Chapter 41: A Hydra of Mysteries
Catra plunged into pitch black darkness the moment she shut the door to Moriarty's office behind her with a click. The coverings over the windows preventing anyone in the cube farm outside from looking in also blocked out any ambient light, so she stilled, noting the interplay between her breathing and her heartbeat, trying to keep them balanced against each other and prevent either from spooling faster. Her night vision was superb, it just took a moment to kick in—a moment that, the longer it stretched on, she wished was shorter. The longer she stayed in that office, the higher her chances of getting caught.
Just when she finished that thought, a light appeared from her PDA at her right wrist, powerful enough she hissed and tried to shy away from it on instinct. A moment later, she caught her bearings and realized it was emanating from her PDA.
It's a flashlight! Entrapta had told her when she first gifted the thing to her. It's super powerful. Be careful not to burn anyone's eyes out with it. Catra mashed at the controls, scrambling to shut it off as quickly as possible.
"Oops," Pip said, floating up to her left. She didn't give off any light of her own, despite being clearly visible against the dark. "Did you not want me to do that?"
"No!" Catra hissed the words aloud now that they were alone. "My eyes will adjust on their own. I don't want anyone accidentally seeing me in here. If that light is strong enough to blind someone, then it might be powerful enough to shine through the blackout curtains."
"Sorry," Pip said. At least she looked sheepish. "I'm still getting used to you, I guess. I felt that you wanted to see, now, and knew there was a light I could turn on for you." She pursed her lips and sighed. "It will probably take a little longer until I can anticipate you better."
Catra huffed but let it go, since the outlines and contours of the room were starting to come into focus for her. It was still dead silent inside. The blaring alarm from outside had turned off before she had fully gotten inside, but she also figured Moriarty was likely to have the same kind of sound dampening in his office that Taline had in hers. Letting silence draw her into a false sense of security was a sure way to get caught, so she pushed the worries clawing at her mind aside and focused on what she had come to do in the first place.
An executive-style desk sat in the middle of the office, carved out of one solid block of black wood. A computer terminal sat on top of it along with a number of documents and a tablet. A trophy case filled with awards and pictures and baubles stretched the entire length and width of the right side of the office, pushed against the wall. A small coat closet was tucked away in the opposite far corner, near a couch, coffee table, and aluminum planter.
"Pretty sparse office for the head of an entire region of space, aside from the trophies," Catra said, stalking over to the desk.
Pip seemed confused. "Looks like a normal office to me. Taline's got one too."
"That's exactly my point. Taline has a whole storage area filled with contraband lab equipment hidden away in hers. You'd think someone who reports directly to the emperor and answers to no one else would have an office that was less..."
"Unassuming?" Pip asked, finishing Catra's sentence when she couldn't find the word.
Catra smirked and winked at her. "Maybe you'll start better anticipating me quicker than you think."
Pip beamed at her in response and Catra, feeling satisfied, slid behind the desk, careful to avoid touching or displacing anything. When she tapped the console's keyboard, a holographic screen popped up in front of her and prompted her for a password.
"Damn, I should have seen this coming," Catra said, patting at the encrypted drive in her pocket. "You think if I just plug in the device, it will bypass the login?" Diallo had given her a list of passwords to try but she didn't know how much time they had before someone came back. That alarm Pip set off outside was a good distraction, but it likely cut whatever time they would have had undetected short.
"I have a better idea," Pip said, landing with gentle feet on the desk.
As Catra watched her pad over to the holo-screen with her bare feet, she wondered at the back of her mind if she could change her size at will. Pip was supposed just a projection in her head. Catra had only seen her manifest roughly the size of a glass of water—was it possible for her to appear as tall as her? Or maybe even larger?
"There you go," Pip said. The lock screen asking for a password replaced with Moriarty's working desktop with all his applications and electronic documents ready for access. "And I can change my size by the way," she said, briefly growing a few inches before returning back to her smaller size. "But it doesn't really matter, since you're the only one who can see me anyways. Giant seven-foot-tall women may be your thing, but I see no need to get into that if this size suits me just fine."
