"Fiana! Fiana, listen to me. This is not what any of us expected, but we have to leave everything as is and attend the call for reinforcement." Benji held Fiana by shoulders and explained.

Fiana slid his hands away and yelled, "No!"

"I've tried that, anything else?" Arya put on a poker face and went back to organise her things.

"Wai...wai. wait. I got this." Benji pushed Fiana aside and headed over to the Microscope. "Did you scan the samples?"

"Nope! I barely got time to wash myself after a notorious twenty hour journey. So excuse me, I guess?"

Benji pulled open the thermoregulated bag they had used to store samples and searched for Fiana and Rina's samples.

"AVAH, over here." He commanded the AI drone.

"Sorry Dr Benji, you are third on my priority list, I'll be able to assist you after I have completed assisting Arya."

"What? Who's the second one? You know what? Nevermind, Arya permission to use AVAH for a while?"

"Sure." Arya nodded at AVAH to go do the favour.

"Okay, we got two samples here, gonna put them under the superzooms, AVAH you're gonna sync with this baby and report me ASAP. Got it?" Benji raised his brows, questioning AVAH.

"Understood, sync initiated."

It took about a couple of minutes for AVAH to complete the analysis and return to Benji who was restlessly tapping his index on the countertop.

"Dr Benji, here's the report:
Rina's samples contain dehydrated keratocytes AKA skin cells. The cells are morphologically quite different from normal human skin cells due to spicules over the cell membrane.
Fiana's samples are normal.

Biochemical analysis suggests a deficiency of enzyme necessary to synthesize hyaluronic acid."

"Right." Benji held his fingers to his lips, analysing the report. "So technically they are hyaluronic acid deficient. So will it work if we temporarily supplement that along with some emollients?"

"It could, but I'm not equipped to analyse their generic information for now. There could be other problems pertaining to their vital organs due to mutations from the aquifer water. So just some hyaluronic acid emollients are not gonna solve the problem." Arya explained, fastening her backpack over her thermo-suit.

"Fair enough." Benji nodded, "but you don't got no solution that's better than this for now. So let's just hit the pharmacy before joining the crew. Fiana's happy, Oja's happy and we both are out of trouble. How does that sound for a plan?"

Arya shrugged her shoulders, "what prevents us?"

"Come on." He said slowly jogging towards the doors of bio-dome.

By then, Arya had made sure Fiana had worn her thermo-suit and shoes, Arya had even packed her a back-pack with food and water and some other essentials that she deemed important.

"I got a buddy of mine working in the pharmacy storage, I'll see if I can pull some strings to get the job done." Benji hurriedly explained while going through the lane ahead of the Bio-dome.

Fiana sniffed in the air and turned her head swiftly in random directions, either scowling or wincing her face due to the sensory overload.

Arya could feel her annoyance, even for an underground born and bred woman like herself couldn't bear the atrocious hussle bussle of this place outside the safety of her biodome, she could only feel pity for Fiana and her limitations.

After a walk of about a kilometer, they reached a large arching gate for the pharmaceutical facility founded by RemCorps for the underground district-7.

There was a small outpost attached to this facility, where old and debilitated people stood in line to receive their daily medications.

Benji went straight ahead to the watch guard, only to earn a warning hand pushed over his chest. "Hey, back off. Show your ID."

"Relax, I'm Dr Arya, researcher and a class two official at Bio-team. These are my assistants and we are here to submit and discuss my research on Aguierra plant for Chemo, with Silas's permission."

Arya held open her tab and flashed -only for a second to show the guard her old permit, which apparently she had received from Silas a month ago for Chemo research.

The guard spoke over the comms in his ears, "yeah, Dr Arya and her team. Says she has the permit from Silas."

The watch guard curtly nodded with a flat smile and let them through the gates.

"Whoa, that was smooth." Benji whispered to Arya correcting his sliding strap of backpack.

"Seriously? What were you thinking when you approached the guard?" Arya snapped, with a push on his arms to get into the staircase which she knew led to nowhere.

"I didn't know, I could have explained him given the time."

"Oh really?" Arya raised a brow, pausing for a breath on the stairs. "Where is the pharmacy block?"

"Follow me." Benji huffed as he made a bee line to the corridor of an office where three more guardsmen were discussing something.

Arya grabbed Fiana by a hand and signalled her to keep it quiet. Then she let Fiana pass behind Benji and then she followed them, flashing a weird smile to the guards. She instantly regretted it, 'what the fuck was that?'

After several turns and stairs they reached a sign board that directed towards the pharmacy and hid behind a wall.

"Where is your friend?" Arya hushed behind Benji, all of their senses alert for any imminent danger.

"Uhh he should have been here by now. I don't know." Benji whispered in response, tapping his index on the wall in front of them as they hid.

"You don't know?" Arya groaned, with a face palm.

Benji tapped her on the shoulder to shut up as they heard footsteps, Fiana winced her face to figure out the sound.

