Graham

“There is no way somebody isn’t going to see me do that, much less fucking hear it.”

“Then how would you propose we go about this? What’s your master plan?”

“Coming up with the master plans isn’t my job. You’re like the director of a shitty movie telling someone complaining about it to make a better movie than them. That isn’t how that works.”

“For fuck’s sake. Well… what if you burnt it?”

“Burnt it? With fire? In the wind?”

“Yes, with fire. If you bring some super flammable liquid, the wind won’t put it out.”

“Dude, you’re going to have to bring fucking napalm to get that to work.”

“Then we make fucking napalm! It shouldn’t be hard to get ahold of the ingredients, plus we still have the chemistry lab in the attic that we never use.”

“Jesus Christ, Graham, the point of this is to be covert. You can’t just go around setting 2000-degree fires and expect nobody to noti—”

Our productive argument on committing arson on a street pole was suddenly interrupted by the front door opening.

“We’re back, bitches!” yelled Percy as she stepped through the door. Adrian stood inches behind her, almost serial killer-like, with the haircut to match.

“Welcome home, Adrian,” Skyler said, attempting her best to sound enthusiastic.

“Yeah. What she said,” I added, even more enthusiastically.

I barely recognized Adrian when I got a good look at him. I didn't see him all that much when he was around, so his face never lingered in my mind after he left. He was a pretty forgettable person in general, to be fair. Percy was the only one who was close to him. The rest of us were just neutral, though Finn probably hated him. Rightfully, maybe so.

Adrian suddenly coming back home after four years was something that made the rest of us a bit skeptical, but we didn’t show it. We weren’t going to disregard Percy and make him stay in the military or mail him to Indiana just because we didn’t like the idea. Still, we’ve had a delicate order here over the years between the four of us and adding him back to the mixture after all this time threatened to destabilize the whole thing. But hey, who can say how it’ll turn out? Maybe he’s a lovely human being now, full of honor and grace and a newfound passion for fighting for the common good, kind of like a discount Captain America.

“Whoa there, don’t everyone shower him with love and excitement all at once.” Percy walked in and dropped her backpack on her seat at the Roundtable.

Adrian looked like he had to force himself inside. He stood in place at the doorway, quietly admiring what was probably the first real house he’s seen in years. “Nice place you got here.”

He’s definitely not Captain America. He’s not even a dollar store Captain America. He looks like an alien from seven galaxies away who’s attempting to experience what being a human is like. I’m beginning to think Percy is the only one here who’s capable of showing any emotion.

“You look like shit,” said Finn, who had ceased to exist for the past 10 minutes at the table while Skyler and I argued.

“Oh. Hello, Finn. I forgot you existed,” Adrian said passive-aggressively.

“So have these two chucklefucks,” Finn said while looking directly at me.

“He fell asleep in the car,” Percy added.

“On a 10-minute drive?”

“On a 10-minute drive. Can’t blame him, though. The bus ride must’ve been miserable.”

Adrian walked over and tossed his backpack on the couch. “So, what exactly are you all doing awake at this hour?”

“Has Percy already told you what we’re working on right now?” I asked.

“She summarized it. Something about a pseudo-charity preying on small businesses and taking their money, and you’re trying to take a bunch of their money using some computer glitch to shut them down.”

“That’s… a rather patchy way of putting it. But yeah, pretty much. We’re getting approved for the money sometime in the next 16 hours, which means Skyler is gonna be breaking into the CEO’s house tonight to erase our deal with them from existence. We were just arguing about how to go along with it.”

“You still haven’t figured that out yet?”

“We did until we saw that the entire street plus the house is under camera surveillance. At first, that didn’t seem like too much of a problem. If we know where all the cameras are, then we can find blind spots and have Skyler move through those. But as it turns out, there aren’t any. There are zero blind spots anywhere large enough for a human being to hide in. So, we decided on the next best thing: simply turning the cameras off. They aren’t easily hackable, but they are connected to the power lines, so we just had to find a way to cause a blackout. No biggie. Only it is a fucking biggie because we can’t figure out how to do it. So that’s where we’re at right now.”