Catra sputtered. "Giant seven foot—" She stared wide-eyed at Pip who raised an eyebrow at her and didn't break eye contact, both hands resting on her hips. "That's not my thing," she said after schooling her voice and expression back into one of calm. "In fact, I don't have a thing. At all."
"If you say so," Pip said with a shrug, finally breaking eye contact to stare with abject fascination at a Newton's cradle sitting next to her on the desk.
Catra rolled her eyes. There really was no use arguing with her. Pip had been in her head, apparently had seen at least some of her memories, and could actively read her thoughts. She turned her attention back to the now unlocked computer, pulled out the drive from her pocket, and plugged it into the computer. A dialog box popped up, cycling through a number of log messages that flashed on-screen almost too quickly for her to read, and then a progress bar popped up with the words 'deciphering' displayed above it.
She watched the bar tick up to one percent after a handful of seconds, then turned her attention back to Pip. "This has to be one of the most secure places on the entire station, but you're able to set off the general alarm and unlock not just Moriarty's office door but his computer as well. Do you think you'd do any better at reading the data on the storage device?" She glanced back at the computer terminal. It had ticked up to two percent, finally. "It's going to take forever this way."
"Already tried that, Pip said, shaking her head. " Didn't work. I sat with that deciphering program back at the precinct, you know? Oh man, that poor guy was so confused about what we were trying to get him to do, it was almost comical."
"That guy?"
"You know, your 'Mother Brain'?" Pip said. "Funny you call him 'mother' when he's a dude. He kept asking me what you wanted him to do since the disk looked empty to him. I kept trying to tell him there was this massive encryption around it…even borrowed your hands for a bit to try and force him to look at it after he pissed me off by implying I was the defective one for 'seeing something that wasn't there'."
"Wait, you and the AI at the precinct talked to each other?" Catra asked, surprised. She blinked. "And Mother Brain is a guy? AI's can have genders?"
Pip's mouth parted slightly and her eyes narrowed, her whole face expressing an are you for real? sentiment as she gestured with both hands at her own body, clad in its frilly sundress.
Catra cleared her throat, feeling a flush tinge at her. "Silly question, perhaps. That was you doing all that crazy coding too? By…borrowing my hands?"
"More or less" Pip said. "I wasn't actually borrowing anything—I can't take over your body, if that's what you're worried about. I don't want to bore you with the specifics, so I'll just say that I make…suggestions. Suggestions that your body is very good at following, if you want to.
"As for talking to other AIs, the answer there is yes, too. All of the above, yes. Just like you and Diallo or Taline or Dax can talk to each other, I can talk to other programs and AI too. Most of them are pretty boring, some of them are nice. Like Hilda."
"You've talked to Hilda? What do you guys even talk about?"
Pip laughed through here nose, then started to shimmer, and her features began to shift. Her blue hue, pixie cut, and sun dress turned into a green avatar of a woman with long flowing hair and a military-styled service uniform with the Imperial Horde insignia emblazoned on the front.
"She's pretty nice," the Pip/Hilda hybrid said, "I just can't speak too much about her intelligence without being mean." Pip turned back to her original self, brushing off imaginary dust from her shoulders when she finished. "I've always wondered what it'd be like to appear to other people. Hilda can go anywhere in the station using her holo-projectors. I thought about giving them a try myself, but…"
"But what?" Catra asked, when Pip trailed off.
"I dunno. They're hers, I shouldn't take over them just because I'm bored or curious." She gave a low chuckle. "Besides, can you imagine someone calling for her at a terminal and I show up instead? Would probably give Taline a heart attack when auditors start digging into why a blue AI showed up out of nowhere. She was always very…careful. About not letting me get onto the main station network. Seems like a bad idea to go crazy now that I've finally gotten a chance to hook in, even if its hard to ignore all the freedom from time to time."
