Phoebe laid down on the table while the others surrounded her. Lloyd, now holding the magnetic stood beside her head.

"What are the odds the magnet is strong enough to rip the implant out my head?"

Lloyd looked at Tony, who looked at Bethany, who looked at all the tools next to Lucy's feet.

"I'm going to say...not likely. But in the event it does, we clearly have a doctor on standby."

Lloyd patted Tony's back, who had his arms crossed, looking worried.

"I'm a nurse, actually. But I know what I'm doing. Nobody out there has a giant scar on their temples."

Bethany looked a bit squeamish about the situation.

"Since we have to wait for you all to get back to confirm this, I'm going to take the other girls back to the party. Cold operating rooms are bad for my nerves."

She gave Lloyd a gentle touch on his arm and she walked past him to the other girls. Lloyd bent down and slowly raised the cube to Phoebe's temple.
"You should do a countdown." Lucero suggested.

"I'm not cutting or inserting anything." Lloyd told him. "She shouldn't feel any pain."

Phoebe's head suddenly jerked to the side, slamming into the cube. She let out a small gasp and Lloyd let go of the cube, who's weight was now tilting her head to the side.

"Shit!" Lloyd panicked. "That didn't hurt that much...right?"

"I..I guess not, but is it now stuck to me?" she asked as she tried to pull it.
"Guys, I think it's stuck."

"Ok, this is not a major problem." Tony said as he sprinted over to a box of tools. Pulling out a meat mallet, he walked back over with a devilish grin.

"I know a couple ways of demagnetizing objects. You might want to cover your ears."

Lloyd backed up as Tony descended upon Phoebe. He still had his earplugs from the party, but judging the way Tony raised the mallet, this was going to be loud. Lloyd covered his ears.

WHAM!

The table shook and Phoebe flinched, but Tony held up the magnet triumphantly.

"That was easy. Luce, give me one of those screwdrivers."

The younger brother acquiesced to this request and Tony promptly touched it to the magnet and let go, watching it fall to the floor.

"Easy as pie. I have a way to remagnetize it, I also have other magnets somewhere that won't try to break the patient's neck. I'll explore both options until you two return."

Phoebe sat up and Lloyd took a closer look at her temple. The light on the implant looked dimmed, maybe. He had no clue.

"You ready to go?" Lloyd whipped out his phone to hail a car. Phoebe looked at Lucero, who was rushing over to her with a white box.

"Every patient gets a treat before they leave. You did a good job." He told her as opened the box, revealing a wide assortment of candy. She pulled out a mini chocolate bar and gave him a fist bump.

"Thank you Lucy. We'll be back a little bit later, but you might be asleep by then."

"Asleep? I can't sleep yet, I'm on the job."

Behind him, Tony was shaking his head. He put his palms together to feign sleep and then mouthed the words: five minutes. Phoebe smiled at the two of them.

"I kinda wish I had a brother."
Just then, Bethany opened door, only sticking her head into the room.

"Are we leaving or what? I should've said it earlier but I'm coming with. We need to be able to confirm your theory, after all."

Lloyd was relieved he didn't have to find a way to ask her. There were more things left unsaid that he couldn't say in front of Tony. At least, not yet. He looked at the app on his phone and saw that their ride was only two minutes away.

"Fine by me. As long as it makes you trust me, I'm all in."

****************

Minutes later, they arrived at Lloyd's house. The time was currently 1:23am, Friday morning. The new year was Saturday night at midnight. Lloyd was constantly looking at his watch, prompting Bethany, who sat in the passenger seat, to ask him a question.

"Are you tired, Lloyd?"

He had a determined look in his eyes as he picked up his mask.

"A little. But I'm mostly anxious. It's time to get serious."

They entered his humble abode, the ventilators going into overdrive as usual. Phoebe picked up a box of pizza and offered her a slice, while Lloyd continued to tap on his phone.

"Yep, it doesn't work." He said with a big grin. "They can't track you."

Bethany looked at his phone and then his laptop, and then the black box.

"Wait, how did you check it from your phone? And why didn't you do that earlier?"

"We could've helped the other girls immediately, why did you wait?" Phoebe demanded.

"I'm sorry, but our plans require a certain level of secrecy. I needed Beth alone again. And the answer as to how... Well, Phoebe, do you remember earlier when I called my automaton friend?"

She nodded.

"When I did that I noticed he had two options, but one was grayed out. It said Living Form Unavailable. Which must mean that I'm able to ping or maybe even call others, straight from the implants on their temples. Beth you went through most of the same training as me, that's not a feature we were taught."

Bethany took his phone to look at it, and sure enough, the same message was on screen.

"I know nothing about this." She muttered, looking up at him. "And I know alot more than you do. So what's this operation you're planning with Frederick?"

Lloyd picked up this laptop to show her the flashdrive on the side.

"A couple hours ago, he showed up with automatons freaking out, telling me I had to kill Phoebe or put her in the system and bring in her body. He left this in a water bottle, but didn't tell me why. I'm not really working with him, per se. We both just have the same goal; finding out the truth. But his cryptic secrecy hasn't exactly been helpful."

