Chapter 39: Infiltrate
Catra watched the people on the Atrium ground floor shrink as she rode the VIP elevator. She'd been to the Atrium enough times already that month to last her the rest of the year, but this trip was different. This time, Diallo was with her, and together they were riding to the Executive wing—higher than she'd ever been before—to commit espionage against the Empire.
The Atrium was far more crowded than she had ever seen it before, too, and it wasn't just because Administration had, only minutes earlier, opened it to refugees that were now starting to trickle in. No, it was also because Moriarty's rally speech had drawn an enormous crowd. Catra narrowed her eyes and kept them trained on the pop-up stage below, where he and the rest of his entourage, Taline included, were to stand. Pip flitted into view at the corner of her vision, three inches tall and floating above the elevator handrail, humming as if she hadn't a care in the world.
"You know, people used to meet gruesome ends f-falling to their deaths out there," Diallo said, standing just behind and to her left, looking out at the same view. "Well, pushed to their deaths might be a better word than f-falling. Moriarty would assassinate his political opponents with spectacle like that to s-send a message back in the day—back before he consolidated p-power in this region."
Catra angled her head and raised an eyebrow at him.
"They s-say he wears those white gloves of his as a symbol that his hands are clean." Diallo scoffed. "I s-say you'd see the blood on his hands there still, if he only didn't h-hide them like that."
There were plenty of strange rumors around Moriarty, those white gloves of his being among the least concerning. Catra never paid it much attention before, but still…what a weird way to start a conversation.
Something about the casual, almost pedestrian way Diallo described people falling to their deaths flipped a switch in Catra's mind, then. She crossed her arms and studied him.
"You've got a pretty good disguise going for you," she said. "The stutter really drives it home."
Diallo raised his eyebrows at her. "What do you m-mean?"
"Taline told me about how you two met," Catra said, her tail flicking behind her. "She told me what you did to 'help' her with everything in a certain person's hidden lab. You don't succeed working with someone like Taline—or working under someone like Moriarty—by being weak. You're craftier than you look."
A smile grew across Diallo's face as she spoke.
"I appreciate the compliment," he said. "You're quite perceptive yourself, although I would disagree with you on my stutter being the thing that makes people overlook me."
"What else is there?" Catra asked, noting that he had just spoken a full phrase without stuttering once. Suddenly, she was doubting it was even a genuine tic. "You're pretty unassuming, no offense."
"The stutter draws attention," he said, "but it's these that make successful." He made a show of adjusting his glasses. "I feel more focused because of these. Level headed."
"That usually goes with being able to see clearly." Catra tried to imagine what it'd be like to not have her razor-sharp eyesight.
"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Diallo said. "Most assume I just have bad eyes, but the glasses are much more than that. There's sentimental value to them as well, I suppose. Not many people can say they have glasses with frames wrought from ignominite."
Catra turned fully around to face him in surprise and leaned in closer to focus on his glasses. She stared, unblinking, for several moments until...there! It would have been impossible to see were she not trying so hard to notice, but she did see the tiniest hint of blood-read thread its way through the frames.
"How Horde Prime's nasty flaccid tentacle hairs did you afford a pair of ignominite glasses?"
"I didn't have to afford them," Diallo said. "They were a gift from the Vestamid."
"What?" Catra sputtered. "Why would they give you anything?"
"Because I'm the Administrator in charge of one of their most important systems?" Diallo said, confused. "Their main production plant on Archanas is one of my major constituencies, even if their population is near nothing compared to many of the other surrounding systems."
Catra's jaw hinged open and she shut it with a click the moment she realized. "You're in charge of that system?"
Diallo frowned. "Yes. Forgive me, I thought you already knew this. Didn't Taline tell you?"
"No, she didn't," Catra said, crossing her arms and grumbling. "Not about that. Taline doesn't talk about Archanas. She's never told me or Glimmer anything about it, really." She huffed. "I don't even know what her 'Seraph of Archanas' title means or where it comes from."
"What do you know about it, then? The planet?"
Catra shrugged. "What everyone else does, I suppose. It's where the end of the last war happened, where the Beast got sealed away. Taline held a fleet above orbit and punched a hole in the planet's defenses for the Daiamid to get through to the surface. I always just figured it was traumatic and she didn't want to talk about it."
Diallo "hmm'd" and Catra didn't like the look he gave her—it made her feel like, once again, she was out of the loop on some key piece of information.
