There was a break in the rain. Seeing as this might be our only chance to get to HQ without getting soaked, we decided it was time to head out.
"What? You don't like the rain?" Wrench asked nudging me with his arm as we exited the donut shop. I rolled my eyes draining the rest of my coffee and throwing away the cup in a conveniently placed garbage can.
"Is this in reference of my name?" I groaned.
"I don't know, I mean it could be. Or maybe i'm just trying to get to know more about you." he said the emoticons on his goggles flashing to ^_^
"That sound like a lie but...okay." I replied sarcastically.
"Me, lie? Never." Wrench said with a chuckle. "Come on, you gotta at least tell me where it came from."
"What, why?" I asked shooting him a look.
"Because otherwise I'm going to have to assume it was given to you by a hobo midget named Rick who you had a fling with over the Summer of 2012." he replied, his voice sounding dead serious and fake as hell all at once.
"Actually his name was Trevor and it was the summer of 2013 soo..." I said looking at him with a deadpan expression.
"Wait seriously!?" he cried in surprise.
"No!" I laughed.
"You can't joke about these things Kit, I would have went on thinking I was some type of wizard or something."
"Definitely not a wizard, sorry."
"Don't keep me in suspense." he begged, stepping in front of me and walking backwards.
"You are either going to trip and fall on your ass, which I'm so going to laugh if you do. Or your going to run into someone." I said.
"Come on. Please?"
"It's not really a story or anything." I shrugged shoving my hands in the pockets of my jacket. "I didn't have a lot of friends growing up so I usually hung out with my older brother and his friends. They would call me kid, which pissed me off to no end." i said with a small smile. "And one day it just evolved to Kit."
"Damn, here i was hoping for some epic story of how you fought off a hoard of attack kittens." he joked.
I rolled my eyes in response. "Here I am being all serious and then you go on."
"Come on, it would have be a good story if-"
As if on cue, he fell backwards flat on his ass, his heel catching on the uneven sidewalk. The only thing that could have made it better was if he had landed in a puddle.
"Karma doesn't wait around." I laughed. "Maybe, I'm the wizard."
"Your not a wizard because you don't have a beautiful long and flowing beard." he stated.
"I'm working on it." I joked, a smile spreading across my face as I offered him a hand up, which he took standing with a huff. Almost in sync, our phones went off in our pockets. "Sitara needs us back at the Hackerspace." i murmured reading the message.
"Good thing we're on our way then."
....
We walked into Sitara pacing back and forth with a rather ticked off look on her face. Before I could even get a word out she snapped at me to wait. I held my hands up in surrender and pulled up a chair next to Josh who was sitting at the table fiddling with a practice lock. He was holding the tension wrench too tightly, which kept the plug turned to far. The pins would miss the shear line and keep falling back into their original place.
About ten minutes later, Marcus arrived slightly out of breath. He didn't even get a chance to ask before Sitara started to go off.
"New Dawn wants to step in the ring with us. They got our recruitment video killed on all the major social media sites AND threatened to sue and one who hosts it." Sitara hissed. "This going to cost us a lot of followers."
"DMCA takedown. Annoying." Josh muttered staring at the lock. I watched as Wrench attempted to use a four pin rake to open a seven pin lock. I mean it's not impossible, but it's improbable. He quickly gave up slamming his hands down on the table. The emoticons on his goggles flashed to question mark signs and he gestured to the lock before crossing his arms.
"This is worse than annoying. It's a declaration of war." Sitara stated angrily.
"Is this really worth going to war over?" I asked, turning the lock towards me. I picked up the pick and tension wrench and set the pins in before I even finished speaking. The lock opened with a click.
"I will NOT be censored." she stated walking over to me and pointedly hitting the table.
"Okay, okay. I was just asking." I replied defensively. "But think about this rationally, we can't go after them directly. They have too much leverage there. But what if we went after someone close to them. Someone who had shit on them."
