Chapter 30: Stirrings of Change

Catra sat at her desk in the precinct, staring at her computer screen and unable to keep her hands from shaking as she reached for her cup of coffee.

"Holy hell," Keren said from her desk next to her. "Catra, how many cups of coffee are you planning on drinking today? That has to be your third already."

"Fourth actually," Catra said after downing the mug. She stood from her chair. "Time for number five."

"It's not even been an hour since you clocked in, dude. Are you okay?"

"'M'fine." Catra ignored the look Keren gave her as she walked past, mug in hand, and headed for the break room.

The nightmares had only gotten worse since Glimmer left. Normally, they would have subsided by now. Instead, she woke most mornings in a cold sweat, usually after staring at Adora's grief-stricken face in her dreams, or sometimes Shadow Weaver's, or even an evil copy of herself. It had gotten so bad that Catra started seeing them while still awake, sometimes looking back at her from poorly lit areas of the station or in the moments she'd lay down with her eyes closed before sleep claimed her. It was distressing, to say the least. Last night had been particularly rough after the position Diallo had put her in.

More coffee, was the only thought she could focus on.

Catra threaded through the crowd of officers rushing around the office. The precinct was more crowded than she had ever seen it before on account of the influx of refugees and the spike in unrest on the station. The Beast crisis was starting to spiral out of control, and she had a first-hand view of its consequences. When she finally made it to the break room in the back corner, she was surprised, though not ungrateful, to find it empty. Her mind wandered as she placed her cup under the coffee machine's spout and selected the option with the most caffeine.

Glimmer hadn't checked in, even though she promised she would after reaching her assignment. Catra had tried reaching out, but none of her messages would send. That meant Glimmer was either still in transit, or all inbound and outbound communications had been blocked for her deployment. Catra hoped it was the first reason and not the latter; if a moratorium had been placed on all nonessential communications…well, she preferred not to dwell on it.

Her thoughts started to drift toward Adora instead and Catra grabbed her mug and sped out of the breakroom. That was one topic she refused to think about, especially now. She was so fixated on what was in her head that, when something large rushed at her and her body dashed to the side seemingly all on its own, she didn't realize what had happened until after the yelling already started.

"Hey, get back here!"

It was Trayn's voice, and every head in the precinct snapped up and swiveled to look at her. Catra blinked, and then realized a moment later that they weren't staring at her, but staring past her. She spun around saw as a massive alien, two pairs of handcuffs chaining four beefy wrists together, standing behind her, baying like an animal about to charge.

Her mind rewound the past few seconds. That alien was a suspect on its way to being booked. He—or she? It? Catra couldn't tell—had yanked out of Trayn's grasp, bum rushed forward, and had almost knocked Catra flat on her ass. If it weren't for the fact she had moved out of the way without even realizing it, she might have become paste on the linoleum.

Four-arms must have realized it was heading further into the precinct rather than out because it had pivoted—faster than anything its size had any right to move—and now stood opposite Catra, locking eyes with her. A spike of alarm shot through her when Four-arms sniffed and pawed at the ground, challenging her. With the exit behind her, Catra was a direct obstacle in its path to freedom.

It charged. Once again without thinking, Catra spun to the side, carrying her inertia into a roundhouse kick that connected with Four-arms' face. She felt the shock from the blow travel up her leg and rattle her pelvis, heard a crack emanate from the suspect's head. Its legs gave out from underneath and it crashed to the floor, unconscious, with a thump that rocked the nearby desks.

A half-dozen officers pushed through the mob surrounding them, yelling. Each held stun batons poised to strike, only to look from the heap muscle in front of them to each other, blinking in surprise.

"Where did that come from?" Trayn asked, looking at Catra. The words came out with breathless surprise. "One second I'm trying to book that guy and the next he's already out on the ground before I even realize he's escaped. Don't tell me you've been holding back during our sparring sessions."

"Uhhh." Catra balked at the expectant look he gave her and he pointed to her side.

"You didn't even spill your coffee."

Catra looked down at the mug in her hand. Trayn was right: she hadn't spilled even a drop.

"Lucky blow," Catra said. "I was keeping my eye on him since he looked like he was about to try something."

Trayn raised an eyebrow then shrugged. "Well, thanks I guess," he said, seeming to buy it. "He'll be easier to book like this, at least."

The commotion died down soon after, and the other officers went back to their average-if-hectic day to day. It should have been concerning that someone had almost escaped the middle of the precinct, but the fact no one seemed to find it in themselves to react to it spoke volumes about the amount of stress and overwork all her fellow officers were under. Had been under for some time now. The refugee problem was starting to break the system.

