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Tenno, I need you to get inside enemy data vaults and retrieve crucial intelligence data.
A simple, straightforward stealth mission. They have an Ivara, they have her Infiltrate mod - these are easy. The Grineer and Corpus aren't very imaginative with their traps either, especially after the Operator has learned all of the possible layouts of every room.
They land on the base and dart forward. It's easy to ignore most of the soldiers sent out to answer them, with Warframes' increased agility and armor. Only occasionally is the Operator forced to pull out their weapon and defend themself, when too many soldiers block their path to the vaults.
Once inside the first vault, they cast Ivara's Prowl and start finding their path to the console. Lasers aren't an issue, no soldier can see them, and they've gotten good at hacking every type of Grineer console.
Should be…
They freeze as an alarm starts blaring halfway through.
"Alarms! Data destruction is imminent."
A quick glance around reveals no lasers nearby them, no soldiers or other machines, not even a sensor bar or camera to alert anyone of their presence. How did I even…
HEY, KIDDO!
"Wally," they respond flatly, all confusion vanishing in favor of the obvious answer to their question.
THAT'S ME! It takes its physical form in front of them, at the end of the hallway, one hand stuck directly into a sensor bar light.
It sounds delighted. The Operator sighs. "Are you serious?"
YEP!
Even through their irritation, the Operator starts running. They can still make it to the console and hack it in time, the countdown at forty seconds in the Lotus's transmitted stream by the time they start moving.
Wally stays silent throughout their dead sprint, rolling through the magnetic damage of the lasers and ignoring the cameras and sensor bars along the way. They make it with twenty seconds to go, and within five seconds they have the console hacked and the data retrieved.
The Lotus congratulates them, but they almost end up tuning her out in favor of waiting for the comment they're really interested in.
WOW. YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO GET A MOVE ON, KIDDO.
"Yeah, I've triggered enough alarms," they say, making their way back up and out of the data vaults.
They want to question Wally on whether it's going to fuck up vault number two as well, but that just seems like a bad faith question. Besides, it isn't difficult to hack the consoles anyway even with alarms triggered. They just have to run.
So both they and Wally are silent as the Operator makes it to the second vault and inside, casting Ivara's Prowl and stalking through the hallways.
This vault doesn't have a console to hack until a security reset one at the back of the room. The Operator gets there easily and opens the console - a simple click-turn lock and key console.
They watch the indicator spin and click the button when it lands on one of the notches. It switches direction; they wait, click, and indent another notch.
Their first notch un-clicks and returns to its first position without the Operator even pressing the button.
What. They click it again. Their second notch undoes itself.
The timer is running out, and it tells the Operator that with a beeping of an alarm. They click another notch; their third click undoes itself again.
They stare at the console. Through sheer bafflement, they click once again. What else is there to do?
And the last one they did unclicks itself.
"What the hell…" they mutter. There's a slight panic, because the timer running out means alarms are triggered, but it's mild at best knowing they can easily dead-sprint for the data anyway.
Another click; another reversal. The alarm beeps again, and a third time, until the timer does run out and the Operator stares at a completely undone console hack, the main alarms beginning to blare above their head.
The Lotus tells them they triggered the alarms. Beyond all of that, familiar laughter echoes through their head.
They're already turning to sprint for the data console. "Wally!" they scold, and Void does it feel good to have a real name to properly scold the being with.
The laughter trails off into its voice, and the prank is so harmless that the Operator can't fight the smile breaking through their face as well. YOU LOOKED SO CONFUSED!
"I was confused," they answer breathlessly through their run, severely helped by the Warframe's ability to bullet jump.
IT WAS FUNNY, RIGHT? Wally sounds so pleased with itself, and utterly delighted. The Operator really can't be mad - of all the pranks, this one is more lighthearted than they thought the entity would ever go for.
"Yeah, it was funny," they concede, with mock tiredness in their voice. Wally devolves into laughter again in their head and the Operator smiles even through speed-hacking their second console on a time limit.
They finish the console and turn back out of the data vaults, easily leaping their way through crowds of soldiers for the third one. After about five minutes spent briefly defending themself, they make it to the third vault's opening console… and stop.