"Yeah, I guess I can understand that," Catra said, remembering how she had to coach herself the same way during her first few months off Etheria. It's a big, wide galaxy, Catra, she'd said to herself every now and again, when the urge to do something self-destructive felt far more interesting than putting on her uniform and clocking in for her shift. Don't go crazy with all the freedom, you'll only make it harder to build a real life out here if you do.
She checked the computer again, anxiety creeping up her spine again when the decryption bar still had so much more to go. "So, you can't take over my body, but just 'suggest'," Catra said. "But however you phrase it, we still did something to Mother Brain trying to force him to try and decrypt the drive."
"Yeah, but it didn't work, remember? You could probably tell, since everything shut off while he rebooted. I think we short-circuited his brain for a bit, and when he turned back on, he just kept pretending there wasn't a drive for him to look at to begin with." Pip flashed a smirk and gave a low chuckle. "Serves him right. Shouldn't have said I was defective for pointing out something he couldn't see."
"So, you could see the encryption, but the cutting-edge AI designed specifically to decrypt things couldn't even register it was encrypted at all?"
"Yep, pretty much," Pip said. "Although that's as far as I could get too. I saw everything was scrambled but had no idea what to do with any of it. I would have said something sooner if I could have cracked it instead of, you know…letting you come all the way out here with that weird politician man. I don't think Evie fully finished some of my modules before she died. Why else can I see the encryption but not do anything with it?"
"I don't know," Catra said. "Maybe you aren't finished, but thank you for trying to help." For some reason, the fact Pip already tried to decrypt the drive for her was touching. "You're pretty amazing, you know that? Even if you might technically not be done, Evelyn must have been a real genius to have made you. I mean, I don't think I'd have even gotten in here if it weren't for you."
"Thanks," Pip said, flashing a quick smile. "And I'm sure she was great. I kinda wish I remembered her."
"You mean you don't remember anything about her?"
Pip shook her head, crossing one arm over her chest to rub the other. "Taline has asked me that question so many times I've lost count. I wish I remembered something about her, anything at all! But I can't, and it's frustrating."
As curious as she was, Catra decided not to push for more answers or explanation after seeing how uncomfortable the topic was for Pip. A gentle wave of appreciation lapped at her consciousness from the other side of their connection in response. The progress bar on the monitor had just crested the 50% mark.
"Do you think Taline would approve of what we're doing here?" Catra asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, doing this crazy undercover infiltration mission with Diallo." Catra tapped her fingers on the desk. Thinking about this was making her more anxious than she had expected.
"You mean how he told you Sentinels are supposed to do undercover missions like this when their Battlemages can't get directly involved?" Pip asked. Catra nodded, and she said, "I'm really not sure. She said to return the drive to Diallo, then this happened when you tried. I couldn't tell you if this was what Taline wanted to happen originally, if her original order was code to be deciphered between the lines or not."
Catra sighed. "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but there's something that just doesn't add up to me," she said, choosing her words carefully. Pip gave her a hesitant look and she continued. "You don't remember ever seeing Diallo before, despite him apparently knowing Taline since the first war. You don't remember anything about Evie, either, despite the fact she built you to begin with. And now you can't tell me anything about Taline despite the fact she's stewarded you for years. I don't get it."
Pip deflated and wandered over to the edge of the desk, sitting down on the hardwood and dangling her feet off the edge. "The thing is," she said. "Taline always kept me on a very short leash and behind very high walls whenever it came to interacting with her. She didn't want me reading any of her memories, didn't want me reading any of her thoughts, especially didn't want me getting onto the station's network, like I said….She essentially kept me tied to a limited interface and almost exclusively had me comb through my memory banks or my own programming to see if I could remember anything about Evie."
"That's it?" Catra asked, surprised.
"Well, she'd also feed me files that she thought were encrypted with phantom algorithms, but I always cracked those because they weren't actually phantom algorithms. Whatever's on that drive Diallo handed off to her is way more complex than anything Taline gave me before." Pip gave a rueful laugh at that. "The point is, she barely let me integrate with her at all and let me see even less of her thoughts and memories and experiences. I've never seen Diallo before. Not until I integrated with you and you talked to him. Despite being in Taline's care for over eight years now, I know more about you—your thoughts, your intentions, your desires—after being connected with you for less than a week than I know about Taline." She let out a sad sigh. "So, I really can't say one way or the other how she'd feel about all of this. All I know is how you feel about it. I'm sorry."
