Mercifully his headache had started to fade as he drove. Becoming a dull roar after he dropped off Arthur's phone then to a rolling echo as he pulled up to his parent’s house.
Hiro’s childhood home was a pale blue row house that was older than either of his parents, his grandparents even. Yet, it still managed to look relatively new. Under the constant care of his father's careful hands and his mother's critical eyes, the building had been restored, renovated, and updated a dozen times over. The solar panels mounted to the roof were only the latest in a series of updates and add-ons.
Hiro didn't bother with knocking, lugging his bags of laundry through the front door with barely a greeting. And why would he? He was home.
Tierra, his sister, waved as he passed through the den. She didn't even bother to look up from her tablet.
"Hey." She said, nose deep in something. Her fingers jabbing at the screen feverishly, likely working on some new project. Everyone in their family was always working on something.
Except for him.
"Dad's still at work." She warned, "And Mom’s in the kitchen cooking."
Meaning he would have no buffer, great. Exactly what he needed after a monster of a headache. He could already feel it pulsing back to life.
The door to the basement, thus the laundry room, was through the kitchen. There was no avoiding it, no escaping it. Not with her in there, practically in the middle of the kitchen, prepping dinner.
It looked like lasagna.
He knew he could have turned around right then. That he could head back into the town proper and find a laundromat, but more than a few things stopped him. Pride, money, the fact he was already there. With all that against him, there was no way he could leave.
"Hey, Mom." He said, deciding to dive straight into the deep end.
She smiled up at him as he stepped in, already near the doorway, and pulled him into a hug. Big, tight, and awkward she pulled him in for a hands-free hug. Her sauce stained fingers held high to avoid his shirt.
Tatsuki Hierro was a slim woman with a bobbed haircut and a severe face. And while Hiro wasn't exactly the tallest guy around he still had a good half a foot on her. Tierra took after her in that department. Hiro mostly got her facial features.
"You're early." She accused as they separated, a mock glare on her face.
"Laundry."
"Always here for something, never just to visit." She huffed and waved him off. "Well, get to it. The sooner you're done the sooner we can chat."
He gave her a smile he didn't feel and moved on before she could say anything else. She still frowned as he passed.
The family laundry room was more of a corner in the basement that had yet to be consumed by boxes of holiday decorations, old clothes, and tools. The washer and dryer pressed against the wall closest to the stairs with a stack of baskets off to the side.
He took his time with it. Dividing clothes that had already been sorted and measuring out the exact amount of detergent. Even with that he only killed a handful of minutes, not nearly long enough.
Hiro chanced a glance at the stairs, then pulled out his phone. He could fake it for a few more minutes.
Hiro blinked as he unlocked his screen. Something was already open. An app he did not recognize.
The lines were in green on a black screen, with an effect that made the words seem deeper than they should be. Some font that made each letter look as if they been carved into his screen.
Did he want a tour? No, no he did not. What he wanted was to know how the app had appeared on his phone. When did it even have time to download? Was it a hack?
Hiro slid his finger across the screen, dismissing the thing so he could deal with the app itself. But it didn't go away, not really. It stayed as a mini icon, pulsating on the screen.
The golden "CN" rested within a green circle, a glaring little one gleaming in its upper right corner. Again, it was pulsing. A steady rhythm of expanding and shrinking that made it impossible to ignore as he hunted for its program. He could hear it in his skull, feel it in his chest. It even seemed to speed up with his heart when he made the connection.
All in his head of course. There was no way some random phone app could track his heartbeat. Right? Not without a Fitbit at least. His headache-addled brain was playing tricks on him.
Like how the app was. The stupid thing was like the bastard love child of Bixby and Messenger. Refusing to go away when dismissed, impossible to find in his library. Meaning he was having a hell of a time trying to uninstall the thing, just like Bixby. Did this "Champions' Network " sneak in with a system update? A hack?
"Hiro? Are you done down there?" He jerked up at the sound of his mother's voice. He had spent his precious reprieve obsessing over a stupid app. Great, perfect.
"Almost! Got distracted!" He yelled back, pocketing his phone and starting the washer. The issue of the app was pushed aside as he trudged up the stairs.
"I was beginning to think you fell in." She said, giving him a critical look.
"Got distracted."
