Venera was at the lab when Micha burst in and called everyone to attention at the head table. This wasn't an official meeting but all of the 10 were there in a flash, as news from Micha were always valuable.
The lab usually didn’t feel as crowded as it felt that day. For most of the 10, there wasn’t any work at the moment, so some were relaxing on bean bags in the middle of the room, while Sabrina was laying on the black stone floor and laughing at the boys, who were training in the fitness corner.
Micha entered the lab, and as he was catching his breath, Venera saw the twins, Netta and Nat, looking over at him and giggling from their bean bags. It was an open secret that Netta had a huge crush on him, but he is clueless as they come. Micha’s ashy blonde hair was all over the place and he looked really spent, his glasses had slipped down to his nose and he looked like he was impersonating a grandpa, backed up by his grey eyes. No wonder they were amused.
He announced that tonight the girls the prince had picked as candidates to become his princess would be declared. He explained that the 10 might be able to use the chaos in the palace at this time to probably cause some chaos and get more information about the chips. He explained that there will be a show on the National TV channel on which they will announce it. He had no idea when exactly the girls would be taken to the palace, but he suspected it would be in the next two days at the latest, immediately and the soonest. The 10 would need to intercept the transportation to hopefully send a chip of their own into the palace to collect more information.
When he mentioned the chips Venera saw her brother, Luca, who was sitting next to Micha, immediately reach for his ankle. He isn't used to his chip replica yet. He is still too scared he will get caught with it. The 10 were able to finally take his chip out just weeks prior. Most of them had had theirs either deactivated or spoofed for years now, but Luca was the first that got his chip fully removed.
Venera stood up once Micha was finished and made her way to Dan, who was pondering over something else on the other side of the table, and when she leaned on his chair, he snapped out of it. He whipped his head and locks of dirt brown hair whipped Venera's face. Dan instantly got up and led Venera to his station to get away from the others, who were continuing to question Micha.
"Are we going to your place for the show, or do you want to stay here and watch it with the rest?" he asked Venera. She wanted to go home so they both rushed to clean up their stations.
It was very important to keep them as clean as possible. Venera’s station was always the most well kept, as organizing her experiments was key when it came to her chemicals and medicines. Every bottle, jar, and ampoule was neatly labeled and arranged into a box of similar purpose substances. Then the boxes went on lines of shelves over her desk. She closed her laptop and put back the box she had been working on before the announcement.
Venera had to screw the lids on all the other ingredient containers and put most of them in her refrigerator. She wiped down her black desk and took the trash bag with her on the way out. Dan was waiting for her at the door and they both dove into the metal tube that got them to the balcony of the abandoned first-floor apartment below the lab, from which they jumped down into the alleyway. Venera threw her trash into the container on the side of the building and the two of them made their way through to the street.
It was an early afternoon, the weak wind caressed their arms and the sun lazily illuminated their skin. The streets were mostly empty, only some families outside with younger kids enjoying the late spring weather. Dan pulled Venera to the stand of a churro street vendor on the main street and they got some to bring back to Venera's apartment.
Once they stepped into the apartment, Dan immediately jumped on the couch and nearly knocked over one of Venera's plants.
"Watch it!" hissed Venera as she made her way across the room and threw him the TV remote.
“It’s brown anyway, what will some dirt change?” he snickered as he was setting up the TV. Venera ignored him, went over to pop some popcorn, and got the churros onto plates for the both of them.
The show was starting just as the microwave beeped. Venera rushed over with the popcorn to see the show hosts Molly Millions and Derek Debermann starting their segment on the prince. They both were wearing inflatable crowns and a slideshow of pictures of the prince was playing on the screen as well. Molly’s crown kept slipping off due to her pink wig and Derek kept teasing her about not being princess material.
The hosts moved on to shooting facts at the audience about the prince and his likes and dislikes. They mentioned his favorite color is blue and Dan smirked.
"I told you, I didn't lie to you when you dyed your hair blue," he laughed and wrapped a strand of Venera’s hair on his finger.
Venera smiled but pulled her hair back. This kind of banter is why the two were such good friends. It allowed them to be really honest with each other, but also make each other do crazy things. Like convincing each other to dye their hair different colors for the stupidest reasons. Dan's hair is now brown because of Venera convincing him that being blonde makes him stand too much when out on the street. And he convinced Venera she needed to dye hers blue, cuz it is the prince's favorite color.
"Here we have a picture of Prince Felix, he recently had laser eye surgery to get rid of his glasses, certainly in anticipation for his princess," noted Molly showing before and after pictures of the prince.
"Now his striking green eyes can certainly pop, am I right Molly?" Derek threw back.
"They do indeed suit his auburn hair. He is certainly handsome." Molly noted.
"Did they really just say that or was I imagining it? Why is this so cringy?!" Venera exclaimed and both of them started belly laughing.
After talking about the prince, they started talking about what qualities a princess should possess. Dan quickly took Venera’s notebook from the coffee table in front of them and started writing them down. There was a poll in the magazine last week about it and the hosts were trying to guess what the audience had voted.
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"A princess should be educated!" Molly called out.
"A princess should be, um, beautiful!" called out Derek.
A princess should be...
Humble
Polite
Caring
Respectful
Independent
"Hey, V, you tick all but one, you know?" noted Dan.
"Oh, yeah? Which one do I not tick?" Venera asked sheepishly.
"Girl, you haven't been humble a day in your life!" and just like that, the two were back to rolling on the floor laughing.
