“Sorry, I gotta go, Atty. Water and cereal.” The call was cut off.

Atticus huffed before he scooped another spoonful of dry cereal into his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he was genuinely hungry or just bored to death. Dion had been going out on his own more frequently since they moved in a few months ago. It made sense, given that they only had one barely functioning vehicle, but it meant that Atticus was left alone in the apartment with nothing to do almost every day. 

“Old Fart, play video.” Atty’s DataCuff came with the option to give it a custom name for voice commands. It was a newer model than Dion’s, but still outdated by nearly 20 years. Atticus had decided to ‘appropriately’ name it Old Fart.

‘Female penguins will choose their mate by flying over the nesting site while the males build their homes. Like a beacon, these brilliant nests of crystal glint in the afternoon sun, causing a kaleidoscope of colour designed for the specific purpose of attracting as many females as possible.’

The documentary wasn’t that interesting, but mindless garbage seemed to be the only thing he could find to entertain himself. The only chair they had undoubtedly had a particularly Atticus-shaped dent by this point. It had been worn out before they owned it and smelled like animal pee, but it was free with the apartment. The options were the pee-chair or the floor… which also smelled like pee. There was a reason the landlord was willing to rent the apartment out at such a low cost. Dion kept promising to fix it, but Atty knew better. They would move again before that ever happened.

Dion was the one driving without a licence, but Atticus was the one who had to stay home in the putrid apartment all day as punishment. It was like being imprisoned in a sauna after an old man farted in it. He glared spitefully at his DataCuff.

‘Their rich black and purple feathers give them the perfect cover as the sun sets–’

With an irritated grunt, Atticus slapped his hand down on it to turn off the display. The apartment sounds seemed louder and more irritating than usual; the loud humming of the refrigerator, the light bulb buzzing in the ceiling, and even the muffled sound of the couple next door doing… interesting things. Apparently, Pippa was working from home today. The stagnant mana in the air around him prickled his skin like millions of tiny insects trying to get a taste. 

Atticus scratched furiously at his neck and chest. He was sick of this place. He was sick of the heat, the smell, and the complete and utter boredom. He felt like a trapped animal. 

He stalked over to the window and shoved it open much harder than he needed to. He panicked for a second when the whole thing nearly dislodged from the frame. Far below him, the city noises sounded like static. Each attempt at a lung full of air was instead filled with human pollution. This was so much worse than the border worlds. He missed the sky. He missed the sun. He missed being able to leave home without getting stabbed in a dark alley.

Morrian was the most expensive city they had ever lived in, and yet, it was somehow the most dangerous. Dion made him promise not to leave the apartment without him, but that wasn’t new. Even on the border worlds, Atty was confined to their home most of the time, but at least the old place didn’t smell like a toilet.

Old Fart chimed with an incoming call. It was an unknown number. Atticus hesitated, watching the display pulse for a moment. Only two or three people had his direct line and they were saved to his contacts. Was it a wrong number? Telemarketing? 

“Hello?” Atticus asked tentatively.

“Do you have time?” The mystery voice had the crackling effect of a voice changer stamped on it. His mood instantly brightened.

Atticus only knew one person who made calls with a changer. They went by the name ‘E.Mortal’ online and acted as a contract broker for the criminal underworld. Shrouded in mystery, no one knew anything about the real person behind the moniker. Even NexTech was left in the dark. It had been used for over six years. No one knew who, how or when it got passed along.

Atticus immediately stood to attention, combing back his dark blue hair with his fingers. It was only an audio call, but somehow he still felt exposed standing there in nothing but boxer shorts. He’d always admired E.Mortal. He was like a legend in the underworld. Assuming they were even a ‘he’. 

“Always! Yes, please, for the love of Earth, give me something to do!” He was practically bouncing up and down on the spot. It was rare for E.Mortal to reach out to someone first, but when they did, it was always to the person they were confident could do the job.

“Great! It’s an easy one. Angry woman wants to expose her cheating husband’s secrets publicly,” E.Mortal explained as Atty’s holodisplay lit up with a message containing the target’s personal information.

“If it’s easy, why me? You could do this with your eyes closed,” Atticus wondered aloud, scrolling through the data. 

“He’s a NexTech employee.”

Atticus stopped scrolling, his finger hovering mid-stroke.

“Is that a problem?” E.Mortal queried after a moment of stunned silence.

Atticus shook his head, even though he couldn’t be seen. “No, it’s fine. I can do this. Easy.”

“Perfect, I’ll wire you half the money now, the other half when it’s done.”

The call ended just as abruptly as it had with Dion, but didn’t leave the same bitter aftertaste. After all, E.Mortal had contacted him. Butterflies fluttered in Atticus’s chest as he stared at the holodisplay, tapping his finger on the windowsill. Despite what he had told his contractor, NexTech was anything but easy to hack into. The biggest security tech and research company in the galaxy didn’t leave backdoors open. Their network was air-tight. 

A chill ran over his body. Last time he got into their systems, he nearly got himself trapped. One mistake was enough to jeopardise everything, and the NexTech nexus was uncharted water. As far as Atticus knew, he was the only one who had ever gotten in and out again. Dion made him promise never to do it again… but Dion didn’t need to know. He wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, unless he stopped for another ‘quick drink’.

Atticus hopped over to an access panel in the living room wall used by maintenance staff. It was supposed to be screwed down for safety reasons, but not long after they moved in, Atticus discovered that the ‘screws’ were drawn on with a pen. Behind it was a series of wires, circuit boards and clear tubes of blue, glowing liquid. Mana-infused powder circulated the liquid at high speed, creating endless kinetic energy that powered most of the infrastructure on the planets, space stations and even some large spacecraft; a NexTech invention, of course.

