Alpha Ryland

Chapter 5

When I am full, I happily walk with him with no complaints. Him, on the other hand, is full of them. "I can't believe I let you use your card. It can be traced when your parents try to find you and we'll get caught!" I ignore him and let him deal with his emotions his own way. I'm not worried about being found, so it's not my problem. "You aren't to use your card anymore. Give it to me."

I stare at him, "Uh. No thanks." I tell him, "I won't use it if you say not to, but I'm not giving it to you." He glares at me and I try to think of a way to stop our argument, "It has a built-in chip that records fingerprints. If you take it, you're going to be logged in our system." Of course, if he was smart enough to take it without skin contact by using his shirt, he could have taken it from me. He instead nodded and let me keep it. I had to try my hardest to not smirk.

The unnamed man continues to walk with me for a while before coming up with another idea to subdue me and my card. "You're going to take out cash from your card so you don't have to use it. The card will trace us, but it can't trace cash. Where do you go to get out cash here?"

Assuming that he wants to take out a large sum of money and suck me bone dry, I mention the obvious, "The bank?" He shakes his head and says that it's too guarded and busy, "How about an ATM?"

"Where's the next ATM?" He asks me. I try to remember the layout of this part of town. I've been here plenty of times when I was little since we are still not far from my side of town.

"A few blocks or so. Just keep going straight for now." There are a few turns we have to go through, but it come a little farther. He simply nods and keep ahead of me. Does he feel weird walking next to me or does he prefer to take lead? Nonetheless we continue forward until it comes time to take a left. I take lead on the turns and we reach the small ATM in the middle of the street. It's nestled in a small building to where we are standing at the side of the sidewalk to get to it. It lights up when I stand in front of it and a hologram square pops up.

Taking out my card, I scan it with the square and wait for it to analyze. After a second, the square turns green and I put my card back into my pocket. An electronic voice speaks to me, "Welcome Miss Delreal. How much will you take out this session?" A few numbers pop up for me to select and I turn to look at the guy next to me. He is distracted for some reason and just stares at my name on the screen. I wave a hand by his face and he looks up at the numbers. "You can't take out more?"

I roll my eyes, "This is an atm. If I went to my bank, I could take out a lot more." Does he think he can just get all of my money at once? Idiot.

The machine beeps to remind me to take out money soon before it auto shuts off and I'd have to redo all of my progress. I click $500 and it confirms, spewing out five hundred dollar bills. I collect in and make sure it logs off. The man next to me tells me to take out more and I turn back to the machine. Redoing my steps, I take out another $500 two more times before it declines my card and won't log me in. He stares at me like I'm broke and overdrew money. I roll my eyes, "These ATMs don't let people withdraw this much money. I have to go to a bank to get more." He shakes his head and I scoff at him, clicking the call button on the machine.

It lights up red and starts to blink. After a few seconds, someone appears on the screen and smiles at me. "Hello. May I ask who is calling?"

I smile back at the woman while the guy next to me moves out of sight. "Maura O. Delreal." Her eyes widen and then types something on the computer. A square scanner appears again and I scan my card. It turns green and she views my transaction history. "It seems that a transaction was disabled because of detected fraud. Did you take out $1500 recently?" I shake my head, "May I ask why you need more cash?"

I know this is all protocol but is there no such thing as privacy? "I am going on a mini trip to find myself and would rather have cash on me. Too easy to lose a card than it is with paper, you know?" I tell her with a fake smile. She nods her head and types something in.