SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-eight ━ finding the limits

Most things in life followed the rule that once one has the knowledge required to do the most complex and advanced thing in a field, its previous, less advanced models and forms are also available to them. Computing, Mia believed, was the opposite — once one knew the basics of terminal programming on one of these old pieced, nothing that came and innovated after would be too difficult to understand as well. After all, the goal of programming advancements is to simplify and grow efficiency, not grow in complexity and compromise on time.

Her bones told her she wouldn't have the stillness required to sit down, so Mia pushed the chair away, letting it roll to the side and opened the computer, pulling its yellowed out keyboard forward, even dragging the mouse to her reach. The control panels may be a mystery to her, but she knew she could brute force her way past them.

With her shoulders dropping, it was undeniable that having this opportunity to hide behind her work again helped her in her goal of ignoring the security camera footage playing to her right, far enough in her peripheral vision that she couldn't really make it out, but unfortunately just about close enough for her to know there is movement on most, if not all cameras.

Delaying the unavoidable truth about their current situation was all that was keeping her standing at the time, no matter how short lived the peace would turn out to be once she opened the terminal and ran the lines of code needed to gain access to the communication lines she needed to switch off.

It was almost no time at all before she went through systematically shutting down everything that connected the ship to land, wherever that may be.

Just as she was about to escape her fear of those cameras and wipe clean the network in preparation to shutting them off, banging on the door had Mia's hands draw away from the computer. In that moment, she couldn't quite remember if she had locked the door, so every banging attempt to get it open made her flinch.

"Open the door!" A man shouted from the other side, the muffled state of his voice stringing Mia's sense of hearing out of the claws of that treacherous ear ringing.

"Someone's in there?" Another voice inquired, albeit a bit more mindful of his tone.

"The door is locked, what do you think?" The first man barked back, continuing his banging on the door and thus cutting Mia off eavesdropping on a good chunk of their conversation while turning around. "...I haven't a fucking clue," was the frustrated response she heard next.

"Don't you have the damn key?"

"It's locked from the inside, you fucking idiot," he slammed his fist into the door again, hard enough that Mia simply had to grimace. "Whoever you are in there, you're a god damn coward, you know?" A gulp stuck in her throat as she listened on, eyes locked on the unmoving door, but unfortunately still petrified to her spot, unwilling to take the risk of makint a single sound. "That thing is killing us all out here, buddy."

No, Mia immediately closed her eyes, trying to preserve her denial's veracity. There was no undoing the damage those words have done though.

All she managed to do was have each syllable echo inside her skull, bounce off of what she already knew to be true when she watched Connor grip that gun of his. No matter how hard she tried now to hide again behind her own tasks, or even behind her fear, her body turned on its own and got her facing the camera footage. She opened her eyes, and oh, she immediately wished she hadn't.