Celeste

Libra and Haroldo were sitting side by side in one of the bigger rooms. Behind them were officials from the Department of International Affairs. They were being yelled at by multiple British officials those of which thought this was a waste of time.

Just like Celeste wanted, Haroldo and Libra arranged to speak with British officials, but she wasn’t here yet.

And those British officials thought they were surrendering.

“Where’s Aurora?” One of them asked. He heard the rumor that Aurora had suddenly disappeared after the war was declared but that was it.

Nothing else surfaced about him.

Everyone behind Haroldo and Libra didn’t mention a word. They all knew where Aurora was, but they’ve chosen to keep that among themselves and not tell other officials yet. Clearly if they found out that he was in a higher position than before, there would be some issues.

“Aurora is no longer Head of Defense.” Haroldo told them calmly.

“That wasn’t the question we asked.” The older man got up, clearly upset that Aurora wasn’t here. It just meant something was going on. Europe did believe a disastrous move was made, and they wanted to be cautious.

Aurora was sneaky and he has been the entire time.

If he disappeared, that means he’s doing something he’s not supposed to.

Something they should be scared of.

But he’s not the one they should be afraid of right now. If they knew he had a daughter who was just as terrible as he is, they’d cause enough havoc to start a world war.

What Celeste was going to ambush them with would be incredible.

The group of people were becoming restless. Libra and Haroldo chose not to answer more questions.

But all of a sudden, a few of the soldiers that were around the room collapsed, completely paralyzed. The officials were out of their seats abruptly, but they couldn’t move, not when they saw a woman with silver hair walk into the room.

“Sorry, I’m late.” She said as she walked up the steps.

She wasn’t in her NASA uniform. She didn’t go to work today. Instead, she had to make preparations. She’s never threatened officials before, she didn’t know what to wear. But she was casual today. She figured this wouldn’t take that long.

The others were looking at her. They didn’t know her either. If they did, then of course they would’ve had a problem as well. Haroldo and Libra watched as she came over to them.

She held up her tablet. “The paralysis was my doing. I’ll keep this short, I just don’t want the information leaving the room.” she said.

Haroldo and Libra chose not to say anything as Celeste stood in front of the men.

The soldiers were laying on the ground, unable to move. There were hundreds, thousands paralyzed outside the building, outside at the borders, and in Britain. She meant it when she said this information couldn’t leave the room. As long as the soldiers in the room were paralyzed, none of what they were seeing would be registered by the implant.

There were two defense officials that stayed standing, the others were sitting down, waiting. The two that remained thought this was a joke. A mysterious woman just barging in to an official meeting. Who did Haroldo and Libra take them for? That’s what they were thinking.

“Who is this?” One of them asked rudely. He was an older man, he’s seen enough war to understand that this should be an easy meeting, but he knew who he was dealing with.

Except, they’ve gotten rid of the Head of Defense, and a random woman was standing in front of them.

“I’ll introduce myself in a moment.” Celeste said. “You’re here because you’re going to surrender.” she leaned against the table and held her tablet against her lap.

The older man scoffed at her comment. “You’re joking.” he laughed dryly. “We can literally ruin your entire societal system.” he threatened them.

Celeste didn’t think they would make good on that threat. If they had the power to, they would’ve done it already. They were going to leverage Libra and Haroldo but Celeste could do the same to them as well. That was the whole point of this meeting.

“And you didn’t which was a stupid move.” Celeste said. “You see, the blue print for the implant you stole was mine, and I don’t appreciate you using my device as a means of war.” she explained and straightened up, flashing a bright blueprint up in front of them. “So I made this.”

“And what is this?”

“Oh, my bad, I thought you could understand this stuff.” she stepped down, and pulled out another device from her pocket. ”This is my way of shutting off every single implant in use with just one push of a button.” she said plainly as she showed them the device.

The younger official for defense understood what she meant by shutting off the device. He didn’t like the sound of that.