The door behind them closes. The room is silent, there's no threat of Grineer soldiers coming in, and the Operator crosses the arms of the Ivara frame and looks up at the ceiling.
"Can I hack this vault in peace, or are you going three for three?"
A beat of silence. WHAT ABOUT A RACE?
They pause. "What?"
A RACE. I SET THE ALARM OFF THE MOMENT YOU HACK THE CONSOLE, AND YOU RACE TO GET THE DATA.
The Operator considers.
COME ON, YOU GOT THE FIRST TWO. THAT'S ALL YOU REALLY NEED, RIGHT?
They did, however, like the feeling of doing well when they retrieved all three pieces of information.
I'M NOT INSTANTLY FAILING THE MISSION FOR YOU, Wally continues dryly. YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE, AND YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO HAUL ASS, KIDDO. Its grin is audible in its voice. THE LOTUS CAN DEAL WITH IT.
They should refuse. They are here for business, on a mission, and messing that up for the purpose of sheer fun is dumb. It's everything they were taught not to do. They have had dozens and dozens of lives resting on their shoulders and they have learned they can't afford to have fun.
But this data is not crucial to a war or a genocide or a trick. This data is nothing, a boost in their plans if anything, and Wally is right. They do only need the first two vaults' information.
And they have only been awake for less than a decade. The body that was put to sleep was sixteen years old.
Parallel to this train of thought has been the calculation that Ivara is not a fast frame, and they will be limited to only their base movement abilities. Faster than a human's, sure, but even more susceptible to running into things.
Their decision had been made the moment Wally had mentioned it.
It's with a childlike glee that they grin, adrenaline already rushing through them. "The moment the door opens," they negotiate. "It's not fair to waste twenty seconds on that door opening."
SURE, KIDDO.
They open the hack console, trying and failing to fight the smile. They feel like Gauss - bouncing on their feet, just waiting to race without fear of being hunted, without threat of life or death, without it depending on their survival.
The console beeps. The Operator stands in front of the door as it opens, and when it reveals the whole room to them and they hear the first blare of the alarm in their ears, they grin and take off in a launch down the nearest hallway.
They ignore the Lotus in their earpiece, the Grineer clones off to the side, the rushing water beneath them. Their goal is the main console, and with fifty seconds left to go, they have to stop and glance around the room, tracking entrances and exits.
Within three seconds, they find a grate. Through that vent, up another, sideways into a laser-filled hallway takes another twenty seconds.
Twenty-seven seconds to go. They know this map of the room.
The Operator shoots Ivara's zipline down the hallway. She easily perches on top of it, and they lead her in a run down the thread and to the other side.
Twenty.
They drop into a room with a door and a console. It takes them eight seconds to hack because they screw it up the first time.
Twelve.
The Operator leaps at the main console, opens the locking mechanism, and begins.
With three seconds left to go, the console clicks, unlocks, and the Lotus congratulates them in their earpiece at the same time Wally claps in their head.
NICE, KIDDO! It sounds equally taunting and delighted at the same time.
The Operator can barely breathe past the exertion, their heart racing, the thrill of trying to hack the console fast enough still thrumming through them. Yet they're grinning, and with Wally's applause, they can't help but let out a little breathless laugh.
They can't remember the last time they did a sport like that that wasn't boot camp or military training or self defense.
"Good idea, Wally," they breathe, making their way much slower out of the data vault and to extraction. Their Warframe can't smile, but they are still smiling inside it, this whole mission being so harmless and fun that it's put them in a good mood for the first time in they don't know how long.
I'M FULL OF THEM, Wally remarks back lightly, and the Operator laughs.
If they could, they would stay in this sort of moment forever. Not exactly this, as their shields dropping ripples blue light across their transmitter screen, but this feeling of… joy. It is joy. An emotion so foreign they truly have to take a moment to recognize it, shooting down a few Grineer soldiers while their mind is still on the moment they'd succeeded at the race.
Wally has gone completely silent in their head. A sort of heavy silence - they can still feel its presence, somehow, but it's… contemplating. It doesn't feel as if it's sharing the same joy they are.
Or maybe… it is. So we can feel each other's emotions. So what?
"Wally?" the Operator asks hesitantly in a quiet hallway.
