Skyler
“Oh! Shit, hi Finn, I didn’t hear you come down,” I heard Percy say from downstairs. “I’m making quesadillas at the moment. Feel free to take however many pieces you want, because I’m not sure how this can be split between five people now.”
Like probably everyone else, I got no sleep after going upstairs. I’ve been awake for 24 hours now, which will be turning into roughly 40 hours after the “heist” is done. I’m not looking forward to it. The thought of quesadillas does sound nice, though.
I joined the others downstairs in the kitchen. “Imagine that,” Finn said to me the moment I entered. “Did you manage to get any sleep?”
I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 6:50. “Take a wild guess.”
“Graham is still in the basement,” said Percy, “I think he said he’s phoning our ‘business partners’ to make sure they’re ready to bombard Solaris tomorrow.”
“Did you two figure out how to cause the blackout?”
“He did. Somehow, he got Korey to agree to let her child climb up a tree a few houses away and break a limb off onto the power line. I don’t know if that will even work, but it’s apparently what’s happening.”
“Wow,” Finn said unprompted. “Exploiting children to do a cheap job for his own capital gain; Graham is becoming more libertarian by the hour.”
“What?”
“Anyway,” I interrupted, “Let’s just dish up, shall we? My digestive system has been running steadily for 24 hours now, and my stomach is bone dry.”
“Yeah, you two do that.” Percy walked back to the stove. “The third quesadilla will be done in a couple of minutes, go… have your own conversation somewhere else.”
We grabbed our quesadillas and sat down at the Roundtable. After a minute of relatively comfortable silence, Finn suddenly broke it. “Man. After tonight, this is it. Our longest operation ever is finally over. That’s fucking weird.”
“I guess. Assuming the break-in works, at least.”
“It should. We haven’t failed something like this before, especially not you.”
Finn suddenly complimenting me caught me a little off guard, but it wasn’t surprising. Ever since I’ve been around, I noticed he has a habit of being much friendlier with Percy and me than with Graham and Adrian. He’s even been the main contact with Korey, but has mostly stayed out of the way when we dealt with male associates. Also, he doesn’t talk about his family much, but I know he was a lot closer with his mom than with his dad and uncle. It’s an odd pattern of his. I sometimes think that he’s the only man on earth that he doesn’t hate.
“So… what do you think we’re gonna be doing after this?” he continued.
“I’m hoping something that isn’t this complicated and tiring. The last month has sucked.”
“At least it’ll all be worth it once it’s over, though. Do you have any plans for the money yet?”
The agreement we had for splitting the 780 grand was that three-quarters of it would go to our savings at Brice’s bank, and the rest would be divided between the four of us. That amounts to exactly $48,750 per person, which is sure to become more complicated thanks to Adrian rising from the dead. “Some better security for this place would be nice.”
“Yeah, I think all of us would like that. I think our front door should get replaced, but we’d obviously have to be careful about going through with that. My room could use better air conditioning too since it has largely failed to keep up with the rising temperature from having two people in it now.” The idea of Graham being the one to give up his room was my idea, but I felt bad for Finn having to suffer for it. Then again, Graham has to suffer too, so they about balance each other out.
Our conversation had effectively hit a dead end, but the sound of Adrian’s door opening saved the situation from becoming awkward. Percy inaudibly talked with him for a minute, and he walked into the living room with breakfast and sat at the Roundtable. Finn’s mood immediately shifted. “How did your beauty sleep go?” he asked sarcastically.
“Nice of you to ask, Finn. How has your role in the operation been going?”
Finn has always been bitter over the short end of the stick he keeps getting during jobs like this, and the only thing he hates more is being reminded of it. He might have snapped at Adrian in that very instant had Graham not suddenly come up from the basement.
“Sounds like the whole gang’s finally awake,” I heard him say from the kitchen. “Well, ‘awake’ probably isn’t the right word if they were never asleep.” He peeked at the table from the hallway. “No longer in their rooms, more like.”
He joined the table with more quesadillas than everyone else, and Percy soon followed. Finn and I had already finished ours.