Catra grimaced and shook her head. "That's okay…I'm sorry. Not just for asking, but I'm sorry that happened to you." Truthfully, hearing the way Taline treated Pip surprised her and reminded her of some unpleasant associations with her past. "My guardian…she didn't exactly want anything to do with me either unless it served some sort of ulterior motive, so I understand what it's like to feel that way, and you have nothing to be sorry for about it."
She stopped, suddenly realizing what she was admitting out loud. Although she hadn't identified her by name, Catra had spoken about Shadow Weaver and her past to exactly zero people except Glimmer. The fact she felt so comfortable just airing out such emotionally charged thoughts to Pip was alarming. When she looked at her, Pip was looking back with a sympathetic expression and knowing eyes.
"You already know who I'm talking about, don't you?" Catra asked, feeling as though she already knew the answer. Pip nodded and Catra gave a small laugh. "How much of my memories have you actually seen already? Y'know, just so we're on the same page about it."
"How mad would you be if I told you I've pretty much seen all of it?" Pip asked, fidgeting in anticipation.
"Not mad at all, believe it or not," she said, giving a shrug. She had to admit, being laid bare was a lot less off-putting than she'd imagined, to the extent she surprised herself at how okay it all felt. Somewhere deep in her mind she rationalized that having someone, even an AI, see into her deepest thoughts and view her most private memories and still want to stick around and help despite it all made her feel strangely grateful (even if Pip was kind of a brat about things, although Catra considered it yet another thing they had in common).
"Well that's a relief," Pip said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "I do have to say though, if there's one thing I've learned about Taline over the years, it's that she's not exactly what she appears to be on the surface."
"What?" Catra felt another hand of ice squeeze her chest at hearing that, another association with Shadow Weaver threatening to solidify in her mind.
"No, nothing like that," Pip said, standing up and waving her arms in front of her as if to chase away Catra's fears. "I meant if you asked me before she gave me to you, I might have said that she was very cold and distant. She never let me see very deep, but what little I could glean from our interactions, she seemed angry and vengeful and single-minded. Then she left for a while, right when Etheria was discovered, and came back with those three mangled scars on her face from the emperor and a completely new attitude."
"You're saying she changed?"
"Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying. All she could think about when she came back was training her new apprentice or worrying over you. She went from almost obsessively thinking about hunting a dead man down and mentally flagellating herself over Evie's death to asking me if now was the right time to let her go—asking for advice on how she might even do that. Catra, I heard her talk about you so often, I felt like I already half knew you before she handed me over. And she let me get a glimpse into her mind, a true glimpse, right before the handoff. She told me that you were a special person to her and that I'd better do everything I can to take care of you, and she exposed herself fully to me when she conveyed that so I could see the depth of that feeling."
"She said that?" Catra asked, feeling her mouth go dry.
"She not only said it—but she gave me a glimpse, a true glimpse—into her mind when she did. She exposed herself fully to me in then so I could see for myself the depth of her emotions in the moment…how much she meant it. I never would have expected such a change in her given our history. That's what I meant when I said she's not what she seems on the surface."
Catra hadn't realized how fast her heart was beating and how dry her mouth had gone until that moment. She ran her hands through her hair several times, her sense of stability returning and the lump in her throat subsiding when she reaffirmed how short it was.
It felt so silly now, thinking Pip was about to share something negative about Taline. Truthfully, she felt slightly ashamed that was the conclusion she jumped to first. Taline deserved the benefit of the doubt, at the very least, but why did she have to try so hard in order to give it?
"Don't beat yourself up so much," Pip said, giving Catra's hand she rested on the desk a nudge with her foot that, to Catra's surprise, she felt.