She smiled when she saw the shock on that man’s face. “He gets it.” she gestured to him. The other official looked at the young man who watched Celeste with a sort of horror in his dark eyes.

They had walked into a trap.

“Right now, the paralysis is a temporary fix. It doesn't completely turn off the implant.” she explained. "With this, I can permanently shut it off."

She figured it must have been a pain for everyone to deal with paralysis every couple of hours every few days. Clearly, it didn’t stop what they were doing. Britain was more than capable of having enough soldiers without the implants with just as many with it.

But it was a temporary fix. What she was showing them was a permanent solution.

“She’s going to kill everyone...” the younger official said, shocked and almost defeated.

There was an abrupt uproar from both sides. This was the first time Haroldo and Libra were hearing this. They looked at each other, completely panicked. They didn’t think she would go this far. They didn’t even know this was what she was planning in the first place. International affairs already knew what kind of damage Celeste could cause if she so much as uses the device. To kill every soldier that had an implant was drastic. That’s begging for another world war.

“Yeah, right.” One of the men sitting down didn’t believe her. “So what she flashes a fancy blue print in front of us. We don’t know that it works for real.”

That was the moment Celeste was waiting for. All that hard work to prove that she could in fact murder everyone was what she worked day and night for.

Celeste pointed to the spinning model. “The System says it runs at a hundred percent.” And she had proof right under the model. Everyone could see it. “That means without fail I can wipe out your entire force in half a second.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Celeste smiled even wider. “I love a good test run.”

“No!” the one with common sense had to stop her. “What you’re doing is mass murder and you should be arrested.” He was looking at Haroldo and Libra, but they didn’t say anything.

They didn’t know how the situation was going to go.

“Don’t look at them. I’m right here.” Celeste got their attention again. “Clearly you don’t seem that sorry about stealing my work, so if I have to fix it, I will.” she made herself clear on that.

She will cause a problem if she has to.

“I suggest you surrender.” Celeste advised as she brought her hands together. “I mean, you can wait till I kill everyone, but by then I’m sure Commander Haroldo and Libra will just violently force you to surrender.” it didn’t matter what option they chose. “You can go back to your country and tell everyone you got your soldiers killed because you thought you could out smart me.” She scrunched up her nose as she looked at them.

This was her revenge.

She didn’t create the implant to be used this way. For them to be this cruel and evil made her want to fight back. She was good at threatening people, she was good at being scary when she needed to be. Right now, she needed to be. She was threatening murder.

“Let’s negotiate.” The younger one said.

Celeste turned around and looked at Haroldo and Libra. At this point, she practically gave them a win, but they were still cautious. They’ve dealt with these officials before. They were hard to please. It was going to be difficult to come to an agreement.

“Give us that device.” the man said.

“No.” that was an immediate answer. “Why would I give you what I’m threatening you with?” Celeste wasn’t going to hand it over.

“We need to be sure you’re not going back on your word.” he said.

“If you surrender, why would I?” she thought they were going to cheat. “You think I can’t make multiple of these? You think that you can alter the implant so this baby doesn’t work?” she asked them. Were they taking her lightly? “I made all of this. You think I don’t know how to shut my own shit off?” She was getting angry. She felt like they were going to trick her.

The two officials didn’t like that Celeste was the only one talking. They clearly saw that Libra and Haroldo were just as surprised as they were. Were they not going to control Celeste? It was just brought to their attention that she was planning to kill thousands of soldier, they weren’t sure how to handle that situation. It wasn’t anything they’ve had to handle before.

They didn’t know what to say.

They couldn’t find a neutral agreement.

Not until Celeste got what she wanted.

“Give us the device and we call all of this off.” The man said. “We’ll take our forces back to Britain and we’ll surrender.”

“If you think you’re going to get off easy, you’re wrong.” Haroldo finally spoke up. “Our terms of surrender will not be in your favor. Again.”

“I would strongly advise that you listen.” Libra added.

“And if you don’t want to, I can make more of these.” Celeste gestured to the hologram of her blueprint. If they try to go back on their word, there’s nothing stopping her from going through with it.

