[𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗱] - 𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜 & 𝚘𝚌

0.2 - [The story begins.]

[2000, New York City]

If you asked Eliza and Roger Spears whether or not it was a mistake to gift their young daughter a computer back in the early 90's, they would not know what to answer. They were, and still are very convinced that technology is the future, but well, let's just say they would rather like to have a daughter that doesn't spend the whole day in her room in front of said computer, but over time, they got accustomed.

Because deep in their hearts they always knew, Mallory is different.

Mallory is sixteen, but doesn't go to parties.
Mallory skips school more than actually attending, but gets good grades anyways.
Mallory is a realist, but still reaches for the stars.

Because deep in her heart she knows, she can make a difference.

From an early age on, Mallory was ahead of her peers. She started to read at barely three years old, when she was seven, she helped her babysitter Claire, who was a freshman at high school at the time, doing math homework.
People noticed Mallory's intelligence - how couldn't they - but honestly, nobody exactly knew how to deal with a child so smart, yet so stubborn.

Mallory hates being told what to do, being controlled.

When Mallory got introduced to the world of technology at her eighth birthday,
laid her small hands on the keyboard, watched the screen flicker as it turned on,
heard the consistent humming of the device's cooling system,
Mallory felt like she found her place in the world.

Because over the numbers, the ones and zeros building a virtual world, she had the control.

---

"Hey, Mal!" The voice of Claire, the only person she would call somewhat of a friend, despite the eight-year age difference, made her barely looking up from the computer screen. The maid, who takes care of the Spears' household twice a week must've opened the door for her, already familiar with the 24-year-old's face.

"Claire, shouldn't you be at college or something?"

"Well, darling, you should be at school. And my class got cancelled" Claire replied in the same dry, uninterested tone Mallory used, almost mocking her.

Rolling her eyes, Mallory drew her attention fully back to the lenghts of code building up on the black screen of her monitor.

"If you have to be here, can you at least be useful and tell me all the information you know about secret government organizations?"

"Secret what?! Mal, first of all, why do you expect me to know something about something secret, second of all, why the... fudge do you need to?!"

Knowing Mallory since her birth, holding her as a baby, taking care of her as a child whenever her parents did not have the time to, Claire thought nothing about the now sixteen year old could shock her anymore.

But Mallory loves to prove her wrong.

"Well, I might have, you know, accidently stumbled upon something-"

Mallory hesitated, unsure what to say. Her left foot began tapping a slow rhythm on the wooden floor.

"Accidently? Like you were playing...
I don't know what and suddenly the site of some secret agency appears? Sounds very likely."

And another time Claire recieved an eye-roll from the brown-haired girl, who now reached out to press a few buttons on the control tower, which made the seemingly neverending stream of numbers appearing on the screen come to a sudden halt. Turning her office chair away from the technical equipment, she now focused fully on her life-long friend.