Nora smiled and sipped her drink. In the back of her mind, she was wondering where Cyrus was. The very, very, very small part of her that was reckless wanted to chase him down and, indeed, kick his cubes. But so far, the logic side of her was winning.
Cor smiled back, still holding her hand but sat up a little straighter… Though he didn't realize when he had started to lean in so close. Honestly, the thought of kissing Nora was currently the first one on his mind but the idea of running into Cyrus was still very tempting.
(No one:
Me: yes I shall build Flynn's Arcade in Minecraft)
Nora blushed as he leaned in closer, her light lines pulsing pink. She hadn't ever kissed him in public before. Electric thrills ran down her fingers as she leaned in too.
And then, out of nowhere, a bright, energetic voice. "Nora! Nora, isn't this song amazing, come on I know you love it youhavetocomedancewithme-"
Just like that, Nora was stumbling after Skye, who had dragged Nora to her feet and into the crowd. Nora wrenched her wrist out of Skye's grip and studied the program. Yep, definitely drunk. She wondered where Beckett had gone.
"Nora you have to dance with me come on come on comeoncomeon," Skye was saying. Nora sighed, deciding that if she hurt Skye's feelings, Skye probably wouldn't remember it tomorrow.
"Skye, I'm on a date," Nora said as gently as she could muster. "Is it possible to -"
She broke off mid-sentence, studying Skye's eyes. What in Flynn? They were wider than normal and her pupils were dilated so much that it was hard to see her irises.
(Wow! Can you send me a picture when you're done?)
Cor smirked softly, slowly leaning in closer when she did. He didn't care about the crowd, or if they saw him with the most beautiful program on the Grid. He really just saw her right now… At least until Skye pulled her away. Sighing at himself for moving too slow, Cor picked up his glass and finished it off. “Hey, Markus. Keep an eye on Bit and that bottle. I'll be right back… I hope.” he added in a murmur before making his way through the crowded dance floor to catch up with Nora and Skye.
(Yus)
Nora blew out a relieved exhale when Cor joined her. "Thank you. Sorry. This is the drunkest I've ever seen her."
Skye giggled, grabbing Nora's hands again. "Hi Cor, Cor did you come to dance with us? Isn't this song great, it's so wonderful, Nora don't you love this song?"
But Nora wasn't paying attention to Skye, or the song. She was paying attention to the programs around them, programs with wide eyes, frantic smiles, and dilated pupils.
"Cor?" she said. "Something weird is going on."
“You don't have to apologize.” Cor told her, gently placing his hand on her arm. He was too focused on making sure that Nora was alright to listen to the music. But after she mentioned it, it was hard not to see what she was talking about. “Stay close. I don't like this.” he whispered tensely, on alert… But for what he wasn't sure.
Nora turned to Cor, thinking fast. His eyes weren't like the other programs'. Therefore, what was affecting the programs had to be something that Nora and Cor hadn't exposed to. Her mind ran through a million possibilities. If it was something in the elevator or downstairs, it was something that had been placed there after she and Cor had come up…
And then it hit her. The drinks. Every program whose pupils were dilated had the wide smiles and giddy freedom Nora associated with being drunk. It would explain why she and Cor weren't hit: they were drinking from an old bottle, one not touched by…
…the bartender.
"Come with me," Nora said, touching Cor's hand briefly. "I think it's the drinks." She turned away, slipping through the dancing programs. Markus was shooing Bit away from Nora's drink.
Cor nodded and held on to her hand as she pulled him off the dance floor. “I left the bottle with Markus.” he told her, trying not to get worked up. Though he was still on guard as they approached the bar. “Hey, Bit. Get away from that stuff.” he called seriously.
Bit reluctantly zipped away from the glasses. Nora spread her fingers on the counter. "Markus."
"Yeah?" Markus went a shade paler, his dark green eyes flicking from Nora to Cor and back again.
Nora took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice. "I know this is a serious accusation, but I need you to be honest with me. Have you been putting anything in the drinks tonight?"
Markus's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"
"Have you been putting anything in the drinks tonight?" Nora repeated.
"There's stuff in the drinks?"
Nora searched his face. He looked innocent. From her Siren days, she had seen programs come through, some guilty of crime, some snatched off the streets. She knew innocence from guilt, and Markus had the signs: curious eyes, furrowed eyebrows, an expression of puzzled disbelief.