"That's not to say I didn't try looking you up on my own, though," she said. "It's just…there wasn't much there when I did. Your file is about as unassuming as you look, and no mention of Archanas at all in there either. I didn't know that you were in charge of its Administration, just like I didn't know there was a Vestamid mining operation there." She paused, then huffed when the full weight of that statement hit her. "What the fuck. I thought the Empire quarantined that whole planet, on pain of death."
Catra finished her sentence only to realize she had been talking for far too long and revealed far too much of her own ignorance. Diallo was studying her, and she suddenly regretted opening herself so wide to someone she had just correctly guessed was far smarter and better at manipulating people than she had originally expected.
"The Empire did quarantine the planet," he said. "But, seeing as the Vestamid are such an integral part not only to the defense of the Empire against the Beast, but also, oddly enough, vitally important to the health of its economy, they are allowed access to it. It's not common knowledge, and as such, my file is classified at a level much higher than even a newly minted Sentinel's security clearance would have given you access to."
Catra's ears wilted, although she tried her hardest to keep them from doing so. And here she had thought that new security clearance was near ironclad.
"As for Taline being reticent to speak of the place," Diallo said. "I don't blame her for that either. You're right in saying that planet is traumatic. It's like a waking nightmare for her."
"I wouldn't want to talk about it either if I lost someone important there," Catra said.
Diallo shook his head. "That's not it."
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't avoid talking about it because she lost someone. She doesn't just avoid talking about it, but actively dodges any opportunity to come visit or have anything to do with it at all. Any report I've sent her in the past about its status has gone ignored. Losing someone wouldn't necessitate such a vicious aversion—Taline has always attended to her responsibilities, even if it pained her. This goes beyond that."
When Catra only furrowed her brow and shot him a confused look, Diallo sighed and pointed at her neckline.
"I know about the aperion she gave you—the one she spent years working at? Did she tell you what thoughts and emotions she imbued it with?"
Catra's hand darted to the crystal, tied to its lanyard and lying flush against her breastbone under her outfit. She remembered Taline explaining it to her in the hidden lab, remembered how she explained she'd meditate on it for hours about her sister. Diallo's point jumped out at her the moment she made that connection: Taline didn't keep from talking about Archanas because of Evelyn's death; there was something else—possibly something worse—making her avoid the topic at all costs.
Catra didn't say anything, but satisfaction bloomed on Diallo's face all the same. She hated how her realization somehow made him feel accomplished. Archanas hadn't ever really crossed her mind before, but now she couldn't help it. Diallo had aroused a suspicion in her about Taline she couldn't shake, and she hated it—hated how easily she took to the paranoia.
"If she were trying to avoid dredging up memories of this nameless, formless person that, according to Imperial doctrine doesn't even exist in the first place, well…that would be one thing," Diallo said. "But it's not like she's avoided that at all to begin with. She sat with those thoughts, ruminating on them for a decade. She plunged head-first into them."
Dozens of thoughts crowded Catra's head then—guesses as to why Taline avoided any mention of the place before. Taline had told her once, back on Etheria, that she'd explain where her 'Seraph of Archanas' name came from, but any attempt on Catra's part over the years to ask about it had been shut down before she'd get three words out. Over time, Catra just stopped asking. Now, those interactions fed the flames of her uncertainty.
"Tell me what happened," Catra asked. "Why is it she avoids any mention of it if it's not because she lost her family there? What do you know?"
Diallo didn't respond. Catra got the feeling he was trying to decide whether or not he should talk and how much to say.
"Archanas is where the last war ended," he said at last. "That, at least, is true. I was in the landing party when we touched down and saw what was left of the Daiamid and of Taline's sister. And, yes, it's where she and I first met, before we left and ransacked the Daiamid base together afterwards. It was my first time ever visiting that planet, but it was not hers."
Catra waited for him to continue, and suppressed a growl when he didn't. "And?" she said. "What's that supposed to tell me?"
Diallo shrugged and looked away. "I've said all I can about that. I'm trying to give you an avenue for further conversation with her on the matter, not to spill secrets that are not mine to give."
"All I'm hearing is someone being suspiciously cagey." Frustration bloomed in Catra's chest and spread to her extremities. Her fur threatened to stand on end. Why did he bring this up in the first place if he wasn't going to be forthright with her? "Archanas is a different world compared to back then. People are there spending their days mining for ignominite now, and you're in charge of them."
