Hello all! Let's get right into it. Thank you so much to my gal makapedia for betaing this one. You're the best!
Maka sips at a new mug of tea, eyes glassy as she stares at the apartment door, trying to calm the warring emotions in her mind.
It's barely been twenty minutes since Soul left, but she already knows what has happened:
She'd pushed too hard. She knew he'd wanted to take things slow, but she'd thought... with the way he'd acted… the way he'd looked at her…
A heavy sigh cuts the line on that train of thought, and she closes her eyes as the steam from the tea drifts over her face.
The only explanation was that she'd read the situation wrong - that he didn't… that he didn't want that.
The sun has now fully set, and she doesn't want to sit in the kitchen anymore - it's too easy to relive the last couple of hours - so she moves to the living room, where Blair takes the immediate opportunity to jump into her lap.
Even with the change of scene, she stews. She wants to be sensible about this, but it's so hard not to take it as a rejection. Who just leaves like that, without explaining anything?
Soulmates, secret recruiters - why doesn't anyone explain anything to her? Why does she have to walk around demanding answers from people? It shouldn't be her job. Pulling out her phone doesn't help; her eyebrows crinkle together when she sees Soul's name at the top of her messages.
It would be so easy to send something now, to demand an explanation, but another part of her doesn't want to talk at all. Not to him, at least.
[[ Hey, Liz? ]] she sends instead, blinking back angry tears. [[ Have a minute? ]]
Almost immediately, Liz responds.
[[ oh no. ]]
[[ it's too early for this text ]]
Maka doesn't answer, and she doesn't need to, because within twenty seconds, Liz has raised the cavalry:
[[ what did he do. ]]
[[ is it time for some casual murder? because i am totally up for some casual murder. ]]
[[ pat wants to help. ]]
Maka lets out a watery laugh and presses the call button.
Soul's phone lights up over and over, separated by minutes of what he can only assume is seething on Liz's part. Each time one appears at the top of his screen, another wave of guilt rolls through him.
[[ are you actually kidding me? ]]
He slides his headphones over his ears, staring at the ceiling as he lies on the bed. Since Liz is not physically present, Weird Al acts as a surrogate for her displeasure, wide eyes gazing down on Soul in silent disapproval.
As soon as he'd gotten home, he'd found himself wanting to listen to Bastille - which isn't so strange on its own, but he keeps gravitating toward Pompeii - one of the popular ones. What has Maka done to him?
The better question, he knows… is what he has done to Maka? He closes his eyes, trying to ignore Liz as the lyrics wash over him.
And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love…
His phone vibrates again. Against his better judgement, he pulls an eye open.
[[ you had one job. ]]
[[ don't do anything stupid, i said ]]
[[ how about i do... anyway! you said ]]
The notifications disappear with a swipe of his thumb, just in time to be replaced by two more.
[[ wanna know the worst part? ]]
[[ i'm not even surprised. ]]
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
The lyrics are too relevant. The only line that doesn't make sense is the one about nothing changing at all; things feel very changed right now.
Well, except for Liz's guilt trips.
[[ i know you can see these texts. ]]
[[ come answer for your crimes. ]]
Headphones come sliding off his ears. Well, he can't properly wallow if she keeps interrupting him. Might as well get it over with.
Apparently his thumb has gained sentience, because against his will, he's clicking on the call button. The phone doesn't even have time to ring before she's on the line.
"Et tu, Dumbass?"
He groans, chin descending towards his torso. "I mean, I agree with you."
"Good. Glad we're on the same page." He hears two thuds on her end of the call, which sound suspiciously like two cowboy boots clunking onto a table. "Why are you like this? She's mad and sad and my makeup job is not impressed. I worked too hard for it to get ruined."
"Yeah, I -" He stops. "Wait. You did her makeup?"
"Uh, yeah. She looked amazing, right?"
That's a minefield if he's ever seen one, so he ignores it completely… and steps on another one instead.
"But… you can't see color."
There are moments when Soul realizes how similar he and Liz actually are. It is unsettling, and not an easy pill to swallow when he realizes that he's about to be annihilated via cell phone. He grimaces as he waits.
"Would you like to hear some fun facts?"
The question appears to be rhetorical. The Kid has given him lots of practice with this.
"You see, in the expansive wasteland that is the internet," she begins, "Individuals can educate themselves on many topics. Sometimes, they communicate with each other with regard to these topics. One of these topics, believe it or not, is makeup. And sometimes, people who can and cannot see color take part in these conversations. Honestly, it's kinda strange that you didn't know any of these things, since you spend nine hours a day creeping on people on the internet against their will."