"She tried so hard to connect with me," Catra said, feeling tears sting her eyes and hating it. "A letter of recommendation sent straight to Dax for each of my performance reviews, invitations to coffee or brunch I'd brush off or find some flimsy excuse for… She brought me off world, Pip. I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for her."
"And you deserved all of her love and affection. It was hers to give and she gave it to you, willingly. You grew up and learned such displays were a manipulation, and it does no good to wallow in guilt now that you've realized it can be genuine too. You and Taline are nearly on the same page now, you've lowered the walls between you enough you can now see one another. You're her Sentinel, Catra, and you're here to do a job that is supposed to help her, right? Hopefully expose some hidden treachery that will protect this station, this region of space, and its people that Taline is trying to protect?"
Catra found empathy and understanding in Pip's expression despite how scolding the words themselves were. It was enough to push back the guilt and regret swirling around her and focus.
The progress bar on the computer ticked past eighty percent, and Catra's sentiments about how plain the office seemed came back to her. Taline had an entire hidden area full of equipment in her office, and Catra was almost certain Moriarty had even more to hide than her. She'd just have to find it.
She pulled the drawers and cabinets of Moriarty's desk open and started rummaging through them. Nothing immediately caught her eye, until she pulled a cylindrical object out of one of the drawers and all racing thoughts came to an immediate, grinding halt.
"What's that?" Pip asked, standing on her toes and trying to crane her head over top of Catra's hand to look at the thing.
"It's not good, is what it is," Catra said, turning the pill bottle to show her the label. "These are antirejection drugs. Black market."
"I haven't read through any Imperial law yet, seemed boring. How serious is it to have those?"
"Very serious. They're completely illegal, category one banned substance. Enough to get even Moriarty thrown in jail under a lengthy sentence if he were to be found with them. What the heck does he need to suppress his immune system this much for?"
She glanced down and a second bottle grabbed her attention. She picked that one up too and read the label.
"He's got sleep narcotics as well," she said, shaking the bottle. "Same deal—black market stuff."
"Black market because they're so powerful?"
Catra nodded. "I recognize these ones specifically, too. I was on a few task forces to tamp down on the supply coming into Phoenix last year. When the Beast took Rinne, people couldn't sleep out of fear and they turned towards these and similar drugs to make do. It wasn't until the stuck Glimmer with that name that public sentiment calmed enough the demand dropped.
"I threw my OTC sleepers into the trash because I didn't want to end up using stronger versions. This here is also ridiculously illegal—probably ten times stronger than the strongest version you can get with an actual prescription. Either one of these will earn Moriarty ten years in prison, easy. What the heck is he doing with them?"
The progress bar jumped the last chunk of the way to completion and a flurry of characters and information cascaded down the screen, dragging her attention back to the terminal.
"Oh wow," Pip said, staring at the screen. "Oh…oh wow."
"Talk to me, Pip. I can read the screens but I don't understand it."
"I'm linked directly into the computer and…Catra, this is the real deal. I can see the encrypted data stream, and the unencrypted stuff right next to it, but I still can't understand how they managed to go from one to the other, even when I'm staring right at the decryption key on Moriarty's box."
"What does that mean? I have, like, the technical understanding of a brick, so you're going to have to spell it out for me." She hadn't taken her eyes off the screen, but the sheer number of windows opening up and messages displaying came so quickly it astonished her she could actually track the information. It shouldn't have been possible.
"It means that whatever algorithm the Vestamid used on this to encrypt it really isn't indexed in the Empire's forensics database. That's why the program you consulted at the precinct couldn't understand or even see this either. As far as the empire is concerned, this type of technology doesn't even exist yet."
"The only algorithm in use not currently catalogued by the empire is the one the Barrier uses to the Beast caged. So Diallo was right again. This truly is a phantom algorithm. He found one, tying the Vestamid and Moriarty together."
Pip nodded and Catra cursed. She didn't realize until that moment that, although this scenario was the whole reason why she was infiltrating Moriarty's office to begin with, she had actually hoped to find nothing at all. Opening this can of worms only complicated things so much more. For now, she had to get the decryption key copied over for Taline, and bring it to her immediately.