Bethany passed him back his phone and took the laptop, clicking on the manifest digital app. It still showed Frederick Murray as updating.

"This... This might be trouble. I don't think he plans on being around for long."

Lloyd and Phoebe exchanged confused looks. Phoebe put down her slice of pizza.

"What is it? What makes you say that?" Lloyd asked her.

"There's some new tech out right now, similar to this black box, called Vizors that can upload anyone into digital, whether it's a locale or domicile, even if they don't have an implant. Only problem is, once you put one on, you can't take it off until you die. And even then it would have to be ripped off your skull. They look like clunky sunglasses but they read your eyes, and your brain waves. It uploads all your memories, even the ones currently happening. If the eyes are truly windows to the soul, Vizors take it from you, by force."

Lloyd looked at the flashdrive in awe.

"He did that on purpose?"

"Maybe he has someone waiting for him in there, and he wants to make sure he brings everything he learns with him, even if it means dying in the process."

Lloyd remembered Frederick telling him he could see his family again, but he meant with the black box, not the vizors. Or, maybe he just didn't tell him everything. His family weren't clients he could summon, he would have to go in and find them. Would the black box let him travel to different cities, countries? He would have to tinker with it more to find out.

"That's settled then." said Lloyd bluntly. "Now, we need to investigate the factories. One of my clients had a brother inside with a damaged unit that ran home to him. Their locators can be damaged, destroyed or disrupted like we did with Phoebe's implant. With a good programmer and some teamwork, we could start stealing some automatons ourselves, connecting people with the black box, and use them against whatever secret plan the government has to wipe out dissidents."

Bethany eyes widened. She got to her knees and starting examining the center of the black box, and then looked at the corners of the room.

"None of the others, not even Tony, knows about this machine. It's bigger than most of the mass market boxes, probably does a whole lot more too. I wish we thought of this, but we couldn't. These would've been too hard to acquire anyways, until now."

"But now we have one, so that's good right?" asked Phoebe. "All we need now is the automatons."

Lloyd thought about Ben, who had been nice to him this far, though he was a slight nuisance at first. Frederick had sent him to help him multiple times. Even when facing a life or death decision, Frederick thought Ben could be trusted. Lloyd wasn't going to risk him.

"My friend Ben has one, but out of fear of him being surveilled and us being unsure if we could disable it, we've left him out for now. We won't rely on him unless absolutely necessary."

"I know where a factory is." Bethany said as she pulled out her phone.

"It's working under the radar, but it was at the first warehouse we had a party at. Multiple automatons have been spotted leaving that area by our scouts. Getting there is one thing, taking a four thousand pound machine out of it is a different story, even with our trucks."

"That's why we have guys on the inside." Lloyd explained.

"Guys, and girl," he added, looking at Phoebe.

"They're going in joining the automaton program, and planning to find their way back here after we give the signal. So the magnet, a programmer, and automatons, and eventually we'll actually have our own line of defense."

"Then we'll be able to protect everyone and make sure our frosty buddies are safe and sound!" Phoebe said as she plopped down next to Bethany, who was quietly absorbing all the information.

"That sounds better than running around with lead pipes." She said quietly. "But I know both of you have seen their defense mode. What if we get spotted, what if they get spooked and turn auto?"

"What if the world already ended?" He asked her solemnly.

"What if this is just a silent purgatory, slowly wiping out the last dregs of humanity? I will go to an automaton factory. I will go to a cryogenic warehouse. If I don't know for sure my family is safe, the thought will haunt me until I breathe my last breath."

Bethany looked at him but he started to walk towards the kitchen. The silence washed over the room. Lloyd hadn't noticed until then, but the ventilators roar was now a quiet purr.

"I'm going to get a drink. Anybody want anything?"

"Water." said Phoebe.

"I want to get started." Bethany replied, sitting cross-legged as she picked up his laptop again. Lloyd stopped at the doorway and turned around.

"Send Frederick a message saying you killed the real Phoebe, and send out your friends on the inside. Tony can program. It's like you said in the car. It's time to get serious."

He nodded, pulling out his phone to text Frederick. "I'll bring your water Phoebe."

As he left, Bethany tried to access Frederick's file, to no avail. Connor, Miguel, and Phoebe's files were shown as recent, but she had no desire to look into those.

"He didn't tell me much about them, but you assisted him with them right? Do you remember their names?"

Bethany tried to think about it, but couldn't paint a picture in her head, so she clicked on the files.

"Connor, I remember his face. He was a young, short guy. But Miguel... He must've been the one who-"

"Hey, guys?" said Lloyd, emerging from the doorway holding a water bottle and vodka bottle close to his chest with his left arm, reading something on his phone with his right.

"Frederick just texted me back saying, 'Good Work. I have a gift for you, waiting in your office. Take it and leave. Don't stay."

They all exchanged worried looks.

"Should I go?"