How not to woo a hacker

On another side of the Playground, a masked girl was stomping with difficulty through a dense jungle, filled with little, buzzing insects, puddles of mud and liquid, and the slippery ground she had the pleasure of stomping on. Every turn she took was like a trapeze challenge, trying to walk straight, which she found out was an arduous task for her. 

Angie cursed, whined, and screamed internally, most of her insults being addressed at her benefactor who, even though had the power to choose the entry point, selected “This infernal place. What was she thinking, sending me, a miner who lived surrounded by tight corridors and sturdy rocks for her whole life, in this place?”. Her rage was palpable enough to feed an actual fire with and her first day was ruined, or at least that’s how she felt.

After a few more minutes of landscape re-decorating by thrashing around, she calmed down enough to swallow some soothing air through her mask. Ingress, her companion, ignored her cries for vengeance and such, as it had another preoccupation. Ever since they landed, it scouted the area, and from its frantic movements and double-checking every corner, it was searching for something. Or someone. After a while, a clue sparked from the sky, as light reflected from a platform tube used for the competitors' descent. Ingress could only beep in happiness at the sight of it and left a quick message to their partner.

-'' I will check ahead. Angie, please stay here and secure the area”, and before she could ask it any questions, the little bot was already way ahead of her by using a trick kept hidden from her. In the time she needed to read the text, the robot hatched a set of wheels under its legs and drove off through the thick jungle.

-” Whaaaaaat?”, she asked, stupefied by the whole engagement. That feeling and her rage mixed to form an impulse decision to follow the alien behaving C.T.D.

Ingress stopped a few times to scan the surroundings and pick a direction. It went in a zig-zag way for quite some time, as the thick brushes and slippery soil weren’t the best of friends of a small robot with city wheels. After a third stop, though, something weird made it halt before it could take another spin. A flurry of bullets pierced the ground near it, making a confetti parade out of the dirt and leaving a mist of dust lingering in the air. The warning shot, while meant to chase it away, it also confirmed to Ingress that the target was close, or at the least, in which way it should go.

As if it got inspired by the bike of Evel Knievel, it took a few steps backward, waited for a few moments, and, after the second barrage of bullets, it drove right through the dirty fog at full speed, passing through every scrub it could find to mask its approach before the third round started. On the other side, the patient and C.T.D were close to a river, with their backs to it and their face toward whatever was coming closer, and closer. Neither knew who nor what they took potshots at, but making “the first move gives you more opportunities to take the lead”, thought the patient, a girl wearing what appeared to be a custom-made jump-suit, with cable termination coming out of it from multiple exits. On top of it, her long red hair was waved back, exposing her forehead and underneath a pair of goggles, connected to her robotic companion.

Her C.T.D could have been mistaken for a hunched man if seen only from a distance with squinted eyes, but the closer you got to it, the more distinct their details got and the more otherworldly it actually appeared to be. The body resembled that of an upstanding robotic big feline, like a lion or tiger, with its legs dwarfed in size by the arms. It used one of the massive trunks of a forearm to support himself, while on the other hand, it had multiple holes for the palm, no fingers, with smoke lingering from them.

-” Prepared to fire again, miss. The target hasn’t stopped moving.” The companion, then, lowered her a straight arm down to give the signal, and he shot another flurry towards the upcoming Ingress. It missed the little C.T.D yet again, but the patient was only a bit ticked off, while it frantically buttoned in the middle of the air. The cable glowed again, more intently, while connecting her to the human-like head of her partner, inspired by the masks of ancient Egyptians. 

- “Just keep it a distance for a few more seconds, Sovereign”, she advised. “The connection is almost established.”

The last shot was enough to slow Ingress down, and using the snake-decoration on Sovereign forehead, her hack finally connected to the small robot and deactivated its wheels. This caused the C.T.D to stumble at a considerable speed, and slide for about 8 to 9 meters, right in the eyesight of both the attacking C.T.D and his patient. 

-“ Receiver of the message found”, relayed Ingress with the tone of a robotic caller. Sovereign tried to warn it as to not make another move, but his companion, Syna, just signaled to let it speak. 

-“ I saw something weird about it while tinkering around in there. This robot is not like the rest of you. I don’t think that it’s a real C.T.D, Sovereign”. She then commanded Ingress to tell her about its mission.

The robot stood right up and pulled from a compartment a communication device, like the ones used by the workers in the County, but this model was bulkier than the rest, with a less lavished design, probably made with efficiency in mind. 

-“ As you can see, this is a high-distance calling device. It’s strong enough not to suffer any interference, and it can’t be discovered unless searched for it. Originally, this was intended for the patient Angie, but now my updated mission is to give it to you.” Afterward, Ingress left it on the ground in front of it and took a few steps backward.

Unsure of what to think of the weird interaction, Syna decided to at least investigate the situation a bit and picked up the communicator. She tried different channels, tinkering with it for a bit until an unfamiliar voice came out of it. 

