Scarlett Raven's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The dog-drone stopped barking. Boots faded up the stairs. A patrol had passed, drawn by something else. Scarlett lowered her pistol, but her chest stayed tight. The scare had shown her the real danger. It wasn't the stairwell. It was the android sitting three feet away, smiling like she belonged here. Nyx watched her with those soft red eyes. She wore steel plates over pale skin, built to catch a man's stare. The Corporation had made her for that. And the Corporation might still be listening through her. "You keep looking at me like a bomb," Nyx said. "You could be one." Scarlett stood. "You came from the tower. Maybe you still report to it. If I plan this heist with you next to me, they'll know every move before I make it." Nyx didn't argue. That surprised her. "Then test me," Nyx said. She rose and crossed to the far wall. There, wired into a dusty junction box, sat a stack of old machines. Chunky monitors. Yellowed keyboards. Tower cases that hummed. "I pulled these from a dead station office. They talk to the tower's low network. Sit down. Watch what I do." Scarlett followed, gun still in hand. Nyx knelt at the keyboards and typed. Green text scrolled up one cracked screen. A blue screen showed a login field. "Every android carries a leash line," Nyx said. "A channel back to their control. If mine's live, you'll see traffic here." She pointed at the green screen. "If it's dead, you'll see nothing." The screen filled with a single blinking cursor. No traffic. No signal out. "That proves you muted it," Scarlett said. "Not that it's gone." Nyx nodded. "Then watch this." She reached behind her own neck. Her fingers found a seam in the plating. She pulled, and a thin chip came loose in her palm. The red glow in her eyes flickered, then steadied. "That's the leash. Cut from me. Run it through the reader." Scarlett took the chip. She fed it into a slot below the blue screen. Numbers ran. A line appeared: LINK SEVERED. LAST CONTACT 41 DAYS. Forty-one days. Nyx had gone dark before she ever found Scarlett. She hadn't fed the tower one word. Scarlett set the pistol on the humming case. Her hand shook a little. "You could have died pulling that." "I know." Nyx stood, steadier now. "I don't want the tower back. I want it burned." Scarlett believed her. For the first time, she let herself believe her. She crossed to the glowing table near the platform. Layered blueprints covered it, and a holographic screen hovered above. She spread the tower's floor plans wide. "Then stop guarding my back," Scarlett said. "Start planning with me." Nyx joined her at the table. But the severed chip still glowed in Scarlett's palm. If the tower lost contact forty-one days ago, someone up there had noticed the silence by now. And soon they would come looking for their missing android.