The Last Orbit: Project Ara

51: Dismantle #BlueGrid

Gus was in. He now not only had the whitecoat but also a visual on the project itself. Wes had let him into the lab - his files, the prototype, the binaries in transformation, all of it.

Roxanne was at theScript when she finally got the alert - Gus leaving his signature on the confidentiality agreement. He didn't have to tell her anything, she could access his wristcom whenever she wanted to and without leaving her signature behind. The GoldGrid will never know, thought Roxanne as she scrolled through the database to match the confidentiality agreement signed with the identity of the whitecoat.

Once she had the whitecoat's name she sent Hala a request to meet. The node she had been working on was waiting. Roxanne got back to updating his program. As hard as she tried to keep her fingers on the keys, she couldn't stop herself from scratching her back. And every time she did, she could feel herself taking off patches of skin, pus oozing out, spots of blood here and there. Her back was a painful mess.

She had spent hours in bed with nothing but her own mind to console her. Trying to be strong while putting in a good amount of time at theScript, she was hiding a mess under layers of clothes - knowing full well she couldn't risk anyone seeing the state she was in. At this point, she was hanging by a thread, afraid if her situation didn't change, she would break.

Knowing she could no longer go on like this, she made a decision - she was going to get what she needed. If Hala's target was only ever to keep her functioning through the next few time frames, she was no longer going to serve her.

The mess left behind by theDefaulters from their raid of the bins had been reported. Si instructed they increase security and the bluecoat in the bin at the time, be held accountable. She also sent a command to increase the production and supply of green pills to theCage, by twenty five percent. It was not the response Hala had expected. Lilly was still somewhere in theCage yet instead of taking up Zlatan on his offer to send in more bots, Si had given theDefaulters what they had asked for. She wondered if it had anything to do with the binary K33.

Hala put in the order and studied the numbers. Zlaten's vision of spiking negativity and chaos through the abuse of the black pill had not yet been realized. He wanted her to However with Si's razor-sharp focus on theCage, changing the numbers wasn't a viable move, at least not for the next few time frames.

Roxanne looked up at the glass box under the tip of the dome. She was at thePlantation to see Hala. With all the binaries and machines at work, she felt safe meeting her here. As she made her way to the glass box, she found herself wondering how Hala had inserted herself at thePlantation seeing as she wasn't human. Surely, she had replaced someone. Roxanne made a mental note of finding out who that binary was.

To her surprise, Hala was not alone - her bot was there conveniently occupied by the streams of data flowing into multiple screens across the walls of the box. She looked different from the last time she had seen her. Although Hala was still wearing her signature blood red suit, she looked taller, and her white pixie cut looked fuller. She also had a smudge of dark red round her cold grey eyes and dark red lips.

"I have what you asked for," said Roxanne. She glanced nervously at the humanoid wondering why Hala hadn't sent it away.

Hala looked at her wristcom, as Roxanne swiped the file in her direction.

"It's not enough," said Hala, her tone flat and expression lethal.

Roxanne swallowed hard. "I want something in return."

"You're already getting something in return."

"It's not enough."

Hala sensed the attempt at confidence and immediately moved to rip it apart before it got a chance to grow. She moved in at lightning speed, grabbed Roxanne's finger and twisted it, just enough to get the message across. "I'll take one of these, each time you fail to give me what I ask for."

Roxanne shrieked. Wide eyed she stumbled back. Hala had already dismissed her and had gotten back to analyzing the data. And at no point did the humanoid even look in her direction.

But Roxanne didn't leave. As frightened as she was, she stood her ground and it worked. Mildly intrigued by her attempt to negotiate, Hala decided to give the binary a chance to speak.