"...Are you absolutely sure about this?" Uzi asked as she turned away from the beast of a rig she basically had to build from scratch to keep up with N's beast of a system.
"For the twenty-third time: Yes, Uzi," N replied, a hint of exasperation in his tone.
He was nervous enough as it was, and her practically encouraging him to back out was NOT helping.
"Sorry, sorry, it's just..." Uzi sighed and slumped back in her chair. "Your system is the single most advanced thing I've ever seen. There's so much going on so fast and all at once, that if something goes wrong I won't have time to spot it, figure it out and stop it from outside. I have to be IN there, and that means I'm gonna...see things. Hear things. And just thinking about it makes me feel like a creep."
"Uzi-"
"Even when I was at my angriest, even when I thought about ripping Braidon's head off with his own hands, I NEVER messed with his memories!"
"My memories are already messed with; kinda why we're here," N chuckled.
"You know what I mean!" Uzi snapped, not in the mood for humor. "This feels different. Wrong! They're YOUR memories, and I have no right to-"
"I trust you."
"...That's not fair," Uzi whined, turning away to hide the neon mess of her screen and pointedly ignoring Lizzy and Doll's shit-eating grins. "You can't just SAY shit like that!"
"I know, I know, not cool," N laughed. "But still true. Even if I could do this on my own, I don't think I could. I'd be too afraid of what I would see. But with you...It's like you said: Together, we win!"
Uzi's breath hitched and she didn't even think about facing him. As much as she hated his lack of self-esteem, she had to admit that having someone so powerful and capable genuinely believe that SHE was the difference-maker went a long way in steadying her nerves.
With Uzi no longer stopping every few minutes to check N's resolve, they were fully set up within ten minutes.
"All connections are good, all overclocks are stable, cooling system has been stress tested; I think we're as ready as we're ever gonna be. Lizzy, Doll, you remember your part in this?"
"Anything goes wrong, we shut it down. Alarms, warning lights, weird noises; if it's not normal, cut the power," Lizzy replied.
"What she said."
"Just remember to be on-alert at ALL times! That means no...snogging!" Uzi warned with the dimmest of blush lines.
"Uh-huh. Three things," Lizzy started in her signature brand of deadpan. "One: Thanks for the vote of confidence. Two: Who says 'snogging', ya dork? And Three: No promises!"
The blonde finished by hopping into Doll's waiting arms, like it was a routine they had planned.
"What she said," Doll said with the tiniest hint of a smile cracking through her unbothered facade.
"I hate you both. See you when we get back."
*****
Of course it wasn't as simple as just walking into N's mind and rooting around for encrypted files. Lots of trust verifications, LOTS of digital handshakes, and lots of waiting to see if an antivirus or firewall would kick in. Nyx was apparently doing a lot of heavy lifting backstage to grease the gears, but that didn't exactly make it less nervewracking.
But eventually the barrage of code on Uzi's laptop screen slowed, and she felt something shift outside the isolated room she was holed up in.
She opened the door and walked out into a corridor so familiar, she wondered if something had gone wrong and she was back in her own head. It was definitely the bunker; she even managed to navigate to her own home by memory.