“Look around you, Markus.” Cor said, gesturing to the craziness that seemed to infected the crowd. “Me and Nora have been here since the club opened. And we've only been drinking from this one bottle. But there's no way that everyone else has been here long enough to get this drunk without help.” he pointed out. But something else wasn't adding up. “Where do you keep the energy before opening and who else would know that or be able to get there?” he asked both of them.
"The energy is stored in barrels in the Silver Tower's basement," Nora said. "We bring up two unopened ones right before opening. Markus, did you bring them up?"
Markus nodded, swallowing.
"Did you notice anything strange? Had the seals been tampered with?"
"No." Markus shook his head. "Everything seemed fine."
"Markus, Olive - the other bartender - and I are the only ones able to get into the storage room," Nora said to Cor. "The key is encoded into our discs. I don't think anyone got in. The security code is some of the strongest on the Grid."
"You'd have to be a really good hacker to get in there," Markus said. "Zuse was pretty serious about locking up his precious energy."
“I can believe that.” Cor nodded, trying to figure out when or how the energy could have been tampered with. “… Just how good of a hacker would someone have to be?” he asked thoughtfully.
"Incredibly talented," Nora said. "Zuse hired the best." She had once heard him bragging that it was so strong, not even a User could get through it.
Then it hit her. An incredibly talented hacker, a rogue who could do something like this…
"You don't think…" she said, turning to Cor. "It could be…"
(is she thinking about Cyrus or Black Light? 😉)
“I sure hope not. But how would he… I mean, there's been no sightings of him in the sector.” Cor said, thinking of any possible way that Cyrus would be able to do this. “Besides, what would he be getting out of this other than just causing chaos?”
(Cyrus. Sorry, I should have made that more obvious 😆)
"I don't know," Nora said. And that was what worried her. Cyrus wouldn't do this unless he was going to get something out of it. Drugging programs was pretty tame compared to what she had heard he had done.
She wondered if she could somehow rope Black Light into this. There had to be traces in the storage room code that Cyrus had been there.
"Markus," she said, making an executive decision, "stop serving drinks. I'll declare End of Line closed and shut off the elevator. We need to keep the drugged programs here to see what happens to them."
Markus nodded and headed for the other side of the bar, where two programs were sipping drinks. Nora turned to Cor. "The elevator emergency shut-off is in my office. Make sure nobody's in the elevator."
(It's ok. I sort of figured that was who you meant but the description just fit too well 😆)
“On it.” Cor nodded and quickly headed over to the main elevator. It took some weaving and dodging before he finally reached his destination and managed to check. The idea of making sure that no one else would be coming in was very tempting but if Nora could turn the elevator off and on from her office then she would notice if it stopped responding. But he did quickly access the code to make sure there was nothing already wrong with it.
Nora wove through the crowd, Bit floating by her side, and reached her office. All around her, she could see drunk programs with wide, haunted eyes.
Climbing the steps to her office, Nora turned to Cor, giving a thumbs-up over the crowd, a gesture she wasn't familiar with. Is the elevator empty?
Cor let out a breath he didn't realize that he had been holding as he closed the code, satisfied that it seemed safe. After another quick look down to make sure that no one was near the elevator, he looked back at Nora’s office and returned the gesture.
Nora nodded, relieved, and stepped into her office, pulling up a screen and entering the code. The lights near the elevator dimmed, and a light-screen sign appeared over the elevator doors: This elevator is currently unavailable.
Nobody seemed to notice it; they were too busy dancing. Nora let out a sigh of relief and closed the screen.
As soon as the light screen activated, Cor made his way towards her office but stayed as close to the outside of the crowd as he could. The look on everyone's face was just too unnerving. “What now?” he asked once he finally made it up the stairs.
Nora shook her head. "I don't know. I guess we keep them here… should we get the Black Guard involved? They're much better now."
“Probably.” Cor shrugged, not really sure what the Black Guard would be able to do. “I agree that we shouldn't let anyone leave. Though…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “No, never mind.”
Nora's eyebrows contracted slightly. "What?"
“Sorry. I was just thinking about the security code that's protecting the energy storage area.” he admitted. Cor didn't want to say anything about his hacking skills and didn't think it would be a good idea to mention how he could decode encrypted data.
Nora nodded. She had been thinking about that as well. Looking up into his eyes, she asked, "Do you think you could dig around? You're good with code, right?"