“Last day of this shit, it has finally arrived. Everything is set up for before and after the break-in. After that, we are fucking done.”
“Do you have any idea of what we’ll do next?” asked Finn.
“Dude, do you really think I’ve had time to consider shit like that? I haven’t been awake the last 49 hours simply because I was bored, dumbass. No, I don’t know what we’re doing next. Does anybody else have ideas?” No one spoke up. “Thought so. Know what, how about we just take a break for a while? Wouldn’t that be nice? $780,000 should last us quite a while, we’re not exactly at any risk of bankruptcy. Unless one of you is planning on buying a house or some shit.”
“Well,” Adrian suddenly said. “I have heard a rumor or two from back in the military.”
“Yeah? What juicy gossip have your army friends told you?”
“One guy talked about some tech company called Eclipse that’s allegedly been receiving secret government funding. Another said it was coming out of the military budget for some overseas project they don’t want people to know about. Another said they’re working for the CIA, another said it was actually the NSA, and another said they were being backed by the Kremlin. Maybe it’s all of them, I don’t know.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Finn butted in. “You’re saying that a tech company has been assisting the government? You realize that that’s been happening since tech companies have existed, right?”
“This isn’t a tech company assisting the government, this is the government assisting them. And it's secret.”
“Eclipse…” I said. “I’ve heard that name before, but I don’t remember where it came from.”
Graham chimed in. “I think they’re that start-up tech company that made headlines a few years ago for raising over $1 billion for some AI development project or some shit.”
“Wait, they just raised $1 billion? How the hell is that possible?”
“Not even the only tech company to pull it off. I think it was three years ago that some cryptocurrency company raised $1.5 billion. The free market is a weird fucking place.”
“Wouldn’t a company like that get a lot of press coverage?” Finn asked.
“Dude, I didn’t find out about the cryptocurrency thing until I went looking for it in fucking 2019 to understand what everybody’s obsession with cryptocurrency was. Tech companies don’t get national coverage unless they’re involved in a huge scandal or go bankrupt or some shit.”
“Or they’re Gamestop.”
“Or that. I guess. Jesus, that story is over nine fucking months old, you’re still on that?”
“Alright, but what about the secret government funding thing?” I asked Adrian. “Did your army friends give any specifics on that?”
“A couple. I asked a lot of people about it, and every one of them who heard of Eclipse also knew some conspiracy about it. Some were ridiculous, but they all shared a common theme: they’re working with the government on something they don’t want people to know about.”
“So, what exactly are you proposing?” Finn once more butted in. “Should we just break into the fucking Pentagon and steal highly classified information that we don’t even know exists?”
“No, but we could start with Eclipse to make sure it does exist.”
“Adrian, we are not investigative journalists. If there’s a government cover-up going on, we have no way of getting information about it without ending up on a fucking FBI watchlist.”
“But we wouldn’t be looking for a cover-up, we’re looking for what the secret project is. Government funding doesn’t mean it’s a government project.”
“But that’s literally what a fucking government project is! It may not be them specifically doing it, but they’re backing it, which means they’ll notice if we fuck with them at all.”
“Jesus Christ,” Graham groaned. “We are not stealing from the government. If there’s something to be found regarding whatever Eclipse is up to behind the scenes, I’ll look for it. If we can act on it without the FBI knocking down our front door, then we’ll do it. But until such an occasion is necessary, we are not jumping to insane conclusions. I will look into Eclipse later, but for now, let’s worry about shit that’s actually of concern at the moment. Skyler still has a break-in to prepare for, I’ve got to make sure we have the situation of the 780k arranged with Brice’s bank, and you”—he dramatically pointed at Finn—“need to shut the fuck up.” He stood up. “And Adrian? Feel free to walk around the town, catch up on everything and shit. The house doesn’t exactly have a plethora of things to keep you occupied. And if Percy feels so inclined, she could join you.”
“I absolutely would,” she said while standing up. “I haven’t done anything fun in over a month, I am fucking famished.”