Diallo glanced at her from the corner of his eye and Catra decided that if he wasn't going to come out and say what he was thinking, then she had no reason to beat around the bush.
"I'm about to bring you dirt on your own constituents," she said, patting her pants pocket where the encrypted drive lay. "This is from the Vestamid too, you said. You expect me to believe you aren't up to anything having me break into Moriarty's office trying to decrypt it? What's your angle?"
"I don't expect you to believe anything," he said. "And frankly, I don't care what you believe. But just to set the record straight—Taline and I worked well together because I helped her all those years ago, and I helped her because it was the right thing to do. Letting the Emperor take away the last remnants of her family's work and get his hands on all of the Daiamid's research? That would have been dangerous, let alone immoral.
"If you want the real reason Taline vouched for me in this position, it's because she knows I'll do the right thing when it counts. Exposing the Vestamid and their schemes is the right thing to do. They're too dangerous left unchecked, constituents of mine or not."
Catra held his gaze a moment and, when he didn't waver, she did.
"Sorry," she said, averting her eyes. "I shouldn't have implied…."
Diallo smiled. "It's f-fine," he said, his stutter returning as his demeanor backed off into something less severe. "I understand the h-hesitation. Caution is a g-good thing in your new line of work. Y-you haven't hurt my f-feelings."
Catra nodded and they both fell silent. Pip floated up from the handrail to Catra's left.
"I get bad vibe from this guy," she said, an uneasy expression on her face. "Something about this just doesn't feel right."
::He's a veteran of the last Beast war and a politician:: Catra said to her. ::Of course he's going to feel off. I feel it too, just look at how easily he can turn that stutter on and off.:: A thought came to her and she furrowed her brow. ::Have you never seen Diallo before?::
Pip shook her head. "Should I have?"
::Taline got this guy his job and he's come to visit her enough times to drive her nuts. They've apparently been friends for years. How has she stewarded you all this time and you don't remember seeing him before?::
She regretted the words the moment she thought them. Pip recoiled and wilted without a response, looking sullen. Catra was about to say something else to at least try and smooth over the comment, or maybe understand why it got that kind of reaction, but the view and ambient light coming through the elevator window suddenly disappeared as they shot through the Atrium's ceiling. Then the doors opened when the elevator slowed to a halt, and the three of them exited onto the lobby of Phoenix Station's Executive wing.
If Catra had been impressed and simultaneously intimidated by the Atrium when she first saw it, the splendor of the Executive level far outclassed it. Whereas the Atrium and its various shops and apartment stories and ceiling-level offices—the Enclave Embassies included—were wreathed in silver and marble, this level had a distinct motif of obsidian veined with leavened-gold.
Office workers and aids bustled about, infusing the triple-height lobby with a constant thrum of background noise and feeling of activity. Several dozen staffers hustled from one of the other half dozen elevator doors nearby and Catra caught a closer glimpse of their clothing. She noticed the cut and silhouettes of several of them. Each easily cost more than a year of her salary as security, from what she remembered when she saw the price tags, perusing the Atrium shops with Glimmer in the past.
Pip had grown uncharacteristically subdued, perched on her shoulder in a casual pose that looked forced. Catra swallowed and followed Diallo to the front desk. It housed easily two dozen receptionists behind its massive, semi-circular length. A waterfall mural with the Imperial Horde insignia emblazoned on the front petered out water behind them.
There's no doubt whose influence owns the place, Catra thought, looking at the statues and reliefs of Horde Prime and Moriarty. He must head this level the same way Taline heads the Embassies on the floor below.
"Governor Diallo, h-here to badge in a guest," Diallo said to the closest receptionist when they got to the front. He put his palm on the reader and the receptionist looked over to Catra, gesturing for her to do the same. When the scanner read her palm, the receptionist's eyebrows shot up.
"Sentinel?" she said. "It's been a while since the Seraph has had one of those. Stand still and look here."
She adjusted a small spheroid camera on a stand on the desk and pointed it in Catra's direction. Catra didn't know whether to smile or not, so she kept her face even. After a few moments, the receptionist had printed out a small sticker with her picture and pertinent identifying information, and handed it over.
"Go ahead to the security checkpoint," she said. "Make sure that guest badge is visible at all times."
After pasting the sticker to her front, Catra followed Diallo off to the side, where a handful of body scanners lined up in a row were installed. For each scanner, two Imperial soldiers stood watch on either side, guiding the small backlog of staffers through the checkpoint.
