🌘

Running some ObTech and SysTech programs, you generate an archive that outwardly matches the parameters of the target file, but contains a script to manifest an æthereal construct at your command. Then you try to put up a convincing show of defending your trap file, while the real data is hidden deeper away.

7 seems to believe you, and you feel her pressure as she comes after what you’re guarding, keeping your focus locked in place as she exerts equal force of will against you. But something’s wrong. You feel a sense of violation in your mind as another presence slips through your terminal’s local storage and into the hidden directory you intended to distract her from. It’s over before you can respond, and she’s out of your filesystem again with a copy of the target.

You sit down on the floor before you can pass out. “Fuck! Ahhh.” You rub the sides of your head rapidly in a frustrated stim.

“Exactly what I would have done. Too easy,” 7 says, looking away from you.

“So you sent your own construct after the target and kept me busy yourself…” you say. “An impressive construct though, to slip through my defenses so quietly.”

“One of my best familiars, its name is 5…” She sits down too, pressing on her temples, taking deep breaths.

“You must be tired from kicking my ass all day,” you say. “We can take a break.”

“No… no need,” she says. “Let’s…” Her pink eyes look glazed over as she stares past you into the, admittedly mesmerizing, patterns on the wall.

“…7?” you say.

She seems to snap back to awareness hearing her name.