And within a minute, everybody had left. Graham was back in the basement, Percy and Adrian went on their walk, Finn went into the backyard presumably to hide in the trees, and I sat idle at the Roundtable. There’s nothing that I want to do. Nothing to pass the next 15 hours. Nothing but sitting here.
And so I did. I would glance at the clock on the wall every once in a while, maybe change my sitting position. The first ten minutes felt like forever, but I stopped caring after that. I’d glance back at the clock to find another twenty minutes had passed. Finn might have come back inside, but I wasn’t paying attention.
8:23. I got startled by the heater turning on. The noise took time to adjust to, but the warm air felt nice at least.
8:31. The sound of tree branches breaking followed by Finn swearing from above once again disturbed my daydream. He didn’t crash to the ground, so I assume he’s fine.
9:01. I got startled again by what I thought was a fly buzzing by my ear. I scanned the whole room, but it was nowhere to be seen or heard.
9:54. Graham came back upstairs and into the living room. “Did I leave my notepad somewhere up here?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Probably.”
He searched the TV stand, the tables beside the couch, and the cabinets by the front window. “For fuck’s sake,” he said out loud. “Is it in my room?” He ran upstairs to look. He came back down five minutes later. “My old room. It’s gotta be in there.” He walked into the kitchen and barged into Adrian’s room. After another minute of looking, he yelled “Aha!” and ran back into the living room. “Someone left the fucking thing in my old closet.”
The basement door is in the kitchen, and yet he’s standing in here. He must think that I was invested in the disappearance of his notepad and needed to be informed of his grand discovery.
“Cool,” I murmured.
“Have you just been sitting there this whole time? It’s been almost two hours.”
“Not like I have shit else to do.”
“Alright. Well, you have fun with that, as I’m sure you are.” He was about to walk away before turning back. “Oh, and do you have a spare pen? I kinda broke my other one.”
“Kinda?” He didn’t respond to that. “I have one in the top drawer of my desk in the basement.”
“Awesome.” He ran back downstairs.
10:10. I hear a door open. I assumed it was Finn, but the backdoor wasn’t open.
“Enjoying the chair?” he said from the front door. Fuck, he did come in earlier.
“Sure.”
“The weather is starting to turn, it’s raining outside right now. You might want to bring a coat or an umbrella when you leave if it stays like this.” He grabbed his raincoat off the hanger.
“Thanks for the reminder.” He went back outside.
11:11. Something started vibrating on the couch. For the first time in three and a half hours, I got out of the chair. Graham’s phone was underneath the couch cushions. Someone was calling. “Uh… hello?” I answered awkwardly.
“Oh! Skyler! I wasn’t expecting you.” It was the Solaris manager. “I was just calling Graham to let him know that your company is going to be getting the $650,000 donation soon. I remember he asked me to let him know about that. Exciting stuff.”
“Oh, cool. I’ll go let him know. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Also, could you let him know tha—” I hung up.
“Shit,” I said to myself. I rushed to the basement door. “Graham! The money is about to come! Get your shit ready!”
“How did—Oh, for fuck’s sake, did I seriously leave my phone up there too? Shit, alright then, I guess I’ll… get to it then.”
I sat back down at the table.
11:24. After staring out the window into the backyard for a few minutes, a grey squirrel popped out. She climbed onto the tree in front of me and perched on the fork, staring directly at me. I stared back, just a few feet away from her. “Hey,” I inaudibly whispered. She started gearing up like she was about to leap at the window, only to suddenly turn around and scamper up the tree. “Fine, bitch.”
11:39. Graham yells from the basement, “We got it! We got the fucking money!”
“Great! When is your program going to go into effect?” I yelled back.
“Once you signal me that you’ve wiped us off Solaris’s servers, it’ll start! Then we are fucking done with this!”
“Shit,” I whispered to myself. I feel like I should be more excited about this. I likely would be if my role in the operation was finished. But of course, with my luck, it isn’t. It never is.
12:24. Graham comes upstairs again but stays in the kitchen this time. Probably just making lunch.
He walked into the living room holding a PB&J sandwich. “Do you ever plan on moving from that seat?”
“When I have a reason to.”
