"What is she doing here?!"
Calypso burst into the room, eyes wide.
"I'll explain," Firinne answered.
Since taking me to that odd place in the Agora, she hadn't stopped pacing around the room, a deep thinking expression on her face.
My eyes kept following her, wondering how I could have been so stupid. How she could have duped me so easily!
Now that her mask was down, I could see Firinne for what she was.
A fake machina. Like me. Like Kira.
I sat on a tall chair, arms wrapped around myself.
The rest of the Machina meeting had felt like a blur. I couldn't remember a thing that was discussed.
All I could think of was the rush of new information I had to process.
Like me, Firinne was a fake machina.
Calypso and Kira seemed to have a secret relationship.
And Kira was probably being abused by her owner.
They all seemed to share more secrets, and evidently, it was a problem that I knew their connection.
As soon as the meeting ended, Firinne locked her arm around mine and pulled me away from the group, without even giving me a second to say goodbye to Chaoxing. She led me down to a deserted room, in the lower levels of the Agora, similar to the ones of the Stellar Slices restaurant.
No one was around.
"She saw us," Kira muttered from her corner.
She had arrived a few minutes after Firinne and I came here, her usual sulky expression on her face.
"What do you mean?!" Calypso turned to her fiery-haired lover, eyes even wider now.
"At the waterfall," Kira clarified, her dark stare still locked on me.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Calypso snapped, clearly entering a state of panic now.
"I didn't know! I didn't realize until later. I could barely see anything—"
"You should've said something!"
"I was crying, remember—!"
"Okay, enough, star-crossed idiots," Firinne interrupted them, calling for silence.
Firinne shared one thing with her machina double: an aura so imposing it captured all the attention around. Leaning against a table, her index and thumb pinched the bridge of her nose, still seeming deep in her thoughts.
The two lovers remained quiet, shame on both their faces as they exchanged guilty glances.
Firinne had always carried a quiet power, but even here, among two other strong personalities, it was clear she was the one in charge.
Calypso. Kira. Firinne.
I studied their faces. It was as if their masks had slipped now.
Gone was Kira's bold looks, leaving only a sulky teenager caught in the act.
Firinne still held her charm, but now it seemed sharper, colder, more calculated.
And Calypso, with her hair a mess and her panicked eyes darting all around, seemed far less composed than the polished professional I had first encountered.
Slowly, my mind connected all the loose strands.
I was certain now that the woman in the long black dress at Malik's party, rushing down the stairs with Kira on her heels, had been Calypso.
I realized then that she had let slip something I had only ever shared with one person in the City: Kira, her lover, knew that half my debt would be reimbursed.
Firinne was more careful. I never would've suspected her if not for Chaoxing mentioning the music. I couldn't explain how, but I knew Firinne was involved in the power outage at Chaoxing's home.
Did she cause it? But for what reason?
In any case, I knew they were all working together. I had seen enough to make up for the missing pieces.
"We're done for..." Calypso's voice trembled as she held her eyebrows with all her fingers, panic all over her face.
"Calm down," Kira placed an arm around her, looking not calm at all herself.
"No need to panic," Firinne added, her voice low and steady.
Seeing their troubled reactions somehow reassured me.
I was glad I wasn't the only one uncomfortable with this situation. They seemed as disturbed as I was that I unwillingly got involved in their schemes.
"What's going on?" I asked, gathering as much courage as I could. "What are you all up to?"
My voice quivered. I knew they were creating trouble, and by being here with them, I was getting too close to trouble.
Firinne turned to Calypso. "How did she end up on this mission?"
"I don't know. My manager placed her," Calypso replied. "It wasn't up to me. But we had already placed all the girls we needed in the target locations we wanted-"
"What girls?" I cut in, thinking of the twenty or so other fake machinas I had seen on the onboarding day. "Do you all know each other?"
"Not all, but—"
"Don't answer her!" Kira hissed, giving a small slap on her lover's arm.
Calypso winced, a guilty look all over her face again.
Did all the fake machinas know each other? Were they all in on this plan?
But what plan? I had to know.
"Did you cause the power outage at Chaoxing?" I asked Firinne directly, wanting to connect all the dots.
Both Kira and Calypso gasped. Firinne didn't flinch.
She stayed immobile, her green eyes imperturbable on me. Clearly, she wasn't surprised I knew.
"Not directly," she answered, and she seemed truthful. "But yes. You correctly assumed."
"Why? What are you all doing in their homes? Chaoxing, Malik... What do you want from them?"
It appeared strange to me to associate Chaoxing, the Love Machina, and Malik, the Director of the Research Center, in the same sentence. What did they have in common?
And then, I understood.
It wasn't only Chaoxing's home. It was first Henry's home, the Chief Biotech Officer of the City.
Two very powerful men of the City.
Suddenly, everything rushed into my mind.
A government contract with Love Machinas Inc.
With access to the homes of powerful citizens.
"Malik... and Henry..." I shook my head, trying to make sense of my thoughts.
Even better than an authorization to their homes... A live-in spy in their houses!
Firinne tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing on me as if she was reading my mind.
"Who are you...?" she spoke softly, almost to herself.
I frowned, my face recoiling on my neck as I felt almost insulted that I was the one being questioned here, when I had spies right in front of me.
"What do you mean?"
