By now, they were used to climbing skyscrapers. 

Edam wiped one hand on his pants, adjusted his grip, and then wiped the other. For a brief second, he spotted the sprawling city below, shining in the morning sun. Also below him was Saavi, the adrenaline-junkie who had got him hooked on this shit in the first place. She squinted against the wind, gesturing for him to hurry up. 

A few minutes later, he reached the top. This was far from the tallest skyscraper in Cybercity, but the view was just as good. The sheer vastness of the city never failed to amaze him. From up here, it looked almost like what it was supposed to represent - the Utopia of the future. Saavi pulled herself up and cast a shadow over him, hands on her hips.

“Well done, we missed the sunrise.” 

“Hey, it’s still rising.” Edam said, sitting down on the edge of the building and fishing in his bag for an energy drink, “But if I’m slowing you down, you can go first next time.”

“Oh, please.” she took a seat beside him, kicking her legs. “We both know why you want to be beneath me.”

He laughed, “No staring, I promise.” 

Saavi scoffed. Her dark hair was done in a braid, as usual, but her eyes were stern, and her lips pursed. He was about to ask when she turned to him.

“Question: have you ever broken the law?”

“Er,” she had caught him off-guard, “Um, not really.” he said. She looked unimpressed. “Okay, maybe once or twice. But everyone has.”

“Hacking?”

Edam froze. Had she seen him at the university? Maybe he’d slipped up in one of their conversations? She smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder, 

“Don’t worry about it. Someone mentioned something - I won’t say who - but you’ve done some illegal hacking, right?” 

He hesitated. 

“You can trust me.” she said, and for some reason, under the gaze of those knowing, dark eyes, he felt she was telling the truth. 

“Well… yeah. I have.”

“You’re good?”

“The best. As far as I know, anyway.” he added quickly. 

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I have a job for you.”

Edam stared at her, looking for a smirk to show she was joking. There was none. “Er, I don’t take commissions.” 

“Good, because I wasn’t asking you to.” Saavi said, placing a hand on his arm, “I’m asking as a favour.”

Oh yeah, he’d been asked for favours before. Usually to hack into some celebrity’s phone for nudes, or occasionally to crash the government website after the cuts in funding that were becoming all too common. The second type he usually did free of charge. 

“What’s the job, anyway?”

“You know that lecturer at the university, Dr Ebert?” He shook his head. “Well, he’s an engineering professor. His particular specialty  is clean energy sources. And recently, he’s been commissioned by the government to develop an energy source for exo-skeleton armour. Initially, he thought it was impossible, but he’s had a breakthrough recently.”

“How do you know?”

Saavi smiled, “He’s an old man, and I’m a curious student. But the point is, he’s working on it right now, and he plans to hand in his work tomorrow. Which means we need to steal it tonight.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Edam got to his feet, laughing, “You want us to steal it? Why? What do you wanna do with it?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m all ears.”

She stood up, looking out over the city, “I’m building a suit. Been working on it for years.”

“Like an exo-suit?”

“Not really. Those are too clunky. This suit would make me faster, stronger, near invincible.” she turned to him, “It would make me powerful.”

Again, he had to check if she was serious, and again he found nothing to suggest she wasn’t. “Okayy… and? Then what?”

Her expression hardened, “Then I find the piece of shit that killed my parents.”

Edam relaxed. Saavi’s parents had been killed in a fire, and although foul play had been suspected, the police didn’t investigate further. It made sense that she was mad. He reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but she stepped away.

“The point is, I need this power-source. Are you going to help me, or not?” 

Edam chewed it over, though it was difficult with Saavi glaring at him. If they got caught, well… that would be the end of their lives. Possibly literally. 

And yet, the prospect excited him. This was big. Like something he’d read about in a comic-book. If she was gonna be this kick-ass superhero, he could be part of her origin story -

He stopped. He was getting ahead of himself.

“If you don’t, this power-source is gonna go to the armies. They’ll be out there, taking even more innocent lives, and it’ll be your fault, Edam. I’m telling you, we need to-”

“Alright, alright,” he raised a hand, hoped to God he was doing the right thing (though the old guy in the sky had been curiously absent recently), and said, “I’ll do it. Where do we meet?”

A gust of wind blew between them, tugging at their clothes. Her back to the sun, Saavi was outlined in gold. She smiled, “I’ll let you know.” 

Edam nodded, conscious of his accelerating heartbeat. His parents would disown him if they found out, and his chance of getting a job would be zero. 

Not that they were high, anyway. Even being a brilliant computer science major, finding a job would be difficult. Maybe it was time for change.

Big change.