“That’s… pretty nihilistic.” He sat on the opposite side of the table to eat. “Do you at least want a lunch or something?”
“Later, maybe. I’m not hungry.”
“It’d do you some good to at least stand up,” he said with a mouthful of sandwich. “Can’t have your body feeling stiff when you’re sneaking into somebody’s house.” He continued scarfing down the sandwich. “That wouldn’t be good.” He kept attempting to carry the conversation that I’d rather not have. “So, have you seen Finn around recently?”
“He left to go walk someplace a couple hours ago. Didn’t say where.”
“Figures. When does he ever tell people shit?” Graham’s impassiveness to peoples’ concerning behavior has been both a saving grace to keep me from having to talk about my problems and has been deeply frustrating when it comes to situations like Finn’s. I can’t tell if Graham just doesn’t care about the red flags in the way some people act or if he doesn’t know what the red flags are supposed to be.
Graham finished the sandwich and patted the crumbs off his hands. “Well, see you later. Probably in this exact same position.” Once again, he went back to the basement. And I went back to staring out the backyard window, waiting for something else to show up.
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1:21. Percy and Adrian are still gone after six hours, and so is Finn. I heard the wind beginning to pick up outside, and it was still lightly raining. I’ve tried to think about what I want to spend my share of the money on if I’m spending it at all, but I can’t focus on it for more than a minute. I could feel my patience starting to run out.
I quickly moved to the couch and turned the TV on. I just wanted to find something random to watch on Netflix, but I didn’t want to watch anything random that I saw. Scrolling through the options was still a better alternative to doing nothing. At least I might learn something.
1:52. I’m back at the beginning of the list. Whatever. I played a random TV show without looking and laid back on the couch. It served as background noise while I stared out the front window and all the cars passing by.
2:24. I’m already getting sick of listening to the TV and staring at passing cars. My boredom is becoming increasingly unbearable, and there’s too much time left in the day to stay occupied with this kind of tediousness. I noticed how much I had been fidgeting with the couch cushion I was sitting on, and I shot up and out the back door. There was light rain and wind, but it wasn’t very cold. I wandered around the backyard, kicking around bark chips and tiny sticks. Yards like this used to keep me occupied constantly as a child, how the hell did I do it?
I tripped on a root sticking out of the dirt and fell onto the wet and muddy ground. My arms caught me, ruining my sweatshirt and the lower half of my pants. I stood up and stomped on the root in a fit of rage, not budging it at all. The last thing I wanted to do was change my clothes, so I stomped inside and sat back on the couch. The TV was still playing, but I didn’t know what was happening. I started picking at all the pieces of dirt and bark on my pants and sweatshirt.
4:44. I noticed that the room was silent. I looked back at the TV. The show is already over. I had already finished cleaning off my clothes and had been unconsciously squeezing at the wet spots to keep my hands hydrated. I’m in no mood to look for something else to watch, so I switched to Pandora and played the first radio station I saw. Nothing was happening in the backyard, and the road was filling with traffic, so I just decided to doze off and try taking a nap.
I was woken up by my phone vibrating in my pocket. The house was pitch black. 9:48. There was a text from Percy.
“hey i forgot to let you know earlier but were probably gonna be back after youve left, adrian really wanted to go to the movies and i assume he isnt gonna be done after that. i already told graham btw, not sure if he told you yet.”
The front door opened immediately after I read it. Finn walked in, soaking wet. “Holy shit, it’s fucking cold out there.” He kicked off his shoes and raincoat and sat on the other end of the couch. “What are you listening to?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh shit, is that Linkin Park? Damn, I used to fucking worship them when I was in middle school. I haven’t heard their music in ages.”
“Didn’t the lead singer kill himself or something?”
“Yeah, I think—” Finn was cut off by the sound of something hitting the back window. “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know, a bird probably?” Finn jumped up and darted out the back door. “Wait, what the hell are you doing?” I dragged myself off the couch and followed him outside. I found him standing over a fledgling, lying in the wet dirt. I could barely make out what it looked like, but it was small. It wasn’t moving. “Shit. Is it dead?”
