Chartreuse || ONC 2022

▪︎ Digi Log 15 ▪︎

Inside the Red Palace
Neo-York
23:15

All was quiet. The lights were dim, and even the impossibly soft footsteps of the trio made hints of echoes on the pristine white marble floor.

“I wonder, do you think, if she has enough space?” Mina whispered.

The others remained silent, giving the slightest of nods.

They came to the end of the elongated foyer and were greeted by a pair of large ornament doors, also white. A lock hung from the handles.

“What’s the security on this?” Mina asked softly.

Ava-1 scanned the doors with her cyborg eye. “Nothing. Just this one deadbolt. Old-school. Hang on a nanosec.”

Ava-1 removed her left pinky finger and adjusted the settings on the laser. She aimed the red beam and began burning a hole in the lock. “This should take approximately ten seconds.”

“It would take one second if I used my katana,” Saito teased.

“What was that about silent entry?” Ava-1 clapped back. “Or was that only relevant outside?”

“You’ve got me there,” Saito admitted.

Ava-1 finished with the lock and reattached her pinky. She and Saito shoved the doors open.

The Negotiators found themselves in a great hall, Big Sister and her inner party posed before them.

“We’ve been expecting you,” Big Sister said. She put her hands to her boney hips and smiled at her guests. The green of her skin created a startling contrast with the scarlet gown she wore. To her right was Dorian Gray. To her left was Oliver Twist. Standing to the side, a look of apprehension on his stately face, was Major Tom Jones.

The Negotiators stood their ground, Sparky and the other reprogrammed androids flanking them.

"My Junior Spies captured footage of you," Big Sister went on. Her smile became malicious as her green lips twisted. "The three of you are so very conspicuous by appearance, after all. My dear Mr. Twist did some reconnaissance, and voilà! You are the infamous Negotiators I’ve heard so much about. And to think, I always thought you were an urban legend. Happy to be proven wrong.”

“Happy to prove you wrong,” Saito said, his voice steady and calm.

Neither Mina nor Ava-1 betrayed the slightest bit of emotion.

"'Big Sister' is but a ruse," Mina said. "A mask behind which you hide. We are inside your palace now. Are we not past such garish pretenses?"

"Your point?" Big Sister prompted.

"What is your name?" Mina asked. "Your one true name?"

The witch shrugged. "What can it hurt? I am called West."

"West," Ava-1 repeated. "Kind of anticlimactic."

West ignored her jab. “Before my inner party dispatches you, I'd like to know one thing: who hired you?”

“If you think we would give up the name of our client, you are truly a fool,” Mina stated.

West shrugged in a way very unfitting of her self-proclaimed dictatorship. “It might have bought you some mercy. You are ‘negotiators,’ after all.”

“We don’t negotiate with those who have proven they can't be negotiated with,” Ava-1 retorted.

"Philosophically profound, that," West quipped. She arched a carefully groomed black eyebrow. “If that is so, then you’re of no use to me. Dorian, Oliver, Major Tom, you have my authorization to eliminate these intruders by any means necessary.”