He opens his mouth to object, because that is not the fairest description of his job, but-
"Here's a particularly fun fact, since I know you're fascinated," she continues, bulldozing through. "You need to go pretty heavy-handed on black and white makeup for it to be visible. When you're painting for people who can see color, you have to tone it down. Otherwise it looks kinda intense."
That is… kind of interesting, actually, and he opens his mouth again to ask her about it, until:
"I could give you a black-and-white style makeover, sometime. if you want. Y'know. Since you're acting like a clown."
Yeah, he deserves that.
"...Yeah," he says. Time to grovel appropriately. "I'm sorry. I screwed up."
"Well, I don't know why you're apologizing to me." She takes a deep breath, and some of her frustration seems to dissipate. "I don't get it. Why did you even go over there if you were just gonna run out on her? What did you expect?"
He knows what he didn't expect. "Look, I didn't think-"
"Uh. Yeah, obviously."
He takes a deep breath, steadies himself. "No. I didn't think she was gonna try to kiss me, okay?"
His face comes to meet his pillow, burning through the fabric. Because that is what she'd meant when she'd asked him to try something, right? Had he read it wrong?
God, he doesn't know where this immaturity is coming from, but it feels like he's fifteen again, panicked, flustered as he waits for Liz's response.
"Oh. She didn't tell me that part."
He groans again, further convinced that he's misinterpreting everything.
"Okay," Liz finally says. "Well, first of all, gross." He lets out a shaky laugh into his pillow.
"Second of all." She sounds almost sympathetic, now. "I have some bad news."
"Whut," he says, the question still muffled by the pillow.
"That means you really gotta make this up to her. Like, really."
He knows that, but it's too soon to think about it. Everything's too fresh, and he can't process it yet. "Yeah. If you've got any ideas..."
"Look." He can almost hear Liz pressing her palm to her forehead. "I know you're just trying to like, make it through the next week. But you should think about whether you want to drag this out for another six days, or however long it is-"
"You heard what The Kid said-"
"I know." Liz says. "I really get it. The whole situation sucks. Just think about what's really important to you here, okay?"
Something catches in his throat. He nods, though she can't see it.
"I'll think about how you can make it up to her," she adds. "But just so we're clear. I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it because somehow she still likes you even though you're the stupidest person I know."
Unexpected relief floods through him. Anything he says will come out sounding very uncool, so he stays silent.
"Anyway. I wouldn't text her tonight," Liz says. "Let her cool off a little. But I'd reach out tomorrow."
"... Okay," he says. "Thanks."
"In the meantime… could you try to not make any more of an ass out of yourself? Can you handle that?"
He glances upward and meets Weird Al's gaze again. "At this point, it's like, my number one priority."
When Soul drags himself to work the next day, he's even less motivated to be there than usual; he's stuck with a new recruit who's not necessarily boring, they're just… not Maka. Across the cubicle wall, Black*Star is click-clacking away on Maka's final test, humming happily to himself.
"Are you suuuure you don't wanna help with this test?" Black*Star says, as if he can read Soul's mind. A terrifying prospect, honestly.
"Can't help," Soul says. It's not the first time he's had to say it, and it won't be the last. Black*Star's tenacity is admirable, but his total disregard for The Kid's orders is obnoxious. "Stop trying to get me fired."
"Listen. I get it," Black*Star says. The little chuckle that comes along with it plainly suggests that he does not get it. "But you just can't do anything in any official channels, right?" Even though he can't see them through the cubicle wall, Soul can feel Black*Star's air quotes in his soul.
"Yeah, well," Soul says, glancing guiltily at his phone where it sits on the desk. "I'm not talking to her through any channels right now."
Black*Star's chair lets out a squeak, sending him flying backwards into Soul's cubicle. "Whaaaaat?" he says, voice hitting the same pitch as the chair wheels. "Trouble in paradise?"
Soul leans back in his chair, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "If I tell you, will you go away?"
"Probably not!" Black*Star declares. And then he just sits there, expectantly.
The worst part is that Soul ends up telling him anyway.
"Wooooow, newbie," Black*Star says. "You gotta talk to her. Like, right now." He reaches past Soul towards the phone on the desk, but Soul snatches it away before he can get there.