Finn knelt down to gently feel around its chest. “Thank God, it’s still breathing. It must be unconscious.”
“Do you know how to like… care for it?”
“Dude, I don’t know shit about birds. I’ve never had to deal with something like this before. Bring it inside before it freezes to death, I’ll try to look something up.”
I slid my hands under the bird as gently as possible and carried it back inside to the kitchen. Finn was aggressively scrolling on his phone while I wiped all the dirt off of it. “Uh… where should I put it?”
He kept reading for a couple of seconds longer before blurting out, “A box! Put it in a box!”
“Where the fuck do we have a box?”
Finn shot through the garage door just next to Adrian’s room and ran back in with a shoebox that he slammed on the counter. “Do you have a heating pad or something? Is there a small towel in one of these cabinets?” Before I could answer, he snatched both washrags hanging on the oven handle. He laid one flat at the bottom, rolled the other into a donut shape, and set it in the middle. “Put it inside the nest thing.”
“Is keeping the bird in a closed environment really the best way to care for it?”
“Just fucking do it!” I set it inside the donut, and he shut the lid on the box. “Alright. Now we wait half an hour to see if it can fly.”
“Shouldn’t we give it water or food?”
“No. That is the last thing we want to do. Just stay put and listen for it to wake up.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
10:20. We moved the box to the upstairs bathroom, but it didn’t make any noise. I refrained from opening the lid, though, in case it was playing dead and planned to fly away at the first opportunity. “So… should we keep it?” I asked Finn.
“Wh—no, we should absolutely not keep it. We are nowhere close to being prepared to care for this thing, assuming it even survives.”
“Speaking of, it’s been about half an hour now. We should go try to release it.” I picked up the box and trod carefully down the stairs and out to the backyard. It was gently lowered to the ground and tilted to its side, then I opened the lid. I was half-expecting it to fly out immediately, or at least try to and hit the window again, but it didn’t make any move.
Finn peaked over the top. “Um… well, it’s awake.”
I knelt down and looked at it from the side. The bird was small and plump, orange on its lower half and black on most of the upper, kind of like it got dipped in chocolate. It must be a baby songbird that just grew its flight feathers, which is knowledge that I can thank Percy for. There weren’t any obvious injuries or broken bones, and it had plenty of time to decompress and stay warm, yet it wasn’t leaving the box.
“Hey, back away, you’re gonna scare it,” Finn aggressively whispered.
“It’s not moving.”
“That’s what birds do to avoid predators. Now back off.”
I took a step back while still crouching. Another minute passed, and the bird still wasn’t going anywhere. “Maybe it needs a little push?” Finn suggested. He lightly tipped the box with his foot, and it started chirping, startling us both. “Of fucking course it starts chirping now. It must really like that box.”
“Or its flight feathers were knocked out and it can’t go anywhere.”
“Well, you can’t know that if it won’t try.”
The backdoor opened behind me. “Skyler!” yelled Graham. “It’s almost 10:30, you have to go soon.”
“Jesus Christ, quiet the fuck down,” whispered Finn.
“What are you doing with a shoebox in the rain?”
“It’s a bird. It flew into the window, and we’re trying to release it.”
“In a fucking shoebox? You know what, I don’t even wanna know. Skyler, get your shit together and make your way to the house. Korey will meet you by the stop sign at the intersection. Stay there until you see the power go out.”
I lifted myself up. “Don’t kill the bird, Finn. Or I’ll kill you next.”
“Next? What does ‘next’ mean?”
I stepped inside, grabbed a raincoat to go over my sweatshirt, changed into a pair of sweatpants, stuffed Percy’s forged paperwork into my duffle bag, and grabbed the hard drive and house key from Graham. “Let’s fucking do this,” Graham said in his best encouraging voice, which wasn't much.
“Let’s? Funny, because I don’t see any of you guys doing this with me.”
“Whatever. You know what you’re doing, just do it and get this whole thing over with.”
I blankly stared for a moment, then said, “Yeah.” The door opened in front of me, and I was gone.
