Celeste
⌛Chapter Fifteen⌛

Someone was knocking on Celeste's door pretty hard. It was six in the morning and Celeste had to be at work in an hour. She could barely pull herself up out of bed to get dressed, she almost wanted to ignore who was trying to get inside.

All of her devices were turned off. Her tablet was set to do not disturb. She hasn't been bothered in a few days.

Until today.

When the knocking persisted, she finally got up, cursing loudly because she was annoyed. She threw her pillows on the floor and grumbled while she walked out of her room to get to the door, ready to curse out who was knocking aggressively for five whole minutes.

Just as her first word flew out of her mouth, she stopped abruptly when she saw Dri standing there.

He was knocking hard for a reason.

He was panicking.

Celeste didn't have a chance to ask why he was here or what he wanted. She didn't speak to him even when he got back, so she thought he was upset about that.

He had already walked inside her apartment without an explanation.

"I don't know what's wrong with you-" he needed to see her, or at least talk to her.

"Zinnia left me." Celeste said plainly as she closed the door.

He didn't pause when he heard the bad news. "Celeste, I'm sorry, I really am." he took her arm and sat her down. "Britain just declared war on us." he said.

She didn't know why she needed to know that. She never cared about things like that. She was about to ask what that had to do with her but he had his tablet in his hand to show her.

"We just about got raided at some of our bases and this is what they had." he turned his tablet to her and showed her a video of armed soldiers in red uniforms.

Their eyes were glowing blue in a specific pattern. She narrowed her eyes because she didn't believe it at first. When she zoomed in, she saw the blue rings.

That's what happens with her implant.

"Celeste," Dri hoped that she would answer his question truthfully. "How did they get your blue prints-"

Celeste panicked.

"I have no idea!" she sat up straighter as she went through the other videos. She didn't believe it. "I would've known if someone was sharing my information. Did someone..." she didn't want to say it. "There was no way someone hacked my stuff." she didn't believe it.

She flipped through all of the videos but she saw it, those soldiers were using it. They probably had directions about what to do and where to go.

"I coded everything I have. Whoever got it couldn't have possibly deciphered everything."

She was sure no one had access to her work. No one else knew about the implant.

"I don't know but shit's not pretty right now. We're going after them hard and detaining anyone who has it. Aurora wants whoever leaked the implant blue prints found now." Dri was warning her.

"Dri, Sirus knows I finished it." Celeste looked up at him. "By now, Aurora knows it was me, too." She was freaking out. This means she was about to be in a lot of trouble. "Sirus practically has images of all of my blue prints and-"

Celeste stopped moving immediately as she realized what happened. She stared blankly at Dri as she recalled every single time that Zinnia had gotten information from her.

She's seen the old blue prints and the new ones without it being coded and protected. Celeste explained how they functioned too, what she did to make the implant function better than the previous model, how it works and everything. Zinnia has one of the implants. She saw everything.

She can show everyone what she saw.

"It was Zinnia!" Celeste got up quickly to go to her room. "She has the implant, she's seen the blue prints, she knows how it functions."

It clicked rather easily, but there was one question not answered.

"But why her?" Dri wasn't sure what Zinnia had to do with this.

"She was the one mentioning things to me." Celeste was putting it together. "She told me about Aurora rewriting the system, and him causing trouble in Europe. No one should know what she knows unless they're officials or part of the army." Celeste took off her shirt to put on another one. "She knew things that Sirus warned me about and I didn't listen."

Zinnia loved her conspiracy theories, she was always curious about what was happening. But Celeste never would've guessed that she would be the one to go to another country and be a traitor.

What Zinnia did was treason.

Celeste had to fix this. She pulled her boots on and grabbed a jacket so she could leave.

Dri didn't know where she was going. "You're not going to turn yourself in-"

"Hell no," she tied her hair up. "I need to update your system and figure out a kill mechanism to stop the device." she said quickly.

If she was lucky, Sirus didn't tell the entire truth. But it wasn't going to be like that. By now, Aurora already knows, so he had to find who got to Celeste first.

And if he was smart, he'd know it was Zinnia.

"Dri, how does someone go under the system?"

That was an abrupt question. His eyes widened. "You're going to disappear?" That's the only reason she would ask.

"If this gets bad, I need time. It's not something I can do over night." She had a plan in mind but she wasn't sure it would work. She needed to talk to someone about it.

"I can't help you much but I can do my best." Dri followed behind her. He didn't know her entire plan, but he hoped that she would tell him.

She had to find a way to turn off all the devices that are being used. She didn't plan for thousands to be made so quickly, but now she needs to find a way to turn it off.

Dri was definitely useful for that plan. She needed him to come with her.

She also needs to find Zinnia.

"They'll kill her if they find her." Celeste already knew.

"She's caused all of this. Our laws aren't lenient on rebellion and treason." He was sure something was going to happen if an official finds her first. "They're not going to let her go so easily."

Celeste had to be the first one to find her then.

"They're not looking for me, are they?" She asked just as she put on sunglasses to be cautious.

