Content warnings: depiction of anxiety
Things were starting to come together. Leslie and Tazina looked over Taz’s work of reinstating my number on one side of the room. Meanwhile, Al and I worked to transfer from the original virtual shell to the one Tazina had set up on one of the many System devices we’d had lying around. We’d decided it would be safer for me to bring in a copy of 327480’s data rather than the original – less chance of the System detecting something was wrong.
There was plenty to transfer over, so the work would take some time. Without a network, it wasn’t as simple as sending everything from one device to another all at once. Tazina had made sure the virtual shells were connected while we worked, but that was the best we could hope for. We still had to transfer each image and video one at a time. At least they’d be marked on mine based on the notes we’d taken.
Al had also uploaded the map we’d pieced together with the blueprints of the System overlaying it. The way the map and blueprints had lined up didn’t make any sense. Some of the paths we’d guessed appeared to go through walls or past dead-ends. Either our guesses weren’t as accurate as we hoped or the blueprints were a lie. And I’d only know for sure once I was inside. I tried not to let that make me nervous.
“Hey, Dax, bring your device over,” Tazina called from across the room.
“Sure, not like we were working on it or anything,” Al commented sarcastically.
I ignored him, bringing the device over as Tazina had asked. She took it from me without a word, switching between tapping on the device and typing on her computer.
“What’s happening?” I asked Leslie so I wouldn’t distract Tazina.
“She needs to make communication easy for you,” Leslie replied. “Yoweoijtklewo send us updates owjoietklmwenfdhuajo and we can give ytweijmel. We don’t want you completely isolated in there.”
“Right,” I replied. My hands trembled slightly, my heart fluttering. Things were starting to come together. I was really going inside the System again. And all to find a computer room that would shut the System down. It sounded simple. I knew it wouldn’t be.
I forced myself to breathe evenly while Tazina worked, though I could feel Leslie watching me. I could do this mission. I knew I could. But that didn’t stop me from being nervous.
Taz handed me back the device and showed me where to go on the virtual shell for communication. We checked and double-checked that the virtual shell could connect to Tazina’s computer without any problems.
After we finished, I returned to the counter where Al waited so we could continue our work. Leslie had a brief discussion with Tazina before leaving our little basement. We were left in silence with nothing but the clacking of Tazina’s keyboard to fill it.
Everything was starting to come together. The mission was really happening. Focusing on work helped distract me from that fact.
To be continued…