Catra watched Four-arms get dragged off by five of her colleagues working together and frowned. Even though she said she had kept on eye on him to pacify Trayn, the truth was even now she was barely even aware of her surroundings. Her body had reacted on its own, almost as if being controlled by another person. She looked down at her free hand and flexed her fingers open and closed, as if expecting her body to, again, do something surprising. When nothing happened, she frowned deeper and made her way back toward the main floor.

When had she even clocked in to work that morning? Everything was a blur. She rounded the corner and found Dax leaning against her desk. Keren was still sat nearby as she always had, except she was shooting Catra a surreptitious, worried look while Dax wasn't paying attention.

"Catra, with me," Dax said as she approached. Catra's heart sank. He didn't sound angry or upset. Just apprehensive, but that didn't do much to help.

"Hey Dax," she said after following him to his office and clicking the door shut behind her.

"I just got a message from Taline, and the paperwork to begin transferring you directly underneath her," he said, taking his seat behind his desk and offering a chair on the other side to her.

Catra stood behind the chair and rested her hands on the back, but didn't take a seat. "I swear I was going to tell you," she said, tail swishing low to the ground. "It hasn't even been a whole day yet. I didn't think you'd have gotten the orders already."

"I'm not mad," Dax said. "Just…wow. Didn't expect it, is all. I'm guessing you turning down all your promotions was more about not wanting to wade too deep into this job?"

"It's complicated," Catra said. "I don't really know what else to say about it other than that. I like this job, Dax. Really like it, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else after working with people like you and Keren and Trayn. It's just…" she shrugged. "This came up."

"You don't have to explain anything to me," he said. "Really, I get it. Working with Taline, and as her Sentinel for crying out loud…I can't imagine anyone willingly passing that up. Congratulations."

He gave her a reassuring smile, but all Catra could focus on was how tired he looked. Did she look just as worn out in his eyes?

Dax propped his elbows up on the table and leaned forward to rest his head in his hands. "I'm a little sad to see you go, honestly. But I feel like that about most everyone that works under me. I'm just glad you have something else to jump to."

Catra's tail stilled. The way he phrased that…something didn't feel right. "What's going on?"

"Our budget is getting slashed," Dax said. "I have to let almost half the precinct go because we don't have the funds any more after this fiscal quarter is up."

"What?" Catra had, at best, only rudimentary budgeting skills. She had learned them as part and parcel of becoming independent after leaving Etheria. But even she knew that cutting half the precinct wasn't just the department shedding some excess weight.

"I just got the news from Moriarty's aides this morning," Dax said. "Apparently cutting costs and funneling as much capital as possible to Imperial R&D is a huge part of his reelection campaign. A lot of it he's going to announce during his rally in a few days."

Catra threw her arm out and gestured with open palms and exaggerated movements at the chaos outside Dax's floor-to-ceiling office windows. "How the hell does Moriarty expect you or any of the other Section Chiefs to control all this with half the staff?"

"I had the same question…"

"We're barely keeping the unrest from spilling over with the influx of refugees as it is. And more will come."

"Catra, I know…"

"I mean, he's not even elected in the first place. It's all just political posturing bullshit. All that matters is that the emperor wants him as governor, he doesn't actually give two shits what the people want from their—"

"Catra!" Dax spoke loud enough to get through to her. Then he lowered his voice and spoke easier. "I know. I tried making all the same points, but the decision is made. Like I said, you're lucky you're getting pulled into something new. Can't imagine you'd have to worry about job security as a Sentinel."

"No, but I do have to worry extra hard about 'life security' in exchange." She sighed. "Have you told anyone else yet?"

Dax shook his head. "Just you, since you're going to be on your way out soon. I'm dreading making the announcement, to be honest. It's going to get ugly out there."

"It's going to get even uglier when there are tens of thousands of refugees on the station and only half the security around to help keep the peace on top mention everyone being out of work. It's not like there's a surplus of jobs to be had with everything else going on."

"Trust me Catra, I know," Dax said, letting loose a groan and slumping further into his desk. "You're preaching to the choir on this one. It's Moriarty calling the shots, but I can't retain people if I don't have a budget. Apparently, he's making cuts all across the board. It's not just us."

Catra pursed her lips as she remembered pieces of Diallo's conversation with Taline. "I overheard Diallo complaining about having his resources gutted too," she said.

"Diallo?" Dax said, picking his head up off the desk.

"The System Governor," Catra said, trying to jog his memory. "You know, the one we escorted a few days ago with Moriarty?"

"I know who he is, Catra, but how did you know he's"—Dax cut off, like he suddenly remembered why he had called Catra into his office to begin with. "Oh. Are you already getting higher level briefings, or…?"

Catra shook her head. "I was serious when I said I wasn't expecting the paperwork to come in as soon as it had. Taline and I talked just yesterday, and I came in at the tail end of her conversation with Diallo. She hasn't briefed me on anything, yet."

