Chapter 22 - Divine - Robin
"How is the upgrade going?" Michael hovered behind Robin while she sat typing on a laptop accessing a server in the dome's small server room. She had started the update the evening before and gotten up early to finish. The whole process would have gone faster if they would have sent a server configured for a swap.
"Fine," she muttered. She had tried ignoring him, but he would leave and return a few minutes later, each time trying to get information about the systems upgrade. She kept telling him she didn't know what the upgrade was, that she was simply following a series of steps laid out in a set of instructions received with the laptop.
When he started pacing back and forth in the small room between her and the door, she finally turned to him. "Do you have something to hide?"
"N-no!" Flustered and blushing, he stuttered. "I...I just was curious how it was going."
"If this is about your video games. We already know."
"You do?"
"Why would you even think you could hide that?"
"Because everything's buried in an encrypted directory?"
Robin snorted. "Encrypted. Well, the software might all be in an encrypted directory, but all the little crumbs like your high scores aren't. And every time you connect to the Internet, you leave a trail."
"My high scores...oh."
"Oh, he says." She shook her head. "Honestly, they don't care. Or they would have done something about it."
Robin turned back to the laptop and continued working. She heard the server room door close behind her, and with a quick look, confirmed he had left. Glancing at her watch, she muttered to herself, "I give him five minutes."
Three minutes later she heard the door open again, and she sighed without turning around. A stool was set beside her.
Michael sat down. "How's the-"
"Going," she interrupted. "What is it you really want to know? If you're going to lose your high scores?"
"What? No! I was going to ask about the update. You know...what's it for?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's just that..." Michael paused. "We haven't had any issues, so why do an update?"
"If it's not broken-"
"Right. Don't fix it."
"I don't know what the update does. They give me a computer and a set of instructions and I follow them. That's all I need to know to do my job."
The door opened, and Robin and Michael looked up. The helicopter pilot poked his head inside.
"Sorry for the interruption, Sergeant Landon. You have a call from the Director." The soldier led her outside the dome to the helicopter and handed his headset to her.
"Thanks, Danny." Robin slipped it on and greeted the Director. "This is Sergeant Landon."
"Sergeant Landon. The pilot and crew are taking you right now to complete a sanitation for a man named Carlos Carrel. We need his computer and all files retrieved and his apartment wiped. You will return to complete the upgrade after that is finished."
"Yes, sir." She handed the headset back to Danny, walked around the helicopter and climbed in. The soldiers in the back nodded and she nodded back before putting on the passenger headset.
The pilot climbed in beside her and reviewed the instrumentation panel. Behind her, one of the soldiers tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and he handed her a cell phone and a ring of keys.
"What's this?"
Danny responded without pause in his start-up procedures. "Carrel's phone and keys."
Robin looked at the phone. Carrel's phone? And keys?
She shifted in her seat to face the two soldiers behind her. "Carrel's? How did you get these?"
The soldier sitting behind the pilot tilted his head and gave a nod to a body bag at his feet. "Took it off the body."
She had not seen it when she climbed in and stared at the black bag stretched out before him. "That's Carrel? He was here?"
The soldier unzipped the bag and she could see Carrel's ashen face. His glazed eyes were open and vacant.
"'Was' is the operative word," Danny responded. "Or 'is' depending on your religion and context."
"Why is he in a bag?"
"Pierce," the soldier replied as if that was all the explanation needed.
"Where's he going?"
"Morgue's meeting us at the airport," the pilot said.
The rotor started a low hum as it spun up. Robin tried to turn on the phone.
"No power." She looked at Danny, and he shrugged. A power pack was handed up from the back and she plugged it into the console. The phone powered up. "No password."
He shrugged again. "Must be a burner."
She nodded. "Did Sergeant Pierce look at it?"
"Nope. He wasn't looking at anything when we picked him up." When she craned her head back to look at him, he was smirking. "He was unconscious."
Robin blinked. She commanded her face to remain blank and waited for him to continue.
"He drove an ATV over a ledge and knocked himself out. Concussion. He'll live." He pointed out the front window. "In fact, here he comes now. We're dropping him back at the ATV on our way out."
Pierce climbed in behind Robin. She watched him closely. He had a dark blue bruise above his eye. He ignored her, refusing to make eye contact.
The closest soldier abandoned his seat for Pierce and went to sit in the back of the chopper where vegetables were stacked in crates. Dark green husks poked through wooden slats at the sides.
Pierce ignored everyone until he noticed the soldier next to him was keeping his head down and trying to suppress a laugh.
"What's funny?"
He looked up with a straight face. "Nothing, sir."
"Let it out."
"You get extra points for driving off a cliff?" he drawled. Danny laughed.
"The ladies can't resist a good bruise, Finnegan. It's Finnegan, right? Nurse Ratchet could hardly keep her hands off me," Pierce replied drolly, looking directly at Robin. She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes. The soldier lifted his hands in mock surrender.
As the helicopter lifted off the ground, Robin turned back to the phone. She swiped several screens before going to the file manager to look for more information, then held the phone up. "Other than a few pictures of the desert, some music, and Sevensword, there's nothing on it. No contacts, no email."
"What's Sevensword?" Pierce queried back at her.
The soldier beside him answered. "An RPG."
"A what?"
"Role-playing game," Robin explained with a shrug. "My son plays it."
When the helicopter touched down near the canyon where Pierce needed to retrieve the ATV, Robin stepped out the door and rushed to walk with him to the crevice.
"You shot that guy?"
"He drew on me."
Robin grabbed his arm to stop him, but he pulled away and kept walking. "Are you okay?"
"I got a concussion."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about. You shot a man."
"I'm fine."
"But you can't talk about it."
Pierce stopped. "Stop psychoanalyzing me."
"I just want to make sure your head is in the right place." Robin reached up to touch his cheek, but he pulled away and looked back at the helicopter. She interrupted his line of vision by stepping closer to him. "Will."
"I'm fine." He turned to walk away. "I need to find the other two guys. I need my head there. I need to be doing my job."
"Okay," she said quietly. "Wait...there's more?"
"That's why I'm back out here. Otherwise, I'd still be sucking one of Doc Galen's lollipops with my feet kicked up on a gurney."
"I thought you were out here to retrieve the ATV." Robin glanced back at the bird. "Can't Danny do some patrols?"
"Nope. Got to get you to Carrel's place before anyone notices he's missing."
"Right." She took one long last look at him before returning to the helicopter. "Be careful. I'll see you in a couple of hours."
"Find me when you get back," he called out.
She stopped and turned around, surprised he had responded.
Pierce stood staring at her. His eyes wrinkled at the corners with a smirk. "We can analyze me later."
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