"Well, come here and help your old mom out." She said, gesturing to a bag of potatoes on the counter. "Grab a knife and start peeling."
Hiro huffed, even sighed, but made his way over with a single comment. "Potatoes and lasagna? That's a lot of starch, don't you think?"
"A little extra starch isn't going to hurt you." She defended, though her eyes did take a quick look at his new paunch as she did. Hiro ignored that, washing off the potatoes and popping off the sprouts.
There wasn't even a beat of silence before she pushed on.
"So, how has work been?" She asked, not quite looking at him as she cleaned her potatoes. "Are you still at that car job?"
"Which one? The dealership or the ride sharing? Either way, the answer is yes."
She clucked her tongue. "Two jobs? Still? If you need money that bad you could always move back in."
"I'm fine."
"I'm sure you are." She said, her eyes still not on him as she skinned her potatoes with a practiced hand. "But so much work for so little money? You're a college graduate, there are better jobs out there for you."
He had an Associate's in General Studies after he dropped his major. Not exactly something that screamed opportunity.
"There are less out there than you'd think Mom." He said, falling into a familiar rhythm with her. Familiar answers spilling from his pressed lips, replying to her questions with an automatic grace he did not feel.
Yes, he applied to all those exams and was just waiting for a date. No, he did not think he was ready to go back to school. And… he was very much unsure of how he was feeling.
Hiro, obviously, did not tell his mother that last bit. Instead, he mumbled out a "fine" and focused on his potato. His second potato.
His mother kept peeling one after another, not even slowing as she gave him a bit of side eye. "Are you sure? You seem a bit pale." Which was an impressive feat considering he inherited his father's skin tone.
"Just a headache." He said, telling her a half truth.
"Have you taken anything for it?"
"Nah, I'm fine, I'm fine." He said it twice, to reassure them both. Though going by the look on her face it wasn't helping either of them much.
Before she could get another word in, his sister, blessedly, came to his rescue. Still nose deep in her tablet she stomped into the kitchen. "Hey, Hiro? Can you look at this for me? It looks a little hinky to me."
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'God yes' he thought even as he wiped his hands and more politely said, "Sure."
Turning the tablet over in his hands he was about to ask what she was working on when he froze. Not paused, froze. His hands didn't even shake, though every vein in his skull pulsed.
Just like the golden "CN" on his sister's screen.
It did not belong there, it forced itself to be there. He knew this as much as knew it was there for him, demanding to be seen.
All the same, he had to ask. He had to be sure. "When did you download this?"
"What? Java?" She asked, peering over at the screen. "Beginning of the semester I guess? Why? Is that why the code isn't working?"
Hiro honestly didn’t even notice her project. His attention was too drawn to the beating of the gold on the green icon and the little red "1" glaring at him.
"No, no." He said, voice tight as he gestured to the icon. "I meant this. The Champion's Network."
"The what?" She squinted at the screen. "Huh, don't know. Jamie probably. Dude keeps recommending games and I keep forgetting about them."
That wasn't it, he knew it wasn't. He could FEEL the app looking at him. Waiting for him, impatiently, to click on it and take its tour.
He wanted to believe it was a coincidence, that the app was just some bug on the local wifi, but he could feel that it wasn't.
"Hey, are you okay?"
He blinked over at his sister, the room roaring dully in his ears. "Huh?"
Tierra must not have liked he said that because she snapped her tablet from his hands. She gave him a narrowed eyed look, she looked a lot like their mother right then. If she started nagging at him too he'd definitely snap.
A hand landed on his shoulder. "You," his mother started, "Are lying down."
"I said I'm fine."
His mother scoffed, clearly not believing him, and actually started to push him out of the kitchen. It took her embarrassingly little effort to get him stumbling toward the stairs. "Just like your father." She mumbled, "Go lay down and rest. You obviously need it. Go, go!"
Hiro trudged up the stairs, and not because she was forcing him. No, it was because he could use the nap. Just an hour or two, that was it.
His feet tracked an old trail to his childhood bedroom and fell face first onto the bed. It would just be for a few hours. Just a few…
He fell asleep, phone still in hand and headache still pulsing.
-0-0-0-
Hiro gave a sudden gasp as he woke, shooting up in his bed and taking in air like a drowning man. Fresh air startled his lungs leaving him suddenly awake and much too alert. There was no reason for this, there had been no nightmares, sudden falls, or anything like that. In fact, it had been a pleasantly blank sleep all things considered.
