The Undergrad

by Mela NoLeuca

  We were all back in one of ARC's makeshift shed turned corporate building. With Emily temporarily siding with us along with her troops, we managed to waltz out of the building unscathed. I questioned about the building's security cameras and she simply told me not to worry about it.

  Before me was a sedated Robyn sleeping on a narrow gurney, once again garbed in white and decorated listlessly with other medical contraptions connected to one flat screen TV that hung on a white wall. The only thing about her that moved was the steady rise and fall of her chest.

  "It was a pretty good thing we managed to take hold of her before they did," Ares muttered as he stepped in the room. "Whoa, dude, you seriously need some sleep,"

  He chuckled as he made his way towards her and scribbled away in his chart. Taking out a syringe and two sealed test tubes he took her arm and did a few more inspections before he took some blood samples.

  "That's the third time you--"

  "I know," he interrupted as he pocketed the samples.

  "Do you need another from me too?" I offered my left arm, he simply shook his head and waltzed to the big monitor next to her. "How's she doing?"

  Ares swiped the monitor as it revealed more data, graphs and numbers that even I would love to try and understand. "Right now, we're just trying to find a way to hack into the nanobots' matrix, we tried antidotes and sucking out these bots is obviously not an option."

  "So why not hack into--"

  "Its not as easy as it sounds, hacking into a system never was easy. If I get three consecutive failed attempts I honestly have no idea what would happen to her," he sighed.

  "Passwords?"

  "Obviously."

  "How many?"

  "One or two, but first we need to find out who created this, gather some research on this,"

  "We need to steal their research?" My question came out more as a statement.

  "The hardware isn't enough, whenever we try to manually incise the bots and get into its software it self destructs, it's actually pure genius!" Ares sighed, and stopped writing down in his chart.

  "Is there any easier way to this?" I asked after a moment of silence.

  "I'm not in for alternatives bro," he headed for the door, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I know how much she means to you,"

  With that, he left me alone.

  For once in my life, I didn't enjoy the solitude because that alone granted me many thoughts to ponder on. Specifically on Ares' parting words. Obviously the easier way out of this would be simply ending Robyn's life. I vigorously shook my head and began pacing to try and walk off that preposterous idea.

  Then I stopped. Why would I even bother sparing her life? Was it because I kissed her back in the white room? I chaffed my face as if it could help scrub my thoughts away.

  "You okay?" A female voice resonated in the room from hidden speakers startling me for a bit.

  "Yeah," I said as convincingly as I could.

  "Want some coffee?" Asked Emily.

  "Nah I'm good,"

  "Come on," she repeated while the door swung open. There she stood with a hand on the knob looking rather bored, "let's go get some coffee,"

  "Seriously Em," I began, not really in the mood for coffee or company.

  "Coffee. Now." She grounded out and slammed the door closed. Rolling my eyes, I went after her.

  The nearest café was a good twenty-minute drive away from ARC's temporary base (if you had a crazy driver to take you there, that is). Though small and quaint it seemed to be popular among the people in the area as they fell into a line that stretched past the store's front door.

  Emily and I sat down in a dark corner of the tiny store; she was nonchalantly taking frequent sips from her coffee in front of me while I was lazily stirring mine. The aroma of different brews tainted this place so strongly I was bound to smell like coffee when we leave.

  "So why did you drag me all the way here for tea time?" I couldn't help but ask. The sooner we deal with whatever reason she had to bring me out here, the better.

  "This is coffee time, love," she smiled brightly at me.

  Fighting back the urge to shudder from her porcelain smile, my thoughts began to wander about the conversation she had with Ares when we were almost held captive. I can't exactly say I trust this woman any more ever since Craw died...

  Maybe she snapped and lost it and became this pile of emotional Bipolar mess. I wouldn't blame her. Craw was an awesome guy I give you that. He was that one guy who sat in my room the whole night when I told him I couldn't sleep because of the nightmares when I was a little kid. Well anyway, I shouldn't be thinking of all this.

  Instead, what piqued my interest was how was she linked to Ares? I couldn't help but listen in to their conversation and by the sound of it they had something going on back then. My brother, who was about two years younger than I am had a possible affair with this lady whom I looked up to as my mother.

