“Shut up, Hefty”

“It’s never gonna work, Johnny”

“Shut up shitdick,” whispered Johnny. “Give me your laptop.”

“Why do we always have to use my computer?” I asked.

“You sound like such a turd, you know that?” replied Johnny. I wanted to smack him, but it wasn’t worth it. Johnny had the decency to hang out with me. It was the least I could do for him. He ripped the laptop out of my arms. I just stood there. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t do anything about it.

He started typing away. I didn’t like him poking and prodding on my device, but what could I do? He was my friend. “Okay, shit dick, the reason we’re using your computer is cause you’re a turd-butt… and because your computer is better than mine.”

“That’s not true,” I said, “your dad buys you the best gadgets.”

“Yea,” said Johnny, pointing to his iWatch, “but he only gets Apple products. We need your PC. Duh.”

I didn’t have a good comeback. Johnny connected the metal ring to my computer. “Hold this,” he said, handing it to me, “hold it away from the computer. It’s super magnetic and can totally destroy your computer.”

“This is insane. We’re gonna get caught.”

“Relax. Just go with it,” Johnny said, “and we won’t get caught if we don’t think we’ll get caught. That’s how the universe works. I saw that on YouTube.”

“So… How does this thing work?” I said, looking at the code. Johnny turned the screen away from me so I couldn’t see. Then, he unplugged the device. “Okay, take this and put it on the car.”

I backed away from Johnny and his device. “What? No. You do it.”

“Duuude, I have the computer. Do you wanna get caught?”

“NO!”

“Well, do it quick. Put it under the tire. GO!”

Johnny shoved me from out of the bushes. It was dark out, but my target was right under a streetlight. I paused, then scampered to the Tesla. I put the silver puck-device right under the tire, then U-turned my body back for the bushes.

“UNDER THE CAR! Above the tire! UNDER THE CAR!”

“Well you didn’t say that!” I hissed.

“DO IT NOW!” he hissed back.

I turned again and grabbed the disk, but it wouldn’t budge. It was gripped onto the tire. The magnet was stuck to the rubber.

“HURRY!”he yelled. I yanked, and yanked, and got it free. Then it slapped from the tire to bumper. I started yanking again, but nothing was coming of it. Then the car started. I could barely hear the engine.

“Got it! Get back here! Vamanos, Hefty!”

I ran back and jumped in the bushes. Johnny was wigging out. “Dude… it’s working. Okay, let’s take it for a test drive.” Johnny started typing. He was using the arrow keys. The car started moving. It worked. “Oh man, I thought it was too good to be true!” he said.

The car swiveled out of its parking spot. The controls were pretty off. Johnny almost hit some more of the Tesla’s in the auto lot, but just missed them. He pulled the car right by us. “Shall we take her for a spin?” Johnny said. I looked at him, and he flashed me the eyes. Johnny was definitely the devil. I rolled my eyes and said, “well, what else are we gonna do?”

He unlocked the doors. The handles slid out, and we got in. Johnny in the driver’s seat, and me in shotgun. Johnny gave me back my laptop and grabbed the wheel. “Annnd, there we go.” He was barely tall enough to operate the car. His tiptoes hit the gas, and we were off, stealing our first Tesla. Now that I had the laptop, I started looking at the code, and the controls. “Wait… if I’m looking at this right, I think… I think we could do this without the device.”

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“What?” said Johnny, “Hefty, shut up.”

“No, I’m serious!” I said, lunging up from my seat. Johnny gunned it. We were off, on the highway. “Watch out dude!” Johnny had pulled out a joint and started to light it. “What are you doing? Dude, watch the road!”

He smirked. “Relax! It’s on autopilot. Here, smoke this,” he put the joint into my lips. I’d never seen weed before. It smelled like a skunk.

“Don’t be weird, dude. Trust me.” I gave him a look, then inhaled. It tasted about how it smelled. I held it in, like I saw on YouTube, and exhaled. “That’s it, dude. This is really good stuff. It’s supposed to make you trip.”

“Trip?”

“Like, see cartoons in your head. Take some more.” I obeyed. “It’s some weird Middle Eastern roots or something, I don’t know. I just know the dealer was all kinds of shady about it, so you know it’s good.”

My nose tingled for a bit, then went numb. It was funny, but not in a good way. “Ohhhh yea. I’m feeling it,” I said.

He grabbed hold of the wheel and started driving. We drove around some back roads, and I couldn’t tell if Johnny was driving bad or not, cause I was pretty high. I think I was tripping. I closed my eyes and saw really strange patterns.