They agreed with her. They were forced to surrender. A random woman made them, for the sake of the people that protected their country.

She walked over to the older man.

She was just as tall as he was, just as intimidating. She might be younger but she could be just as cold and threatening. She put the device in his hand, but she gripped on to him so he couldn’t pull away.

“If you go back on your word, I’ll know about it.” She looked him in the eyes. “Remember the former Head of Defense? Well, I’m his daughter.” she said, her lip curling.

His eyes slightly widened as he looked at her. He could tell now that she was up close to him, now that she was threatening him.

“Your entire country is lucky I didn’t take his place.” she whispered.

They pissed her off once already, they’d be smart to not do it again.

She let go of his hand, the device against his palm. He was stunned to find out who she was. He almost wished this whole thing didn’t start because now they were forced to surrender at the threat of killing most of their soldiers. And she made them do it. Aurora may have been gone, but there would always be this lingering threat of him that stayed around. Celeste was here, and if she was anything like her father, she would always make sure people took her seriously.

Celeste did what she said she was going to do.

Now she didn’t have a reason to be here.

The others were panicking, however. Celeste just gave them their leverage. How could she do that? No one would have the blue print, but she gave them the device. They should’ve kept it for themselves. It would’ve been easier to threaten Britain to remove the implant from every soldier. But Celeste already thought of that, and she didn’t think it was a good idea. So she gave them the only device out there that could shut off the implant.

She didn’t seem that upset about it.

The Department of International Affairs couldn’t let her leave.

Neither could the Department of Defense.

And the Department of Human Resources had to get involve in the situation. And when they were told about what just happened a minute ago because someone had told them, they notified the Department of Justice because Celeste was a criminal.

Everyone was screaming.

Celeste had made it down to the lobby. She planned to go home and take a nap, but all the drones that were on the ground floor began to circle around her. They flashed brightly and kept her surrounded.

She didn’t know what was happening.

A secretary came over to her. “We can’t let you leave.” she said politely as the drones continued flashing around Celeste.

“Why?”

“I believe you’re supposed to have a meeting a few department heads.” she had just heard about it. She was told to stop Celeste from leaving, and she did, but there wasn’t much more information than that.

Celeste stirred up more trouble than she did the first time.

She was waiting in a room by herself. She had no signal so she couldn’t call for help, as if someone would help her. She was a criminal, who was going to help her? She was in the room for a while, but another secretary said she could leave, but escorted her to another room on the top floor of the building.

She hasn’t been here before. This was different.

When she walked in the room, there were groups of people just waiting for her. They were yelling and shouting and trying to get the attention of the Adviser who was dragged into this room against his will because he was clearly enjoying not being here.

“Please, one at a time.” Aurora said to them because they were all speaking. His hearing isn’t as good as it used to be.

“Aurora, we understand you don’t care about the law,” The Head of Justice said, and Aurora rolled his eyes at the comment, “but just because you think you can do whatever you want doesn’t mean we can’t prosecute her.” he pointed to Celeste.

Aurora turned to see her and he was surprised. Were they all yelling about her? “What did you do this time?” he asked her.

“Nothing!” she said quickly, but there was uproar again.

“She literally created a weapon that could kill most of Britain’s force.” someone from International Affairs said loudly over the arguing. Aurora was about to say something but he stopped. He almost didn’t believe them. Celeste wouldn’t go that far. Would she? He didn’t know. But that wasn’t the issue. “Then she gave it to them!” she panicked.

“Well, who let her?” Aurora had to find someone responsible for letting a civilian have access here.

Everyone turned to Haroldo and Libra.

“She gave us her word that she would fix the issue.” Libra said quickly. “We didn’t know what she was going to do. She told us to trust her and we did.”

“And now Britain surrendered.” Haroldo added, though he did agree that something should happen because their leverage is gone. “We don’t have what she created. But she clearly stated she could kill everyone with just a push of a button.”

Aurora looked at Celeste again, but she shrugged. She couldn’t defend herself.