"Yeah, I do," he says, holding his phone in a death grip. "I don't need your help for that."
"Okay." Black*Star crosses his arms. "Then what are you gonna say?"
Soul grimaces. "Ugh. Like. Sorry, and stuff." Black*Star just stares at him. "I haven't thought of what exactly I'm gonna say yet. I'm-"
"Busy?" Black*Star says, glancing behind Soul at his monitor, where literally nothing is happening.
"I minimized it," Soul grumbles, not even bothering to look behind him.
Black*Star gives him a heavy eye roll. He actually... seems kind of annoyed, which is rare. "You're like, sabotaging yourself, dude. I'm working too hard for-"
"You're working too hard?" Soul gapes at him."What have you done, other than not pay your tab that one time?"
"That's ridiculous," Black*Star says, sounding betrayed. "You know I've forgotten to pay way more than one time."
It reminds him: he has to work his last Death Brew shift tonight.
"Speaking of which," Black*Star adds, continuing to read his mind. "I'll come hang at the 'Brew tonight. We can brainstorm how to talk to her!"
"Sounds awful," Soul says, turning around to stare at the screen again but not really seeing it. "Can't wait."
It's this exchange, more than anything else, that motivates him to text Maka after lunch, just to get it over with. The last thing he wants to do is brainstorm with Black*Star at the bar.
[[ hey. ]]
[[ i'm really sorry about yesterday. ]]
He stares down at the phone until it fades to black, and lets it go for now, dragging his eyes back to the computer screen. It's so hard for him to get invested in this new recruit; what kind of name is Kilik, anyway? Coding-wise, Soul can already tell that he's pretty good. He'll be an easy hire-
His phone vibrates, and he actually jumps.
[[ Hey. Thanks for saying that. ]]
His palms break into an instant sweat, and he reaches for the phone to say literally anything, wiping his other hand on his pants.
[[ i shouldn't have left like that. ]] he writes in a hurry. [[ it was dumb. ]]
He doesn't want to dance around it. He needs her to know that he's an idiot.
[[ It's okay. I understand. ]]
[[ I should have been more considerate. ]]
She should have been more considerate? He stares at the message, at the three blinking dots underneath, indicating that there's more confusion coming.
[[ Listen, I've got a lot going on this week. ]] she continues. [[ So maybe we should wait til this weekend to talk again. ]]
His heart sinks, but he understands. Somewhere in his soul, Pavlov's bell rings; if she's asking for space, it's space he'll give her.
[[ yeah, no problem. whatever you need. ]] he types. His thumb stills over the send button, worried that he might be saying too much. But he's sick of ruining things, and after last night, he just wants to be honest with her. As honest as he can, anyway. [[ i'll text on Friday if i don't hear from you first? ]]
[[ Okay. Sounds good. :) ]]
The emoji drags a smile of his own out of him. He hasn't ruined everything just yet, and that's what's going to get him through the week. As soon as he closes out of it, another text appears.
[[ hey. we're here. wanna grab lunch ? ]]
It's from Liz. He stares at it for a second while his brain decides whether or not to have an aneurysm.
[[ uh. who is we? ]]
[[ relax. ]] she sends, which makes him bristle instead. [[ i'm with patty. ]]
A few seconds pass and another message comes, since Liz seems to understand his hesitation.
[[ i mean. it doesn't really matter if she knows, at this point. ]]
He raises an eyebrow. [[ why doesn't it matter? ]]
[[ let's just say we've got a pretty good incentive to keep our mouths shut. ]]
[[ i'm telling u. kid isn't gonna care about patty. ]]
Kid. Not The Kid? It reads strangely to him, but he pushes it aside for now. She was probably just too lazy to type the whole thing.
There are a lot of things he wants to say in protest, but he finds that with every second, he's getting less and less motivated to keep up this charade.
[[ just come up then. this might as well happen. ]]
"Nice digs," comes a familiar drawling voice from behind him, after a few minutes. "I expected a cubicle with a little more personality, but I guess I'll just go back to your Livejournal if I need a dose of that."
When he turns around, Liz is standing before him, leaning against the side of the cubicle like she owns the place. Across the cubicle wall, Black*Star's chair wheels give a curious little squeak.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" Soul says. "Again?"
"Oh right, I forgot to mention," she says, too casually. "Patty and I work here now."
"Wha--" he starts to ask, but then Patty actually pops out from behind the wall, and this distracts him. He hasn't ever officially met Liz's sister.
