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[colour=ForestGreen]"I-is that... really what she wants to do?"[/colour] Ellie asked, pacing back and forth the length of a small backroom, just off and behind from The PI owned corner store, a few miles from The Nerine Vista. The heavy fabric sleeves and wide brimmed sage's hat she called an outfit bobbed up and down in the air with each of her repetitive steps - around the table, over the mess of cables threaded from the back of the computer atop it, past the water cooler, left of the coffee and vending machines, and behind Christine's chair to sneak a glimpse through the glass window of the break room, before manoeuvring back to her side to begin again. [colour=ForestGreen]"Not that I'm questioning, but isn't that super, super duper risky? Vi-chan might not like it, a-and even if she does, isn't it... y'know... r-really bad?"[/colour]

Every few laps, Ellie would stop to stare at the computer screen. Christine could hear it, despite her silence - the girl was every moment justifying things in her head, the pros and cons of every word and move. Whether morally it was right, whether the ends justified the means. She would stop and wordlessly scan the open windows, reading each condition and each setting Christine changed or added. The UI had remained much the same to when Ellie had bought it, but she could see in it where the various alterations fell into place: a change in colour here, a rewritten piece of code there. The original script hadn't been difficult to re-programme into a functioning message service, especially with Glimmr to serve as a baseline comparison, but handing it off to Mary to retrofit the Surveyor App's security measures was a nerve wracking experience for her. Christine barely even needed to redirect her vision to tell what the druid was thinking, every emotion she could ever experience was laid bare on Ellie's face.

[colour=PaleTurquoise]"They struck first, you get that right?"[/colour] Christine responded. With a click of her mouse, the software shifted from a series of checkboxes and variable flags to a debug menu of code, underlined with a loading bar which ticked slowly upwards to completion. Christine swivelled in her chair, grazing the side of the table as she turned to face Ellie, whose most recent lap halted in progress. [colour=PaleTurquoise]"How many did the Gamma Team lose again, five? Five of your friends and colleagues dead or captured by the hands of The Ascendancy, directly or otherwise. [i]That's[/i] enough to justify it. This is already a war, it's been a war for months - just nobody's declared it official yet. That's all this is."[/colour]

[colour=ForestGreen]"I-I-I don't know, it feels wrong..."[/colour] she replied, taking an uneasy step towards the vending machine. The plexiglas panel that sat at its front had been removed, leaving her free to reach in, and pull a bottle of water from the third row from the top, two from the left - C2. A sweat covered hand slick from anxiety twisted at the cap to no avail, sliding around it and adding to her frustration, until a moment of friction caught the ridges, and she pulled the cap from the rim. [colour=ForestGreen]"M-more importantly, why would Vi-chan sign up to this? She's anti-Beacon and all b-but, wouldn't her popularity take a hit? I know she loves her fans, but without her fame what would she do? I-I, i-if we damage her career, won't she get super mad, she'll - I-I don't, I-"[/colour]

[colour=PaleTurquoise]"Shhhh, it's okay, it's okay,"[/colour] followed Christine's voice, cutting off the steadily increasing panic behind Ellie's voice. She had stepped up from the chair, and crossed the distance between the two before Ellie had noticed. There wasn't enough energy left in her not diverted to her anxiety to resist Christine's grip, which led her backwards and into the chair by the desktop. [colour=PaleTurquoise]"If the majority of her audience shares her sentiments, this'll only serve to make her more famous. And anyway, we're appealing to whoever Vi works for. We only need them to agree to the idea, and then it's happy days, okay? So stop worrying."[/colour]

The sound of wind chimes and party poppers radiated into the room, from the speakers either side of the PC. Ellie panicked, for a moment, but with her hand in Christine, she shrugged it off with a mouthful of water, and looked towards the screen. Elvira would only receive a simple message on Glimmr, from an account that had only abruptly been added as her friend. The account had been made that day, within minutes of sending the message - no prior activity, no profile picture, no friends, no data.

[quote=C]
Need help planning your party?
[url]om9j7UnY76gT.56gtPAx1By.pc[/url]
[/quote]

The link would hold up against any scrutiny - despite its suspicious appearance, it was nothing harmful. If she chose to open it, it would automatically redirect her after a few seconds of loading, to another website. Two messages had been posted in a simplistic messaging service. The website held a white background, with blue trim around the edges of the message and text box. At the top and to the left was a text box to change ones name, and the colour of their text, and beneath it was a box that read [i]No Online Users[/i]. The URL, just as simply, read "[colour=white]surveyorboard.net/e6Tym90okIlL/secure[/colour]". A fair amount of time had been put into creating a secure message system, one which could be accessed by even those outside of The Penrose Independent, who didn't have access to The Surveyor App proper. It made use of many of the same features the inbuilt messenger of the app did, whilst simultaneously providing magically bolstered security of the highest calibre. The Glimmr message would be automatically deleted, and the initial link would become invalid, leading only to "site could not be reached" page, so that only Elvira, Christine, and Ellie had access to the channel.

[quote]
[b][colour=PaleTurquoise]C: Hey there.
C: Can I take it that you're Vi?[/colour][/b]
[/quote]

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