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Em sighs. “Do we have a plan?”
Summer’s eyes shift away in thought before she looks back. “We do... But it’s not good, and you’re not going to like it.”
Summer’s hesitation hangs in the air long enough that even Prime finally looks up from whatever schematics he’s been pretending to study. The silence is thick, the kind that means someone is about to suggest something catastrophically stupid.
Em pinches the bridge of his nose. “Summer. Just say it.”
She inhales, squares her shoulders, and delivers it like ripping off a bandage. “We’re going to have to let ourselves get caught.”
Em’s face does a full-body flinch, jaw tightening the moment Summer finishes speaking, and the room seems to tilt with the weight of his glare. “Absolutely not. No. Try again.”
Prime glances between them, sensing the shift but for once wisely staying silent.
Summer lifts her hands defensively. “What? Don’t look at me like that.”
Em’s voice is low, sharp, and absolutely done. “You’re telling me—the former Citadel President, the guy who built half the fucking security protocols we’re trying to break—that your plan is to walk straight into a detention corridor and hope for the best?”
Summer winces. “When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad,” Em snaps. “It’s reckless.”
Prime clears his throat. “Okay, but she might hav—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence right now,” Em cuts in, pointing at him without looking away from Summer.
Prime obediently shuts his mouth.
Summer steps closer, refusing to back down. “Look, Em, you know better than anyone that the outer defenses are impossible to breach. You designed them to be impossible. So unless you want to spend the next three weeks trying to brute-force a system you made specifically to stop people like you—this is the only way.”
Em hates that she’s right. He hates it with a deep, simmering intensity that makes his eye twitch.
Prime finally speaks again. “She’s not wrong. Once inside, the redundancies drop. The Citadel never expects intruders to get past the first layer.”
“Because the first layer was supposed to be perfect,” Em mutters.
Summer nudges him with her elbow. “Well, congratulations. You built something so good that the only way to beat it is to cheat it.”
Em stares at her, deadpan. “That’s not a compliment.”
“It kind of is,” she insists.
Prime nods. “It is.”
Em groans, dragging both hands down his face. “Fine. Fine. We get captured. But if any of you screw up your part, I’m leaving you behind.”
Summer grins. “You say that every mission.”
“And I mean it every time,” he hisses.
Prime steps forward, smacking Em’s shoulder a little too hard. “You won’t have to. We’ve done worse.”
Em gives him a look. “That’s not comforting.”
Summer claps her hands together. “Alright! One hour until patrol shift. Gear up, emotionally prepare yourselves, and maybe stretch or something.”
Prime tilts his head. “Why would we need to stretch? It’s unnecessary.”
“It’s a figure of speech, Prime,” Summer states flatly.
Em sighs, resigned. “If we die, I’m blaming both of you.”
Summer beams. “That’s the spirit.”
“It really isn’t,” Em mutters.
But he still steps toward the hologram with them, because of course he does. Because despite everything—despite the risk, the stupidity, the sheer Summer-ness of the plan—he trusts them.
And that’s the most dangerous part of all.
...
Summer points at a blinking red dot. “This is where we get captured.”
Em squints. “... Summer, that’s a trash chute.”
“Yes,” Summer says proudly, as if that is enough of an answer.
Prime doesn’t even blink. “You want us to enter the Citadel through a waste disposal system?”
Summer nods. “It’s the only entrance they don’t monitor heavily.”
Em throws his hands up. “Because it’s a trash chute, Summer!” he reminds her again.
Prime taps the map. “It’s disgusting. But I’ve been in worse.”
Summer beams. “See? He gets it.”
Em mutters, “Summer, his approval is not a good sign.”
Prime ignores that. “We’ll drop in, get detected, and be escorted to holding. From there, we improvise.”
Em groans. “I hate that ‘improvise’ is always step two of every fucking plan we have.”
Prime smirks. “It’s always step two because you’re good at it.”
Em scoffs. “Stop complimenting me like that.”
Prime is still smirking, eyes half-lidded. “It wasn’t exactly a compliment.”
The three of them stand at the edge of the trash chute. It smells like someone blended a corpse...
Summer pinches her nose. “Okay. On three. You first, Em.”
Em’s eye widens, “wait, wait—no—why me first?!”
Prime shoves him.
Em screams the whole way down.
Summer jumps after him. “Wheeeee—oh god, it’s wet—”
Prime steps in last, muttering, “this is going to suck ass.”
They land in a pile of something that is definitely not FDA-approved.
Immediately, two Rick guards whirl around the corner.
Rick, guard #1, shouts, “unauthorized entries detected!”
Rick, guard #2, pauses, lowering his gun, “is that—is that the president?”
Em stands up, covered in goo. “Surprise,” he mutters sarcastically.
Rick, guard #1, looks over at his partner with a questioning expression. “I, uh, w-what do we do here?”
