I want to preface this with the fact I am not a software developer and I'm making this all up as I go. I hope it sounds believable enough and isn't too cringeworthy for all those more tech savvy readers out there. I could have spent more time researching terminology and concepts, but... I just can't be bothered to spend hours trying to make sense of a field I have absolutely zero interest in myself. The career made sense for my OC and I'm trying to do much best to glaze over the specifics as much as possible. It's not the focal point of the story. Fred getting laid is - in case there was any question. And all the other emotional upheaval/shenanigans which go along with that.
They didn't just want her to develop firewalls, they wanted her to develop firewalls for the firewalls, along with multiple other layers of anti-malware.
The irony of someone in possession of the kinds of secrets she was basically heading up the security aspect of the software to be installed on the Gen 3 was not lost on her. Her previous work on the Mark V, she'd been informed, had greatly influenced the decision to reach out to her company to have her assigned to the project.
If only. If only they knew what that job had cost her, what it had wrapped her up in, they'd be providing her with a hard chair in a small room and a series of condemning questions rather than the bright office with windows looking out on the large titanium statues of various landmark breakthroughs in military hardware. The originally fielded MJOLNIR featured prominently, along with a spacecraft she thought was the infamous Sabre, and a considerably scaled down version of the UNSC's flagship Infinity. It wasn't a bad view. A bit stark. The monument could use some shrubs or flowers or something, but it was leagues above the cubicle she'd sat inside for hour upon hour on the Mark V project.
She'd begun preliminary work the moment she'd been forwarded the outline and requirements of what it was they expected her to design and had tabled her proposal at her first meeting with the project's oversight team. Changes and improvements had been discussed and she'd settled into her new work environment convinced she could handle this without allowing her nerves to get the better of her.
That had lasted thirteen whole blissfully mundane days. Long enough for her to fall into a routine, become accustomed to her colleagues, rearrange her temporary office to a more comfortable layout, let herself be talked into 'a few drinks some night' with a couple of the more persistent fellas in the building she kept running into when she took her coffee break in the mess hall, and start to think she'd overreacted just the tiniest amount to it all.
Then it'd happened.
"Ashton - they want us all over in Echo block."
Lyra's fingers had frozen above her keyboard - she preferred it to the holo-based or transparent touch glass variety, the rapid tapping sound and pressure of her fingers hitting the keys just felt more productive somehow - at the simple set of instructions. "Sorry?" She spun her chair to face the doorway where Crewman Heather Swinton still hovered, the young officer's copper ringlets once more springing free from the failing bun she'd already scraped them back into twice that day that Lyra had noticed.
"All personnel are to report to Echo block. It's probably just another security sweep," she answered with indifference, as though spontaneous checks for restricted devices which might be used to leak confidential files or data were of no consequence whatsoever.
Despite having been subjected to no less than five such instances since arriving at the facility, Lyra did not share this indifference. She hated being interrupted when she was in the middle of coding. It disturbed her focus and increased the margin for errors. She blew out a breath, grabbed her jacket, and left her desk, following Swinton and the other programmers from the building.
It wasn't like they didn't clear her to enter the premises every morning, a process which included her turning out her pockets, letting them rummage through the satchel she toted her precious modified keyboard back and forth from the hotel in, and even pat her down. The Gen 3 and everything pertaining to it were classified, she understood that. They'd expected her to take up residence on site originally, a misunderstanding that she had insisted her company supervisor clear up before she'd even set foot on the cruiser to be transported there. She'd enjoyed the 'amenities' of military accommodations during her last stint working for them and it wasn't a treat she was eager to experience a second time. Besides, the hotel was only five kilometers away - close enough for her to walk, so she got to stretch her legs a little after being chained to her desk from eight til eight. The soldiers on sentry duty had given her strange looks for the first few days, no doubt wondering at her lack of transportation - especially since the town that had sprung up to support the base shortly after its installment was normally crawling with warthogs and other ground support vehicles on their way to or from training exercises. She supposed they might give her something to drive if she asked nicely, but she didn't mind the walk.
Well. Most days.
They usually loitered in the parking lot while the security sweeps were completed, but it was raining buckets that day - the downpour having opened up after she'd made it in that morning, fortunately - which was why she assumed they were being directed to Echo block, wherever that was. Her coworkers appeared to know, so she trailed them, hood drawn up. It wasn't far to the neighbouring structure, a massive hangar she'd just assumed housed all those ground vehicles, the plaque outside proclaiming it to indeed be Echo Block. Her feet were wet from that short distance so she wasn't relishing her return trip to the hotel. Swinton, Gomez, Baker and the others she worked with were all transfers as well and lived on base, so begging a lift off one of them wouldn't be an option. And she didn't know any of the posted personnel who lived off base well enough yet.
They filed into the hangar, into a small foyer, and Lyra resigned herself to arriving at the hotel drenched. She might have to leave her keyboard in her office to spare it.