“He suggested setting a telephone pole on fire and knocking it out that way,” Skyler said.

“Well, couldn’t you just knock a tree onto the pole so it looks more natural?” Adrian suggested, in one sentence demolishing all the effort and brainpower I invested into fleshing out my previous idea.

“Wow,” Skyler predictably reacted, “The guy who’s been here for two minutes just solved the problem that’s been keeping you up for two days.”

“Kiss my ass, Skyler,” I snapped, “Adrian has been in the military for the last four years. What have you been doing since then?”

“Dealing with your ass, obviously. Which of those two things is more grueling and difficult, nobody can really say.”

“Get a room already,” Finn said while standing up. “I’m going upstairs. I don’t even know why I was woken up for this.” He walked around the table, intentionally hitting into my chair, and trudged up the stairs to his room.

Skyler stood up as well. “I’m going back to sleep too. You all can work out how to knock the tree down. I don’t have the brain capacity to continue this.”

“So what, is that what we’re doing now? The tree thing?” I said to Skyler as she walked upstairs. No response.

There was an awkward silence between the rest of us once she disappeared. “It’s almost five o’clock, they won’t even get much sleep,” I mumbled to myself. “Still dysfunctional as ever, as you can see. But anyway! I guess I’ll show Adrian his room, catch him up on everything and whatnot.” I looked over at Percy. “And you can take a 45-minute nap with the others. You definitely look like you need it.”

I didn’t want to be the one to have to talk to Adrian, but I knew nobody else was going to do it, so what other option did I have?

“I definitely do. Thanks. See you tomorrow, folks. Or this morning, I guess.” And she dragged herself upstairs with everyone else.

After a brief five seconds of silence, Adrian was the one that broke the ice. “So where will I be staying?” His voice sounded lifeless. It was almost creepy.

“You’re gonna be getting my old room down here. It’s right by the backyard, nice view and everything. I’ll show you where to find it.” Adrian grabbed his backpack off the couch and followed me to it.

The house is in a bit of a unique location. It’s at the corner of an intersection by two mostly busy streets and half the windows are covered by trees, plus it’s not discernable on Google Maps, making it a perfect strategic spot so people can’t peep in or eavesdrop on what we’re doing. It was bought in full for over $450,000 last year by a bank run by our… friend… Brice Lambert, who’s stationed in Columbus (a fact which I’m surprised the previous owner never found shady). The parking garage is also between the house behind us, so just in case, for any reason, somebody gets their Cheerios pissed in and they drive up to the house to kill us, we’ll have some time to spare as they’ll have trouble finding the driveway. The backyard is also completely fenced off and surrounded by the backyards of our next-door neighbors, just as a little cherry on top.

The stairs are in the middle of the house, going up from both ends of the house and meeting in the center. They serve as the dividers for the living/meeting room (with the famous Roundtable) on the right half and the kitchen on the left. I remember on the day we moved our stuff in, Finn and I stood on opposite ends of the house and threw a baseball up and down the two sets of stairs to each other. Skyler was pissed, but it was still fun.

Upstairs, Skyler has the room facing the front of the house to function as a watchdog, and Finn and I now share the room overlooking the other side of the house facing the street and the backyard, both on the right side of the stairs. As for the two rooms on the left side, one belongs to Percy with a view of the neighbor’s house, and the other is the supply room where the windows are always covered.

Then there’s my old room, which I was forced to give up to Adrian against my better judgment. It’s behind the kitchen, meaning I woke up every morning smelling whatever Percy was cooking for breakfast. Sometimes I woke up because of what she was cooking, for better or worse. There’s also the fantastic close-up view of the backyard and all the birds and giant squirrels that gather around the trees. It’s a relatively small room, but it’s charming. And now Adrian gets it all.

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“Looks… comfy,” Adrian said after seeing inside it. If I know anything, it’s that “comfy” is just a nicer word for “tiny.” It doesn’t look like either of us will be 100% satisfied with the arrangement. I blame Skyler for this.