  And then it hit me. How old is this woman? If Craw mentioned her being five years younger than he was that would make her twenty five at the moment. And if my brother was two years younger than me, wouldn't that make an awkward seven year age gap between the two?

  "I never knew he was into older women?" I muttered the realization under my breath right before Emily was about to say something.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Nothing," It was at that moment I decided how delicious my coffee was and took a long swig from my mug, avoiding eye contact,  "this is real good stuff."

  "It wasn't the reason why I ended it with your brother," she calmly set her coffee on the table. I have never felt so awkward in my life the moment she said those words. Incest was the word that began haunting me ever since I decided to put two and two together.

  "You don't have to--"

  "I just want to clear things out," she cut me off, "that was my final mission before I graduated from the academy, I just needed to gather whatever information I could from ARC that was significant to ERA, at that time I discovered about the creation of Rubrix and from how I saw things, the only way I could know more about the technology was through the inventor,"

  "By playing my brother?" I couldn't help but shake my head in dismay. To think I once looked up to her as well, I loved her in a motherly way because she and Craw were like bread and butter, together they were my foster parents. But now, thinking of how my mother figure was dating my brother?

  I shuddered.

  "I didn't know Craw back then okay?"

  "But you knew about me?"

  "You're getting out of topic--"

  "I'm sorry," I raised both hands in surrender, "as you were saying?"

  She sighed, relaxing just a bit but the unease remained obvious in her troubled face. She was in a perfectly messed up situation. "Everything seemed to fall in place that day, and every turn and decisions I made went smoothly, I ended up killing his new intern and played assistant long enough to download the information on Rubrix,"

  "Did you actually get to hold it, back then?" I asked.

  "I wasn't given that much privilege as an 'intern'" she air-quoted, "but I also helped throw in some ideas, which explains why he managed to make a breakthrough with manipulating strength and such, he was brilliant,"

  She sadly smiled then shook her head with a sigh. I gave her this moment of silence as I took interest in my caffeinated drink, to be honest, I wanted to know how... How... I don't know. How they were together? How did they get along? How were they able to find time to... Like each other maybe?

  "It wasn't long before ERA tried to retrieve me after losing contact with them for a while, that was the first time I met Craw it was funny because at first I was trying to defend the Rubrix--"

  "Was Ares around?"

  "No, but I just felt like it wasn't time to get it yet,"

  "Why not?"

  "Because it would have been better to get it when it's fully polished, love. Less work for us," she shrugged, "I told him that and he said I needed to get back, I deba
ted to stay longer,"

  Her sentence died down as a sense of discombobulation tainted her practiced composure. It was more than enough to conclude that she had already fallen for my brother and ARC.

  "But eventually, you left," I ended her sentence before finishing my drink.

  She chuckled bitterly, "I was promoted but ERA decided to keep me off the field, assigned to Craw, ironically enough"

  I nodded, remembering those days when Craw would come back to me for training with a scowl on his face complaining about this annoying 'bitch' as he endearingly described her.

  "Must have been fun," I raised my brows.

  "I was horrible," she smiled widely, then sighed as if remembering those early days with her late husband. She masked her pain well as tears remained locked up in her eyes, not a trace of grief could be found. I was pretty impressed.

  "Which then leads me to the reason why I'm talking to you now. While I was serving the Colonel a few days ago," she stood from her seat and cocked her head to the door, a silent suggestion that we go.

  "So tell me," she began. "What do you think of Robyn?"

  "You hate her. Why are you asking me this?"

  She shrugged, "I don't hate her, I just needed to be so I was believable to work with. Honestly, Marduk was pretty skeptic to work with me, but eventually after that little act I was given access to confidential matters,"

  She took out two sunglasses, the big bug-eyed one was for herself and the brown-tinted aviators were for mine to wear. I held them and looked at her questioningly.

  "Wear them, love," she said, and so I did, instantly a matrix of codes began washing down my peripheral vision.

  "What is this?"

  "That is what I'm trying to decode," She smiled.

  This time, I liked the way she was smiling.