As they peeked, they saw a short man with glasses and a tall... the tallest woman they had seen for a while. The woman instructed something to the other man, her slender fingers showing something on the tab.

"Yep. That's my guy."

"He doesn't look like it." Arya pointed.

"Seriously? How should he look, to look like 'it'?" Benji angered, "he will supply me with what we need. That's what matters."

They watched on as the woman left the place, the short guy searched around until they came out from hiding behind the wall. "Are we being recorded?"

"I guess so." The short guy replied, rather in a high pitched tone.

"Gosh. We are gonna be killed." Arya bit her lip in worry.

"Who's this?" The short guy scanned Fiana from head to toe. "Never seen her around."

"She is my assistant." Arya force smiled, "I mean, it's a long story. Sheesh!"

"What about the deal?" Benji cut into the conversation.

"Yeah." The short guy fixed his chunky spectacles and tapped something on the tab. A hologram of the plan of the facility popped up. "This is the basement, where they stock pile all the pharmacy stuff. Unused, extras, the ones with a lot of side effects, category -5 clini-trial drugs, you name it."

"So you'll go get them for us, right?" Benji pointed at the basement and questioned.

"Nope. That will be you." The short guy turned his tab off and smiled with smug.

"What?" Arya exclaimed, exchanging a glance with Arya like she always did during 'the sky is falling ' kind of situations.

"Yes, you heard me." The short guy nodded, "if we are caught the story is always simple, you stole my key card and tried to steal the high demand medication. But if I'm caught... No no, that's not happening. Never happened before with my twelve successful heists and will not be happening."

"But we are being recorded," Arya folded his arms with a bitch face again, "you said it yourself."

"I didn't say, I said I guessed so." The short guy started walking towards a heavy door to somewhere. "A thief got to watch his back."

"Ok. We're running out of time, what now?" Benji checked his watch and got into the elevator along with the rest.

"I have jammed the signals from security cams for an hour. You go into the basement, use my key card and my Authorization sign from this silicone thumb, which is thermo regulated -I'm a genius, I know...you're welcome and get what you want. Win win, right?"

Arya and Benji took long breaths, Arya deemed this was the end of their careers in scientific bureau. In a few minutes, the whole of Silas's crew was going to arrive and then everything was over.

The short guy handed the key card and wiggled the silicone thumb before handing it over to them and smiled wickedly. "See you on the other side my friend."

Arya rolled her eyes. Benji examined the thumb and keycard and walked the corridor with Arya and Fiana following behind him. The basement looked almost abandoned, the temperature was quite cool, almost freezing around here, their hastened breaths fogging up.

There were chambers and chambers of storage of pharmaceutical stuff that the short guy had said about. Chambers were arranged beside each other in a domino pattern, all uniform and similar.

One chamber read 'Chemotherapy' with stacks and stacks of drugs that they could see through transparent walls. Another chamber read 'Vaccination', whereas another read 'Dermatology' and yet another read, 'Sexually transmitted diseases.'

The trio stopped near the dermatology section. Benji hesitated to use the key card. Luckily the outdoor hissed open with a single flash of key card to the panel.

Arya and Benji exchanged a relief glance. Arya comforted Fiana by nodding to her.

There was another door that had a panel fixed on it for Authorization. Benji hesitated once again before using the silicone fake thumb. "This better work. Here goes nothing."

"Authorization unsuccessful. Please bring your eyes forward for scanning." The panel announced rather loudly. The trio panicked, Benji especially shifted his weight between his legs.

"I can't believe we are gambling our lives over this girl." Benji said, earning a scowl from Fiana like he always did.

Benji rubbed the fake thumb, pursing his lips and pulled open his thermo-suit's zipper, tossed the fake thumb inside for warming. "Probably the ambient temperature is too low that even the thermo regulated silicone is useless for Authorization."

After a minute which felt like an eternity, Benji tried again to initiate Authorization. The panel announced, "Authorization unsuccessful. ID number - 459PA15, you have one more attempt to complete the Authorization. To avoid permanent block on your ID, please follow the rules."

"Dammit!" Benji whelped.

"Try again. Try it," Arya grabbed the silicone thumb and proceeded to try it by herself. "That short guy's gonna lose his ID and we are gonna be dead. Third time is the charm, right?"

While Arya turned around shrugging at Benji in confusion after pushing the fingerprint on the fake thumb over the panel, the inside glass doors hissed open. The panel jingled a music and went ahead to announce, "Authorization complete. You have got thirty minutes. You'll be notified once before the doors are locked. Have a good day."

Arya and Benji jumped at each other for a mini celebration while Fiana had a myriad questions painted on her face.

"Girl, we almost got killed because of you. Now come on in here and take what you want." Benji laughed while dragging Fiana inside.

Arya pointed at a few things for Fiana to collect. They exited the doors well within the time frame and made a beeline straight to the elevator only to be welcomed by the tallest lady's angry face they had seen earlier, conversing with the short guy they had struck the deal with. She stood on the other side of elevator, gawking with her eyes wide open.

"Oh, snap!"