had to go to the bathroom. The Scientist took a step back and raised his hands in mock surrender. Sergeant Trike grunted and pushed the door open, disappearing inside.

The Scientist stood in the empty hallway a moment longer, staring at the closed door, unable to accept Sergeant Trike's stubbornness. His inability to see the precariousness of the situation and that, if this didn't fall their way, they would be as good as dead. He had to switch tactics.