Got a secret, can you keep it?
Swear this one you'll save
Better lock it, in your pocket,
Taking this one to the grave.
Rhiannon's POV
What an exasperating little… never mind. The person in question walks like a cat towards wherever he goes after dropping a ton of bricks on peoples' heads.
Today was another lesson on not taking things at face value.
She was so sure that he was different from the others. Now, she is not so sure.
The plan he gave was a good one. She had to give him that. The plan was only half-formed, but he had some good ideas about it. The first starting point is Serum D2. She wasn't meant to look over the computer stuff. Most of it didn't make sense anyway.
She has no hope of mending it with Caleb. It has to be all professional now. She feels a little regretful.
…
"We have to decide which one we need to work. The demographics project is important but we need to do the thing I told you about." He whispers. Cryptic words again. She is so tired.
She and Caleb are sitting on a bench in Examination Room 1. There is at least 15 cm of space between them. They are allowed to go wherever they want, but with the aim of completing the work given. They are just left free here, with no supervisors.
The other pair also sits in this hall. There are sheets of paper spread around them, most of them empty and two are scribbled with something. Fernando rolls a torn fragment of a sheet into a spitball. He throws it at Caleb. He looks around at them with big eyes.
"Hey, sorry Caleb, I didn't mean to do that. Well, after I did that, would you like to join us?"
"Okay, so Rhiannon, would you like to join them?" Caleb asks. So nice of him, to think about her. It is a characteristic of Abnegation.
"Sure" Anything to get rid of this awkward feeling, but Xander is there. She thinks Caleb says it only to be polite. They shift to the chairs behind both of them and turn those chairs around to face them.
"Before we do anything, I would love to know your names from your own mouths. I'm tired of those announcers broadcast my name. It feels kind of correct that your own name is used the most by others. Mine is Fernando Jameson."
"I am Rhiannon White."
"I am Xander Hedge." He looks totally humbled today, almost like a normal person, not someone to run away from like the plague.
"I am Caleb Prior." Again, he waits for everyone to finish.
"Okay, so what do you plan to do on this project? Or is this confidential?" He raises a finger gun and narrows his eyes at the last sentence.
"To be honest, I haven't planned anything so far." Xander says. What came over him today?
…
"Off to serious business now. Where can we find about Serum D2?"
"I suggest the simulations and sera department; both of you have the unlimited access passes with us. I can try hacking into this department if you can get me the sources of all information, that is, the IP address of the main computer there. It would be better if you get me the addresses of all computers there." Tristan says.
"How do we do that? Pardon me, but I have zilch knowledge of computers." Rhiannon asks.
"There is a program I had in my mind for the extraction of source data, including IP addresses. I can get it on my tab, but I need a flash drive and a small keyboard to write the code. It is a pain typing things on the virtual keyboard."
"Okay, got that. I'll get you the keyboard and flash drive. How much time will you take to write the code?" Caleb says.
"I'll finish it in a few hours. Typing does not take much time but finding the errors does."
"Okay, I'll help you make the code. We'll get it done till the evening." Tristan says.
Caleb sets off to bring a flash drive and a keyboard. He leaves her alone in the company of two people she hardly knew.
"Okay, so you're Caleb's would-be girlfriend?" Anahita asks.
"No, not really." She answers.
"Oh, the denial gets you nowhere, darling."
"I am not denying anything,"
"Symptom one, of someone who has severe denial issues: The vehemence in denial gets stronger the more anyone else digs in more." Anahita says.
"I'm telling you, I am NOT denying anything."
"Come on, we won't tell anyone anything. Don't you feel a weird flutter when Caleb is around? I can see it in your eyes." Tristan jumps in.
"What do my eyes scream out?"
…
"Hey, I got the flash drive and the keyboard. Did you know, you get outrageous discounts if you show that silver card? The lady at the checkout was almost afraid of me; I thought she would refuse payment." Caleb says.
"Thanks, dude, we can get to work now."