"Oh right, okay," Liz says. "Let's get this over with. Patty, this is… Soul," she says, glancing at her sister with very wide eyes.
Patty moves forward to give him what is surely about to be a very enthusiastic handshake before she pauses, her mouth forming into a little round o. She sizes him up for another second before bursting out laughing, bracing her hands on her knees.
"You didn't warn her?" Soul exclaims, and Liz just shrugs.
"Sis!" Patty says in between laughs. "She doesn't know, does she?"
Liz's face stretches up into a guilty half-smile, meeting Soul's eyes. "She would, if someone would tell her."
Patty continues laughing, which has fully captured Black*Star's attention. His chair's curious squeaking turns into a long, screechy whine as he slowly wheels into the hallway.
"Ohhh, she is going to kill you!" Patty says to Soul, a crazed kind of mirth entering her eyes that makes his stomach drop. "I can't wait."
Liz tries to pull the smile off her face, but isn't fully successful until Patty turns to her, expression accusatory. "Sis! You're so devious!"
Liz puts her hands up with an instant frown, absolving herself of blame. "Literally none of this was in my-"
"Okay, who the hell are you guys?" Black*Star finally says, too loudly, and Soul puts his head in his hands. Again, he thinks to himself: this might as well happen.
"Black*Star," he finally says, gesturing between them in a helpless sort of way. "This is Liz and uh… Patty, right?"
The final test arrives, and Maka works her way through it with a certain... wariness, like something's about to jump out at her from within the code. She sits alone in her normal corner at EAT, blinds drawn, laptop casting a strange blue hue onto the wall behind her. Liz and Patty are gone for the day - were gone yesterday, too - and so the room is quiet, the tapping of keys and clicking of the mouse filling the silence.
She tries to work out why she's feeling so strange. On top of her already turbid emotions this week, there's something about this test that's poking at her intuition.
Maybe it's because the one who screams had been the one to send her the test. The absence of her familiar snarky exchange with Stooge #3 had left her feeling off-kilter from the beginning, and having to read the test directions in all caps hadn't helped.
There's something strange about the test itself, too. It isn't simple, but it's also not interesting. Every previous test had given her a specific challenge, something that felt tailored to her, to her own strengths and weaknesses. Individualized, almost. It feels like there's a break in the pattern.
A thought dawns on her. Maybe this change is… part of the test? She wouldn't put it past them, not with everything else that has happened.
"Third stooge on vacation today?" she says aloud, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
[[ NOPE! WORKING WITH ANOTHER RECRUIT NOW ]]
A strange emotion pangs through her chest and disappears, distracting her.
"Like… permanently?" she says.
[[ AWW. DO U MISS HIM? ]]
She reads the message three times and scoffs, but she's also mentally spluttering, heat searing her cheeks.
"I'm just glad he's not slacking off at work," she says lightly. It's a deflection that… Soul would be proud of, she finds herself thinking, and that thought is sobering enough to pull the blush out of her cheeks.
[[ HAAHAH! U AND ME BOTH ]]
A ghost of a smile appears on her face, but she doesn't respond.
Although it's not her fastest test, it's by far the easiest, mostly testing her skill with various coding languages and not really throwing her any curveballs. The screaming stooge is silent, maybe not even observing. It all just seems so odd, for a final test.
When she reaches the end, that normal rush of victory - the one that usually makes her reach for a Yoohoo - is muted. It doesn't feel like she's done anything. She'll save her final bottle for another day, she thinks as this stooge's final messages pop up.
[[ OK COOL ]]
[[ WE'LL BE IN TOUCH LATER THIS WEEK, PROBABLY ]]
She frowns. [[ Probably? ]]
[[ YA. PROBABLY. OK BYE! ]]
The stooge leaves the chat before she can type anything else, and she's left alone with their chat history. Pushing her growing feelings of uneasiness aside, she moves her cursor to close out of Resonance, but when she clicks on the X, a new pop-up appears:
THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG. JUST FUN AND BORING.
She frowns again. Intuition is screaming something at her, but she can't figure out what it is. Screenshotting the pop-up, she clicks X and another one appears.
WHAT IF THIS WAS JUST THE BEGINNING?
This pop up disappears after a second, so she doesn't have a chance to screenshot. She grabs the closest piece of paper to her - the back of an angry red flyer, discarded on the floor - and scribbles the message down in all caps, just as it had been passed on to her.