Still, for whatever reason, he was awake. Awake and disturbingly alert. There was no sign of his usual morning grogginess, no hint of a lingering dream slipping from his memory, only the sudden clarity of a well rested mind. Luckily, his headache seemed to go the way of his sleep. Gone in a gasp.
Palming for his phone, which had been helpfully plugged in, Hiro noticed a glass of water and Tylenol resting next to it on the nightstand. Hiro popped both of the little white pills gratefully. The headache may be gone but some preventative steps could never hurt.
Sipping at the offered water Hiro took a look at his phone’s screen. 6 AM, to the dot. Exactly when his alarm would usually go off, a leftover habit of a different time. Of when he actually had a reason to be up so early. It was also hours later than he planned to nap.
The strange thing was he did not remember dismissing the alarm. Had he been that out of it? That he'd swipe away an alarm he always woke to without noticing? Maybe. It wasn't that big of a deal, just odd.
Not thinking about it further Hiro got out of bed and began his day. Something that was easier than one would think. Hiro may have moved out but he was still in his old room. Or, at least, he was in the storage closet for all the crap he didn't want or couldn't fit in his apartment. Which was a lot.
Moving aside an old Quiltbag and some out of date textbooks Hiro managed to find an old box of clothes towards the back of the closet. They were a bit tight, more than he'd care to admit, but they still fit. Mostly.
Mindful of the early hour Hiro tried to creep out of his old room, then the floorboards creaked under his feet. The old foundation betrayed him right when he left the room.
From the living room, Hiro heard a short snort, followed by a cough, then a snore. Peeking in as he passed he spied his father, still in uniform, sprawled out across the couch. It looked like the guys in Animal Control had been working hard that day if he knocked out that soundly.
Hector Hierro was a stout man with a deep tan and thick black hair that just managed to hide his growing bald spot. Hiro inherited most of these features, though the bald spot had yet to rear its ugly head. Thankfully.
Tiptoeing past his snoring dad Hiro snuck his way to the kitchen, the TV flashing 'Are you still watching?' as he passed. If he was lucky there would be some spare toothbrushes in the pantry, which his mother always bought in bulk. Everywhere from the pantry to the garage to the basement were overfilled from shopping deals of years past. It would have been an impossible mess to sort through if not for his mother’s meticulous organization methods.
Said method allowed him to find a stack of toothbrushes shoved in the upper corner of the pantry. Lucky.
Ripping one free from its packaging and moving to toss it out he noticed a note on the fridge. His name was written at the top in large bold letters and circled half a dozen times, just in case he didn’t notice it. It read: ‘There is leftover lasagna for you in the fridge. Make sure you grab it. Don't forget. Love Mom’.
Hiro almost snorted at that. Why didn’t she just send him a text like a normal person? He’d have been guaranteed to see it instead of toothbrush fueled happenstance. Or maybe she did and the note was just in case? The redundancy sounded like her.
Pulling out his phone he went to unlock it and hesitated, his thumb hovering over the screen. Why was he hesitating? It was just his phone. Why did it feel like something was building at the back of his skull?
Hiro almost let out a snort.
He was overthinking things. Dramatizing them and giving them more credit than they were due. It was only an app… That was still on his phone.
The little gold-on-green icon was still there, pulsing with the number 1 in the corner. Hiro rubbed at his eyes, there was no headache but he was frustrated enough to get one. No one liked malware on their phones… and he might have infected his family's WIFI with it. Great. Perfect.
Hiro let out a long frustrated breath, organizing his thoughts. First thing first, he had to see if there was a network-wide infection. Actually, that was second. The first thing he had to do was run his anti-virus program to purge the stupid thing. And while that was running he’d check the home electronics.
His sister took her tablet back to her room so there was no checking that again but his parents seemed to hate having them in their room. They also seemed to disagree with the idea of having a password on them, the homescreens appearing at the touch of the power button.
And so did the app.
It was on his mom’s tablet, his dad’s, and even the Firestick when he checked the TV. He groaned out a nice long “Fuck” at the discovery, just loud enough to get a startled snort from his dad.
“Huh, what’s that?” The older man said, not quite jolting into a sitting position but getting close to it. He blinked a few times and gave Hiro a sleepy smile. “Hey there bud. Trying to take over my shows?”