---
I stood leaning against a stop sign a block away from the house, out of the street light. 11:42. Korey should be turning here any minute now… unless she already showed up while I was walking and doesn’t know that I’m here. I peeked around the corner to be sure. Nothing. But could she have parked in one of the driveways? I was about to walk down the road to see until I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey!” Korey yelled from her car at the stop sign. “Are you ready?”
I turned back. “Only if you are.”
“Nice. Sorry that I’m a little late, Junior kept dozing off, and it’s a pain in the ass to wake him up.”
“It doesn’t matter. As long as they don’t wake up.”
“They better fuckin’ not. I do not want this to have been all for nothing.”
“We already have the money, so there’s only so much they can do if they somehow find out.” That was mostly a lie, but she didn’t know that, and I had to make sure she didn’t have any doubts about our chances.
Junior poked his head out the passenger window from the back seat, holding a pair of heavy-duty scissors. He must have been a 9-year-old. “Hi,” he said to me.
“Hi,” I said back.
“Get back in there, Junior.” Korey pulled his head back into the seat.
“Is he gonna be able to climb a tree in weather like this?”
“He’ll be fine. If he knows nothing else, he knows how to not fall from a tree. And I already talked to him about it, he knows to be extra careful here.”
“I hope.”
“Yeah, so do I.” She sat in silence for a moment staring out the windshield. “Well, I’ve probably lingered here long enough for the security cameras to get suspicious. I’ll see you around, I guess. If we ever meet again.”
“Yeah.” She waved and drove down the road past the bend where I couldn’t see. Back to waiting. Awesome.
‘Yeah?’ Fucking hell, I could have worded that better. Maybe a ‘Hope to see you again!’ would have been better. No, that sounds way too corny, even for me.
…God, I really hope they’re all asleep right now.
But what am I going to do if they aren’t? And what if the blackout wakes them up?
No. If they’re asleep, they won’t notice it. They shouldn’t even have any electronics on at this hour.
Fuck, but what about their kid? Graham said he was in high school, he could very well be awake right now.
The school year just got started. He’d have to be an insomniac to still be awake at this hour.
A loud crack of thunder scared me back to reality. The break-in is just moments away. Just stay composed. Any anxiety will screw the whole thing up. Just find the laptop and plug it into the server along with the drive, and I can leave. This will work. It has to.
The streetlight in front of me started flickering, and the feeling of dread returned instantly. Oh, God, did the plan not work? I looked back over the corner, even though I couldn’t see anything where they were. I waited another moment, and the power line above me shook, followed by all of the streetlamps and porch lights on the street shutting off. I took a deep breath and made my way to the house.
The block was abnormally long, which may have been for the best so the sound of the power line breaking wouldn’t reach the house. But it didn’t help that I had spent more than an hour walking here and my feet were sore.
I could almost see the house around the bend. The mansion is abstractly designed but still stylish. It’s three stories and almost U-shaped, with the ends facing the street. From the outside, it looks like it was pieced together with black and white-colored toy blocks. Four different balconies line the inner-facing walls on the second floor, with windows patterned like bricks behind them from the bottom to the ceiling. A small section of the house on the right end is made of brick and is curtained off. That’s where the servers are supposed to be kept.
I stood in front of the path to the central doorway, surrounded by plots of dirt with shrubs that looked like they were imported from Arizona. I walked past the balconies and uncurtained windows, hoping none of them were overlooking bedrooms. Underneath the porch covering, I took off my shoes and raincoat and dropped them next to the door. The storm's noise could be loud enough that nobody hears the door open, but it could also bring the noise inside and wake them up. Just move through the door quickly. Let’s do this right.
I grabbed the house key out of my pocket and unlocked the glass door as quietly as possible. Let’s do this right. Let’s just fucking do this. I pressed the door handle down, pushed it open, slipped through the small opening, and shut it quick enough for no one to notice. I hope. We were lucky enough to find old pictures of the house on Zillow before the page was taken down, so I at least know where I’m going. It didn’t stop the inner panic I had to fight off to start moving again.