Finally, there's one final surprise waiting for her - when she goes to click out of Resonance, she finds that she can't close it.
A conspiratorial smile lights her face. This is what she'd been waiting for.
If Soul's honest, it's kind of bittersweet that this is his last night of moderately criminal bartending. He's grown quite accustomed to his shifts at Death Brew; the vibe, the people. He's found it… kind of calming.
But now Black*Star is on shift with him, so that's all gone out the window. They'd actually managed to avoid talking about Maka all through their lunch with Liz and Patty - about anything involving work, actually, since they'd been out in public. Now he's stuck here with an undiluted dose of his boss, and he knows there's a big Maka-related lecture coming.
"Hey, where do these go?" Black*Star says. He's holding five beer glasses in his hands at once, which is quickly becoming precarious. Soul looks at him, unimpressed, and points towards the open cabinet above the bar, where there is already a collection of glasses on display.
"Haven't you been working here too?" he says.
"Yep! But Sid normally wants me in the back!" Black*Star says proudly, pushing a thumb into his chest.
"...Yeah, okay," is all Soul says. That checks out. He turns back to the bar to help the next patron, ignoring the sound of tumbling glasses behind him.
As the night goes on, Soul's gotta give it to him: Black*Star's charisma actually makes him a pretty good bartender. It almost feels practiced, like he's been doing this for much longer than two weeks. For the first time in probably ever, the two of them do manage to find a rhythm after an hour or so, working through the influx of customers. There aren't that many on a Tuesday night, anyway, which gives them plenty of time to work through other conversations.
He doesn't know why he ends up telling Black*Star so much stuff. But the truth of the matter is, Black*Star has a soulmate, and he's the only person Soul knows that he knows well enough to ask about it. That's valuable intel, questionable as the source may be.
"It's all about sincerity, dude," Black*Star is saying. "Solid, honest communication, you know?" A couple of the patrons sitting at the bar nod in agreement, and Soul doesn't know when they got an audience, but he's too busy drying glasses and working the taps to really complain. "Maybe it's time to… just tell her what's up, you know? Come clean?"
He hates that Black*Star's the second person to mention this to him in the past couple of days. The balance has always been between keeping his job and not screwing this thing up with Maka, and he can feel the scales wobbling now, tipping from one direction to the other, and it makes him so unsettled.
"She'll find out soon, anyway," Soul says, finally. "Isn't it, like, okay to wait for that to happen?" Maybe she'd understand, right?
In a surprising burst of empathy, Black*Star puts a hand on his shoulder. "Dude. I think it's a hell of a lot better if she hears it from you. You like her, right?"
Soul nods. Out of the corner of his eye, a couple of the bar patrons smile. It's actually the worst.
"So maybe it's time to get out of Kansas."
Soul stills, pausing over the terminal where he's entering a tab. "Get out of Kansas?"
"Yeah!" Black*Star says. "You know. You've got a soulmate now. You aren't in Kansas anymore. You gotta... like, take the plunge."
Soul stares at him. "Are you making a Wizard of Oz joke right now?"
Black*Star fixes him with a broad grin, and Soul's about to grimace back before an idea slaps him softly in the face, like a wet bar cloth.
"Oh my god," he says. "Black*Star." He doesn't want to give him the satisfaction, but he also kind of wants to swing him around and scream you're a genius!
Luckily, he's still got some dignity, so he will not be doing that.
"... What?" Black*Star says, still grinning.
Soul punches in the rest of the numbers into the terminal, the light from the screen illuminating his eyes. "I know how to make this up to her."
Maka looks from the words on her paper to the laptop, trying to piece together the clues. The first clue had been easy enough to figure out; it's a quote from the 1997 film Hackers, which she had chuckled at when it first popped up in her search. The stooge who screams was definitely leading her on a goose chase of some kind, and she appreciates the distraction.
After that, she'd needed to actually watch the movie - which, while totally unrealistic, was pretty fun to watch through a 90s lens. Also, the characters were ridiculous. Not unlike the characters she's currently working with, recruiters and co-workers alike, in many ways. But she had found no other clues with regard to what she's actually supposed to do.
It's quiet in the EAT office again; Liz had texted her earlier in the day to tell her that they weren't coming in, that they had 'other obligations'. Kind of cryptic by Liz's standards, but Maka appreciates the quiet. Also, she's been doing so little for EAT lately that it makes her feel better not to have them there, even though she knows they wouldn't judge.
