Sierra

Chapter 5

Sierra woke to darkness. Pain radiated through her and she groaned, her eyes fluttering open. The darkness persisted, and in it, something moved. 

"Come on. Wake up. " Someone's voice broke through the fog, but it sounded wrong. Stilted and robotic. Something tapped her face and she woke fully with a jerk. A jerk that tugged against her arms and the skin on her wrists pinched with pain.

She looked up and yanked her hands towards, metal dug sharply into her skin, causing her to wince. Her flashlight clicked on, assaulting her face with light and she squinted against it, turning her face away.

"State your identification."

She blinked against the light and it turned away, dispersing across the room instead. A wide streak in the dusty floor lead from her to where their fight had ended and she realized they were still in the chamber. She couldn't have been out more than a few minutes. Sierra glanced up again and came to the realization she was handcuffed to the bulldozer.

"Your identification..."

The policebot stood in front of her and seemed to be looking around the room as it held her flashlight. But when she hesitated, it turned its flat face towards her.

"Identification-"

"Yeah yeah, its 123456789" she snapped back at it, lashing out towards its leg with her foot. It stepped back, out of her reach, and then stared at her silently.

"That isn't a valid identification number."

"Yeah, no shit-" Sierra said, "-go screw yourself". She twisted her wrists in the cuffs, trying to figure out if she could slide her hand out.

The light turned toward her again and she blinked at it. She knew it was scanning her face for its facial recognition software. She was already in the system, so she gained herself maybe 5 seconds more of anonymity. After a moment it switched the light off again and turned away.

That was off... It should have listed her entire profile, her real name, ident number, current warrants. She had heard it enough times to know the general gist of things.

The policebot was silent though as it crouched down and pushed her coat open, revealing the messenger bag tucked halfway behind her. It reached for it and her foot shot up again, trying to push it back. It caught her ankle this time and pushed her leg down with more force than she could counter against. It's flat face looked at her for a long moment, as if to make its point, before releasing her and then grabbing the bag and flipping the top up. It couldn't get it off her, as it would have to remove the handcuffs and her coat, so it dug through while it was still attached to her. It only took a moment before it pulled out the package and held it up.

"Care to explain this?"

It was black and grey box, a smooth metal casing with rounded edges, on the top was a 9 digit pinpad.

"It's my lunch box," Sierra replied.

"Open it."

"I can't"

"I can make you." It started to stand, still holding the box.

'No- I literally can't open it!" She tugged at the handcuffs again and pulled her legs up to her chest, protecting herself from whatever other tricks it had in that suit. "It's a security case, if you open it without the code, it torches everything inside."

"What's the code?" it asked flatly. She shook her head.

"Don't know, dumb ass. Only the client does. If you want to keep what's inside intact, don't mess with it. You only get three tries to get it right."