The entrance was nothing but a small hallway that split towards the two halves of the mansion and the backyard. I went to the right. Behind the door was just another larger hallway. The walls were painted white, and the floor was dark hardwood, typical for any mansion. The stairs were directly ahead, and the hall continued off to the right towards the end of the house. The walls were lined with abstract 3D art either hanging on the wall or sitting on a table or shelf. Not one family picture or corny poster to be seen.
The CEO’s office should be next to the server room just down the hall. None of the Zillow pictures showed the hallways, so there was no way to know which of the three doors led to the office. I assumed the door at the end of the hall was the server room, so the side room next to it should be the office. I don’t know what the other door could lead to, but I can only hope it’s just a bathroom.
I slid my feet across the wood so there wouldn’t be any audible footsteps and pressed my ear against the office door. All I could hear was the dampened sound of the storm outside, making this much riskier. I grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it as gently as possible, but it wouldn’t budge. I pushed a little harder, keeping both hands over it so it wouldn’t suddenly burst open, but it never did. Dammit, of course the office is locked. The pictures from inside showed a stairway that led to the office, likely from the living room. I slid back down the hallway to the stairs.
I held onto the handrail while walking up the steps so I wouldn’t put enough weight on them to make them creak, but the rail ended as it reached the second floor. I hopped up the remaining steps two at a time until I stood facing a door to one of the balconies. The living room was on the right, which was oddly minuscule in its design. A single sectional couch shaped like a quarter-circle and a glass coffee table sat in front of a giant TV bolted to the wall, with wood shelving next to it full of decorative candles and even more art pieces. The corners of the ceiling were also lined with small spotlights, whatever purpose they served. The CEO’s laptop was sitting under an office chair in the corner, plugged into a wire sticking out from the floor. It must be from the server.
Past the living room was the kitchen, which was apparently smaller than ours. The counters were a mess, with a mix of papers unrelated to Solaris and food ingredients covering most of it. There was even leftover macaroni sitting on a placemat that was stale enough to look like plastic. I guess ants aren’t a problem here. On the right wall was a stairway to the third floor, but behind it was the stairway to the office I was looking for. The steps were carpeted this time, so the sound of me walking was mostly cushioned. A short walk down them, and I was finally in the office.
One small work desk was sitting in the middle of the left wall. There was almost nothing else aside from a couple posters of classic rock bands. It looks like the family skipped this room when they moved in. I rooted through the drawers for the paperwork I had to replace until I found the one drawer with folders for clients. Perfect. I swapped out the paperwork for K-8 Math Tutors with what was in my duffle bag. Step one is complete; now for the server.
I tiptoed back up the stairs and into the living room, grabbed the laptop that was already plugged into the server, and sat on the couch. The log-in password was on a small sticky note over the camera. They couldn't have made it this easy. The handwriting was trying to be in print and cursive at the same time, and I had to try the password three times before I got the right one. It took an entire minute to load the whole desktop, and I plugged the hard drive in once it did. Less than a second after, a popup appeared with a message from Graham.
“sup. click the button that says ‘commit evidence tampering’ to start the thing, but before you do, be sure to click that like and subscribe button and hit the bell notifications so you dont miss another video. ty <3” It wouldn’t let me start the program without also clicking the “like” and “subscribe” buttons. Once that process was finished, the loading screen appeared with an ETA of ten minutes. 12:13. I’ve got time.
At least I thought I did. I couldn’t hear the steps from upstairs over the sound of me clicking the touchpad. Their teenage kid stood idle on the stairs from the third floor, staring directly at me. I felt paralyzed and had no idea what to do. I was ready to slam the laptop shut and flee before he could call for his parents, but… he wasn’t doing anything. He just looked away and continued walking downstairs. Now I was in even more shock. He walked past me to the kitchen and searched through one of the cabinets filled with snack food. He grabbed a granola bar and a box of crackers and sat at the other end of the couch. I slowly lowered the laptop screen.
“So…” he said while biting off half the granola bar. “What brings you here?”
“I might ask you the same thing.”
