the ultimatum ↬ elliot alderson ✔

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Darlene spoke about Dawn last night. She says she misses me, but she doesn't understand why I broke up with her anyway. She will never understand, even if she is my sister. 

I hate having withdrawals and missing Dawn at night doesn't help much. Sometimes I feel like she's my substitute to morphine. 

Darlene is staying in my apartment until the day of the hack, because she doesn't think I can get off morphine by myself. She knows me too well, because she stares at me when I have my withdrawals. She's spent the whole day with me in my apartment, trying to prepare everything we need for tomorrow.

My body rejects the idea of food when it's craving the substance. 

I wipe my mouth, washing my hands before I leave the bathroom for the third time today. Darlene is sitting on the couch, her legs on my coffee table as she types away on her laptop. 

"Hey," she says, looking up at me as she stops typing. 

"What are you doing?" I ask, taking a seat beside her. 

"I'm trying to contact the Dark Army." 

"God, you really think they're gonna help us?"

"They have to," Darlene says after a brief silence. 

I look at her screen, all written in Mandarin. She sighs, rolling her eyes. 

"I don't understand shit. We need Cisco." 

"Where is he?" I ask, getting up from the couch again. Like a reflex, my eyes scan for the morphine bottle, but I know I won't find it. Darlene has them all in her safe, in her apartment. 

Maybe I can hack into her safe. 

No, Elliot. You have to do this. You have to quit. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," she says, sighing deeply. "Not even the translator is working." 

"Why don't you call Cisco?" I ask, realising she didn't answer my previous question. 

"I already told you. He doesn't wanna help," she responds. She shuts her laptop screen, tossing it onto the coffee table. She stares at blank space, her eyes full of worry. 

I know why she's worried. Because we only have 24 hours before Darlene's hack comes into place. And we need China to shut down E Corp's backups all over the world for that. Without the Dark Army, we can't have this plan. 

It just won't work. 

"I'll talk to him," I say, gazing at her. She's frustrated because she feels useless. I feel the same way sometimes. 

"I don't want you getting involved in this. It's too late," Darlene says, defeated. 

This can't end this way. 

"Give me your phone," I say, but instead of hearing my own voice, I hear Mr Robot's. 

"What?" she asks, puzzled. 

"Give me your phone." 

"No. You can't, it's too late." 

"We just need a translator," Mr Robot's voice says. 

"Elliot. It's risky." 

"Fine. I'll figure out a way," I'm back to being myself. Just like that. I grab her laptop, my eyes scanning the screen. I don't know a word of Mandarin, but I know the language hackers use. It's fluid, legible to only hackers and straightforward. Amongst the foreign characters, I see small chunks of codes. I can figure it out. 

"You need to enter the chat," Mr Robot says, sitting down on the couch next to me. But I'm too busy to notice him staring at me. I type quickly the code I need to enter the chat again. We don't have much time. When they find out it's us, they'll kick us out again.