“Are you serious?”

“It was a fake-”

Another out burst came from the group, drowning out her voice before she could explain. That’s why she wasn’t so bothered about what she did.

“It was fake!” she yelled over them. They began to quiet down enough for her to tell them. “The actual device doesn’t work. It doesn’t do anything.”

“But the blue print-”

“That’s completed.” Celeste said. “If I wanted to actually make the device that would shut off the implant, I could. And it would function without a flaw. But I didn’t make it.” She shrugged again.

Everyone began talking loudly again, trying to get Aurora’s attention because it was ridiculous. The whole situation was beyond what they’ve gone through. No one knew how to deal with Celeste but something should happen. She needs to be held accountable.

“Can I see?” Aurora asked her innocently, with pure curiosity. He didn’t think she could come up with something to counter act the implant so he wanted to know what it was.

The blue print hologram flashed up for him to see. He had taken out a pair of glasses, and put them on before he stepped closer to read the blue print. He could understand what she came up with. He held his expression, there was a plain gaze in his eyes as he read through it.

But he saw that it ran at one hundred percent, and that convinced him that it was flawless.

“This is amazing.” he said in awe.

“You got to be fucking kidding me!” The Head of Justice was not happy. “First she gets away with arming Britain, and now she gets to give them what could literally stop their bullshit!-”

“Aurora, no, we’ve got to do something about this.” Rhea finally spoke up. “International Affairs is going to have so many problems once word gets out.”

“Clearly.” Aurora turned to them. “Britain doesn’t actually have anything. They have a fake model and no blue print. They’re scared that we’re going to do something. I think International Affairs will be fine for a few days.”

“Aurora-”

“I think you’re over reacting.” he told them all.

They started talking over one another and Aurora was annoyed all over again. He couldn’t stand it when people talked to him all at once, it made his heart race. He told them to quiet down so he could hear one person speak at a time.

“I want to prosecute her.” Head of Justice said.

Aurora wasn’t bothered by the comment. “Her charges are pending.” And he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“Intent to commit murder.” Head of Justice suddenly decided to add the new charge.

Celeste’s eyes widened. Why would he want to do that to her? She didn’t think she did anything wrong. She looked at Aurora quickly, but he was just staring at the man with a blank expression.

Then he covered his mouth because he began laughing. He couldn’t hide it very well. “She literally ends a war and you want to try her for ‘attempting’ to kill British soldiers?” he kept laughing. “If you have a problem with me, Pollux, we can discuss it, but leave her out of it.” Aurora would be a different kind of person if he really had to fight off everyone to leave Celeste alone.

“The blue print is the problem, Aurora. As long as she has it, who knows what she could do with it.”

“I think...” Haroldo looked at Libra, “I think you should keep it.” he said to Aurora. “At least it won’t be in a civilian’s hands.” he said, hoping that it was a possible solution to end this.

“That’s reasonable.” Aurora agreed. He would take possession of the blue print for now.

“Do you think Britain might test it out?” Libra asked, a little worried about the situation.

It doesn’t seem likely that they would test it to see if it works. That would be murder, at least that’s what they thought.

“You better hope to God they don’t.” Aurora sincerely hoped they wouldn’t. “If they do ‘test’ it, that’s not our problem.” he didn’t care. “Any other questions or concerns?” he asked the group that was quiet.

They remained silent for now, but he had a feeling that someone would bring up an issue with this situation in the next day or so.

“Great.” he was going to take the peace for as long as he has it. “Get out.” he told them. He wanted to go home as well, but he figured this would be a great time to yell at Celeste for causing problems. “Not you.” he said before she could turn away to leave with the rest of them.

Celeste had no excuse for what she did.

He had to address that. What kind of parent let’s their kid off with making a biological weapon?

Everyone was gone and it was the two of them in the room.

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” He told Celeste.

“I fixed my-”

“You can’t just make something that threatens thousands of people.” Aurora said. “You have no idea what would’ve happened if Britain called your bluff.”