The stream of popups on the screen stopped, displaying the last piece of decryption information: a letter.
Moriarty —
Your assistance with the latest iteration of our storage silos is greatly appreciated and did not go unnoticed. Our mutual benefactor is impressed, and I assure you that we are indeed considering your request. Please understand, however, that touching God is not something to take or ask of lightly. We have made encouraging progress on our satellite settlement on Eden, but there is still much work to be done.
Remember, all ailments and ambitions are nothing in the face of God. There shall be nothing, only Him—so said the Prophet Corynth. Soon, all will come to know His grace, and you as one among many of the Emperor's chosen shall be first in line. I ask that you exercise patience.
Forever your humble servant,
Larian
Primate of the Vestamid, Archbishop of Archanas
"What the hell?" Catra asked, staring wide-eyed at the letter. "Prophet Corynth? Archbishop of Archanas?" Some part of her had prepared for this outcome—prepared for Diallo to be proven right. But seeing a letter spell it out so plain it was impossible to deny?
Something instinctual sounded off a warning in her head and scattered her thoughts like smoke. She snapped her head up to stare at the far door and, although she could still hear nothing and all was still. Another warning came, much like the premonition she had experienced back at Vadim's Tailchaser pub, but far stronger.
"Hide!" Pip said. She floated up into Catra's field of vision and shot her a desperate look.
"What's going on?"
"They're coming! Everything is soundproof in here so you can't hear, but they're coming. You have to hide. Now!"
Catra yanked the drive out of the computer and shoved it back in her pocket. Then she put the computer back to sleep, shut the monitor off, and darted over to the corner coat closet. She succeeding in squeezing herself inside and pulling the slatted door shut in front of her just as the doors to Moriarty's office burst open.
"—telling you Diallo, this false alarm was nothing but a ploy from one of my political rivals," Moriarty said.
The lights flicked on and Catra watched through an opening between two slats in the closet door. Moriarty stumped across the office with Diallo hot on his heels, throwing open the blackout curtains and slamming his girth into the office chair behind the desk. The chair squealed in protest at having to hold up his weight and Diallo flinched on the other side of the desk."
"I'm s-sure it was just a system error, s-sir," Diallo said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "You have n-no more political rivals. Not f-for years, now."
"Hah," Moriarty said, leaning forward and eliciting another squeal from his chair. "An emergency alarm in the middle of my rally? Where conspicuously all the security cameras are off? I think not. It seems I'll have to start throwing people off the balcony to the Atrium floor again when I find out who instigated this. It was a very effective means of sending a message back in the day, remember?"
Diallo meshed his fingers together and retained a placid demeanor. Moriarty studied him a moment, then huffed.
"You disapprove," Moriarty said. It was a statement, not a question.
"I didn't s-say anything, sir. Although I admit I f-find throwing people off the top floor of the Atrium so they s-splatter on the ground isn't the most appealing thing to imagine."
"Not that, you idiot. I'm talking about my rally speech. You didn't show even though I invited you, but I know you watched it. You have the same sour look on your face right now that you had when I first told you about all the budget cuts."
Diallo sighed. "Sir, my opinion on that h-hasn't changed. I just don't see h-how we can defend our systems against a Beast incursion w-with so little funding. Granted, the incursions are n-not as serious as they were so many years ago, but still. Even Phoenix Station right now is s-suffering immensely with the sheer number of people trying to apply for r-refugee status."
"Which is exactly why I shut the station intake down," Moriarty said, scratching at his jowls. "Look, Diallo, we've known each other for a little while now. I know you got your position because that Seraph bitch put you up for it, but despite my initial misgivings, you are quite the conniving fellow."
"T-thank you sir?" Diallo said, looking around the room, probably looking for any traces of Catra having been there. Pip, on her shoulder, giggled when he looked toward the closet and didn't linger.
