Cytronica

Twenty-eight

Saturday

The restaurant was relatively quiet. Diego stared across the table at Priya. She turned and looked at Beck, who then looked at Jiaying. All of them waited for someone to speak.

The table was covered with empty plates and mugs of hot chocolate. The sugary meal was delicious, and the group had purposely neglected to discuss the one topic they were stressing over.

"Alright, I'll start," Priya said, giving in. "First of all, I have my doubts that this will even go ahead. It seems impossible to me."

Jiaying nodded once. "Ditto."

"I mean, there's no way he can reactivate Cytro, can he? He doesn't have a key to the room, and I'm sure Miller would've changed his password."

"Do we even know if Cytro is definitely offline?" Diego asked. "Has anyone tested it?"

"I spoke to Lauren last night," Beck said. "She tried to log in but nothing happened."

"Okay, cool. Makes sense."

Jiaying snickered. "I'm sure that's the first thing they would've done, Diego."

He smirked. "Hey, you never know. Miller wasn't exactly smart enough to think of a good password. It wouldn't surprise me if he left the whole thing online."

"Maybe his new password is Winston2."

They all laughed. It felt good to forget about their troubles for a second. Or rather, their doom. Monday was fast approaching, and the prospect of expulsion was looking all the more likely.

"Alright, so what do we do?" Priya asked the gang. "Do we log in later on and see for ourselves? Assuming Hunter miraculously gets it up and running, are we actually doing this? Are we playing this stupid game?"

Again, no one spoke. They simply stared at one another, hoping someone would reveal their feelings first.

"Maybe we should discuss the pros and cons," Jiaying suggested.

"Good idea," Diego said. "Con: if we're caught, we're probably even more screwed."

"Like getting double expelled?" Beck joked.

"Con," Jiaying said, "I don't want to give Hunter the satisfaction of knowing we played the game."

"Pro," Priya spoke, "Hunter said if we win, he'll take the fall."

"Which is probably a lie."

Beck rolled her eyes. "Probably."

"But maybe worthwhile," Priya continued. "Let's face it—if he tells the academy that he's the one who did all this, we might be saved. No getting expelled."

"I don't want to rely on that though," Diego sighed. "They're probably going to investigate us all anyway. And I don't like our chances of winning. The Legion has way more members."

"And Hunter knows the code," Jiaying said. "There's nothing stopping him from telling everyone in his clan what they have planned, which will give them a huge advantage."

"True," Priya accepted. "Pro ..." she paused before saying her piece, looking the others in the eye, "it might be fun."

She froze and waited for her friends to lay into her for suggesting as such, but the lecture never came.

"It actually does sound cool," Beck confessed. "In a weird and creepy way though."

Jiaying grimaced. "I know what you mean. Is it wrong if part of me is a little excited?"

Priya breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god. I thought it was just me!"

Even Diego couldn't help but grin. "Nah. It does sound like fun. I just don't want anything bad to happen."

"I'm sure plenty of bad stuff will happen once we're logged in," Jiaying said. "Who knows what he has planned."

Priya nodded. "It'll be rough in there. But it's just a game. It's all virtual. So when you think about it, we have nothing to lose."

Beck looked at the three former admins. "Well, I guess that means you've all answered your own question."

A smile formed on Jiaying's face. "Are we doing this then? Are we actually logging in?"

Priya lightly slammed her fist on the table. "Screw it. Let's do this."

"And kick Hunter's ass," Diego pointed out. "We have to win this and show him his stupid Legion sucks."

"Deal."

"Agreed."

"We need to stick together though," Priya ordered. "We need to watch each other's backs in there. No matter what."

"We'd better spread the word then," Jiaying said. "Tell everyone in the Club you know. We'll all log in at 4PM and give it our best shot."

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Diego whispered to himself, although with a smile.

Jiaying stared at the table. "I know what you mean. It's been a pretty crazy week, huh?"

"Yep," her girlfriend said.

Priya faced her friends. "Let's win this thing and clear our names." She placed her hand in the middle of the group. They responded in kind, placing theirs on top of hers.

"To the 4PM Club," Jiaying proposed.

Diego smirked. "And to the end of the Legion."