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Paige closed her door behind her only to immediately freeze. The disc at her throat ignited to a deadly blue.
"Sorry," she felt the familiar rage boil up inside her at the encrypted voice, the feeling of her own disc being taken, and the press of another 'program' against her back, "couldn't risk you not listening, you do tend to be so very upset when I appear."
Paige didn't bother hiding her growl, "Because I know what your kind do!"
"Do you?"
That made her pause. Why did the ISO sound so... Sad? But she shook her head, Quorra and Ada had sounded genuine, and they'd massacred her friends. She wouldn't fall for some sad story again.
"I mean, what do you actually know about your own recruitment? A story someone told you, or a story you saw?"
"I see how it is, trying to turn me against Clu. Truly showing your desperation."
"Oh please, if I was desperate I wouldn't be here, I'd have set bombs in the engines millicycles ago." The smugness was particularly annoying, especially since she knew it was true. The ISO had been on the ship several times without anyone knowing till long after she'd left. " And I never said anything about Clu, Tesler on the other hand..."
Paige sneered, General Tesler had saved her life, how dare this ISO try to turn her against him.
"I get it, hard to believe someone you look up to is a monster, hell I couldn't admit to myself for cycles that Flynn abandoned us." Paige felt The ISO shake herself out of her own thoughts, "That's not the point. The point is that I won't convince you. I think you're smart enough to figure it out on your own."
"What the hell is that supposed-" Paige blinked as the disc and presence at her back disappeared. She turned to scan her own room, and, finding nothing, groaned to herself, "I hate it when she does that!"
She sent out an alarm, not that it would matter. It just wasn't worth it to try and catch her. So Paige went to her desk only to buffer for the second time in her own room. Her identity disc was there, but it wasn't the only one.
She slid her own onto her back and touched one of the three others. They all lit up, replaying a memory from each.
They all appeared to be black guards, surrounding General Tesler and... Rox? Kim? When had these memories happened? Tesler had only gotten to their clinic after the slaughter!
Paige let out a gasp as each memory showed Tesler ordering the derezzing of her friends.
She found herself pressed against her door as the memories ended on Tesler approaching her. The playback from the black guards wasn't needed after that. She knew what happened next.
Skye kicked her legs over the edge, she knew who the footsteps behind her belonged to, and the fact that she wasn't being attacked was a good enough sign that Paige probably deserved some small show of trust. So she kept her eyes out over Argon City.
"How am I supposed to know they aren't faked?"
She sighed, "Honestly do you think I spend my time sitting around, fabricating reasons for people who hate me to change their tune? Much less spend countless microcycles editing memories perfectly to change one person's mind?"
Paige huffed, "And you just happened across three programs who had the right memory for this?"
Skye laid back against the roof, making sure to keep her head forward as her eyes tracked Paige's pacing, "No, that was curiosity."
The scoff was kinda predictable, "Curiosity about something you had no way of knowing about without investigating me!"
"No." Skye twisted around and stood, staring Paige directly in the eyes, "Curiosity about you."
That got Paige to pause, staring Skye down in confused anger, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You hate the waste of innocent life, yet you serve Tesler. You care about programs but an ISO merely existing around you drives you to unreasonable rage. You were a mess of contradictions, now I understand why."
Paige snarled and stepped closer, "Tessler only hurt people because you and The Renegade forced his hand!"
"Did your friends force his hand?” Skye let her words come out harsh. It was something Paige needed to come to terms with, right now.
“I-” Paige appeared to take a moment to process, “How am I supposed to trust you? These memories could be fake or-”
Skye disabled her mask, and stared the other program directly in the eyes. She really didn’t want to abandon this life, but she could build a new one if she needed. Besides, Paige didn’t need to know that Able knew.
“You’re… That garage owner’s assistant?” The complete bewilderment was kinda funny.
“Think over what I’ve shown you, you know where to find me.” And she dropped off backwards over the edge. Was it dramatic? Yes. Was it fun? Also yes.
Paige had been standing over the custom lightcycle for… a while. Her patience was wearing thin. She crossed her arms and finally gave in, asking the question that had been bugging her since she got there, “If you spend so much time on this thing, why don’t you use it for your other job?”
“And give away who I am to the first occupier to walk into the garage?” It was an annoyingly good point. She was too good at those. The opacity finally reset as Skye pulled the wrench off of her lightcycle and slid out from under it, “So, there’s no elite squad here to try and kill me.”
She nodded. It hadn’t been easy, realizing that her life for so many cycles had been entirely built on lies was hard to accept.
Skye grinned at her, sitting up, “Then let’s talk. Oh, and we’re really, really gonna have to work on your ability to hide your frustration. Can’t have you giving yourself away.”
“I can’t- I’m not designed for deception, I can’t keep working from inside-” She stopped at the brow raise Skye was giving her, “What?”
“You were a medical program, I don’t see that stopping you.” She glanced over Paige’s shoulder and held up a hand to pause the conversation before raising her volume, “Beck! Stop staring and get back to work. You do not spend enough time here to justify slacking off.”
Paige shook her head. That was another thing that had been bothering her, “How in Flynn’s name do you manage this job and being The ISO?”
Skye shrugged, “Most of my job here is making sure these idiots don’t annoy Able too much. When they’re not at full stupidity levels, it’s not too much work.”