"You're very welcome," Diallo said. "That's the main reason I'm letting you in on a little secret right now. The Emperor has a few aces up his sleeve when it comes to dealing with the Beast. One of them I'm sure you've heard of already if you pay any attention at all to the rumor mill. Does the 'Heart of Etheria' sound familiar to you?"
Catra held her breath.
"I admit I've h-heard its name bandied about sir, although I h-haven't paid much heed to rumors."
"It's the real deal. I won't bore you with the details, but it's a superweapon, and as soon as it's revealed the Beast will cease to be a concern. That's why I'm cutting the budgets. The money is going into the central Imperial coffers for the Vestamid."
"S-sir?"
"The Beast nearly destroyed life in the galaxy. It still threatens to do so, and even if the threat were neutralized, the psychological trauma inflicted on the galaxy as a whole will remain. Would you believe that your very own Vestamid are pioneering a solution? They are intimately familiar with incorporating the trauma of the Beast into a functioning self-identity, after all."
"M-my very own—Moriarty…sir, what are you s-saying, exactly?" Diallo was feigning surprise, Catra could tell. He already knew most of this. Maybe not the Heart of Etheria part—she wasn't quite sure about that—but she now fully believed his suspicions around the Vestamid were well-placed.
"What I'm saying is…what's this?" Moriarty cut off and Catra immediately felt ice flood her veins when he picking up the two pill bottles that were still resting on the top of his desk.
::Oh shit:: she said, sending as strong a sense of panic she could muster through her connection with Pip. She had forgotten to put those back where she found them!
Moriarty stood up from his chair. "Whoever is in here, you'd better reveal yourself now or so help me I will gut you and your whole extended family like a fish."
Catra held her breath, each heartbeat hammering in her chest ringing loud enough in her ears she feared Moriarty could hear all the way across the room.
"I don't think there is anyone in h-here besides—"
"Quiet," Moriarty said. Catra saw him press something on the underside of the desk. "This is a code twelve," he said, standing and leaning over to speak into one of the baubles sitting on the desk. "Send backup immediately."
"He just sent out an emergency call on a private line," Pip said, whispering into her ear despite the fact only Catra would have heard her even if she shouted. "Whatever you're going to do, do it now before even more people show up."
::What the fuck am I supposed to do?!::
"I don't know, but don't just stand here!"
Catra took a deep breath and stepped out of the closet. A twisted grin spread across Moriarty's face when he saw, while Diallo looked like he had just seen a ghost he went so pale.
"Administrator Moriarty," Catra said, fighting to keep the waver out of her voice. "You are under arrest for possession of illicit category one narcotics. Turn around and place both of your hands behind your back." She pulled the stun baton off her right thigh and activated it, sending a threatening crackle sound rippling through the air.
Moriarty laughed. "I know who you are. You're that new Sentinel. Oh, I should have known Taline was playing dirty tricks behind my back while she was down there with me." He turned to Diallo. "Did you have any hand in this? Is this why you weren't at the rally? Because you were too busy helping her break into my office?"
Diallo backed away toward the trophy case with both palms up.
"I said turn around and put both hands behind your back," Catra said. "Do it now!"
Moriarty scoffed and took a step toward her, rolls of fat rippling across his body as he did. "Oh, girl, didn't you know that you can't make arrests? You aren't a cop anymore." He tutted and shook his head. "Sentinel or no, Dax would be so disappointed to hear you've sold out to Taline just to play secret agent."
Moriarty didn't broadcast a thing. One moment he was several steps away, and the next he was directly in front of her, having lunged forward so quickly Catra felt the warning in her head before she noticed him move. He backhanded the stun baton out of her hand and sent it skittering across the ground until it slammed into the far wall.
Two things happened in the next instant. First, after realizing what happened, Catra understood she had far underestimated Diallo's capabilities. Second, in the following split second after that realization, she felt another warning in her head and ducked, choosing to act on what the warning told her rather than wait to notice something with her eyes. And just as she ducked, a meaty fist that would have sent her flying across the room passed over her head, missing her entirely.
What? she thought. How did I react to that if I didn't even—
"Don't think!" Pip said. "Just move!"