"Why did Love Machina Inc. want you so much on this contract...?" she continued to speak in this absent voice, as if she was rather thinking aloud than actually asking me a question.
"I never said that," Calypso corrected, "I just said her placement wasn't in my hands-"
Firinne dismissed her with her hand, and Calypso went quiet. Her green eyes were still studying me.
"She's a debt slave," Kira took over. "She comes from the Solarov area. A lab rat all her life. Never seen the sun."
I looked at her in horror.
No one had ever spoken about my life like that.
"I'm not a lab rat!" I protested, not sure of what she meant by that, but knowing enough to know I should feel insulted. "And I've been outside!"
Kira snorted, clearly not impressed by the small perimeter walks the clinics had.
Maybe she had a point.
Maybe I had been sheltered for most of my life.
But I had learned enough over the past weeks to know I was in trouble right now.
While panic was getting to me, Firinne's eyes never left me.
"How much of your debt does this contract pay off?"
"Half," Kira answered for me, and I glared at her.
"Actually... It's all of it now," Callypso corrected with a sorry look for me. "Her debt will be cleared by the end of the contract."
A sparkle ignited in Firinne's green eyes.
"That's unusual. You're not going to throw away that kind of deal, are you?"
I didn't answer.
"No, of course you're not," Firinne pursed her lips together, crossing her arms on her chest. "Too bad Calypso could cancel your contract any time..."
Calypso's eyes fluttered on her leader, and I wish she had looked at me to see if that was true.
Firinne just smiled.
"I don't believe you," I said, trying to catch her bluff.
"You should. If I can slip into a Director's home undetected... Canceling a Machina contract would be trivial, don't you think?"
"Then why haven't you already?" I challenged her. "Why not just cancel me now?"
"I don't want to," she shook her head.
"Why not?"
"Because I need you."
I froze.
The rush of information spurring all around my brain stopped.
"What are you talking about? I don't want to be implicated—"
"But you already are," she interrupted.
Her head tilted to the side, her arms still crossed on her chest as she took a few steps toward me.
My eyes blinked fast on her, my heart racing so fast in my chest I thought I was going to die.
"Do you have your tablet on you?" she asked.
I didn't reply.
The next second, Kira had grabbed my bag and handed my tablet to her leader. I didn't even try to prevent her from doing so. I knew I was outnumbered.
"You're geolocated with us," Firinne said, holding my tablet between two fingers as if showing undeniable proof. "If you were planning to report us, how would you explain spending an hour down here, with three known infiltrators? You were at Henry's place. And Malik's too. How will you explain that?"
My breath got caught.
They knew way more about the City's surveillance than I did. How could I prove my innocence when I had been involved so much without my knowledge already?
"If we fall... You fall with us," Firinne confirmed my fears. "What if we told the authorities we offered to double your payment, and you agreed? It wouldn't be so far-fetched. You've already done a lot for half of it..."
I felt like the ground shifted under me.
"You're our accomplice now. Whether you like it or not."
My limbs felt limp. I would have collapsed on the floor if I weren't seated. I grasped the edges of the wooden stool to steady myself, digging my nails into it.
"Who are you? What do you want?" I managed to articulate, fear gripping at my chest.
Firinne seemed to relax. Her green eyes weren't as piercing now, and her voice sounded even softer.
"We need your help getting a shipment out of the City."
Both Kira and Calypso gasped.
"Finn!" Kira came to stand in front of me. "What are you doing?!"
"This wasn't the plan," Calypso also objected, even paler now. "We don't involve innocents—"
"Trust me," Firinne - or Finn? - pushed Kira to the side while giving a reassuring look to Calypso. "We need her help."
I wanted to protest, but I also wanted to know about their plan. I wanted to know who they were, what their goal was, and what I was getting involved with.
"A shipment of what?" I asked when their attention came back to me.
"Medications," Firinne answered without breaking eye contact.
My eyes narrowed on her.
I wasn't expecting this answer.
Anything else, but something so harmless. Maybe illegal material or weapons. But medicines...? How could I even help them with that?
"This kind of medicine is not allowed to leave the City," Firinne clarified.
"Why?"
"It's complicated. We don't have the time to explain now, but it's about diplomacy."
Diplomacy...? Kira had said she was coming from the Autonomous Territories. Were they all from there? Callypso looked exactly like someone coming from the City, though. Firinne could pass for a citizen too.
Then, I remembered the conversation I had heard earlier between the two lovers.
"Are you sick?" I asked Calypso without preamble.
This time, they all looked stunned. It felt like I was getting the upper hand now.
"Y-Yes," Calypso stammered. "H-How...?"
"Many other people are sick outside the City," Firinne cut in. "They need this shipment of medications."
I looked at them for a long moment. They didn't need to tell me about what it was like outside the City. I had seen enough when traveling in the Belt, in between clinics, to know that the healthiest people I met, strangely, were the ones working clinical trials with me.
"How do I know you're not lying?"
Firinne shrugged. "You don't."
Again, there was a pause.
Kira held Firinne's arm and whispered to her something I couldn't hear.
"She's not a problem. She's a solution," Firinne said as she pushed the redhead away.
"Finn, what are you doing...?" Kira scowled, seeming not on board at all with the decision her leader had taken.
Firinne walked to me and leaned close, her voice barely a whisper.
"Have you ever heard of a place called the Oasis?"
🗓️ Next chapters: this Thursday, September 18th 🗓️
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