Thief who didn't realise you came with the vault

Scarlet paused her pacing to check her watch for the third time in what was apparently the same minute. She gave another glance down the corridor before turning to the person crouched in front of the large steel door.

"How long's this gonna take?"

"Another moment longer every time you ask, darling."

Thirteen had the calm of someone who'd been doing these kinds of jobs for a long time. Scarlet had expected that to help her, but somehow it just set her even more on edge.

"The pacing isn't exactly a huge help either," they said, not bothering to look at her. They were very intently feeding a cable into a small hole drilled in the door.

"Sorry."

Scarlet turned back to watch down the corridor. The ship only had a skeleton crew; no reason anyone should come down here. And yet...

"How long though?"

Thirteen let out an exasperated sigh.

"This thing is high-end," they said, voice flat with concentration. "It's not got an integral mind like the proper high end ones, thank fuck, but it is equipped with— Got you!"

Scarlet looked over her shoulder to see Thirteen plugging the other end of the cable into an open port in their hip. They were the real deal then; full neuro hookup.

"Equipped with?" she asked, staring at the interface.

"With an organic security layer," they said, carefully moving across to the access panel. "Can't just go busting through it, and no way to simply slip past."

"Isn't that, like, a really awkward place?" asked Scarlet, still staring. "Like, surely your arm or something would be better."

"An arm," they grunted, ripping the keypad out, "is too far from the spinal cord. You need — ow, you fucker! — need to hook into that, but you want it as far from your brain as you can get. Hey, watch the fucking door!"

"Sorry!" said Scarlet, snapping back to position. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to keep the nerves down.

Thirteen let out a groan. "So yeah, the organic security layer. It's, well, it's just a slime mould. They hook it up, feed various sensors into it, and trigger lockdown if it gets too distressed." They let out another moan.

"So it's just constantly in pain? Sounds kinda cruel..."

"A bit, but nah, it's only in pain when someone's... when someone's breaking... in..."

Thirteen was breathing heavily, focus wavering between explaining and whatever poking about they were doing in the access panel.

"Still..." said Scarlet, resisting temptation to turn around, "if your life's only pain or not-pain, that kinda sucks. And surely there's a better way to measure than subjecting yourself to it."

"It's not just to measure," they groaned. "it's... it's a feedback loop. You gotta overload the sensors. And they don't just... don't just experience pain."

"What? I thought you said that triggers lockdown."

"For pain, sure. Normal operation... to unlock, it... it sends... quite the opposifffffuuuuck..."

Scarlet scowled for a moment, trying to put the pieces together, before the horrifying realisation struck them.

"Did you just—!?"

She spun around to see the vault door being swung open by a gratified and blushing Thirteen, who gave her a wink before disappearing into the vault.

"Well," they called back, "are you coming?"