[table][row]
[cell][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpeWpyDuEAs][img]http://i.imgur.com/KdzywDR.png[/img][/url][/cell][cell][right][img]http://i.imgur.com/NGQnS6B.png[/img]
[sub][color=f49ac2][b]Stolen Frigate — Hallways[/b][/color]
[@HeroicSociopath] [@Antarctic Termite][/sub][/right][/cell][/row][/table][color=f49ac2]"Looting shit sounds on-point."[/color] SIGINT agreed, fighting the cloying exhaustion that tugged at her limbs as she rose to follow the...man(?). [color=f49ac2]"I should probably check on my bounty, too, now that you mention it. See if it's changed. Kinda fun to find out how high it can go, eh?"[/color]

In her sleep-deprived state, she was close to seeing short dreams when she closed her eyes. Always the same scene. Underground, dark. Bullets flying, and...

[color=f49ac2]"It's a privately-owned company called NeoCortex. They have majority share of two publicly traded companies, Hyder Pharmaceuticals and the Esmail Media Conglomerate."[/color] She rattled off the information as though she were reading it from somewhere — which she was. Through her eyes, there was a small window overlayed in her vision, with text scrolling along. Data fetched from the neural implant and output directly to her visual cortex. [color=f49ac2]"As far as the public knows, NC is a provider for medical solutions to neurological damage in humans. Nerve-bridging, neuromuscular-correctives, things like that."[/color]

The window disappeared. It wasn't useful anymore. The rest of what she knew was known by only her.

[color=f49ac2]"Secretly, they're doing some shady research on the human brain, developing a device that can interface with the entire thing...maybe even take control of it. I couldn't even tell you what they're planning to use it for."[/color] The young woman's face slowly drifted into a scowl as she recounted what she'd found, on a day long ago. [color=f49ac2]"But I know that they're using test subjects. And I know that...one of them is...my sister."[/color]

She'd never told anyone before. Up until now, she'd always worked alone, ran alone, did everything by herself. But her life was in the hands of these people, and theirs in hers. The time for secrets was over.

[color=f49ac2]"I was able to get into their system, once. I had to be physically inside their headquarters, so it was too dangerous to do any extended digging. But...while I was there...I found something. A series of files, a few hundred long. All timestamped."[/color] SIGINT bit her lip, remembering the sheer horror she'd felt when she had first opened them. [color=f49ac2]"They were videos — videos of [i]dreams[/i]. Dreams about things that...only me and my sister would know. Things from our childhood. And...dreams of...the last time we ever saw each other."[/color] It was hard for her to swallow. But she couldn't stop now. After watching another person die in front of her, she had to ask herself how long she would let it all continue for. [color=f49ac2]"A team just like the one down there...shot her in the back, right in front of me, and dragged her body away while I ran."[/color]

[color=f49ac2]"I thought she was dead. But they must have kept her alive, somehow. They're...getting data from her. Monitoring her brain. I don't even...know what they've done with her. What they're doing [i]to[/i] her."[/color] SIGINT rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses. [color=f49ac2]"And I don't know what's up with it, but...well, you can believe it or not, but...her and I, we're always dreaming the same dream. I matched up the timestamps with what I remembered about my own dreams...they've always been really vivid ever since I saw her get shot...and, it's like...whatever she's dreaming about, I end up dreaming about it, too. Or maybe it's the other way around, I don't know. It's just that they always, [i]always[/i] matched up that way. Too many times to be a coincidence."[/color]

[color=f49ac2]"Maybe they're after me because I have one of their experimental devices in my head. That's what I always assumed. Or maybe they're after me because of the creepy dream thing? I honestly couldn't fucking tell you. They know more than I do, at this point."[/color] Adjusting her glasses after displacing them, her vision remained fogged, not from the lenses, but from the mind. [color=f49ac2]"All I know is that...they have my sister. And I don't know where, or how, or [i]why.[/i] But I want her back."[/color]

She'd never opened up to someone like that before. She assumed that Marco could hear it too, from the other room. Both of them, really — for people she'd just met, she was telling them more than she'd ever told anyone about who she was and what she was doing. But considering the circumstances in which they'd met, was it so unusual? They hadn't exactly run into each other at a park, after all. They were the ones who had made it through the flames, together.

And with any luck, when the fire returned, they'd make it through again and again. If she'd found people that she could accomplish that, with, at the end of her own rope...then, she was going all-in.

 
[color=f49ac2][i]Trusting people is...a lot harder than they make it sound.

But, somehow, I managed it in the end, like I always do.

I guess I can do this after all, huh?[/i][/color]

 
[color=2F2B2D][i]...Yeah. You did great, Anna.[/i][/color]