"No problem." Both of them get out of the room with Anahita's fire-red curls bouncing along the way.
"We'll go to the simulation department tomorrow, when the program is developed. What do you suggest now?" Caleb's question is directed towards Rhiannon.
"I don't know, we could develop a weapon, like you said."
"Yes, I'm not sure about it now. I think I must have said that just to make the whole thing sound cooler." He has a sheepish expression on his face. She wants to make those eyes blow wide open or tightly closed, preferably by kissing him.
Oh stupid stupid stupid. What are you thinking about? Were those words of Tristan and Anahita an aphrodisiac or something?
She shakes her head. Nope, she has too much pride to make the first move. Doing it would be admitting defeat in the argument. He had to do that otherwise she could stay like that for a decade or more.
"Okay, but we could try something. Weapons that shoot projectiles like guns are too complicated for us. I could rig one but I don't know whether it would work or not. We could try something with electricity or chemicals. I don't know anything about biological weapons." She breaks the awkward silence which developed after she stared at his lips for too long.
"Even I don't. I don't think I could breed superbugs in a petri dish. We would need outrageous amounts of antibiotics and it would take many weeks to do that. Electric or chemical weapons sound like a good idea. What do you suggest?" He asks.
"There are two ideas in my head right now. The chemical weapons would aim to reduce visibility by stinging the eyes of victims while the electric one would immobilise the victim or victims by discharging a short pulse of high voltage. I think there are blueprints for them in the forge's blueprint library. The physical drawings would be impossible to get one's hands on but there is a digital version of them in the Erudite servers. My dad probably has access to those but I don't think he would be willing to give them. Ask your friend Tristan to dig them out."
"Okay. How much time would it take to develop them?"
"It depends. Most of the blueprints are very elaborate versions with so many bells and whistles. I would need to retrograde them first into stuff which can be mass produced quickly. It will take a week at the least. How many do you want?"
"Four electric guns as you call them and as many chemical bombs as possible. I'll help you make the chemical bombs."
"Okay, then. The flashbangs will take less time to develop, provided we get the chemicals quickly. Will those silver cards work if we want to take chemicals off the chemistry labs?" Rhiannon says.
"I think they will. How many chemistry labs are there in the compound?" He says.
"Four, I think so. There are four chem labs, four bio one and three physics ones, for different groups of people." She said.
"Okay, we need to space out the purchase of chemicals. We could get each ingredient from a different lab or get them indirectly, for example if you want sulphuric acid you could get plain sulphur powder and hydrogen peroxide, burn the sulphur, trap the gas in a tall glass cylinder and add the peroxide to it. It would be a pain but we don't want suspicions to arise."
"Thanks for the chemistry lesson, but I already knew that."
"I knew that you knew that. I wanted to talk about chemistry. And, what are flashbangs?"
"It was a name I came up with for the chemical bombs."
"Again, both of them need to dig it up. I'll tell them."
"No, I'll go and tell them. Any idea where they might be?" She needs to get out, away from her stupid thoughts.
"I think they are in the transfer dorm."
"Okay, I'll go and find them."
…
"What the hell is going on here?" Rhiannon screams and covers her eyes. Of course, she didn't find them in the transfer dorm; they were in an empty classroom. Tristan and Anahita are doing some rather hardcore kissing and whatever. Their tablets lie abandoned in a bench. The image would leave scars in her mind forever.
"Nothing." Both of them say and straighten their clothes.
"Can I open my eyes now? Are you presentable?" She says.
"Oh yeah." Both of them look like criminals caught red handed.
"What did we agree upon? That you would make the program which would extract source information and give it to us in the evening. And what do you do? It makes me fear that you will lose your… whatever."She begins with a firm reprimand but the last omitted word made her blush.
"Oh, she distracted me. We have done half the typing. We are on time with the deadline that was set." Tristan defends himself.
"Don't get so defensive. I think you should have closed the door. I have been scarred forever. Anyway, I needed something from you."
"What?"