“Okay smart guy,” said Johnny, “Show me what you got.” I opened my eyes and freaked. We were in a whole other part of town. It was like I lost time. Tripping, holy crap. “There’s a Tesla right there. Across the street. Turn it on.”

I looked, and sure enough, he was right. There was a red Tesla. Johnny parked, and waited. I turned to him, about to say, “I can’t do that,” but saved my breath. Johnny wouldn’t have accepted that as an answer.

Instead of being a smart-ass, I just opened my computer. The code was weird. It was melting off the screen… but I could see it. I could actually see it almost better than before. The code oozed off the screen. I felt like I could see the computer in 3D, like I was looking at the code like it was liquid, like a lake, or an ocean. I mean, I felt like computer was my first language.

I smiled, and then started typing. It felt foreign at first, but I got a grip then hammered at the keys. I got the GPS, found our location, found the car and then I hit enter.

The control panel opened on my screen. I pressed start.

The Tesla’s lights popped on.

“No WAY! Is that the weed?” asked Johnny. I pressed the horn button on the controls. The Tesla honked. “WHAT THE FUCK?” We both started cheering. Then I pressed the alarm button. The Tesla started beeping and freaking. We laughed some more. Then I put it into drive. The Tesla accelerated… straight into the car parked in front of it.

“Oh shit!” said Johnny. I threw it into reverse. The thing slammed into the car behind it. The front and back of the car was crunched up pretty bad. I looked at Johnny with a cocksure smile. As I did, his face changed. “Duck!” he said. I turned, and there was someone running to the Tesla, yelling.

“What the fuck! My car!” I could hear the man. I ducked down, turned off the alarm, and canceled the controls.

“Shhh,” said Johnny. We were quiet and listened with joy as the owner investigated the scene of the crash. He thought someone broke in, and was more confused than he possibly could be. It was too good. “Okay,” Johnny whispered, “mad props, Hefty. I stand corrected.”

“Don’t question my coding skills Johnny,” I said, “or I’ll destroy every machine you’ve ever touched.”

“Fair. Okay, turn on the car. Let’s sneak out of here.”

I did as he told me, and Johnny peeled out furiously. Smooth, except he totally tipped off the Tesla driver. “Uh oh,” he said, “I think he’s onto us.”

I turned to check out our rear. I was definitely still tripping, and the crunched Tesla was definitely following us. “Uh, Johnny…”

“I know.” He accelerated, but the Tesla kept pace. “This isn’t good, Hefty.”

“Well great fucking job sneaking out,”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“Well why can’t you just not show off?”

“Cause that’s how God made me!” I couldn’t get caught… we were about to start high school in like a month. Mom would die if she found out.

“He’s onto us, dude” Johnny said.

I woke up my laptop. Wasting no time, I looked at the street as we crossed them. Then I checked the map. I linked up the coordinates and hit execute. Suddenly our car stopped.

“Uh, Hefty?”

“One sec…” I typed away, turned our car back on, right as the other car reached us. The guy pulled up right next to us. Right as he saw us, his car shut off. “Floor it, Johnny!”

He hit the gas, and we sped off past the red light. The guy tried to turn his car on. He did, but I turned it off. He tried again, and from my computer, I shut it off. I did this about a dozen times, until he finally gave up.

Johnny drove back silently. His bunghole must have been smaller than a pen tip. I, on the other hand, let him have it.

We parked the car back at the Tesla dealership, we exited the vehicle, grabbed all our stuff, and were off. Johnny almost forgot the device, and he had to double back to rip it off the car.

“Okay, so that was awesome but where the HELL did you get that thing?” I asked.

“Dark Web, dude.”

“Like, the illegal dark web?”

“Wait, so you’ve never been on it?”

“No,” I answered honestly. I didn’t know anything about it, other than what I’d heard and seen on dumb news segments.

“Dude it’s awesome. That’s where I’ve been getting these cool drugs and stuff. You can literally get anything. Guns, poison pellets… There’s a bunch of terrorists selling and buying shit like fighter jets. You can even get hitmen.”

I froze. “Wait, like, mafia hitmen?”

“Dude, there’s even a guy who’s screen name is GoPro Killer. He wears a GoPro and you watch him kill your target Live online. Sometimes they even make it public. How sick is that?”

I didn’t hesitate to respond. “That’s literally sick. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I mean it… I mean it like, how horrible is that? It’s so awful that I joke about it, come on, you know that.”

“You’re a sick fuck, Johnny.”

“Whatever Hefty. You better be at my house next week. Guess what we’re doing...”