Catra brushed fingers along the grip of her sidearm, holstered at her hip, and felt along the length of the stun baton hugging her outer thigh. She wasn't station security anymore and technically shouldn't have had either pieces of their standard-issue equipment on her, but leaving on an assignment (even an 'undercover' assignment, granted) without them felt wrong. But Catra just didn't know what was going to happen once they got to the checkpoint. Would she even be allowed through with them?
"Weapons off," the soldier to her right said as they got to the front of the line. "We'll hold them for you and you can have them back when you leave."
Catra considered arguing to keep them, but ultimately nodded and went to unholster the weapons. Pissing off the guards was one of the few things she felt instinctively was a bad idea; it would do her no good if she were to cause a stir before getting within even a hundred paces of Moriarty's office.
"She'll keep her equipment w-with her, thank you very much."
Diallo's voice cut through, and the soldiers, Catra, and even Pip all turned to look at him.
"Weapons are strictly forbidden beyond this point without a valid authorization," the soldier said. "You cannot pass without relinquishing them."
"It's fine," Catra said. "I had a feeling this might happen, it's not a big deal."
"It is a big d-deal," Diallo said. "I'm giving explicit authorization for her to c-carry arms inside. She's my bodyguard for the d-day with security so concentrated elsewhere for Moriarty's r-rally. I want her armed. Check her visitor pass."
Catra didn't feel comfortable with this—she really didn't want to draw attention to herself. The soldier leaned in and she stood stock-still, resisting the urge to swallow or fidget as he narrowed his eyes at her visitor badge.
"Sentinel?" he said, echoing the receptionist from earlier. Catra shrugged and he seemed to think for a moment before saying, "Alright. If Governor Diallo vouches for you and the front checked you out then you can go."
The soldier jerked his thumb behind his shoulder to indicate she should head through the scanner. Catra walked through and the machine immediately beeped and screamed because of her weapons. She grimaced as it continued, drawing the attention of others in the lobby before finally going silent. Diallo went through next, and when it elicited no complaints from the scanner, the two of them continued to the back.
"That really wasn't necessary," Catra said in a low voice, moving to catch up to Diallo who was already ahead of her, setting a fast pace. "Isn't the whole point of infiltrating to not draw attention in the first place? I won't even need the weapons if no one catches me."
"They headed through one of the large doors in the back and into a double-height room filled with cubicles. It was significantly quieter here than out in the lobby, and all noise died out almost entirely when the door shut behind them. It almost reminded Catra of a library, except for the fact it was obviously an office floor.
"True," Diallo said. "You won't n-need the weapons. Not until you d-do."
"Is that you cryptically trying to imply that I'm going to get caught?" she hissed, keeping pace with him and glancing left and right at he staffers and corporate jockeys at their desks. Each of them either plugged away at holographic visuals or sat flush against the backs of their office chairs with VR headsets over their eyes. None seemed to notice them.
"It's me s-saying that, when dealing with Moriarty in any way, you'd better be prepared. It's b-better to have a weapon and not need it than need it and n-not have it."
"Even if he's sixty levels down on the Atrium floor?"
"He's most d-dangerous when you expect n-not to run into him. Remember all those people I mentioned f-fell to their deaths because of him? How many thought they were safe moments before they found themselves r-racing to meet the floor, you think?"
Catra grunted and conceded the point, choosing to focus on keeping her head down remain inconspicuous as she followed Diallo through the office floor.
They passed a corner meeting room partitioned off with glass. Catra could see several people huddled around the long desk, staring at a large holo-screen mounted to the far wall. They were watching the live coverage of Moriarty's rally speech. There he stood, up on the raised platform behind a podium, sweat dripping from his skin, smearing the pancake makeup covering his face and staining his white gloves a toxic shade of yellow.
He spoke and gestured with loud, expansive movements, and although she couldn't actually hear him through the glass from where she stood, she got the impression she was watching someone on the precipice of sanity. The look in his eyes…she'd seen it in her own, looking back at her across the mirrors of the Fright Zone not long after she'd pulled the lever to the portal.
The camera panned out and she caught sight of Taline standing among the other officials in the region behind him, clad in her typical Consular robes, wearing a stony face. The words "Moriarty declares region on lockdown to future refugees. Phoenix station to 'scrupulously vet' all incoming traffic amid budgetary slashes" scrolled across the ticker at the bottom of the feed.
"That can't be good," Catra said, tracking the screen as they walked past.