“Well, it should be able to accommodate well for all your stuff. Not that you have much of it, anyway.” That came off more snarky than I intended.

“Yeah. Don’t think I’ll be needing much more than what I have.”

I don’t know if what he just said was supposed to be depressing or reassuring. He dropped his backpack on the ground and sat on the bed, freshly put together with basic white sheets. There was a small nightstand next to it, a dresser by the door, and a desk on the wall opposite the bed. All of it was bought two weeks ago.

“So… what are you gonna do?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, now. If everyone is going to sleep, what are you going to do?”

“Oh. I guess I have to figure out how to knock a tree down in 10 miles per hour wind tonight, which everyone apparently agreed to without saying so.”

“Right.” He started laying back but then shot back up. “Oh, and Percy said earlier that you would be able to explain better what’s going on with that pseudo-charity you’re targeting. I don’t know what she really meant by that, but knowing her, there’s definitely something I’m missing about this.”

“Well, what specifically has she told you?”

“The company is pretending to be a charity to dodge regulations, they prey on small businesses and loan them money that they have to pay back and the donation is receded if it isn’t, and you’re using another business to get a donation yourselves that will get multiplied threefold using some glitch in their software which will probably bankrupt them or something.”

“Well, you were right about her missing a lot of the details.” I didn’t exactly tell everyone every detail of what I found on Solaris, so I don’t blame her for it. “You know what? Follow me for a minute. I think it’s better I show you what they’re like.” He stood back up and followed me to the basement door opposite the kitchen. “Down here is where all the magic happens. It’s also the place where a raccoon pushed out a loose window put in by the old owners and got caught in our garbage can on two separate occasions. That isn’t important. Follow me.” I opened the door, turned the stair light on, and led Adrian down to the basement.

The stairs lead straight to a wall with a little table that serves as a charging station for all our tech shit since every other power outlet down here is taken. Behind the stairs is where everything happens. I have a giant corner in the back with all my technology stuff, Percy has a small corner opposite that which is where any and all paperwork junk traditionally goes, and Skyler has the spot next to that which we designed to look like the inside of a house/office in case of video calls with unsuspecting people. It had rarely been used up until Solaris happened.

I explained all of that to Adrian and led him to my corner, between the coffee table and my work desk. “Alright, this is all pretty complicated, so try to follow along as best you can. First off,” I slapped the picture of the Solaris building pinned to the wall, “this is the bitch, Solaris. Their name wouldn’t tell you much other than it means ‘pertaining to the sun’ in Latin (which is some arrogant bullshit in my opinion), but their advertisements sure would. Exhibit A,” I pointed to another spot on the wall full of pictures of ads Skyler found around the city and on TV. “These fucking things. They put up billboards and air TV ads in every area of Cleveland and beyond where small businesses lurk, using such flowery language as ‘Call now before it’s too late,’ and ‘Apply now, for the next opportunity may not come.’ Really tugs at your heartstrings, doesn’t it? Really makes you wanna apply to get an emergency donation from a friendly local charity that pertains to the sun, right? Well, that’s just step one of the grand scheme.”

I grabbed a letter from off the top of my dresser. “These people fell down that same rabbit hole two years ago. Lakewood Crafts, a woodworking company that appeared on a Solaris TV ad to tout about how much the ‘donation’ helped them get their feet back on the ground after the big recession last year. As it turns out, the tides ended up changing a bit after the company’s revenue came in the month after. They sent me this letter after I asked them about the experience, along with a copy of the terms of service Solaris gave them, and it’s genuinely incredible how slippery these fuckers are. The language in their TOS is written so confusingly and non-specific that you’d have to read it at least six times to understand it. They apparently use it as an escape method to avoid telling the employer upfront about what their deal actually entails, instead telling them to read this thing, and nobody ever reads the fucking TOS. But what it does contain is somehow even more mind-numbing.