That leaves the second part of her clue. She glances down at the note again, in all caps. Back to the beginning? What was the beginning?
She thinks back across her whole experience with them, replaying the events in her mind from the beginning, and lands back on the very first time she'd heard anything from them - that echoing yahoo through her kitchen, repeating her grocery list. The ensuing pursuit.
Without really thinking about it, she reopens Resonance; there's no longer a conversation to look through, but she hopes having it open will jog something in her memory. She clicks around the borders of the window, even though it's unlikely to yield anything. She misses the days when they'd leave the code for her tests behind for her to explore...
But what if they did? she thinks, suddenly. Her brain feels like it's rebooting, and then it goes into overdrive.
The beginning. She thinks about the disembodied yahoo again, the way they had essentially run away from her, that first day.
Had that been an accident? Was she not supposed to realize that they'd been there, then? And if the yahoo had been able to sneak through before, if she'd been able to chase back after them, then that would mean…
There's a weakness somewhere in Resonance's code.
Reason bursts in her brain, trying to quell the excitement growing inside her chest. She tries not to get too ahead of herself. In all likelihood, it's been patched, right? Surely someone would have patched that mistake as soon as it happened. But as any good programmer knows, sometimes fixing one bug can unearth ten more.
And if the stooge is sending her these clues, it's even more likely that even if there was a patch, there's a hole somewhere else. One that they've left for her to exploit, on purpose.
With a grin, she pulls up the code base, rolls up her sleeves and gets to work.
As soon as he sits down at work the next day, Soul pulls up the database, and into it he types: Ruby slippers.
It pops up immediately, and it's the first result; the Thefts division is organized as hell, something his own division knows… very little about, or at least they had, until The Kid had started playing more of a role in everything.
He's not totally sure about how to get the permissions for this, or if it'll work, but it's the best idea he's got, and he knows she'll appreciate this, once she's allowed to come in.
Once she's allowed to come in. The idea floats around in his brain, bumping into the sides like a 90s screensaver, or a DVD loading screen.
In less than four days, she'll be here. She'll have an opinion about his role in all of this, and he's truly at a loss when it comes to guessing what it will be. The idea of telling her continues to taunt him, but he's still balking, so he hopes what he's cooking up instead will be enough.
He peruses the document, and in it, he finds a stroke of luck. The other slippers are here, in D.C., and there's some sort of form he needs to fill out request access. He bookmarks the page to fill out later, because Kilik has logged in again, and he's going to town on hacking some kind of electrical grid.
It's a new tactic, probably unsafe, and very illegal, so Soul needs to watch every minute of it.
It's been two days, and Maka's running into walls everywhere she turns.
Since Resonance is essentially a mystery program - totally unlisted, with no reference guides to speak of, and no one else to consult for advice - she's working entirely from memory, working only with what she knows about hacking to get through. She had forgotten how crazy encrypted it is, even more so than the employee database had been, which is kind of ridiculous, and only makes her that much more motivated to find an exploit.
It is a fitting final test, she thinks.
She pushes the screen of her laptop down, letting her eyes rest from one screen, even as she pulls up another.
[[ Happy Thursday ]] she sends Liz. [[ You guys coming in today? ]]
[[ hey. can't, again. ]] Liz says, and Maka's shoulders slump. [[ should be back tomorrow afternoon, for a little. ]]
[[ you doing ok? ]]
Maka glares at the top of her laptop, and thinks of her week. No Soul, no Stooge #3, no progress on hacking Resonance.
[[ I'm doing kind of lousy. But I'll be ok. ]]
She puts her phone down on the table, face down, the first words from the pop up haunting her.
There's no right and wrong, only fun and boring.
The words echo through her mind, but she can't make sense of them. What would be a fun way to hack Resonance? she wonders.
She thinks of when she's had the most fun with them - of the person she's had the most fun with, since this all started - and an idea pops into her mind.
Maybe, instead of searching the entire code base, she could search for a specific access point - one that, now that she thinks about it, may have been compromised that first time she'd heard them through the speakers.
"...Okay, Stooge #3," she says aloud. "I think it's time to figure out who you are."
She silently thanks the stooge who screams, rubbing her hands together as she pulls up her terminal once more.
This is going to be fun.
Hello friends! I hope you've enjoyed this one. :) This has been a crazy time for all of us, and I hope you are doing okay. If you have a second, I'd love to hear from ya - something you liked about this chapter, or something you're excited for. We've got a fun storm coming ;D See you soon.