"Someone who could tear them down. They don't like us using footage of their celebrity whore, Jimmy Siska, so what if..." She grinned looking down at me and i raised my eyebrows leaning back in my chair.
"He is their highest profile spokesperson." I agreed shooting a smile back at her, arms crossed against my chest.
"No, no, wait. Come on, Sis, anyone but him." Marcus pleaded with her. "When i was a kid I had the Siska glasses and the popped collar. I mean, come on, I even knew every line to Open Wounds."
"Dude, me too!" Wrench added. "I even have the lunch box, mint condition."
"Nice." Marcus said fist bumping him. "Nice."
"Just anyone, but him, please." Wrench begged.
"Yeah. There's got to be another way." Marcus said.
"I don't...he's in town shooting Cyber Driver." Sitara sighed. "I was just thinking maybe we could talk to him, fuck up his relationship with New Dawn. Then he can get back to being less of a douche bag."
"Plus you'd get to meet your childhood idol." I added.
"Okay?" Sitara asked hopefully.
"Yeah, okay." Marcus agreed.
"In." Wrench declared.
"New Dawn keeps records on their members right? I'll break into the local center and dig up their file on him." Marcus said. "I'm going to need a distraction though."
"I'll round up the locals and meet you there." Sitara said with a clap of her hands. "Wrench can you, Josh and Kit-"
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Fence: Berkeley Pier. Now.
"Kit, you cool?" Sitara asked shooting me a look.
"Um...yeah." I said but it sound unconvincing to even me. "I..I just forgot, i have an errand to run. So I'll be back in like an hour, at the most."
"Are you sure, we can wait-"
"No, no, no. This won't take long. I swear." I said nonchalantly but inside my heart was pounding against my rib cage.
....
"What is it?" I asked half out of breath. I just broke three traffic laws and nearly died in the process. Weaving between cars going 90 miles per hour when the roads are still slippery from rain is not the best idea.
"Why don't you sit down for a minute, catch your breath." Fence offered waving his hand at the empty booth across from him. "Want something to eat? Or drink? The fish fry is to die for."
"I really don't have time right now, Uncle Nelson." I huffed sliding into the booth.
"You better make time, cause what I got to say involves you." he said wiping his face with a napkin. "Your little friends over at DedSec, they don't know who you are right? The real you, I mean."
"Well, yeah. They only know me as Kit, so what?"
"And I'm guessing you want it to stay that way?"
"What?" I demanded loosing my patience.
"ctOS flagged you." he stated.
"That's impossible." I said shaking my head. "I wiped myself from the system."
"You wiped Kalla Darling from the system. But that hasn't always been your name now has it?" he replied.
"Shit." i hissed. "How...how did you even find out about this?" I asked still partially annoyed that I had been stupid enough to miss something so simple.
"I've got connections okay, and I told you I'd look out for you remember?" he answered vaguely.
"What am I going to do?" I moaned resting my head on the table. This isn't what I need right now.
"That I can help with. I got a plan and a Trojan horse, all you gotta do is install it." he promised.
"What do you get out of this?" i asked, my eyes narrowing.
"Well, that Trojan horse won't just delete you from the system." he admitted. "What? It's the price of business Kal, it's just a few other friends and associates. Besides with this you don't even need to get into one of the main buildings. And you know I would never make you do something your not okay with, I really am trying to help." he said holding up a memory stick.
"Thanks for the tip." I sighed.
"So you'll do it?" he asked raising an eyebrow, a smug look spreading across his face.
"Kind of have too, don't I?" I grumbled unhappily. "Plus I owe you."
"You don't owe me anything Kalla, we are practically family. And family helps family."
"Yeah, well things get hazy when my Uncle is a high ranking member in a Russian gang." I said blatantly.
"Don't worry, we won't come in conflict with you and your little hacker group." Fence promised. "In fact, the Boss is a fan." I took the memory stick from him. "Just get it over with, then you can go back and play with your friends."