Dax nodded. "Got it. Yeah, that makes sense." Then he frowned in thought. "I'm not surprised he's getting his own resources cut too, though. Moriarty seems to be sacrificing everything to R&D this election cycle. I have no idea what they've cooked up now that requires starving the rest of the empire's infrastructure, but rumor is it's somehow related to that project Moriarty greenlit a while ago. You remember that thing with the Vestamid?"

Nothing immediately came to mind and Catra wracked her brain for something relevant. It wasn't like she was ignorant of the goings on of the empire, but she didn't go out of her way to pay attention to it either. To her, the Vestamid were a bunch of crazy religious nuts that bothered her on her way home from the precinct, not a major economic force in the known galaxy. That's how little they had affected her day to day.

Finally, she remembered something she had heard playing over the news reels not too long ago: a story about a paradigm-shift in energy storage the Vestamid were pioneering on one of their major mining facilities. It had apparently caused a lot of controversy with how quickly the approvals had been rammed through for it. Catra remembered that Diallo had also alluded to it when they spoke at the Atrium, and she asked if that's what Dax was referring to.

"That's the one," he said, nodding.

"So, something fishy was going on with that after all?" Catra asked, all monotone. "What a surprise."

Dax nodded, and then deflated again. "I just wish there were something I could do, but Moriarty is practically untouchable. Once he's made up his mind, that's it. The only way he'd ever even think about maybe not stripping all of us bare is if the emperor himself came down from the Heartlands and commanded it so."

Diallo's storage drive in one of Catra's pockets along with the apeiron crystal Taline had given her, and Catra felt at both. Taline had lamented Moriarty's influence and his politics during their meeting, but had made it clear that she couldn't get involved. That was only moments before she brought Catra on as her Sentinel, and with such enthusiasm that…

I've worked with Taline long enough now that I know she wouldn't have chosen you if you weren't smart and couldn't read between the lines. Diallo's words to her came back all on their own. She's relying on you to look into this, just like I'm relying on you for your help.

Catra turned and glanced out Dax's office windows at the precinct floor. She watched Keren and Trayn and everyone else she had worked with over the past three years, and imagined how they might fare once Dax had let them go. Under Moriarty's policies, they'd only suffer.

"I'm sure things will work out," she said, distracted. "They always do." It felt odd, her being the one to offer reassuring words this time. "Hey, out of curiosity, how sophisticated is our encryption cracking software?"

Dax arched an eyebrow at her and, for a moment, Catra feared he would press her on the sudden conversation shift. Then he shrugged, as if to visibly say that it wasn't news for Catra to come to him with odd questions.

"It's the best you can get," he said.

"Better than, say, what a System Governor would be able to get their hands on?"

"Better or just as good as," Dax said, voice growing more suspicious. "Depends on which governor. Those in the Heartlands with the Emperor would likely have something cutting edge like ours, but someone running only a few planets out in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have the resources to get ahold of what we have. Why?"

"Just curious," Catra said.

"Well, whatever is drawing your curiosity, if you need to make use of our system, I suggest you do it sooner rather than later. I don't doubt you'd still have access to it when your Sentinel paperwork goes through, but who knows how long we'll be able to maintain it with three quarters of our budget disappearing overnight."

Catra agreed and gave Dax another round of what she hoped were reassuring words. She shut the door behind her on her way out and the windows of his office turned opaque the moment she did; he probably wanted some privacy while he figured out exactly how to break the news to everyone else.

Then, heart racing and mind burdened with too many cycling thoughts, Catra made her way past the other officers, visitors, and suspects being booked, and toward the record room at the back of the precinct instead of her desk. She palmed the scanner next to the door and pushed inside after it unlocked, then quickly turned and shut herself inside. She took several deep breaths to steady herself, not really sure why she was so worked up to begin with.

The records room was cold. There were no papers or locked file cabinets maintaining physical documents. Instead, the room was filled with rows upon rows of computer servers, each twice as tall as Catra. She stalked along until she came to what she was looking for: an open space in the center of the server configuration where a waist-height donut-shaped access console stood.

Catra vaulted over the console so she stood in the middle of it, preferring to lean on her athletics to get the blood flowing rather than just open the hinged bar-flap door like a normal person would. The 'Mother Brain', as she liked to call it, woke from idle when her feet touched the central platform, and a holographic screen appeared that extended around her in a perfect 360-degree panorama.

Hello, Catra.

The greeting appeared in front of her all on its own, and the text caret blinked at her after the last letter in her name; the thing already knew who was interfacing with it. Normally, as a greenhorn cadet still at the first rung of the advancement ladder despite her years on the force, her access was limited. But, since Dax already received the paperwork to get her transfer started, she wondered…

Query current access credentials

She typed the question into the interface and the answer popped up nearly as soon as she hit the return key.