Its presence flickers, darker, before fluctuating the other way again. To something more contemplative, considering.
Their joy fades in favor of the slight fear they have, that unforgettable memory of what exactly they are trying to befriend. The fear has lessened, but it never leaves.
WHERE DID IT GO. Its voice is flat.
The Operator slowly walks to extraction. They have a gut feeling about what Wally means.
"Where did what go?"
THAT FEELING. THAT SENSATION.
The Operator can barely breathe for a completely different reason this time. "Joy?" they ask quietly.
THAT'S WHAT THAT IS?
"I mean, it's more thrill and adrenaline than actual joy. But some people feel better like that than doing normal activities."
THRILL.
"…And joy." They get the feeling that denying Wally the idea that it really is joy won't help… whatever this is.
THRILL AND JOY. Its voice is still flat.
"Yeah."
They don't know what else to say without tipping this delicate conversation in a direction they might not like. They're just delaying extraction as long as possible at this point, deciding to walk around in Prowl and loot the base.
THAT… WARMTH. BUT IT BURNED.
"That would be my lungs," they quip back with a faint smile. "Running does that to you."
For once, not running for their life.
AND YOU ENJOY THAT WITHOUT THE THREAT OF BEING HUNTED AND KILLED.
It says it so bluntly, as if talking about the weather. The Operator's smile fades for a slight flinch, something deep in their gut raising alarms. Their prey instinct, finally recognizing there might be a predator looking for them.
"…Yeah," they answer belatedly, tentatively.
IT WAS SO QUICK. THERE AND THEN GONE.
"Mhm." They shoot open a crate lock and flip the cover up, looking inside. "I'm good at calming myself down, is most of it, but yeah. The high of those moments don't last that long."
BUT PAIN LINGERS FOR SO LONG. AND THAT TOOK SO MUCH WORK FOR THAT LITTLE BIT.
The Operator is starting to grasp the issue, and it makes them relax a little. "Yep," they respond bluntly. "Not very long, while pain seems like it lasts forever."
Wally doesn't answer. The Operator stays in one of the smaller side rooms, empty of threats, and tries to focus on this conversation, tries to shift it the right way.
"Joy feels better than pain, though," they say. It seems so obvious, but they really don't know what to say. It's not as if they were the expert on a happy life. "People are willing to fight for a spark of happiness, despite how fleeting it is."
NOT ALWAYS.
The Operator stills. "…No, not always. That's usually when they've been pushed to their breaking point, however."
SO MUCH WORK. The lights flicker and dim. The Operator glances up at them, then around the empty room, their body tensing on instinct.
They take a breath, struggling to think of how to explain this. What do they even- they didn't have experience with this. Their life has been war since day one. The Zariman was a more peaceful version of it, but colonization was still war. And that peace didn't last long.
The Operator's various periods of peace never lasted very long, they think bitterly.
"Wally," they start, and their response is a drop in the temperature of the room. Their Warframe doesn't breathe, but the temperature meter on their screen reads a degree that would make their breath fog if they were exhaling into the room itself. "I'm not-"
I'm not the best expert because of you, they want to say, but that would make it worse. They dismiss the thought even faster in fear of Wally reading their mind.
"I'm not the best person to ask."
YOU'RE THE ONLY PERSON TO ASK. And even with every instinct on high alert in fear, the Operator feels sympathy for the implied meaning. No one else, as far as they know, treated the Indifference like a person rather than a tool.
"Then- then don't do anything rash. I can ask other people. I can tell you what they tell me." It's humiliating to have to ask other people about what a happy life feels like. The Operator ignores the feeling.
They take a deep breath. Ivara is a Warframe designed for stealth, so when she's guided to go still and alert, she's still in such a way that seems like a predator poised to pounce.
The Operator feels like prey right now, but the sentiment stands.
"Deal?" they ask, fighting the shake in their voice.
An eternity of silence, standing in that freezing, empty, small room filled with storage lockers, the previously fluorescent lights dimmed to something honey-gold. It creates shadowy corners and crevices, makes it difficult to see the lockers except by the glowing light of their handles.
The Operator wishes they had a light right now.
DEAL. KIDDO.