She could’ve bullied them into surrendering if her initial plan didn’t work. She didn’t say that out loud though. Aurora would get upset.

“Now everyone wants you restrained-”

Celeste couldn’t understand why. “I literally ended this stupid war for them-”

“That’s not the issue.” Aurora said. “What you showed me is proof of what you’re capable of.” He said and it wasn’t as praise.

He wanted to be cautious.

Celeste was playing with a dangerous idea and she had to be stopped.

Aurora was regretful that he worked on that implant all those years ago. If he had just said no, none of this would’ve happened. Now he would have to fight a few department heads to keep them away from Celeste.

As much as he knows he took the job for that reason, he can’t do that for the rest of his life.

“Give it.” Aurora needed the blue print.

Celeste sighed obnoxiously but she took her tablet out of her pocket to transfer her work to him. She couldn’t keep it and that upset her. She’s reached the prime of her career with it and she couldn’t keep it.

“And the others.”

Celeste knew which ones he was asking for. “What-”

“Celeste.”

She mashed her lips together to hold in her out burst. She didn’t want to give up her completed blue print for the implant. She spent two years on it. She learned so much with it. Giving it up would be like taking a chunk of her effort away from her.

Aurora was serious, however.

He needed to prove that he wasn’t letting Celeste off with just a warning. Everyone wanted her to be restrained, and for the good of society and international relationships with other nations, he absolutely had to take her blue prints.

She was obedient and gave him three more.

That was it. Everything she put so much effort in, everything that made her stressed out, gave her anxiety attacks, he had it now. And she wasn’t going to get them back.

Why was he doing this her?

Celeste was absolutely devastated. “I’m not a murderer.” She said.

“I know.” Aurora didn’t have a doubt in his mind. “But the wrong person can be.” He was worried about someone else getting these.

Clearly they’ve caused enough damage already.

Him keeping them can insure no one else has access to it. He hoped Celeste could understand that much.

“You need to stop attracting attention.” Aurora said. “People aren’t happy with you right now, and me protecting you is making it worse.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” She said.

He knew that, but she still does it anyway. “Please, behave.” He would have to beg her. “Don’t give them a reason to arrest you.”

She was upset. If people disliked her so much, they might as well arrest her anyway. She didn’t say that out loud. She stared at the floor and kept her lips tightly shut because she didn’t want to argue, she didn’t want to make Aurora mad.

She knew he was here because of her and she was grateful, so arguing wouldn’t be good.

Aurora could sense her unrest, like he always could. He felt sorry for her.

He never wanted to limit anything she did.

The situation was bad and he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t risk anything bad happening because of her.

His hands moved to her face as he looked at her. He never liked seeing her so upset, and recently that’s all he saw. Things haven’t been going the way they were supposed to. He knew this.

“I would’ve done the same thing.” He admitted to her.

She heard the way he said it, almost like he was regretful. She just didn’t know that Aurora hoped she didn’t turn out like him, doing the kinds of things he does to get out of a problem.

But it happened.

“I can’t lose you.” He said. “You’re the only one I have.”

Again, Celeste didn’t mean to cause a problem, though she did expect some trouble this time around. She just didn’t think people would be so upset. She figured she deserved whatever happened next, but she’s also the reason for Britain’s surrender so there’s that.

If a world war does break out, she knows it’s her fault.

But for now, peace would be negotiated and things would be okay.

“I’ll behave.” Celeste said.

No more outrageous projects. She would swear by it.

At least she wasn’t stressed anymore, that was the only good thing that came out of this situation.

Celeste was always a good person. She might get sucked into her emotions sometimes but Aurora always figured if she did something out of her way, she was doing it for a reason. She said she would fix her mistake and she did. She keeps her word.

Aurora felt better knowing she wouldn’t do anything crazy.

But there was this lingering voice in the back of his mind that told him they would have this conversation again.

He should know.

It always happened for him.

He can’t be surprised that she caused a panic.

Twice.

Like father like daughter.