“Thank you for your business!” Blake said as he waved to a customer. It looked a bit odd for a kid to be manning the counter, yet he proved his competence to the customer.

“Thanks for the ring kid,” The customer said before exiting the store. Blake gave a tired sigh before walking over to the door and flipping the open sign. Just as he did, a well-dressed man walked into the store.

“Sorry, we’re closing right now,” Blake said in his best, polite voice. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’m not a customer sir,” the man said, detached and formal. “I’m a creditor for the UK government.”

“Creditor? We’ve never begun any operations there.”

“I’m not here to debate whether or not you began operations, but your business reported earnings. As such, the government has tried to collect your tax, but you’ve fled to the United States.” The man’s voice, while formal, carried an aggressive undertone.

“That’s bullshit!” Blake responded harshly. Tears formed in his eyes. “We’ve had to declare bankruptcy! Me and my best friend are balancing on the threshold of poverty! I’ve had to close every other store, my dead dad’s legacy, and pay off debts here in the states, and now you’re telling me you want me to pay for money that we never made?”

“Sir, no need to get aggressive. I’ve been civil so please allot me the same respect,” he said with the same detached tone.

“You’re far from being civil!” Blake spat out.

“Sir, don’t interrupt,” the creditor said. He reached into his suit and pulled out a piece of paper. “An itemized bill of all the money you and your friend owe.”

Blake unfolded the paper and analyzed the bill. When he reached the bottom, his jaw dropped. “2.3 million pounds? Are you fucking insane?”

“SIr, again, no need for vulgarness,” he said. “Consider this your notice. Should you not pay, we’ll begin court proceedings that’ll last a few years.”

“Do you get a kick out of screwing over desperate people?” Blake asked. The creditor, seeing he had nothing left to gain, began to walk away.

Blake had to sit there, silently recollecting himself. He wiped his tears and began to finish the task he was doing.

After going through the closing procedure, he walked to the back of the store into a small room.

It wasn’t too small, but at the same time it wasn’t too big. It housed two beds, a desk for my computer, and a shared closet. Littered around the floor were some of my bows and arrows, a target, and cards that I practiced throwing.

“How are you doing?” Blake asked as he fell onto the bed.

I was slaving away at the computer, my eyes not leaving the screen for a second. “I’m so close to finishing.”

“You’ve been saying that for the past six months,” he retorted. His voice sounded broken.

“What’s wrong?” I asked out of concern. I spun in my chair to look at him.

“A UK creditor came to collect an imaginary debt,” Blake’s voice was high. He curled into a ball and pulled the blanket over his body. He raised his arm up and held the piece of paper.

I walked over and collected it to see for myself. My reaction to the receipt was the same as Blake’s. Shock and outrage.

“This is obviously bullshit,” I said as I let out a heavy breath. “What kind of system do they even have there? First the insurance, fines, and now this?”

“It’s fucking broken,” Blake said.

The two of us were struggling to make enough money. Sure, our parents were wealthy, but the life insurance company refused to pay out their policies. Furthermore, the British government was able to somehow impose fines on us despite not operating in Britain.

The fines wiped out most of our fathers’ companies’ funds. Blake’s dad, Craig, was a successful gems dealer. However, the fines wiped out all of his stores except the one we were staying at. For me, it forced me to close all the divisions in my-no my dad’s company. I felt bad for all the employees who were laid off. They didn’t deserve it.

With the last few thousand dollars we had, we agreed that I would spend it to finish Project Archer. I wanted to do more, but it was the only thing that I’d found some solace in. It was sort of a coping mechanism for me. However, in the past year, we’ve spent almost all of it. And now the debt seemed like it was going to wipe everything else away.

“If it’s any consolation,” I began, trying to make him-no us feel better. “I’m actually almost done this time,” I reaffirmed. “Look,”

I gestured to the second monitor. Blake, remaining on the bed, shifted to his side to watch the screen. On it displayed a random string of characters. At the bottom were flickering characters. It went in sequential order, from aaa to aab and so forth.

“Let’s say that I’m not a god-tier coder like you,” he began. “What exactly am I looking at?”

“The world’s first symbolic AI,” I informed. “In short, it uses its intelligence to improve its efficiency by finding new ways to solve problems.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Isn’t that, like, going to end the world?” Blake asked somewhat concerned.

I scoffed. “The movies get it so wrong. This doesn’t control any computers, wifi, or anything. It only changes certain functions that allow it to operate more efficiently.”

“Uh huh, so what exactly does it do? Play Minecraft faster?”

“No,” I grumbled while shaking my head. I thought for a while in my head to figure out how to explain it to him. “Okay, so encryption works on the assumption that we don’t have enough power to crack or guess it. The AI can constantly improve itself to gain enough power or just finds a better way. It focuses on cracking the hash or private key, whatever standard they’re using, to gain access to the camera.”

“That’s … overkill.”

“An homage to my father,” I said somberly. The sadness spread to Blake. It’s crazy to think that as best friends, we would even share the pain of our dads’ death. A thick atmosphere enveloped the room as we stayed silent, both of us silently reflecting on the past year.

Suddenly, the computer dinged. With great vigor, I spun my chair and snapped my eyes to the screen. The text below paused and turned green.

