Elyon

Firewall

Purple's eyes fixed on the holographic globe that spun slowly before him, mapping the terrain of Junkyardia. Red had vanished somewhere into the scrap heaps. He had to be found, had to be stopped. He could still pass off Red's disappearance as madness, insanity that had to be contained and deactivated by the Control Brains. But the second Red started talking, anyone would be able to see he wasn't mad.

He slipped to the back of his mind. He didn't want to think about this. He didn't have to, either. He'd found he could just step aside, and come back to find all the decisions already made. He rather liked it. Things were finally getting done again, like they hadn't since Red had gone mad.

He still couldn't believe Red—of all Irkens, Red!—had succumbed to this brainworm fodder about a higher being. No one was greater than the Almighty Tallests, and if he had to wipe out one to prove it, he would.

His spooch twinged slightly, and he frowned.

He hated what Red had done. It was a betrayal of everything they'd worked for together. It was a betrayal of their authority as Tallests. He'd even thrown Purple aside, hadn't he?

Yes. He'd cast Purple aside. This was a power grab, pure and simple. Red wasn't complicated. Okay he was a little more complicated lately, but he was still Red. Anything he'd ever done, he'd done to keep control. Purple had let him do all the thinking. Well, most of it.

Now he could run the empire without even thinking. He didn't need Red just as much as Red didn't need him. Yeah. This had been coming all along really.

He snapped back to attention, blinking. He was no longer in front of the Junkyardia hologram, but in front of the communications command center. Every broadcast was filtered through here first. Every legal and approved broadcast, of course.

He glanced down at some drone or another, on their knees in front of him, looking terrified. He vaguely wondered what he'd said.

"Y-yes my Tallest, right away." The drone stammered, leaping to her feet and barking orders at the others in the room. Purple wondered why he hadn't noticed anyone else, but dismissed the thought. He didn't care. He didn't have to.

All the screens flickered, the images flipping rapidly through every program being sent to PAKs, entertainment screens, and handheld datapads throughout Irk's extensive reach. To prison cells and palaces, from quarry medbays rejuvenating those worked nearly to death so they could get up and work again to high class eateries where Irkens chatted and laughed, comparing their conquests and boasting of their next ones.

There.

His arm jerked forward, the claw pointing at one screen. "Stop. That one." His voice grated. "All screens."

Immediately Red's face filled the screen. He looked tired and filthy, and rather bewildered. His mouth was moving, but there was no sound. He glared at the drone from earlier, and she cringed. "Apologies my Tallest, the problem is on the other end. Our sound works perfectly."

As she spoke, the speakers squawked terribly. Red appeared to be fiddling with something on the side, and words came through in spatters and spits of crackling static.

"...allest are you... what if.... Don't think..."

"...don't know what... just keep an eye... Dantie calm... before I sedate..."

"Where is this transmission coming from?" Purple demanded.

"We're working to trace it now my Tallest." The drone's claws flew over the controls, fueled by terror. He smiled darkly. She knew the consequences of failure.

She stopped, her antennae trembling. "My Tallest, the channel is heavily encrypted. It's a firewall nearly the security of our own."

Purple scowled. Of course. Some of their top encryption experts had defected. He and Red had spent weeks chasing them down, but one or two still evaded them. The others had been forced to change the Massive's firewalls once more before their execution. So, he'd found the pet project of the last couple deserters, and so had Red. He probably had no clue though.

"Hack it." He growled.

"B-but, my Tallest, I don't know how—"

A spiderleg slid cleanly through her chest and jerked out just as fast. She slumped over on her side with a gasp as he turned. "You!" He pointed to another. "You are the new head communication drone person. HACK this channel."

"Yes my Tallest!" The drone took her seat, scanning her last few moments of work.

"I'm just saying I don't know why the Cherub isn't moving!" Came a slightly frustrated voice from the speakers. "This isn't safety or help, it's an abandoned underground chamber with a bunch of scrap technology."

"Well what did you expect from Junkyardia, a high class communications wing?" Red snapped at the voice, massaging his temples.

Purple grinned. Red always did that when he was in over his head on something, or frustrated.

"My Tallest, we're still working to find the source of the transmission, but until then, we've found a way to broadcast to all screens on Junkyardia. Do you wish to open communications?" The drone glanced up.

"Yes. Open communications." Purple folded his arms. "This should be good."

.....

Red continued fiddling with the wires of the communication station. The Cherub had led them crawling for hours until they'd found this chamber. Recently abandoned, the chairs were still warm from their most recent occupants, but the Cherub had stopped there and refused to move.

Maybe the time underground, the uncertainty, and all the things Dantie had seen that day had frayed him some. His voice held an edge of hysteria as he demanded to know why the Cherub hadn't moved, but received no answer. Red, who felt his sanity had been hanging on a thread for days, calmly set about fixing the only thing in the chamber. If the Cherub had stopped here, obviously something important had to happen. And if this room was communications, well, the wires that had been cut on departure had to be fixed so something could happen.

"They don't even know how to properly destroy a station," he muttered. "If I ever find these Krissirks they're going to learn how to cover their tracks better whether they like it or not."

Glancing up, he noticed a soft blue light glowing at the corner of a lens. He squinted. How long had that been going? Was it transmitting anywhere? He soldered the final set of wires together, and the station hummed to life.

As it did, every screen displayed Tallest Purple, staring coldly at him.

He staggered backward, eyes wide.

"Red."

"Purple."