"You know if you reroute most of the-" Wrench said breaking me from the blank stare I was giving my laptop screen. I was working on a side project for Dedsec, decoding some hardware we stole on a digital raid. I won't lie, it was some pretty intense stuff. Wrench reached around me, fingers gliding across the keyboard. "It doesn't do much but it's a little work around." He hummed close to my ear.
"Thanks." I sighed leaning back in my chair, and coincidentally against him. He didn't move pretending to still be interested in what was on my screen. It was just an excuse for him to have his arms wrapped around me. Not that I minded.
"You haven't been sleeping again." He stated concern echoing in his voice. It's been over a two week since I fell asleep over at his place. Waking up hadn't been as awkward as I thought it would be. We ended up going to some family diner for breakfast afterwards. And things between us have been....different. And I'm not sure if in a good way.
"I..." I huffed tilting my head back to look up at him. "You have no room to judge, mister five hour energy."
"I'm not judging." He laughed, arrows flashing across his mask, ^ ^
"Hey Wrench, I need your help with some hardware." And just like that, he jumped away from acting like nothing was happening. And I'm not saying anything was.
I guess we weren't in a declared relationship. But we've spent the last two weeks with each other about every other minutes of the day. Sometimes at the Hackerspace or his garage. I liked to sit at his desktop eating popcorn and watch him work on all of his techy stuff that I could never understand. His current favorite project was named Wrench Jr., a robot he stole from Haum. Sometimes we'd just chill at my place and watch a terrible movie just to laugh at it. It really depended on the day.
"Sure, what can I do you for Marcus?" He asked, walking away. I slumped forward scrolling through what he had done, trying to make sense of it. In the background, I could hear the two of them joking but I eventually drowned it out focusing on the task at hand. A half hour passed with out me noticing until Josh broke me from my concentration swearing loudly.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." I looked up from my work as he paced back and forth, hands on his head.
"Hey man, chill down." Marcus said. "What's up?"
"I was looking at our numbers, how many people downloaded our app, how much processing power we had available and that's when I saw it." Josh said clearly agitated.
"Saw 'it' what?" Wrench asked.
"A chunk of our followers came from dead or inactive !Nvite accounts."
"Wait, some one used fake accounts to boost our follower accounts?" Marcus asked. "Who?"
"And how many fucking accounts man?" Wrench asked, I shot him a glare. There's no point in yelling at Josh, it wasn't his fault and it only scared him.
"I-I don't know who but someone with admin access, I'm sure if that. Ad for how many..." he looked at me and motioned to my computer. I nodded and he minimized what I was working on pulling up the Dedsec Page. A pie chart with almost 1/4 of it colored red popped up.
"Fuck me!" Wrench yelled.
"I'm sorry, I didn't check, I know it's all my fault, I didn't check." Josh said sounding very distressed.
"It's not your fault." I told him trying to keep my voice low and soothing.
"I should have checked, it's all my fault. I should have checked." He continued to muttered under his breath looking down at the ground, visibly shaking.
"Josh, hun, it's not." Sitara agreed with me rubbing his shoulder.
"Maybe someone at !Nvite is a fan?" Horatio said and I snorted.
"Yeah or someone is trying to set us up for a kill blow." I replied. "When have things ever worked out so good for us?"
"Well we need to find out for sure." Marcus said.
"Marcus, I'll find you a way in." Wrench said rushing off with a pissed off sounding tone.
"Hey, Josh. It's not your fault." Marcus said, resting a hand on his shoulder. Josh continued to look down avoiding eye contact. "You were the only one who thought to check. You did good. Okay?" He held up a fist and Josh weakly fist bumped him. Marcus took off heading for the door.
"Wait up." I called after him.
"What is it Kit?" He asked sighing heavily as I ran to catch up with him.
"If things don't go right, we got your back okay?" I told him, walking outside with him. The weather was nice, a little chilly but as expected for this time of night.
"You think I'm walking into a setup?" He asked.
"I don't think, Marcus, I know you are." I answered. "Why else would Wrench have found an in so easy and quick? You are, we are being baited."
"Are you telling me I shouldn't go?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Couldn't stop you if I tried." I grinned back at him lightly punching him in the shoulder. "Be careful!" I yelled to him over my shoulder as we went our separate ways. I let out a huff of air, hoping this wouldn't be the last time i saw him. I've had very few good friends. And I didn't want to lose another.
It would take him at least a half hour to get to !Nvite headquarters. That was enough time for me to get to my apartment and back before anything went down. Better start working on Plan B.
.....
We sat around listening to the comm channel. Dusan fucked us over. Big time.
"Marcus get out of there!" Sitara yelled.
"I'm trying." He snapped. In the background we could hear gun shots.