Rick, guard #2, screams back. “I don’t know?! Do we shoot him or salute him?!”
Prime steps forward. “Just arrest him, you idiots.”
Without even thinking twice about it, Rick, guard #2, salutes. “Sir, yes, sir!”
Em glares at Prime as they slap cuffs on him. “You enjoyed that.”
Prime chuckles. “Immensely.”
Summer rolls her eyes. “Guys, focus. We’re supposed to get captured, remember?”
Rick, guard #1, eyes lighting up with remembrance. “Oh. Right. Arresting all of you.”
Summer holds out her wrists. “Yay!”
Em grumbles bitterly. “Stop being so enthusiastic about this.”
...
They’re shoved into a stark interrogation room. One table. Three chairs. One flickering light that looks like it’s straight out of a horror movie.
A nervous Rick officer walks in with a clipboard. He looks up at all of them and asks. “Uh… S-So… Why are you here?”
Em leans back. “To steal your quantum core.”
Summer elbows him. “Dude!”
Prime folds his hands. “He’s not lying.”
The Rick officer blinks. “You’re… You’re just telling me?”
Em shrugs. “You asked.”
The Rick officer frowns. “You’re supposed to lie.”
Prime raises a brow. “Why?”
The Rick officer stutters and states it like it’s obvious. “Because—because that’s how interrogations work.”
Summer raises her hand. “Can we get snacks?”
“No.”
Em raises his hand above his head, shielding his eye as he squints. “Can we get a better light? This one is giving me a migraine.”
Again the Rick officer says, “no.”
Prime raises his wrists up. “Can we at least get out of these restraints?”
The Rick officer grins, moving to unlock Prime’s handcuffs before he comes back to his senses. “Absolutely—wait. No!”
Summer leans forward. “Okay, listen. You seem stressed. We’re stressed. Let’s all take a deep breath.”
The Rick officer whimpers. “I’m not supposed to fraternize with prisoners.”
Em smirks. “Why not?”
The Rick officer snaps. “I don’t know, okay?! I’m new!”
Prime stands up, snapping his cuffs like they’re made of paper, causing the Rick officer to scream.
“Okay,” Summer says with a smirk, “that’s our cue.”
Em just sighs. “Finally.”
Prime grins. “Let’s go steal a quantum core.”
The Rick officer blinks, completely dumbfounded. “Uh, should I—should I sound an alarm?”
Summer pats his shoulder. “No, sweetie. You’re doing great. Just… How about you sit here and think about your life choices?”
The Rick officer sits and immediately begins crying.
Em shakes his head. “We’re monsters.”
Prime shrugs carelessly. “And your point?”
Summer starts to walk out the door. “Let’s just get out of here and get this done with.”
They make it maybe twenty steps down the corridor before Summer skids to a stop so abruptly Em nearly walks straight into her back.
“Please don’t do that,” Em says. “I am already on edge.”
She turns, frowning. “Wait. Did we miss something?”
Em blinks. “Miss what?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “It just feels like we should’ve been shot at by now.”
Prime glances back down the empty hallway. “The absence of violence is a little... Weird,” he says.
“Well, we better hurry up then before they come then,” Em says.
They keep moving, slower now. No alarms. No guards. Nothing.
Summer squints. “I don’t trust it.”
“I disabled the outer locks,” Em says. “If something were wrong, we’d know.”
“Honestly, it feels like we’re overdue for consequences,” Prime mutters.
Em shoots him a look. “Stop saying things like that.”
They reach the core chamber without resistance. The quantum core floats in its containment field, glowing softly, pulsing slowly and steadily, like it’s patiently waiting for them.
Summer tilts her head. “Eh, I thought it’d be bigger?”
Em sighs. “You know that powers half the Citadel, right?”
“And yet,” she says, “it’s not that special looking,” she quips lightly.
Em rolls his eye as he moves to the console, fingers flying. “This is delicate. No sudden movements. No commentary.”
Summer immediately raises her hand. “Is whispering commentary allowed?”
“Summer. No.”
He disables the locks and lifts the core free.
Nothing happens.
All three of them freeze.
Summer whispers, “is that… Supposed to happen?”
“Yes,” Em says quickly. “At least I think so,” he mutters, the last part mostly to himself.
A beat.
Another.
Prime lets out a sigh of relief. “I think this means we’re gonna live.”
Em lets out a breathy laugh. “We actually did it.”
Summer throws her arms around both of them. “We committed a successful crime!”
Em stiffens, then slumps. “Please stop calling it that.”
Prime awkwardly pats his back as they start towards the exit, alarms conspicuously absent.
Summer grins. “So. Same plan next time?”
Em groans. “Hell no.”
Summer and Prime share a smirk.
One, two, three...
Em sighs. “...Probably.”
Summer beams. “Knew it.”
They disappear down the corridor together, already arguing about who has to go first next time.