Hiro gives an effort of a smile to the joke, it might have been a bit guilty. Something his dad picked up on quickly. “You alright there?” He asked, sounding much more awake and his hand clamping down on Hiro's shoulder. As much of a reassurance as it was a way to stop Hiro from pulling away.
“It’s, well, it's kinda my fault." Hiro admitted, "Kinda. I think one of the clients I drove put malware on my phone and now it might be on the WIFI."
"Well, that doesn't sound good," Hector said, pulling out his phone. "What's it do?"
"Outside of downloading a weird app to everything, I don't really know." Hiro even showed him where it showed up on the TV.
"Strange way to advertise something." He said, still on his phone and flicking his way through screens. "Well, I'm not seeing anything. Pass me that remote."
"You're not going to click on it are you?" Hiro asked, holding the controller away from the obviously computer illiterate. “Because that would be incredibly stupid.”
"Best way to figure out what it does, otherwise it’s just going to sit there bugging us." He said, snagged it from his son's hands when it became obvious he wouldn't pass it over. Then he squinted his eyes at the screen, “Huh, it’s gone.”
“What? Really?”
Hector tapped around the home screen for a bit, even dived into the larger app library, before giving up. “Yep, looks like it. It was definitely there though, maybe it can hear us or something? Like Alexa was supposed to do.”
“You don’t have any voice stuff here Dad.” Hector was pretty paranoid about it. He had barely allowed smartphones or tablets in the house after he heard about that rumor.
“Well, we’ll keep an eye out for it. McAfee the stuff to be sure and reset everything if we see it again.” His dad said, sounding more reasonable than he did a moment ago. Seriously, who clicked on an app that just randomly appeared? Seriously!
After a pause his dad turned a critical eye onto Hiro, “You eat yet?”
“I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.”
Hector let out a ‘tsk’ and then a grunt as he stood. “You go do that. I should be halfway done with some eggs and bacon by the time you get done. You’re grabbing a plate before you go, make up for missing dinner last night.”
That was all his dad would say about Hiro’s dizzy spell and he was very thankful for that. Though Hiro made sure to leave, after a plate of breakfast, before the real interrogation came.
It wasn’t until he was out of the house that he checked his phone again, where the virus scan was complete and came up empty. A clever little bug whatever the thing was. That jackass Arthur, if that was his real name, had some explaining to do if Hiro ever caught up with him.
Still, what did the thing do? Was it mining his data? It wasn’t like all his other apps weren’t doing that already so why make it so obvious?
He drummed his fingers as he drove to his apartment, thinking. He couldn’t delete it, it wasn’t recognized as malware, and Google had no answers for him. Besides an ad at the top of the search asking if he wanted to start up the App.
What else was he supposed to do?
Reset like his dad said? It wasn’t like he had a lot of data or numbers to back up anymore, everything he had was recoverable. In fact, he could do without some of the pictures he couldn’t bring himself to delete.
And it wasn't like he could call the police. What would he even report? That he thought someone put a virus on his phone? He was a bit rusty on the subject but he was pretty sure the laws only protected the government and businesses from implanting viruses in general. Proving that the sender wasn’t just another victim was another issue, or so he would think.
Besides, that jerk still worked there and god only knew what would be said if he tried to report things. Probably something about him “trying too hard”.
Hiro let out a tsk, one he tried to believe was dismissive and moved his attention back to his phone. What was he going to do?
He sat there in the small parking lot thinking about just that. A factory reset was starting to seem like the only thing he could do but he didn’t like the taste of it. As little as the data mattered it was still his and he didn’t like the idea of being forced to give it up.
Giving his phone another look he remembered the bone brained choice his dad tried to spearhead with. ‘Click on it and see what happens’, also known as the dumbest decision you could make when it came to this kind of thing. But if he was going to lose everything anyway, well, he might as well go for it.
Right?
The app was there again when opened his phone, pulsing in an eerily familiar pattern. It almost seemed eager as his thumb hovered over the icon, shining brighter as the digit hovered closer. Hiro hesitated again, it felt like he was about to do something stupid but…
His thumb pressed down and he felt a jolt run up his arm, driving straight into his spine and brain. “Ah!” He yelped, fingers tense around the phone as the screen began to change.