"I need you to access the auto shop's blueprint libraries. I need blueprints of an electric stun gun and a chemical based visibility-reducing projectile."
"Whoa, I didn't understand half of what you said. What is a chemical visibility thing that you talked about?" Anahita asks.
"It is a chemical based projectile, when it is thrown, it will reduce visibility by stinging the eyes of the victims."
"I'll hack the library and you pick out the blueprints you like, but you'll need to be very fast. You need to get the thing done in five minutes or less if you do not want to leave any digital fingerprints." Anahita warns.
"If you leave them, the cleanup will be five levels of difficult." Tristan warns.
"Okay, I'll try to get them as soon as possible."
"Then, let me get started. You'll need to wait anywhere between forty five minutes to an hour. Show me the location of the blueprint libraries." She says.
"You'll need to go to the forge for this." Rhiannon says.
"Okay, take me there, then." She says.
…
They come back with the source information. It's a tough job logging into the auto shop's servers. Tristan comes and advises something that Rhiannon could make no sense of.
"I already knew that, damn it! You and your useless bits of advice!" Anahita shouts. Anyone would, if their concentration was broken with advice they already knew. She can understand her position. It is better to keep quiet when someone is working with the maniac speed that Anahita's working with. A brilliant idea seems to come to her, for her face lights up. She goes tap-tap-tap on the keyboard and the computer seems to be an official willing to do her under-the-cover job.
"It's done! I broke into the server!" Anahita punches a fist into the air and looks at Rhiannon solemnly.
"Make it really quick." She warns.
"Okay." Rhiannon has a look of intense concentration on her face.
"Turn on the stopwatch. Warn me when its 4 minutes, 30 seconds." She said.
"Yeah, now find the damn thing." Anahita is on the end of her nerves.
Rhiannon starts. The thing is too large to sort through. She puts some tags on the search bar and looks for the elusive documents.
The tags are too vague. Hundreds of results pop up. What did her dad say?
"The system is just like the scientific names used to label animals and plants with. There is a code for every print that comes into the library. Inventions are marked with codes which specify whether it is a robot, machine used for daily purposes or a weapon."
"It is marked with the Greek letter Rho (Ρ) if it's a robot, Delta (Δ) if it's a device, Sigma (Σ) if it's a weapon and Omega (Ω) if it's a creation of any other kind. The name is followed by the Latin name of the purpose of the invention. For example, devices dealing with fire are marked with the Latin name for fire, 'Ignis'. See, the genus name followed by the species name. After that it has the English name which the inventor decided to give." These words of her dad gave way to a light bulb moment.
"What's the Latin name for electricity and chemical?" She asks frantically.
"It is 'electrum' and 'chemicus', although there a lot of alternative verb forms to them." Anahita answers.
"Okay, got it." She types the words into the search filter and types the alt codes for the letter Sigma. Sometimes it was really a gift to memorise that long list of alt codes. It was the only computer related thing she had done to look cool in front of the other geeks.
There were only ten results to filter from now. No matter dad's general knowledge would come in so handy.
"Four minutes, thirty are up."
Ten results. How hard could they be to filter from? The first three were declared useless by her. Seven more to go.
The flashbang was found in the eighth result. She saved it quickly. Two more, out of which one would be the electric stun gun.
"Ten…nine…eight…" Anahita rang the warning bells. She found the stun gun. Saving it would take five seconds at least.
"Five...four…three…two…one." Anahita announces the time up.
"Done!" She screams at one and shuts the system off.
All of them breathe a collective sigh of relief. Even Tristan, who was nervously watching the entire scene unfold.
"Well done but why did you ask me the Latin names of lightning and electricity?"
"It is a code used to label the documents in the system." Better keep some knowledge to herself.
"I will never understand those. Engineering is not for me."
"Thank you so much. I'll use those docs to make prototypes of the weapons we'll use." Rhiannon says.
"Wow, just like a secret agent. I dreamt of having cool gadgets like those to fight the bad guys with." Tristan makes a finger gun, shoots it and pretends to blow the smoke off the gun.
