DISCORDIA

[ 22 ] far cry

JINNY CRIED OUT in excitement as she finally reconstructed the completed cipher on her self-made laptop. The chip she inherited from her mother was socketed to the main computer terminal of the Ark, establishing a connection to her cryptogram. It had been a long five years but she knew it would all be worth it. They had known all along that the information from the data core would be their saving grace. The Ark was completely blind to conditions on the Ground, but if they could build an Artificial Intelligence to keep track of the radiation levels for them then surely, they would be able to stop guessing.

She entered the key code into the terminal and laughed out loud when the last firewall was successfully hacked. A cascade of information poured out of the data nodule, running through the scans she had placed and automatically transferring them to her laptop in zipped files. She had done it, and now all she had to do was to analyse them. There was too much data for her to take in but she had caught a few words such as "The Lazarus Project", schematics and plans for a voyage to the next galaxy in Andromeda. She thought that was a feasible backup plan if Earth could never fully recover the devastation it endured.

One particular file caught her attention, and it was the blueprint she had been looking for. She glanced through the software programs that she would need to write up, the algorithms and the hardware required. They could probably pool their resources to do this, she could segment a portion of the Ark's mainframe to store it.

The door suddenly opened and she jumped in her seat from fright, turning sharply to see who it was. Bellamy breathed heavily by the threshold, stepping inside before quickly closing the door shut behind him. Jinny looked at him in confusion.

"What are you doing?" she hissed angrily. "Nobody is supposed to know where I am!"

"Jaha found out, he's on his way here right now," he told her.

"What?!" she exclaimed, prompting a flurry of activity from the girl as she attempted to close all the files on the terminal.

"You need to leave," Bellamy took her arm but she shook him off. "They're going to arrest you!"

"I can't!" she shouted. "I finally did it, I need to salvage the information before they take me away!"

She glanced at him briefly. "Give me your necklace."

"Huh?" he looked at her in bewilderment.

"Just give it to me!" she demanded in frustration. Bellamy quickly tore the necklace from his collar and handed it to her. She inserted the backup flashdrive into the socket of the mainframe and quickly transferred the blueprints into it. Then she gave it back to him. "Keep it secret. Keep it safe."

"Jin, what are you-"

She ignored him and turned back to the terminal, typing furiously across the keyboard.

>> ENTER COMMAND

>> NOS SUNT INFINITAE

>> INITIATING FAILSAFE PROTOCOLS

>> HYDRA ACTIVATED

>> TOTAL SYSTEM FAILURE

>> SHUT DOWN IMMINENT

There was a sudden blackout as the electricity surged for a brief moment, then the screen shone a bright red as the emergency alarms rang throughout the station. Jinny gasped out loud in surprise, her mind and heart racing as she stared at the black printed letters on the terminal.