"Hope this doesn't take long, I'm starving," Luis Gomez griped as he shook off his uniform cap.
Swinton, who'd brandished a black umbrella to protect herself and her attire from the elements, rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, brownies on the menu for dessert today."
The Latino crewman had proven himself to have a sweet tooth, Lyra supposed, thinking back over the past couple weeks. She usually only accompanied them to the mess to snag a watery black beverage that served as coffee on base, but on the few occasions she'd lingered to chat a little, she recalled Gomez's double portion of dessert. He wasn't a big fella, so obviously he could afford the extra calories. It was as she was tugging her hood down, wrinkling her nose at the cold droplets which had somehow found their way to the back of her neck, that she noticed Irvine Baker had wandered to the far end of the foyer and was peering through the thick glass of the security door there. Curiosity got the better of her and she approached, able to see over the head of the diminutive and reserved soldier. "What's caught your eye?"
He was quiet, but smart. Smarter than her and everyone else he worked with, she suspected, though he never flaunted that intelligence. It showed in his brilliant coding, however. He struck her as the type who'd probably not had an easy time with boot camp even though he looked fit enough. "Over there," he answered, pressing his index finger to the glass to indicate where his interest lay.
Following the gesture, she couldn't detect much of significance. A few scorpions, a wolverine, and two cobras. Other than that, just some soldiers parking some warthogs. It looked as though they weren't long back from wherever they'd been, the vehicles and them both leaving puddles on the smooth concrete floor. She was about to shrug and walk away again when they rounded one of the scorpions - four in sodden gray fatigues who towered above the other soldiers. The rain droplets slithered down between her shoulder blades and a shiver shot up her spine in response.
"I heard they were here, but I haven't seen them around," Baker went on, taking it for granted that she would understand the 'they' he was referring to.
And she did.
Blue Team.
"I've never seen one before - a Spartan."
Neither had she. Just the MJOLNIR they wore, which had of course provided a reference for the size of its wearer, but seeing one in person…
"Shit, they're huge," Baker muttered. He didn't seem the cussing type, but she wholeheartedly agreed with his assessment.
They were crossing the hangar towards a side entrance, their strides purposeful and postures alert - she could see it in the way they watched their surroundings with the barest of head movements, shoulders and backs straight - not tense, just… prepared. For anything. Like apex predators on a patrol of their turf. The brims of their uniform caps shadowed their features, but one of the men had rolled his sleeves back to reveal muscular forearms which swung gently by his sides as he walked. From this distance, she couldn't read their ranks or name patches. No way to know who was who.
Her stomach somersaulted.
Hacking into the repro clinic's patient records had been a stroke of madness fueled by the certainty she'd been about to become a person of interest following Halsey's detainment, and so any further crimes she perpetrated would just be icing on the cake. It had only been a matter of time, she'd been convinced, before ONI learned of what she'd participated in. So she'd remotely bypassed their firewall and accessed her file, just needing to know, to at least put a name to the person whose genetic code had combined with her own to create the life which had blossomed inside her. The shock and violation she'd felt at reading there'd been multiple donors had been inexplicable even then. Why she should be surprised that this information had been kept from her considering the clandestine nature of the whole thing - she shouldn't have been, but was. It hadn't occurred to her Halsey might use two different donors. But there it had been, proof the first two miscarriages had been the result of insemination by one contributor and the third by another. Donor 1: S-117. Donor 2: S-104. Not even names, just identifiers. The painted numbers on the Mark V had flashed before her eyes in a jarring rush, along with a wave of nausea. But Halsey had never discussed 117, always making generalized reference to 'her' Spartans as a whole, never a certain individual.
Lyra hadn't even attempted to dig up more, she'd been reeling. That had happened by chance some years later as the UNSC had relaxed its jealous guarding of any and all details pertaining to their precious Spartans. An article published in the digital journal she'd subscribed to during her boot camp days which had been heaping praise on the program for its unquestionable role in ending the bloody conflict that had been the Human-Covenant War had paid special tribute to one Spartan-II fireteam in particular; Blue Team - consisting of four core members, including 'the' fabled Master Chief. What she hadn't been expecting was for it to go on to list them. Linda-058, Kelly-087, John-117, and Frederic-104.
And here they were, no more than fifty paces away on the other side of a metal door.
"We can head back," Swinton called.
Baker turned away from the glass, bumping her in the process. Well, she couldn't blame the guy, she'd almost climbed on top of him in her attempt to take in every possible aspect of the retreating forms of the Spartans.
She reluctantly stepped back and allowed him to squeeze by with a murmured apology, her gaze still affixed to the objects of her focus. They reached the side entrance and disappeared through it.
She'd been so close. So close to satisfying her restless mind's musings over what he looked like - the father of the baby girl she'd never gotten to be a mother to.
"Ashton."
"Yeah, I'm coming."