…
"Did you find out any other information that helps us in our plan?" She asked Caleb.
"Actually, Tristan had come to me yesterday with some info. He hacked into the Dauntless database and came up with a list. He warned that it was only the tip of the iceberg. Let me show it to you."
The list that Caleb had with him was a simple checklist with the names of people on them.
"Who are these people?" She asked.
"They are initiates, Dauntless ones."
"How did you know that?"
"The first name on the list, Beatrice Prior, is my sister. She transferred to Dauntless this year." He said sadly and furiously. She guessed that his sister would be half of the cause for him fighting against Erudite's plans.
She knows that sorry is useless in situations like these. He would hate it if anyone offered a word in pity. The only thing they could do for his sister would be fighting for her and taking all of the people's names off the list.
"What does this list suggest, then? Are they targets, or simply the brilliant initiates from Dauntless?" She voices her doubt.
"I am hoping for the best but I think that these people are targets, people to be eliminated. The next words that I say are not to be repeated or used as blackmail." She is surprised that he is still willing to place trust upon her.
"I swear a solemn oath that these words will neither be repeated nor used as blackmail." She affirms his trust in her.
"I say this because I have begun to suspect that my sister is Divergent. I studied a lot on Divergence and I know that it is partly hereditary, especially among children who have parents of different Aptitudes. My mom was Dauntless; I am not sure about my father. They fell in love and either mom or both of my parents transferred to Abnegation and gave birth to me and my sister."
"Oh." It takes a while to digest the fact. She is so surprised at seeing him lay himself out bare for her to trample upon. She would never do that, not with him, not with anybody else. There are a lot of cases in the city like his family. Her mom was also an Amity transfer, but it was really absurd that a fierce, freedom loving Dauntless spirit like his mother would willingly join a conservative and restraining faction like Abnegation. It made her realise the power of love.
"Hard to swallow, isn't it? Don't worry, I have an even harder to swallow fact for you. The fact is, I don't even know my own birthday, nor does my sister." He tries to lighten the mood.
"What? Don't tell me you passed sixteen years of your life without celebrating a single birthday." She is completely shocked. How could you steal a precious moment, like a birthday, from a child? Abnegation parents should be really cruel to do that.
"Well, before you think my parents were cruel or something, I'll make it known that they are the most loving people on the earth. They were only bound by the rules that Abnegation made." He defends his parents, although they really didn't need defending. Anyone who met his mom would think that she was the kindest person in the city.
"Yeah, I'll hold you to that." She raises her hands in surrender.
She thought that it was her time to place herself open for him. It was the time to reveal her secrets to him.
It was her turn to bring out the skeletons in the closet.
…
Something big is cooking. Oh, you're gonna hate me so much after this story ends. The chemical reaction that Caleb talks about goes somewhat like this,
S + O2 - SO2 (Sulphur Dioxide) (The oxidation is the burning of Sulphur)
And then,
SO2 + H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) - H2SO4 (Sulphuric Acid)
I sound like your Chemistry teacher, don't I? And, superbugs are not mutant insects or anything. Superbugs are antibiotic-resistant microbes. Superbugs are made by gradually introducing small amounts of antibiotics into a bacterial culture so that the microbes become resistant to that particular strain of antibiotics. They prove to be effective biological weapons. Well, I think I even sound like your Biology teacher... :)
I have no idea how computer hacking works. The methods employed here are totally fictional. The naming system of the inventions is also completely made up, as I have something of a Greek and Latin obsession. The reference in the last chapter was 'Planetary (GO!)' by My Chemical Romance. Also, the song in this chapter is NOT a Green Day OR a My Chemical Romance OR a Fall Out Boy song. Even if you have guessed this one already, please, I don't know anything about Pretty Little Liars.
I would SO love to go to each one of you and know each one of you. My apologies if this sounds creepy.
But, since I cannot, have an awesome day :)
TheVibrantNight