"Jesus." She hissed jumping up and pacing, one hand over her eyes as if to shield them from what was happening.
"I think I lost them. I'm on my way." Marcus said before his signal cut out. Twenty or so minutes later, we were sitting around a table.
"Fuck!" Wrench yelled hitting the table and went off shouting obscenities. He picked up the metal table chair he'd been sitting in throwing it.
"Wrench will you calm the fuck down!" I hissed. "It's not helping."
"Yeah, you're right. Not helping." He breathed out, picking up the chair and slamming it back down before straddling it and sitting backwards.
"It's not that bad." Josh said trying to be helpful.
"Not that bad? We look like chumps!" Sitara said sounding more hurt then angry. We all sat in silence for a minute. Josh fidgeting with the key around his neck. Wrench glaring down at the table trying to burn it with laser vision or something. Even I was avoiding eye contact shifting back in my seat. "Marcus, you got anything to say."
"Guys, I got to be honest with you on this one. I genuinely don't have a plan. But I got an idea." He said making eye contact with me, I quickly looked away. "Just trust me on this one, okay?"
.....
"Thanks for this Kit." Marcus said on the side to me after we got out of the cars. I raised an eyebrow at him throwing my braided hair over my shoulder. Everyone was dressed up except for me, I couldn't find it in me to do anything more special than loosely French braiding my hair.
"I mean, I've heard of this place before but I never thought...."
"It's a bit much but I know a guy that helps run it." I hummed. "Trust me, it's just what the team needs."
"Yeah, you're still in right?" He asked hopefully with a grin.
"I'm probably the only one you don't have to convince." I replied smiling back.
"You're the man, Kit." He said with mock seriousness.
"Damn straight." I laughed. He shot me finger guns before heading after the rest of the group.
"Kit are you coming?!" Wrench yelled.
"I'll catch up with you in a bit, I'm gonna go find a the bathroom." I called back.
"God, women have the bladder of fish-" he was cut off my Sitara smacking him in the back of the head.
"I'm sorry I couldn't hold it for a five hours drive in the middle of nowhere!" She snapped. I chuckled to myself watching them disappear off between the arches. Opening up my phone, I dialed up the number under T-bone in my contacts list.
"I made it." I said after he picked up. "Where are you?"
"A tent by the Jabberwocky statue." He said. "I sent my location to your phone." He replied shortly before the call disconnected. I rolled my eyes opening up the tracker app on my phone and began the trek through the crowds. As I walked by I saw Marcus heading off towards the battling cages. I ducked through the opening flap of the tent and instantly was assaulted with the cool air of the room.
T-bone was sitting in a metal folding chair staring at six monitors that showed different cameras set up through the area. A small air cooling system was hooked up to keep all the technical equipment nice and cool compared to the warm desert air outside. He looked over to me as I entered holding up one finger.
"Competitors this is the last call for the hacking challenge." He said into a mike, before switching it off and turning towards me. "You really think these kids can handle it?"
"I have full faith that they'll beat your little challenge." I said crossing my arms over my chest. "Enough so that I'm going to stay out of it."
"Risky move." He chuckled hitting a key on his keyboard. The camera angle changed to show them all gathered by the Jabberwocky looking around into the crowd. My phone buzzed, then ringed. I muted it declining the call. I knew they were looking for me, but there was no way for me to explain why I couldn't help. So for the moment it was best if I just stayed completely out of it.
"Come on guys, you got this." I sighed walking up to get a better look at the screen. They all fist bumped before taking off as the challenge begun. Marcus mumbled something scanning the crowd one last time.
"They look pretty shaken without you." Ray commented.
"I've only been with them for a few weeks. They'll survive with out me." I stated confidently.
"So, you go by Kit now?" He hummed stretching his arms out behind his back. On one of the screens the code he set up for the challenge was running. Different alert boxes warned for different attacks. But he didn't seem to care. After all there had to be a winner at some point.
"Yeah."
"I like the blue hair." I raised an eyebrow at him and he shook his head. "I'm just trying to catch up alright, not hit on you. You are young enough to be my daughter." I laughed. "We all kind of took off after Chicago. I was surprised when you even reached out to me. Did he ever-"
"Nope. And I didn't go looking for him either. What happened in Chicago stays in Chicago." I replied. "And I want to keep it that way."
"Okay, alright." He said holding his hand up in surrender. "These friends of yours have skill." He said looking at the code. "You coming out with me to give them their prize?"
"No, I'll hang back for a bit." I hummed. "Bathroom?"
"Three tents down on your left." He said standing and grabbing a baggie of what I can only assumed to be drugs off his desk. "What? Just a little prize for a job well done."
"Yeah okay, please don't kill any of my friends." I sighed rolling my eyes.