"Trust me, they would've gotten you hours ago." Dri wasn't concerned. Yet. "But if you say they know already, I'd be careful."

Celeste paused for a moment.

She can expect to be watched so she was going to take Dri's advice.

They went to see Clover. He wasn't too busy for them, especially when the two of them, who are much larger than he is, ambushed him without saying anything and brought him into an empty exam room. It was an emergency and he couldn't say no to them.

"So..." Celeste didn't know how to start. "Thousands of European soldiers have the implant." She made it seem like it wasn't a big deal but his eyes widened in shock.

"Celeste-"

"I got played, Clover. I need your help." She was serious. He didn't know what to say, he just stared at her. Clearly what she said wasn't all of the situation.

She didn't want to give him more information than that.

"I don't want to tell you everything. If something happens to me, you can't testify against me." She said and that shocked him more. Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ (ꜰind)ɴʘvel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Whoever is in charge knows she did it.

"I think it's too late for that." he answered truthfully. "I was the one who put the implant inside two people, I'd get in just as much trouble." he reminded her.

"No, I just..." She couldn't let that happen to him. He's the one actually saving lives for a living. She wanted to get to the point, "how can I turn it off without causing damage?" she asked.

"There's not a...power switch?" he wasn't sure if there was some hidden biomedical answer and he hoped that she had already thought of a way to turn it off.

"Clover, I need to turn off thousands of implants at once."

"Hm." Clover didn't know how that was going to happen. "From what I know, you'd need a signal to distort your system, but medically I wouldn't advise that." he said to her and showed her the diagram on the hologram. "If you're going for quick and easy, you could paralyze thousands and I'm hoping that's not what you're going for." He showed her what would theoretically happen.

The implant would short circuit, but at least it would stop. The down side, it leads to paralysis. Whether its reversible or not was up for trial. They can find out.

Celeste wasn't thinking that was a good idea.

"For a good outlook, no." she crossed her arms. "I'd prefer something that wouldn't add to the severity of my crimes." She said, though there's not much worse she can do.

"If you can find a way to minimize damage, then go for it. But what you're describing won't be precise." he told her.

And she knew he was right. She needed a large radius, and that won't be safe at all. Was it worth it to paralyze all those people?

"We are at war. Suddenly. Today." Dri shrugged. He wasn't wrong. "As bad as it sounds...it's just paralysis."

"Let's try to avoid that option, okay." Celeste needed to calm him down, she couldn't imagine how stressed he was.

"This...sounds...bad." Clover knew he was in too deep, though he knew there was something being kept from him. "I'll be happy to help, Celeste...but you have to tell me what happened-"

"Nope." She said as she turned away to leave. "If anyone finds out you did the surgery, you'll get in trouble, too, and I don't want that." She was trying to protect him. "You won't do well in prison."

He still wanted to know.

He wanted to help. But Celeste had her priorities and she had to fix her mistake as quickly as possible.

"Bury everything you have. I don't want you getting in trouble when I'm found out." She warned him.

"They can't know it's you."

"Trust me, Clover." Celeste didn't want to have to warn him again. "They already know." she said.

She didn't know how the situation was going to unfold but she had to work fast. There were a list of things she needed to accomplish and not a lot of time to do this. She was thinking of the worst scenario.

When they walked outside, they saw the dark storm clouds and the rain that was pouring to the ground. Celeste was still wearing her sunglasses but it wasn't much of a disguise. She was standing next to Dri, so if anyone needed to find her they just needed to find him. It's that easy.

"You're next." Celeste said. "I need to update your system again."

"I've gotten a lot of upgrades lately."

"Well, this one is actually important. I don't want to paralyze you when I use a signal to fry everyone's spinal cord." She said.

"So you're going to do it?"

"For now? That's the only solution." She mashed her lips together as she tried to think of something else. It was short notice. She doesn't know what's going to happen in a couple hours or a couple days. "If I find something else, you'll be the first to know about it. Come on." She tugged on his arm so they could go out in the rain.

She had to find a safer spot to upgrade his arm. It would be best if they were alone and not in the city, but they aren't lucky with that one.

She brought him back to her place.

All of her other devices were still off. She turned on a different set of lights that kept the rooms dark, but the floor glowed a dark blue.

She pulled out everything she would need to work on Dri's arm.

"Okay, that looks like heavy materials." Dri pointed at the box she had.

"I said I'm going to lay low. Why would I upgrade your arm with System ran devices? That's like asking to be found." She said and put the box on the dinning room table. "I'm not using all of this anyway."

"Why do you have all of this junk?"

"This junk is important to me." She didn't like that he called her box of equipment junk. "Engineers are taught to manually fix their stuff when the System is down, if it goes down, which apparently has happened one time, when Aurora decided it was fine to write a new societal system." She still didn't seem to believe it, she added, "or so people tell me."

"It did happen." Dri was more than convinced.

"Anyway, it might take me longer, but I can still get the job done." She pulled out a few things she needed.

Dri sat down in one of the chairs and she brought one in front of him. She wasn't too excited to do an upgrade manually because of how long it takes, but she trusts her own work and this way no one will no she's actively doing something.

