So you have a plan?
Who: Landon and Mazie Setting: The Morgan Library
The alerts went off that there was someone at his door and Landon had to look at it twice before getting up and heading towards the doors. He wiped the paint on his hand on his shirt then headed towards the lobby. It took a few minutes to get to the main doors, which given who he was pretty sure was waiting for him was probably longer than she wanted to wait. At the doors of the Morgan that had once welcomed guests he pushed in a two sequence keycode then unlocked a door and let her into the library. “Not who I was expecting.”
“What took you so long? Have to put your pants back on or something?” Mazie snipped, pushing passed him into the lobby. She hoisted her backpack up onto her right shoulder again and reached up with hands in fingerless gloves to tug her beanie down. Just because she was inside didn’t mean she wanted her image blasted through this place. “I need to talk to you.”
He pointed towards the rest of the building, waving the large lobby she’d walked into and then the courtyard foyer beyond it. “It’s not exactly a small place,” he said looking at her, then shut the door behind her. “Alright, what do you need to talk to me about?”
She knew. She’d researched the floorplan before coming to see him, but she also couldn’t not take the opportunity to make a joke at his expense. “It’s not something I can talk about out in public. I didn’t just come here because I give a shit about how your day went.”
“No, I don’t see you being that kind of person.” Landon shoved his hands into his pockets and waved for her to talk. “Tell me what you need to tell me.”
“I have a plan…” She started, switching her backpack onto her left shoulder. “But I need somewhere to set up my shit and show you.”
Landon wondered if she had a presentation or something, but he wound up nodding, waving her to follow him through the lobby, the open court with its glass walls and natural sunlight. It was huge, so huge, and so empty. At one point people had walked through, but now it was mostly him and the few with him. He led her past that then into the original library floor plan and into the opulent librarian’s office which was half over the top and the other half his apartment slash studio. His latest painting was up, an abstract mess of colors.
Mazie followed Landon, taking stock of the building itself. Seeing it in person was different than seeing it in the digital floor plan, but she didn’t comment on how cryptic it felt. Or how opulent it was and how the credits that went into building this thing could have been better served getting healthcare to the public.
She held that in for the first time and just stayed silent as she walked, following him up to the office. She looked at the painting but didn’t really understand what it was meant to be other than just a bunch of paint on a canvas. Glancing around, she found a table covered in books and walked toward it, slapped several large ones off the table to make space, and started setting up her laptop. Why the hell anyone needed books anymore was beyond her anyway.
“You know how They sent all those people down underground to serve ‘community service’,” She asked, actually taking the time to make air quotes.
Landon winced when she knocked the books down and he moved over to them, picking them up again and righting them, fixing their pages and setting them back somewhere out of the way of Mazie. They were ancient books, heirlooms. He didn’t need her ruining them. “I heard rumors,” he said, coming back to her once the books were safe.
“Then you know how a whole bunch of people died from overwork and neglect.” Mazie typed furiously on her keyboard, its monitor shining a ghastly spotlight on her face. “That’s where we start. We apply hacked locking mechanisms to underground accesses used to force people underground for cleaning duty, and we broadcast Jayci’s first message. That ‘They’ can’t expect us to clean up their messes any longer. That we will not stand for the blatant disregard They have for our lives. That this ends now.”
“Heard that too,” he said, wondering if she ever went outside. She really could use some sunshine. “Hack the locks to keep people from getting in or let them out while they’re down there?” he asked. “What are you thinking for her message?” He bit at the side of his lip and frowned at her. “Video or something?”
“Obviously I’m not gonna just condemn people to death down there. Let them out first, lock the locks, and then prompt Jayci’s video. But I’m doing prep work right now, locating the records of those in that fucking work camp down there and systematically wiping away their punishments.” She wouldn’t admit that it was taking longer than she’d hoped, but she was slowly making progress.
“We record Jayci’s video somewhere safe. I know a few places that would let us in no questions asked. We won’t put her in front of a crowd right now.” Not for a while, maybe not even ever depending on her health and the way the cards fell.
Mazie typed furiously the entire time she spoke, as if carrying on a conversation and frantically coding were as simple to her as breathing. Finally she looked up at Landon and quirked an eyebrow. “Are you placated now?”
“If you can do that, why don’t you do that all the time?” Landon asked, trying to figure out why they were even letting the sentences show up if they could get rid of them. Then again, he really had no idea what it was she was doing in the first place.
A crowd? Landon shuddered at the idea of Jayci being in front of people. Yes, she’d be wonderful at it, but he wasn’t comfortable with the idea. “Honestly? No, but I’m willing to pretend.” He stepped away from her and paced a little. “I know a lot of places she can record from. Just depends on what kind of message you want to send.”
Mazie grumbled in her throat when he questioned her experience. She narrowed her eyes and kept typing, staying silent as she ground her teeth together in an effort to calm herself down. “Would you like to try completely overwriting the code yourself? The level of redundancies they have in place for their system is out of control. It takes time.”
Glancing up at him as he paced, she listened and scrunched her nose up a little. This was the harder part. She knew what she wanted Jayci to say, but she also knew that what she wanted her cousin to say would basically ruin their attempts to do this right. It was why she wanted Jayci to speak in the first place - she knew how to interact with people. She knew what to say to make them join her side. “I have thoughts...but she needs to believe in whatever she’s saying.”
“No.” Landon didn’t have any interest in that, but he didn’t elaborate. He was just curious why if it could be done it wasn’t being done. “What kind of thoughts?” He pushed. “Do you want to look organized or guerrilla? A concerted effort or like a proper hack in the dark?” He paused his pacing, turning on his heel to look at Mazie. “You need me to convince her don’t you? To make her believe it.”
“She believes,” Mazie said, snorting at him. “She wouldn’t even consider doing this if she didn’t believe. You don’t need to convince her of a damn thing other than the fact that we will keep her safe.” Looking back down at her computer, she tried to focus on the her computer again. “...I want it to look intimidating. I want Them to see us at our strongest, our best.”
Landon had something to say on that matter, but he kept it to himself. “We can make that happen,” he told her, about the imagery. Though Jayci wouldn’t look intimidating, he kind of got what Mazie was going for. Still, he’d probably spin it to suit their situation and their spokesperson better. Mazie was no Jayci. He moved so that the blonde could see him. “We are going to keep her safe, right?”
For the first time since she got settled in his room, Mazie closed her laptop and looked up at him. Her eyes took a while to adjust in the dark but they were set the entire time. “With everything we’ve got,” She said simply. “I need you to stop questioning me on how much my cousin means to me or this isn’t gonna work.”
Landon stared at her, then shook his head slowly. “I believe you that you’re not going to let her get hurt, but you have to know that...that’s why I’m doing this. I don’t think we can fix this cause, but she believes it, she wants it and I’m here for her. Fair?”
She was quiet while he spoke and then nodded. “Fair. I will do my best to only yell at you when you deserve it,” Mazie offered, trying to extend some sort of peace offering to this man who was so important to Jayci, so important to their cause whether he believed in it in or not. “Can we get to work now?”
Landon eyed her for a long moment, then nodded. “Go on,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets and ready for her to explain the rest of it.