The Transistor is halfway to Red's chest when she hears his soft, lilting, voice.
"What if…" he begins, then falters. "What if I told you there was a way to undo the Process. Remake Cloudbank."
The Transistor comes to a dead stop, inches from her body.
In the background, somewhere, Boxer breathes a sigh of relief. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Red. For a second I thought you really were going to – " She relegates him to the back of her mind, concentrating instead on the voice of the man that she has just sentenced to an eternity in the Transistor.
"So you're listening." Ever one to state the obvious, Bracket goes on. "I wasn't sure if you would be able to hear me, but as you are my jailor I do suppose that we share a certain bond."
She hates the way he says it - without even a trace of accusation or resentment.
"I see what you're thinking. No, I am not lying. I am an engineer. I think of all the possibilities, and there is always, always, a backdoor in my design. I did not create the Transistor, but I did do a certain amount of…tinkering, shall we say."
Her mind races furiously. Perhaps there really is a way to save Cloudbank. To save everyone. But…how?
"So many questions, so little time," Bracket's voice echoes in her ears. "I believe the easiest way for you to ascertain if I am telling you the truth is to go and find the function for yourself. Bracket towers. I believe you've already overridden the firewall, so it should be no problem."
Bracket towers it is, then. She sets off, stopping at the OVC terminals to drop Boxer a line. For some reason, he can't hear anything that Bracket is saying, even though they're both trapped in the same virtual world.
"Hey. Hey. Red, where are we going? Thought we were done with that place. The city's all yours now." He sounds confused. She doesn't blame him.
Spotting a terminal, she types quickly, fingers flicking over the keyboard. "Bracket's in here. Says there's a way to get you out."
"He's lying. You know how the Camerata are. They're liars!" Boxer's mad. She knows how his grudge against the Camerata runs deep.
She deletes the previous sentence, and the next one is typed in a matter of seconds. "But why would he lie?"
"I don't know, Red. I don't trust him. Whatever he tells you, be careful, okay?"
She nods twice and turns off the OVC terminal. Up ahead, Bracket towers beckons, lights glowing brightly.
Grant and Asher are still there when Red arrives.
Of course they're still there, she berates herself. Why would they move? They're dead. She sets the Transistor down, waiting for further instructions.
"So, we're here." Boxer echoes her thoughts. "What now?"
"See that screen on my desk?" Bracket asks. "Just put the Transistor through it. The function I was working on is on there. All you've got to do is insert the Transistor it in and it will automatically download. You must first enable it at an access point. I've never actually gotten the opportunity to test drive it, so there might be a few…bugs," he adds.
She scrolls through the function a little bit first, just to make sure it's not some sort of self-destruct function. All computer jargon. But from what she can make out, it looks like Bracket's telling the truth.
"There's an access point right outside of this rooftop," Bracket remarks, unhelpfully. She just passed by it, of course she remembers that it's there.
She loads up the control screen on the Transistor, and there it is – Eject(). She switches out Breach() for it, and on second thought, disables most of her functions, keeping Jaunt() and Cull(). It's not like she'll be needing them anymore, but she'll keep them loaded. Just in case of trouble. She takes a deep breath, readying herself. Time to head back to Boxer.
Disclaimer: Transistor and its characters all belong to Supergiant Games. I can only dream of creating something so beautiful. Also, this idea isn't mine – I got it after reading a brilliant review of Transistor. I can't remember who wrote it, so if anyone could tell me so I can give them credit for it, that'd be awesome :)