The Architect Codex

Inferno - Cards On the Table

"Ten."

She analyzed her own and tapped the right card. "Ace."

Back to him. He opted to take the card she'd indicated, and held his own out for her to grab. She selected the one he'd pointed to as well.

Swapping cards, he found himself with an Ace and smiled. She, on the other hand, was left with his three. Dealing three cards onto the table, they were a five, a nine, and a jack.

Revealing their cards, he showed her the Ace and a Ten. She showed the three she robbed from him, and an eight.

"Twenty-six for both of us then," she said quickly, brushing the tie aside—but he held a hand up.

"I think I win with the ace-kicker here." He displayed it openly for her to see, a grin on his face.

She crossed her arms. "Alright, shoot."

"Why do you keep the helmet on all the time?"

She laughed, the sound of which he found himself beginning to enjoy immensely. "Honestly? Just out of habit. Spent a lot of time in armor when the 6-4 weren't partnered with the Militia—the frontier's a dangerous place, and I got used to having my head protected at all times." She waved a hand dismissively. "The rumors that the riflemen start are just a bonus—the mystery of my appearance seems to intimidate them."

"I don't think it's just your lack of a face that does that."

"Oi, shut it. Again."

Two more cards were dealt. This time, Gates started the round.

"King."

"Call."

She flipped her card up triumphantly—a king, clear as day. "Alright—what made you stick your neck out for the Titan? You could have gone and settled down on Harmony, lived a nice quiet life for yourself. Why didn't you?"

He was quiet for a few moments, thinking seriously on how best to answer her question. "To be honest—I didn't know at first. I felt like I was obligated to after what I'd done, after what we'd gone through." He gave a small hum. "I think ... I think that, in that moment, I just didn't care about myself at all. I'd spent so much time looking after my own needs that it was a disconcerting thing to put her safety above mine—but that's exactly what happened. She was more important to me than ... me."

Gates said nothing, but the corners of her mouth were tugged upwards. "Like I said—you've got a good heart, Four."

He nodded in appreciation, and smiled back at her. "You can just call me Tobias, you know."

She considered the option, and nodded in agreement. "Alright. Tobias it is—Toby for short?"

He shook his head vehemently. "God, no. I haven't been called Toby since—"

He fell silent, trailing off and leaving the thought unsaid. Gates saw the crestfallen look on his face, and chose not to question him on it. Instead, she simply shuffled the deck and passed each of them two more cards.

"Five."

"Seven."

He reached for the card she'd pointed to, and found himself holding a queen. She grabbed his 'five' and came away with a two. The three cards were then dealt in the middle—a five, a ten, and a six.

"Damn," she muttered.

"Okay—why the sudden change in personality?"

Her head snapped up, surprise evident in her features. "Come again?"

"When we first met, you threatened to kill me. When I argued to keep KT as my Titan, you tried to humiliate me. But after that, you were like a different person—giving me compliments, saving my ass down on Tyche, and now this. Any reason in particular as to why?"

She was quiet. "I'm sorry, about before. Really. I'm not exactly the defining image of a 'people-person', so to speak—and I think I was bent on treating you the same as any other IMC defector without taking the time to get to know you." She wagged a finger at him jokingly. "But don't think I'll go easy on you now if you challenge me again—I've got a reputation to uphold!"

He furrowed his brow. "Hmmph. That still doesn't explain why you changed your mind."

In a completely unforeseen circumstance, she raised one eyebrow suggestively and smiled shyly. "Let's just say that your ... charm ... has made me rather fond of you."

He stared blankly at her, completely at a loss. She snorted at his reaction, or lack of one. "C'mon, let's go another round.

Deck was shuffled, cards were dealt. Tobias swallowed, and looked at his.

"Nine."

"King—"

"Call."

"I didn't even get to finish what I was saying!"

"Was it your king?"

He sighed, and threw his cards face up. "No."

"So ... that weapon you and the Heartless discovered." Gates leaned in closer, her voice becoming lower. "Any theories on where it came from?"

He shook his head solemnly. "No idea—believe me, I'd tell you all if I knew. Never seen anything like it before, and the IMC certainly never told us grunts about it."

"That planet in the display—totally ripped apart. What kind of weapon can even do that?"

"None that I know of."

"Almost seems like overkill. Why design something so technologically advanced that it can alter gravity—just to use it as a weapon?" She shook her head. "Just a waste of resources if you ask me."

"Well, it's obviously got Briggs worried," Tobias pointed out, "so they've done something right. You think they've already built it, or are still working on it?"

"If it was done, whatever it may be, Harmony would have been blown out of the sky by now," she muttered. "Either they're still building it, or they just can't get it to work."

She leaned back in her seat out of frustration. "I just wish we had a way to find out more. We don't know where it comes from, where it's located—"

"How would we even go about doing that?"

"Well, we'd need to find another IMC database."

He paused, his eyes widening. "That's it?"

"Essentially, yeah. The IMC share all information over a network, so, technically speaking, you only need to find one connection to get into the whole thing. Once we have one, we could hack its contents and cross-search specifically for information pertaining to this 'Project Atlantis' thing. But we have no way of knowing where access-points to the network are without manually storming each and every IMC research facility we come across until we find one—"

Tobias stood up so suddenly that Gates was afraid his neck would get whiplash. Setting his cards down on the table, he began to jog away. "Thanks for the game, Gates!"

"Wha—where are you going?"

He turned around to face her as he opened the door to his quarters and disappeared around the edge of its frame.

"I need to talk with Briggs—I think I know where you can find an access point."

-X-

A/N: Rewriting the early relationships between Four, KT, and Gates is a lot of fun. It was even more fun coming up with the card game in this chapter (yes, I created it myself).

Be sure to leave a review/comment and vote if you liked what you read!

- Matteoarts