Access level: Black

Catra was glad the record room had a strict no drink policy, because if she had taken her coffee in with her, she would have spat it out all over the electronics.

How in the hell did she already have top-level security clearance? That alone opened up so many possibilities. Practically every level of the station except private offices, residences, and the very top Executive floor above the Atrium were open to her. So many ideas for mischief flooded her mind, and she pushed them aside to focus.

She pulled out the storage drive from her uniform's pants pocket and laid it on top of a flat section of the console to her right. The console lit up, indicating Mother Brain had detected the hardware and was interfacing with it. An icon blipped into existed high up on the interface, and Catra reached up on tiptoes to tap it with three fingers. She felt a rumble against her fingertips when she did so, the subtle tactile feedback indicating she had successfully 'double-clicked' on the device—whatever that meant. She wasn't good with electronics.

A window opened up and there was nothing inside. Catra frowned, and typed out another query ordering it more explicitly to display the contents of the drive.

No contents to display.

"That can't be right," she said to herself, chewing her bottom lip. When she ordered the system to display information on the drive itself, rather than the contents inside it, an overwhelming amount of information cascaded down and across the screen. There was more data than she'd expect to see in even a multi-year detective's case file, and splayed across the entire panorama around her, taking up the entire 360 degrees of real-estate. She spun slowly as her eyes darted across everything, trying to make as much sense of it as she could.

"How the hell can you have this much information about what's inside the drive, but not be able to show any of it?" she asked, more to herself than anything.

Drive is encrypted, she typed into the console. Decrypt contents and display.

For a production-level interface, Mother Brain thankfully had state of the art natural language processing. For someone as technologically illiterate as Catra, that meant she didn't have to write programming calls or understand code libraries to use its more advanced functions. Still, giving commands how one talked to another flesh and blood person or alien took considerable processing power, even for a system as complex as this.

Catra watched the circular wheel animation as Mother Brain processed her command.

No encryption detected, it said after a while. All contents are currently displayed.

The window supposedly holding the contents of the drive still showed nothing, and Catra threw her head back and groaned.

"What the fuck?" Her frustration spiked, but this time, she felt something new come along too. It was like an instinct—one she couldn't fight as her hands came up to the interface once more and started hammering at breakneck speed at the keys.

Her fingers danced, seemingly on their own volition, sending a blazing inferno of tactile lights and bleeps and bloops flying about with every keystroke. Entrapta had sent over a long video one month a while back that walked her through basic electrical jury rigging for the PDA currently still strapped to her forearm, and she had also learned a thing or two about messing with its code to keep everything running smooth, but Catra still hadn't considered herself tech-savvy by any means. What she watched her body do right in front of her eyes was nothing short of extraordinary. It was like she was communicating with the Mother Brain on a visceral level.

After a rapid succession of what she could only assume were low-level system calls and forced overrides, Catra sent a new command off to the computer and stepped back as if to admire her handiwork, and the computer got to work processing.

A string of errors cascaded down the screen not long after, while she was still trying to figure out what had just happened. The screen itself flickered before shutting down entirely.

Uh oh.

Catra stepped forward and started tapping at the keys, trying to get a response from the system. It had frozen, and she started to panic. Had she just crashed the central mainframe for Phoenix Station's entire security force? She didn't even know how to explain what had just happened to her body, let alone what she had done to Mother Brain. If some auditor or forensics team got involved about this, she'd have no idea what to say.

Thankfully, everything seemed to reset after a moment, and the display came back just as responsive as before. Catra breathed a deep sigh of relief before she noticed one small difference: Mother Brain no longer recognized the drive sitting right next to her. No matter what she tried, it absolutely refused to acknowledge the drive's presence. It seemed almost like it had been forced through a traumatic experience and refused to acknowledge its presence again, let alone interface with it.

Brow furrowed and mind racing with even more thoughts than before, Catra slipped the drive back into her pocket and left. She walked straight past Trayn, struggling to guide yet another massive suspect he was trying to book into the precinct. She also walked straight past Keren, still typing away at her computer. She neither looked at nor acknowledged either of them when they tried to flag her down, because there was only one thing on her mind: Diallo had been right.

She believed Dax when he said their system was cutting edge. Nothing had been able to stump it in the past, despite all the crazy cyphers and encryptions they had fed it over the years. Catra had scoffed when Diallo suggested it wouldn't be able to read the drive, yet here she was, freaking out because that's exactly what had just happened. And if Diallo had been right about the drive, then what else could he be right about?

Was he right about Taline hoping she'd read between the lines and act where she could not? Was he right in saying that Catra was supposed to help him in Taline's stead? She found she had no proof to the contrary, and so, made her decision. She walked straight out of the precinct without looking back, intent on finding Diallo. He and Taline needed a tool to stop to Moriarty from gutting the region and leaving everyone unprotected.

She would be that tool.