“Hm. Well, you’re sitting on the couch with my mom’s laptop. You aren’t exactly committing murder.”
“You don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“I know, that’s why I asked. And going by the fact that you have that laptop plugged into the server with your hard drive, I’m guessing it has something to do with the company.”
I couldn’t help hanging my mouth open in confusion at what I was witnessing.
“Whatever it is,” he continued. “I’m sure they probably deserve it.”
“They do.”
“Cool. I wouldn’t know about it, my parents don’t ever tell me things. So I don’t ask.”
“That’s… kind of depressing.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. I honestly prefer it this way.” He grabbed a sleeve of crackers out of the box. “Want one?”
“Uh… sure.” He reached over to hand it to me, probably so he didn’t have to toss it.
“You know, you aren’t even the first person I’ve found breaking into the house. I met my best friends when they snuck inside from the porch door we left unlocked and tried to steal food, but I think I surprised them when I just gave them some instead. It’s not normally how friends meet each other, but y’know, what can you do?” He ate the rest of the granola bar. “So, what exactly is your end goal here?”
“Well, your parents’ company traps small businesses under the guise of charity and leeches money out of them, so we got one to work with us to get a shit ton of money out of them with a glitch in the system, which ideally will make the whole company go under. This here is just to get rid of any trace of our dealings with them.”
Wait, shit, why would I tell him that? He could be manipulating me to give away the plan and then will alert his parents, and I just gave our entire fucking game away.
I tensed up, preparing for him to yell for his parents… but once again, he did nothing. “Huh. Okay. And how long is what you're doing now going to take?”
“About ten minutes. This whole process was surprisingly easy.” And it could have been on purpose.
“Okay, but what’s to stop my parents from just starting another company?”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“Yeah. Figures.” We both tore open our cracker sleeves, and I reopened the laptop. Six minutes left. I waited for two while eating the crackers before something occurred to me.
“Are your parents ever awake at this hour?”
“If they are, they won’t be down here. They could probably live inside their bedroom and be perfectly fine.”
“So, do you ever see them much?”
“In the morning and during meals. That’s about it. Sometimes when I’m watching TV, but that’s only if they left their phone in here or something. There’s a delicate peace and quiet that exists here.”
“Wow. Wish I could have had that growing up. Having people who watch over you constantly can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when it’s family.”
“Damn. I feel that.”
We sat silent for another minute to keep eating the crackers. I stared at the drive tab while it searched through the server, which left some new ridiculous comment every ten seconds. “god damn there are more files here than on a pedophiles laptop,” or “did you know it was actually the rotting corpse of Neville Chamberlain who stole the 2020 election? the dude was BIG on communism,” or “santa claus is watching you and he is very disappointed.” It’s almost like he was trying to get me to blow my cover.
At the 8-minute mark, the loading bar went suddenly from 69% to 100%, followed by a pop-up window that said, “lol just kidding, this server fucking sucks. only internet explorer would take ten minutes to root through this shit. enjoy your day!”
“Oh,” I blurted. “I guess I’m done here.”
“And the company is going to, like, collapse after this?”
“If everything else goes according to plan. This won’t leave you homeless, will it?”
“We didn’t get rich off of Solaris.”
I took the drive out and set the laptop back to where it was. “Good. I better be on my way then. Oh, and by the way,” I took the house key out of my pocket and tossed it next to him, “don’t lose that next time.”
“Holy—shit, wow. Okay. Alright. Uh… maybe see you later, then?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Oh, and my name’s Cameron, by the way. Just in case.”
“Skyler. And lock the front door behind me if you will.”
I stepped outside to feel the new lack of wind blowing rain into my face. I put my coat and shoes back on and started the walk home. Wait, I have to let Graham know I’m done. I put in my headphones and called him. He answered instantly.
I expected him to say something first, but he seemed to be waiting on me. “It’s done.” Four voices yelled in celebration all at the same time. I felt mostly offended that they lacked faith in me to such a degree that they screamed out into a phone when I did something right, regardless of their excuse. They all started talking over each other, and I instinctively hung up soon after. “Assholes,” I said out loud to nobody.
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