-“ Hello, am I assuming that Ingress contacted you, Syna Ru’Dev?”, asked a woman from the other side. Syna stared at the device for a second, then motioned Sovereign to come closer and using her previously established connection to him, hacked the talkative gadget. The voice, after it didn’t receive any response, tried to slowly, then desperately make the hacker reply, but it was treated with silence until Syna achieved her goal, to unlock the holographic video option-

-” Done. Now let’s see if this is who I think it is”. Once Syna pulled on the projector part to create the screen, the interlocutor quickly adopted a miffed face to greet them. “ Well, it’s not that a big surprise to be your virtual mug I see, since it belongs to your team. What do you want, Priya?”, asked Syna, clearly not up to playing any games she thought the CEO cooked.

-” Ugh….dam it. Have you at least disabled the cameras in the area? Oh, thank god I entered in silent mode at least”, to which the hacker only raised her shoulders as if to say “who knows”. “Well, our channels lost signals to the cameras from a landing place, and surrounding area, so I will presume that you did it so I can go on. The stunt you pulled in the arena got my attention, especially because, while skilled, even you couldn’t have done it by yourself. Milla must be pulling a lot of strings to give you so many opportunities, correct?”

Once more, Syna just acted ignorantly and only poshly waved her fingers for the CEO to just continue talking.

-” Alright, here is the deal. You want to succeed your parents, or whatever Alvara and Robert are to you, right? I also have my own plans for this year’s games, but you must know that both of our aspirations will get spoiled by the geezers, right?”. Priya tries to prod her a bit, trying to see if there was any point in taking the risk.

Syna was a bit intrigued by what she was trying to say, but still, a sudden flicker in her memory reminded her how she got where she is now.

-” Well, for now, Milla did more to help me achieve my objectives than anyone else you. So why would I trust anything you say? You and Robert, Alvara, and even Milla are, at the end of the day, just different color threads of the same shirt. I learned I can’t remove you all some time ago, otherwise, then the shirt would just become useless, unraveled. But replacing a thread won't ruin the fabric…”, she said with a trace of conceitedness in it.

Instead of indignation, as she expected, or even an arrogant grand-standing, she was treated with laughter. Priya bit her lip at the end of the laugh, unable to contain her disdain for what she saw as naivete from the girl. But in spite of that, her voice was soft and regretful. 

-” So you are the one that can change everything from the inside? We waited for so long for you to come, are we all finally going to be saved?”The CEO’s tone had a sense of pity, but also melancholy to it, as she during her rant she recounted a past mistake. Made intentionally by her.

The hacker, though, managed to grasp only the pity part and her head immediately transformed it into ‘disappointment’, which enraged her enough to almost bit back, until Priya interrupted her. 

-“ From your words at the arena, I assume you learned what the C.T.D’s are, right? From Milla, or on your own? If the first, why do you think she would have told you the whole truth about it?

It took the hacker a few moments to adjust her frame of mind, with a bit of help from some encouraging words from her C.T.D. The weird sphinx knew precisely how to get her back to a level where she could equally converse with the CEO. 

-" Miss, remember that once you become a CEO, you will have to deal with this from time to time. Take this as a training course." After thanking him, Syna thought about Priya’s words and figured that something didn’t add up 

-” No, I never believed it, but the same goes for you. You came here with a drone disguised as a C.T.D, trying to...I don’t even know what you want. Oh, I know, let’s start from there. You want my trust, behave like what your profession technically is, sell me on it, and give me a reason to listen to you. What are you planning, Priya?”.

Right before she could answer, a noise from the bushes took the group by surprise. Angie grasped only a few parts at end.

 - “ Yeah, tell her boss Priya, what the hell are you planning to do?”, she asked with fury in her eyes.

-” Finally, my champion is…”, a sonic rock flew right through the screen before she could even finish. Priya appeared somewhat annoyed by it but got the message to bypass all the small talk. “Alright, alright. So, firstly, Angie. Up until now, when you trained and talked with Ingress, you were actually speaking with me, Ingress is not a real C.T.D like the other. Or finished one might be a better term, I think.”

-” What in the actual hell are you saying, you shining toy of a person?”, screamed Angie. “ That’s not how you start this. Why are you doing this, why you are here, WHY ARE YOU TALKING WITH…”

-” Hi, I’m Syna, this is Sovereign, we are team number 2, and I think your benefactor is trying to woo us, I guess?

-” Pleasure. Angie, and this, I guess, was my C.T.D Ingress. And we were the number four team”, responded Angie. “ See, that’s how you start. Now let…”

A huge "bump" shut all of them down, as Priya was done with their shenanigans. The CEO slammed her hand on a table again and waited for them to shut up.

-” C.T.Ds are actually the participants from the previous races”, yelled Priya, followed by a big gulp from a full wine glass.