She had her tablet on the table that was mapping out what she was doing, where she was touching, what was being touched, and if it changes the function of his arm.

But she found something unusual when she dug deep enough. What she was looking at wasn't her work. Someone else touched his arm and it had to have been recent.

"Uh, Dri?" Celeste stopped working on his arm. "There's a different processor in here."

"Oh yeah," Dri lifted his arm, remembering what he did. "Aurora said it was running slow the other day so he fixed it."

"Fixed?" Celeste gasped, her jaw dropped from shock. "Slow?" she couldn't believe this. "And you let him touch it?"

"If Aurora is saying there's something wrong then I might as well-"

Celeste felt betrayed. Her mouth was still agape as she tried to wrap her head around the fact that Dri let her father into her system.

"Nothing is lagging, my system isn't slow, and it doesn't need to be fixed." Celeste wanted to make that clear. "Can't believe you let him work on your arm." she mumbled to herself angrily as she started the upgrade.

Dri didn't see the problem. "It was just a minor fix-"

"Now I have to make a new arm." She said angrily.

"It's not that serious-"

"If Aurora says my system was lagging, I have to start from scratch again."

She could only imagine the horror. How could Dri betray her? He didn't think it was like that. His boss mentioned something about his arm so he thought, as a sign of a good gesture, that getting it fixed by the person just as smart as Celeste, wasn't going to be a big deal.

Celeste was going to trash everything when the whole situation is taken care of.

She wasn't going to replace what she found. It was updated so she might as well leave it. Was she surprised that it was well done? Not at all, that's how Aurora worked. He was perfect with everything he did as well, that's where Celeste got that from. She decided that for now she was going to add her new system in addition to what was already there.

With everything that was about to happen, she needs to protect herself.

"I'm not going to turn on any of my things for a few days." She said. "You'll still be able to communicate with me and track me if you need anything."

"I can try to help as best as I can...but..."

"I don't want you to get yourself in trouble, Dri." She looked up at him. "You've already warned me enough, I can't ask you to turn on your nation or whatever people say."

"Who's going to protect you?" He was concerned about her. He wanted to help, he did, but if something happens, he'd be put in jail.

Celeste smiled to herself though. "I can take care of myself, Dri. I'm a big girl."

"No, I mean..." He didn't know how to say it. "You need someone on the inside."

"We're not doing a heist." She said.

"What you plan to do is worse than that. Who's going to tell you what's going on?" He was scared for her. She'd be doing all of this blindly and that's not a good idea.

"I'm not going to ask you to be on my side." She continued working. "You're not exactly in the clear either. You have my implant."

"I'd do anything for you."

"Dri-"

"I have to help you." He was determined but he was scared for her. He didn't know what was going to happen and neither did she.

Would he put himself in harm's way for her?

He was already worried about having his job on the line. But all it took was a minute of thinking things through for him to realize that he was terrified of something happening to her. He has to help her.

Someone has to protect her.

She was quiet for a moment as she worked.

Dri was thinking about so much. He remembered what she said to him this morning. "I didn't get a chance to tell you but...I'm sorry." Dri said quietly. "I wasn't...I should've let you tell me what happened."

Zinnia left her, and it was to cause chaos.

Celeste got her answer.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to talk about it anymore. "I'm fine."

"Celeste-"

"It's fine." She didn't want to have to say it again.

Now it was a touchy subject. She told herself everything was fine to get through the day, not because she believed it.

She had other things to worry about.

"I have to find her first." She said, more to herself. "They'll kill her if they get her." She was sure of it.

"She must be in Europe. Only British soldiers have the implant so she was there a few days ago." He could deduced that much. "But for them to have made so many at once..."

"If they have a team of engineers and doctors, it could take them a day to equip their soldiers with everything they need." She said.

"You're going to Europe?" He asked her. When she looked up at him again, she knew he was going to tell her it's a bad idea. "You can't stay under the System to travel." He warned her.

"I know someone." She wasn't concerned.

"That's great, Celeste, but they're going to know you're on your way to get Zinnia if they find you there."

"Does Aurora know where she is?" She asked.

Dri didn't answer. He doesn't know about any of the sectors being in Britain. He didn't think anyone was in Europe yet. If a sector was going to go over there to cause trouble, it would be his sector. For now, he didn't think Aurora had a plan yet, but he didn't want to be wrong.

Aurora was the type of commander to work fast if he sees a threat, and what was happening was a big threat.

"I'll be fine." Celeste said when Dri didn't answer.

He hoped that she would be fine.

What she was planning could get her in a lot of trouble. She was already doing something under the system, but Zinnia is a criminal and to go get her so she can avoid punishment is just as bad as what she's done.

Dri wasn't sure if Celeste was still upset or still heart broken. He didn't know what happened, how she felt, what she was feeling now. But if she plans to get Zinnia, then that means she's doing it for selfish reasons. She still loved her even after Zinnia left.

Even after Zinnia gave all that information to another nation.

Even after she put Celeste's life in danger.

Celeste had to find her first.

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