"Shush, they are starting the announcement, I want to test my hypothesis." Venera cut off.
Venera's hypothesis was simple: she wanted to know if the girls were a random sample and if the prince had a type and what was similar between all of them.
They started drawing names out of the big glass ball on the stage and reading the names of the girls, followed by a slideshow split screen with pictures of the girl that was drawn and one of the hosts reading out information about her.
The first 5 girls were all blonde and daughters of pretty remarkable people. Venera was smelling a correct theory, then it all crashed down with girl number 6, black hair, pretty short, and a daughter of one of the king's advisors.
Venera was still pondering on the previous girl when blue hair flashed on the TV.
"Venera Vorobyova, 18."
Pictures of Venera with different hair colors were being shown on national tv. Dan was just as shocked and kept looking between the Venera in the room and the Venera on the TV.
"She graduated from ASBSOS last year with honors and majored in international relations and history. She is currently a translator here in the capital. She has translated numerous books in the last year and recently translated our favorite new guilty pleasure Russian tv series, Kitchen. Her hobbies include gardening and learning languages." Molly Millions announced.
Time froze for Venera. The look in her eyes was getting more and more concerned.
She then looked at Dan and the same confusion was all over his face.
Luca burst through the door and was about to say something when he saw that the two were also watching the broadcast.
"Venera, they'll be here to pick you up. We don’t know when but you have to get ready to be taken to the palace. Make sure your chip is in order and take anything you might need. We need to think about how we can use this to our advantage. I’ll suspend all other plans." Dan said, shaking off the shock.
Venera was going to the palace, she was going to be so close to the person who scares her the most in this world, the King. She was still rationalizing everything when Dan instructed Luca to get to the lab asap and take everything from Venera's station and all her belongings from there.
"I need a moment to get over this and think straight." she finally spoke.
The prince had chosen her to go to the palace. This meant so many things, but most importantly it would give the 10 even more inside information into the palace. Venera was trying to remember everything the twins had taught her about thinking on her feet and talking to the enemy. How should she speak to the prince?
"You will need to make the prince fall in love with you, Venera." Dan declared. "You will need to stay there as long as possible. If you can convince him to become the princess, getting rid of the king and the chips would be way easier than we have ever imagined," he said hopefully.
Venera nodded, still taking deep breaths to prevent her anxiety to overtake her.
"I know you also aren't emotionless, you have some feelings for the prince." he spit out. "I'll make sure Micha comes over as much as he can, to keep communication open between what's happening in the palace and what we are planning. If you can get the prince to trust you and turn on his father - even better."
Micha was the prince’s cousin and the two were really close as children, now they were still very good friends. Micha had convinced the 10, that the prince wasn’t evil like his father, so Venera didn’t have any fear for him, just the King.
"Dan, I'm not like the twins, I'm no good at spying and extortions. I'm no good at seducing men." I reminded him.
"You'll know what to do when put on the spot," he assured Venera. She shook her head ignoring his answer. She instead started packing things into her leather backpack.
Luca came back with her things in record time.
"Everyone at the lab was watching it too. Micha had no idea the prince had chosen Venera, but he has a clue on why she was a choice in general. He had snuck profiles of all of our girls into the palace months previously when he first heard the prince was thinking about getting married." Luca explained.
Venera started going through the box Luca had sprinted back with and moved to her backpack one of every type of box. She then went into her bedroom and took a wooden box from the bookshelf wall.
When she got out of the bedroom, she saw two guards at the door the boys had opened.
"We are here to take Venera Vorobyova to the palace. You have been summoned to fulfill your duty as a daughter of Anglonia and answer the invitation of the prince."
Venera stared at them blankly for what felt like hours to her. It finally hit her that this wasn't a cruel joke and begged them for some more time to pack her bags.
The guards gave her 10 more minutes and she slammed the door in their faces.
Luca had fallen into panic, as his old chip was downstairs and he was scared of getting caught with the fake. Dan was on the sofa, head in his hands, trying to make sense of everything.
“Snap out of it boys, I need to borrow your heads for processing power,” she ordered and motioned Luca to the sofa as well. “Tell me everything I should know before going to the palace. I have 0 experience in the field,” she said sitting on the glass coffee table facing the boys.
They started shooting at her tips about whatever scenarios came to mind to both of them.
Then the guards knocked on the door and shouted for Venera to get going.
She instructed Dan to take care of Luca, while she was gone and for the 10 to be careful with fieldwork while she was gone, as she wouldn’t be there to patch them up. She left her scientific journal to her brother and told him to use it to treat the 10 while she was gone by following the instructions in the journal.
She finally opened the door and was met by the guards.
Venera felt even smaller than usual, standing between the two castle guards, both towering 3 heads above her. They got her outside and into the back seat of a black jeep, placing Venera in the middle seat and both of them guarding each of the doors.
"You can do whatever," the tall black-haired guard said, "We have around 40 minutes until we approach the palace. Don't mind us, you might want to change or do whatever. The prince will meet you on arrival," he informed Venera, who hadn’t even gotten to thinking about her appearance. She was wearing dark blue jeans and a checkered mustard-and-black flannel shirt. Good enough, she thought.
"Can I listen to music on my headphones?" Venera asked innocently.
The guard just nodded.
Venera took out her phone and headphones at once from her backpack. The music helped calm down her thoughts and build a plan of action.
After a while, she took them off and asked the guards if they had any idea why the prince chose her.
"It's probably the hair." they laughed and Venera's ears burned with embarrassment.