“For one, it registered the employees of Lakewood Crafts as associates of Solaris, meaning the manager of Lakewood Crafts was no longer technically their employer, meaning that Solaris was now their employer, and as you know, employee paychecks come from the employer. The TOS also gave Solaris a cut of their employees’ paychecks in the form of some bullshit ‘recurring donation to the charity’ clause buried in the contract, along with a cut of the company’s revenue. Not its profits, its revenue. I know what you’re thinking now: ‘Since Solaris is the employer, wouldn’t the paycheck money be coming from Solaris?’ Well, not exactly, because the Lakewood Crafts manager wasn’t a Solaris associate, just the employees, so Lakewood Crafts—sorry, I’m getting tired of saying ‘Lakewood Crafts’ all the time, I’m just gonna call them LC now—LC was still paying for the paychecks, along with all the bullshit fees. It was just the money management that was done by Solaris.

“I know what you’re thinking now: ‘This is all complete bullshit. Why didn’t LC just sue Solaris for predatory lending and send those douchebags to the bottom of the Atlantic?’ Well, they can’t because Solaris didn’t directly lend the company its money. The key reason the employees get signed on as associates is so Solaris can donate them the money, which is then donated to the company by the employees. It is apparently against the law to file a lawsuit against individuals who make a charitable donation, and since it was Solaris that made the charitable donation that the employees used, Solaris would have fucking legal immunity in this case. And because the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that companies have the same rights as individuals, Solaris is banking on that precedent applying to them as well. And if it does and all of that was unequivocally legal, if LC did want to sue, the company would instead have had to sue the employees, which they clearly didn’t do.

“Now, after all of this bullshit, LC was desperate to get themselves out of the Solaris bear trap they got stuck in. The only problem with that is that by exiting the agreement, Solaris got to take back its entire fucking donation. So now they have all of their money back, plus everything extra they made on the paychecks and company revenue. Mission a-fucking-ccomplished.

“And this is only one example I’ve given you. I asked six other businesses who went through this same process,” I grabbed the other six letters off the cabinet, “and they all dealt with the same fucking bullshit.”

Adrian stood in place, staring into nowhere. He almost looked like a robot. Then his head creaked back up. “So, what exactly are you doing with them?”

“Well, as you said, we had an agreement with K-8 Math Tutors as a way to get to Solaris. We spent close to three months planning everything out and started executing it about a week ago. We had a giant truck get its back tires shot out and then crash into the house they work in, knocking out a majority of their wiring, piping, and a part of their roof so the solar panels that power the place would get damaged as well. The solar panels cost about….” I snatched my notepad off the coffee table to read the numbers. “$22,000 each to replace, and the house had 25 of them, making the cost of replacing them all up to $550,000. The two walls the truck busted through also needed serious repair, and the drywall for them costs about $2,500 per wall, plus replacing the wiring costs $15,000, replacing the piping is $10,000, replacing the carpeting is $5,000, replacing the folding chairs is $400, and because the employees can’t work at the building anymore, it’ll cost another $54,450 to compensate for their wages. Obviously, all of those things didn’t need to be paid for, but we just wanted to squeeze as much money out of them as possible. So, in the end, the amount of money required to compensate was a grand total of exactly $639,850, rounded up to $650,000 to be donated.

“That was just step one. Once we get approved for the money, that’s where things have to move fast. A little background first; a state inspection a year ago found a critical security flaw in their main server that they still haven’t seemed to have done anything about. Any amateur hacker—A.K.A. yours truly—could utilize that flaw without being detected. ‘How would you utilize it?’ you’re wondering. Well, by making it through that security flaw, you could then utilize a glitch in their system that can reset the processing of a donation and send timed transactions several times over, and if it takes place after the workday ends, they won’t notice until tomorrow. It’s also been revealed recently that Solaris has had to borrow a shit ton of cash from undisclosed dark money groups to pay for all the donations they’ve given over the years, and if they keep running deficits in the coming months, the whole organization could fall apart. That being said, we here are just trying to speed that process up a little bit. Once we get the call that the donation is almost done processing—something we specifically asked them to do—the program that took me 29 minutes to create will go into effect, and by midnight once everyone is asleep, we’ll have made off with $1.95 million before they realize anything happened.