“Holy shit,” I said quietly. I didn’t have the energy to shout. I was too stunned. As a programmer, you always hope that your code would work, but you always know that it won’t. So when it finally does, it’s a feeling of elation. Solving one problem that many consider impossible brings a great high.

“Did you finish?” Blake asked, seemingly using the enthusiasm I didn’t have. He rose up from the bed and moved to the side of me.

I began to fervorously type on the keyboard. I began to work on adding it to one of the several methods that Project Archer employed to gain control of a camera. A few minutes later, I had finished it. I brought a nearby test camera manufactured by the world’s most used security camera company and I began to test it.

Minutes passed as Archer began to attack the camera. First, it detected it as a camera. Secondly, it identified the brand and began to use a series of exploits to gain access to the encrypted version of the password. Finally, it began to crack it.

Ten minutes later, I had the private key. Archer automatically used it to gain access to the root of the system and injected a virus into it to constantly transmit its data to Archer.

When the test concluded, a camera screen popped up on the screen displaying me and Blake. I instantly rose from my seat and pounded the air with my fist.

“I did it,” I said aloud. My voice was shaky from excitement. “I fucking did it!”

In moments like this, adults would pop a Champagne bottle. However, buying Champagne as a twelve-year-old kid is a bit illegal, so I had to settle for something else. Grabbing out a familiar Robin Hood themed deck of cards, I began to do some flourishes.

As I separated the deck with my nimble fingers, cards cascade, spin, and twirl through the air, creating a harmonious dance of patterns and shapes. At the end of the motion displayed five packets connected by the tips of my fingers. The five faces of Sybil.

“S-so when can we start selling this?!” Blake asked, emotion finally returning to his voice. He watched as I did my routine, mesmerized by the fluidity of the movement. “We can actually get out of all this.”

My eyebrows scrunched in concentration as I did my best to estimate how long. I let out a sigh as I told him the unfortunate news. “A year maybe? Possibly two?”

“You’re joking right?” The excitement seemed to drain from his voice as he spoke in a more serious manner.

“No, I’m not,” I said seriously as I shook my head. “Eh, you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

He stared at me with a tilted head. It looked like tears had begun to form in his eyes. “What now?”

I clicked my tongue. “We need like $350,000.”

“For what?”’

“Well, we need thousands of servers for Project Archer to run on. Not only that, but it has to be specialized servers with the best graphics cards on the market.”

Blake let out a long and sharp exhale. “If we liquidate all our assets and go all in, how much would we have?”

I shook my head. “Not enough. It would take too much time to build the servers and, in that time, we would have no place to live and our earnings would just be taken.”

Blake fell back onto the bed. “So, we could make millions but don’t have enough to actually do it nor could we keep it.”

“That sums up our situation,” I said as I finished the Pandora flourish. When the deck collapsed back into its original state, I stared at the back of the cards. An arrow was protruding up and down from the center of the card.

I drew the top card and saw that it was the King of Spades. It showed Robin Hood with his bow drawn, ready to fire, and arrows to the side.

An idea popped into my head as I stared at the card. “What if we steal?”

“Theft?” he asked. “That’s such a great idea,” he said sarcastically. “Why don’t we just do fraud while we’re at it. Do what they’re doing.”

“No, we won’t actually be stealing,” I said. “We’ll only be taking what’s rightfully ours.”

“Oh, my bad, I forgot that I left more than $350,000 in the back pocket of my pants that were stolen.”

“Can you just shut up and listen?” I asked, somewhat irritated.

“If you’re going to say something stupid, expect to be ridiculed.”

I rolled my eyes and grumbled something incoherent before regaining my composure. I rotated my fingers to show the King of Spades and Robin Hood.

“The life insurance company has a division for jewelry businesses,” I began. “So, if we just steal like ten 3 carat diamonds, that’s worth like a hundredth of the life insurance policy. Now the shop will be insured so they won’t lose money and it’ll only be the insurance company getting robbed.”

Blake nodded while listening to my admittedly insane plan. “Great idea,” he began before snapping. “Oh shit, I just forgot the part where we rob a jewelry store.”

“You own one, how hard can it be?” I asked, seeking reassurance.

He tilted his head and eyed me like I was crazy. “Well, you have to enter the store, break the glass case, take the diamonds, and leave before the cops come.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, that works off the assumption that I trigger the alarm, which I won’t.”

“Did you mix alcohol and prescription drugs?” Blake asked. “There’s no way that’s happening.”

“I’ll trigger it, but I’ll just turn it off.”

Blake eyed the Robin Hood card with keen interest. “And you got this idea from Robin Hood?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Blake shook his head and stood up. “Look Zack, I’ll admit that you’re a good thief. But you’re only good at pickpocketing, not gemstone thefts.”

“Awh, you said something nice!” I playfully remarked. “But we all have to start from somewhere.”

“Is that somewhere a count of grand larceny?”

“Can you stop being a hater?” I asked.

“I’m being pragmatic,” he responded before shaking his head and sitting up. “Okay, so how do you imagine that this would go down? How do you steal the diamonds without getting caught?”

I chuckled slightly as a small smile formed. “Just like Robin Hood. Fighting the system with a little ingenuity.”