The speed of the moving powder caused extreme temperatures in the lines, not to mention he was already sweating buckets, which made it harder to grip anything. It took a lot of manoeuvring to reach in and wiggle the cable Atticus needed out from behind the pipes without searing the skin of his hand. 

He held the connection between his fingers and took a deep breath. Focusing on the energy around him, he gathered the sensation inside himself like a small hurricane. The more turbulent the energy inside him felt, the faster he could move through the network. No one ever seemed to know what he was talking about. Most people suggested he was imagining it. As long as it worked, it didn’t matter. 

“I can do this,” Atty told himself, removing Old Fart. NexTech could track him if he used any of their devices, including the ID chip in his wrist. Instead of the Cuff, he put on a sweatband with a strong magnet sewn into it. This disrupted the ID signal without damaging the hardware. Atticus effectively became a ghost, an apparition the security network couldn’t make heads or tails of. That was the easy bit. He filled his lungs with as much air as possible, trying to ignore the urine smell that came with it. 

Atticus connected the end of the cable to the input behind his ear.

The sudden sensation of his consciousness being pulled from his body felt like the frozen sting of an ice bath. It bit at his flesh and sucked every bit of the air out of his body. Atticus wanted to scream, but his lungs were too empty to make a sound. It was both terrifying and thrilling. He loved the rush he got every time he directly jacked in.

A brilliant blue light filled his mind and was gone again in an instant. Before he could think, he was already in front of a semi-transparent wall with nothing on the other side. It felt as tangible as brick and mortar, but left a tingling static sensation in his core. Atticus focused the internal energy into his hand and pressed his palm flat against the wall. Now the hard part.

Red web-like patterns slowly crept out of his palm, weaving themselves into the wall and growing larger and more aggravated the longer Atticus made contact. Around the edges of the wall, black pixelated darkness started to spread, converging fast toward the centre of corruption. The ‘ground’ beneath him shook violently enough that Atticus nearly let go. He used his free hand to grip his wrist, throwing all his weight into steadying himself against the force of the firewall fighting against him. There was a sharp twang in his mind, for lack of a better term. It felt like an impossible cold stabbed through his heart.

Something had heard him ‘knocking’. 

He maintained his focused energy on the palm of his hand, watching the creeping darkness gather toward it, intertwining with the red webbing. There was a strange ping sensation when it touched his hand. His mind went blank.

He was everywhere.

He was nowhere.

He was something.

He was nothing.

He was… 

Atticus was in an enormous white room with a large, red orb floating in the middle. It crackled and pulsed like the energy he’d poured into the barrier. It was contained in some kind of blue, transparent energy shield; the system’s security software was repairing the corruption. It allowed him to slip past while it was occupied.

On the other side of the room was an open doorway that led out into a large, white hall that seemed to go on forever. Everything looked so sterile and pristine that Atticus could hardly make out the doors that lined each wall. The NexTech nexus looked exactly as perfect and spotless as the company tried desperately to make people believe. If only they knew it wasn’t as impenetrable as they thought. 

Now, he just needed to find the information and get out again before Dion came home.

“Query,” Atticus stated as he stepped out into the endless hall. While inside the room, it looked like there was only one hall beyond the doorframe. Once he left it, the hall seemed to branch out in every direction to infinity. The nexus didn’t abide by the laws of physics. A small search bar appeared in front of him as he walked.

“Location for records of employee number 2278465208765378408625: Miguel Gomez.” As he spoke, the search bar filled in with his words. Atticus flicked his wrist and the search bar turned into a loading bar instead. Once it reached 100%, a glowing blue light filled a doorway in one of the halls. Atticus smiled to himself. This was too easy. He was worried about nothing.

Once he reached the glowing doorway, he was presented with another wall and a prompt for a password. This room contained all the data and information that Miguel Gomez kept on his personal devices. It was easier to get into these than it was to get into the nexus itself. 

Instead of typing in a password, Atticus pressed the ‘forgot password’ option. The password prompt flashed and emitted a small light that flittered past his face. It didn’t get far before Atticus caught the little light and stretched it open with both hands. There it was: the temporary password link. Miguel would never receive the email prompt to change his password. He’d never even know Atticus was there. No one would. At least, not until he’d finished the job.

Atticus highlighted the generated password and dragged it into the password prompt on the wall. It slid open with no sound. Inside was a circular-shaped room with walls made up of filing drawers. A small spiral staircase wrapped around the wall, ascending so far that Atticus couldn’t see where the top was. He swore in his mind. This man’s digital life was in chaos. For someone who worked in a tech company, his data was horrendously disorganised.

“Query.” The search bar appeared. “Location of encrypted data.”

Several drawers in the wall lit up and a grin spread across his face. Poor Miguel was going to have a hard life after Atticus was done with him. That would teach him for not using proper security. The fool might as well have been handing the information to Atty in person.

After a few more prompts, the information the client requested was neatly arranged and decrypted. There was so much information that it took a long time for Atticus to find everything the man had done to slight his significant other. “Function. Compile data. Function. Send compiled data to all contacts for NexTech employee number 2278465208765378408625: Miguel Gomez.”The little window that opened and disappeared with Atticus’ instructions burst into a cloud of glittering light before it all flew out of the door. 

The job was done. After having broken into their system several times already, he had expected them to improve their network security and analysis. Atticus couldn’t resist the smug grin on his face as he headed back down the hall.

Metallic screeching stopped him in his tracks. His soul went rigid. The high pitch stabbed at his brain, like a wailing animal in distress. Something painful, but wholly inhuman. The pride drained out of him as he turned to face the Sentinel. 

Okay, so maybe they did learn.