"Did you ever r-reach out to Taline like you said you would?" Diallo asked, barely sparing the holo-screen a glance himself.
"I did," Catra said, ignoring the knowing smirk she saw spread across Pip's face and the flush of embarrassment beginning to spread across her own. "I uh…got ahold of her in the middle of prepping for that rally. And all the news interviews before and after it."
"And? Did she confirm what I said about w-working with Narre and Miri? The occasional secret assignments they w-went on?"
"She didn't," Catra said, feeling her flush spread further. Pip started to cackle on her shoulder, all hint of melancholy from earlier having vanished, and Catra physically brushed her off with a huff. Her hand passed through the Pip's translucent form without phasing her in the slightest. "All of a sudden it didn't feel right to straight up ask if I'm supposed to do this. I mean, the mission is secretive in the first place, isn't it? Either we get something good and she benefits from it, or we find nothing and no one is any wiser, right?"
Diallo didn't speak for a while and she was afraid she'd made the wrong assumption.
"That's a good s-sign then," he said, finally. "The fact you were unsure and wanted to r-reach out means you have a healthy level of skepticism, but the fact you stopped short of divulging the whole operation is more promising. It s-shows you have some self-awareness for what you're about to do. If you had g-gone all the way and actually asked her, Taline m-may have reconsidered her choice to conscript you. Good show of restraint, Catra."
They took another turn within the cubicle farm and Catra knew she'd definitely have gotten lost if Diallo weren't leading her directly.
"Where exactly is his office?" she asked, feeling her flush creep further still. All these years later and she'd still have such a visceral reaction to even the slightest bit of praise. It was embarrassing. "I feel like we've been walking for ages and I don't see anything."
Diallo pointed ahead and she looked, seeing a large square structure cantilevered off the second-floor loft in the far back corner of the room. Covered windows stretched to the ceiling, giving whoever was inside a clear panoramic view of the entire cube farm. A half-turn staircase leading to the access loft started at the very end of the hallway they were walking along.
"We have to be quick," he said. "Moriarty should be gone for a while, but we have no idea if he's scheduled anyone to do security checks while he's away. He's known to be paranoid and it's only gotten worse in recent years."
He spoke again in that dangerous, low voice devoid of even a stutter. It clashed so strongly with his normal demeanor it got Catra wondering about him, instead of focusing on the mission.
"What did you do before?" she asked Diallo, eliciting a quick glance from Pip. She eyed her back and gave a shrug; she had no idea why she was asking either. The question just came naturally.
"Before wh-what?" Diallo asked, not breaking his stride.
"Before all this Beast stuff. Before you met Taline and became a politician."
They reached the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor and Diallo stopped with one foot on the first step. He turned and fixed her with a curious look.
"No one's ever asked m-me that before," he said with his brow furrowed. He thought a moment, then adjusted his glasses. "Hm. Truth be t-told, I don't remember very much of anything before m-meeting Taline. The war scrambled m-my brains a bit too much."
"You don't remember anything at all?" Catra asked. Diallo started to climb the stairs and she followed "No tidbits from before the war? Nothing from your childhood?"
"N-nothing striking, at least," he said. "Selective traumatic amnesia, the d-doctors tell me." When Catra looked to him with something akin to pity in her eyes, he said, "It's not the m-most pleasant thing, you know, not remembering. S-so I just like to pretend I had a pretty g-good childhood growing up."
"That's nice, I guess," she said, thinking back on her own. "Mine wasn't exactly pleasant."
"Overbearing p-parents?"
"You have no idea." Shadow Weaver flitted across her mind and Pip gave her a sympathetic look.
"What's w-worse, I wonder," Diallo said, musing out loud. "Not r-remembering anything of your childhood at all, or r-remembering for certain that it was terrible?"
The question was strikingly profound and made Catra delve deep into the recesses of her thoughts. So much so that, when they reached the top of the stairs and entered the lobby outside Moriarty's office, Catra didn't realize something was wrong until Diallo stopped in his tracks. She looked up and saw another receptionist sitting at her station, chatting with a man in a station security officer's uniform leaned over the top of her desk. Upon further inspection, she realized the man in the uniform was Dax.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Catra said to Diallo, her panic forcing her voice into a stage whisper.
"I don't know," he said. "But I w-was expecting only Moriarty's receptionist to be present. With him here as w-well, it makes this difficult."
They must have been speaking loud enough to be overheard, because both the receptionist and Dax turned and looked at them.