Catra had no idea what she was reacting to—she still hadn't seen or registered anything. But some visceral instinct inside her that had only been a passing sensation before suddenly screamed at her to sidestep, and sidestep she did. Moriarty followed through his haymaker with a forward lunge, intending to have rammed Catra's entire body back against the closet with a thrust from his shoulder if she hadn't gotten out of the way.
Catra unholstered the sidearm at her hip and raised it. Moriarty flailed and knocked her aim off just as she fired. The bullet flew wide and slammed into the window overlooking the cube farm below. The glass cracked and spider-webbed but didn't shatter.
Another warning flashed in her head, but this time Catra already knew her body couldn't physically move as quickly as the instinct urged her to. Still, she did her best, dashing to the side as Moriarty rounded on her again, grabbing her by the neck with one hand before she could fully step away.
Catra yelped as Moriarty picked her up off the floor and slammed her against the closet door as easily as one lifted a small animal. His hand engulfed her from jaw to clavicle, his fingers wrapping all the way around and meeting at her nape. Catra dropped the gun, hearing it clatter to the floor as she kicked and scratched and plied at his face with her claws. He reeled back and slammed her against the closet a second time, hard.
Catra saw stars. Her vision swam and the room spun. She tried to struggle—her whole body was on fire, burning with the urge to fight, to live. She kicked and scratched, trying in vain to reach his face. But no matter how hard she struggled she couldn't get free of the man's grip around her throat. He squeezed, cutting off the air to her lungs and the blood flow to her head, and the edges of her vision started to close in on her.
She raked her hands down his arm, tearing at the flesh there and revealing a hard metallic endoskeleton under the skin. Both of Moriarty's arms had been replaced with prosthetics.
Well, that explains the antirejection drugs she thought, almost comedically to herself, as she realized she was probably going to be strangled to death in a few moments. He must have felt some pretty harsh aftereffects from the augmentations if he needed such powerful narcotics to function. And, judging by how quickly he closed the distance between them the first time, his legs were probably augmented too.
The side effects of the drugs were there too, she just didn't see it until looking him directly in the eyes: Moriarty was batshit insane.
"Years!" Moriarty said, squeezing her throat harder and forcing a choked gasp from her. "For years I haven't been able to sleep because I couldn't stop the voices, couldn't stop seeing the shadows…couldn't stop hearing them talk of this moment. Assassination!
"I thought giving it my arms, my legs…I thought sacrificing these things would appease"—he punched the closet with his free hand, sending splinters everywhere and showering them both with a fine blanket of pulverized dust—"but that still wouldn't stop the voices. Everyone called me crazy. Crazy! Hah. At least them I could silence—a quick drop and a sudden stop…splat. But nothing would stop the voices, the shadows in the corners. I will stop you, and then they will stop. They have to stop."
Catra felt her grip on his hand start to slip, her eyes beginning to roll up inside her head. The last pinpricks of her vision were in danger of being smothered entirely when the pressure around her throat disappeared all on its own.
She dropped to the ground, hacking and sputtering and coughing and gasping for breath. When she looked, Moriarty was lying face down on the ground. Diallo stood above him, breathing hard, eyes wide in terror and glasses sitting crooked on his face. He held up one of the metal trophies from the case against the far wall for a second strike, a sizeable dent in its side.
"Are y-you okay?" Diallo asked, shaking.
Catra tried to respond and only succeeded in coughing more. She held a thumbs up to him and nodded her head.
A hard thump came from the door into the office and both of them snapped their attention to it. Another thump, then a third. On the fourth, the door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and a squad of armored Vanguard soldiers thundered in, shouting rapid commands to get down on the ground while gesturing with the barrels of their rifles. One of came in close and kicked Catra's pistol far out of reach.
She heard Diallo try and reason with them only to be grabbed and slammed against the desk while they cuffed him. Catra coughed and sputtered again, trying to catch her breath and say something, but another soldier approached and rammed the butt of his rifle into the side of her head.
Everything went black.