“That’s obviously not the entire plan, though, because they will eventually notice how much money they lost overnight, and the math tutors will still be contractually stuck under Solaris’ control. That is if we do nothing to prevent that. That’s where Skyler comes in. The CEO lives just a couple of roads down, and come midnight tonight, once everyone is asleep, she’s going to ‘break in’ and destroy all trace of us ever coming into contact with them. Using another little program on this here flash drive, we will get erased from every file on the company’s server—which is kept in her house for some fucking reason—along with any mention of us in any of the employees’ files, pulling them out of the control of Solaris. She’ll also replace the paperwork from the agreement with a forged replacement that Percy has been working on all week that basically officializes that the math tutors backed out of the contract before signing it, therefore explaining their lack of a presence in the files. Then, just so nobody remembers that we exist, I got 13 other small businesses to request a donation from them in the same three-hour time span tomorrow morning, which will certainly make them go bankrupt if the $2 million we stole doesn’t. Solaris gets wiped off the face of the earth, and we split the money with LC 40/60. That’s $780,000, all for us. Just think about what we could do with that kind of fucking money.” I paused to see if he would actually think about it. Then again, it’s hard to tell if he’s ever thinking of anything at all. “Did you think ‘new toilets?’ Because that’s exactly what we’re gonna get first.”

Once his brain finished computing, he responded, “So… how did you find the CEO’s house?”

Adrian reminding me of the process of finding her house immediately made my head sink. “Don’t even get me started on that shitshow. That was one of the most miserable experiences of my fucking life.”

“What happened?”

I sat down in my chair before regaling him. “Well, finding the house was how I found out about Solaris in the first place. It was six months ago, mid-April I believe. I was walking home from the supermarket after grabbing batteries when I found a house key on a crosswalk. ‘What house does this key belong to?’ I wondered. ‘Maybe it could somehow inadvertently lead to our next big operation.’ So I looked. I looked for the house with the door that the key fits into. Everybody else said I was being too fixated on something that might lead absolutely nowhere, but nevertheless, I persisted. I surveilled every single house in the area, calculated the owners’ work schedules, figured out if they had children or a security system, etc., etc., all to figure out the best time to walk up to their porch and try the key when nobody was around.

“I spent the entire month doing that, and it turned out that a not-insignificant portion of the houses nearby all had children, and since the school year was still going on, most of those children were still doing fucking school online. So I had to wait—for 26 fucking days—before the school year ended and those children were leaving the house again. One of those houses, or should I say mansions, was the home to this key. I used the key, looked around inside, and discovered that the owner was the CEO of a local charity, which seemed odd to me since she lived in such a massive house and charities aren’t exactly moneymakers. My initial impression before deeper research was that they were just some knockoff bank that made out dickish loans to small businesses so they could leech off them without federal regulations, which is what I told everyone initially, which is why Percy then repeated it to you. For once, her lack of understanding wasn’t her fault.”

Yet another awkward silence passed while Adrian stared into oblivion. “Good to know.”

What the fuck does that mean? I almost said before stopping myself.

“If there’s nothing else, then I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a long day.” I motioned that he could leave, and he did. It felt like it took an entire minute for him to get up the damn stairs and walk to his new room, which I could very clearly hear since sounds from the main floor echo loudly into the basement.

I stood frozen in place for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. In four years, Adrian had gone from an awkward but intelligent weirdo to what is probably the creepiest man on the fucking planet. Every aspect of his character feels wrong, but I don’t know if Percy was able to see it when they met up or if she will even see it now. And if he’s staying permanently… Shit. I don’t fucking know. All I can do is just hope he doesn’t interfere with Solaris at all. Or anything else that happens.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the wall full of Solaris pictures. “You idiots,” I muttered. “It’s not even a profitable scam.”

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