"Catra" Dax said, pulling away almost entirely from the receptionist's desk. He looked like he had just been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. "What are you doing here?"
"Right back at you," she said, following Diallo's lead and actually walking in closer, pretending like they were supposed to be there rather than about to infiltrate the office. No use trying to slip away quietly now that they had been seen. "Aren't you supposed to be overseeing security for the rally?"
"Hey, I have a legitimate reason to be here," he said, shooting the receptionist a nervous smile before turning to Diallo. "Administrator Moriarty wanted someone up here to make sure nothing shady happened. He liked the job we did welcoming you onto the station, Governor Diallo, and asked that I personally see to it that nothing happened to his office." The humor and joviality from his voice disappeared and he frowned. "And also, we're so short staffed now that I have to step into the field without any backup just to cover everything that needs to be covered. Moriarty took all his Vanguard troops down to the Atrium with him, and almost all of my guys as auxiliary security."
"I thought he l-looked familiar," Diallo said, grumbling low enough so only Catra could hear.
The receptionist shot Dax a scandalized look. "You said you took this posting to come see me!"
"I did, sweetie, I did!" Dax said, turning to her and looking thoroughly panicked. "You know how it is, though. I can't just come out and say I've taken the posting myself for that reason. I'm the supervisor, how would that look?"
Catra rolled her eyes. The truth was likely a mixture of both: they were short staffed enough that someone had to be up here alone to guard the office per Moriarty's instructions, but Dax could have easily assigned any other officer to the task instead. Judging by how hard he was trying to appease the woman behind the desk, the reasons why he took the posting himself were obvious.
"F-forget about this," Diallo said, still speaking in a low voice to only her while Dax and the receptionist bickered. "There are cameras around h-here too."
Catra looked around where the ceiling met the walls and indeed saw small cameras installed at each juncture.
"If it were just the r-receptionist, I would have been able to d-distract her long enough to disable them so you could slip inside," Diallo said. "But with your old s-supervisor here, there's not a chance in hell. We'll j-just have to try this another time."
"Wait!" Pip said, zipping in front to grab Catra's attention. Diallo would have seen her plain as day if Pip wasn't invisible to everyone except her, and Catra was still getting used to that fact. She flinched, and then played it off when Diallo caught sight of it and gave her a look.
Pip squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating, as Diallo turned to leave.
All the lights in the lobby shut off, only to then turned back on again, dimmer than before. An alarm blared, and a recorded voice repeated to them over and over again to evacuate immediately.
"What did you do?" Catra asked out loud to Pip, whose eyes went wide in surprise as she made frantic shushing gestures back.
Chaos ensued. Someone grabbed her by the arm and, amidst the alarm blaring out the loudspeakers and the adrenaline pounding through her veins, Catra jumped and turned with claws extended to hiss. Diallo flinched, and Catra forced herself to calm.
"Sorry," she said. "You spooked me."
"I didn't trip the alarm if that's what you w-were asking before," he said. "But whatever it is, w-we need to evacuate immediately."
"My thoughts exactly," Dax said, ushering the receptionist past them in a hurry. "I have no idea what's going on, but I'll leave last and make sure everyone on the first floor below gets out safe."
Diallo turned and watched them hurry down the stairs, out of sight. When they disappeared, he slipped behind the receptionist's desk and typed furiously at the computer there. In a moment, all the cameras around wilted and pointed down to the floor.
"I've killed the camera feed," he said. "I have no idea what triggered that alarm, but we can't let an opportunity like this go to waste. Get in there, decode the drive on his computer, and get out as quickly as you can, you hear?"
Catra nodded, registering the fact his stutter disappeared yet again, trying and failing to ignore Pip who was zipping around her head in a circle with a gleeful look on her face. "Got it," she said.
Diallo turned and hurried out and down the stairs, hot on Dax and the receptionist's heels. He'd have to leave too, so as to not draw suspicion on himself and to keep suspicion off Catra while she worked.
::Did you do that?:: she asked Pip as she headed straight for Moriarty's office door, all obstacles now removed from her path. She tried the door. It was locked.
"Yep!" Pip said. "Been connected to the station mainframe for a while now and finally learned my way around a bit. Watch this."
Catra heard the lock on the door click and she tried it again. The door swung wide open.
::Oh…that is useful.::
"Isn't it though?" Pip said, wheeling around her head anew.
The alarm shut off and Catra wasted no time. She dashed inside the office and closed the door shut behind her.
