

GUERRILLA INTERNET

By Matt Sayer

Copyright 2014 Matt Sayer

Smashwords Edition

FOREWORD UNTO THE BREACH

Hello wonderful reader!

First, I would like to thank you for taking an interest in my novel. The tale that follows is threaded with themes of privacy, data security, and freedom of expression; themes that have been thrust to the forefront in the past few years thanks to the rapid evolution of technology. These topics are of great concern to us all, and I hope that after reading this book, you too will find cause to question the decisions being made by those higher up, decisions that will dramatically influence the course of humanity in the very near future.

But there is another motif that pumps through the veins of the following story. Depression and anxiety are both severely debilitating conditions that affect a miserably large segment of society. Many suffer in silence, muted by the stigma that still pervades these harrowing mental conditions. I fell victim to anxiety just a few years ago, and have only recently recovered to the point where I feel comfortable engaging in activities outside of the strict routine I had collapsed into. I am still on a prescription of antidepressants, and I will never share the same unfettered outlook on life that I revelled in half a decade ago, but even the brief taste of the abyss that I experienced broadened my perspective radically, helping me to empathise with a condition I had never thought could be so cataclysmic.

My intention in exploring a little of this theme herein is to hopefully provide some insight into anxiety and its oftentimes crippling effects. Please note, however, that what Charlie experiences within is but the fringes of anxiety, the after-effects of a recovering sufferer. I have avoided plunging too deep into the emotional well for the sake of brevity; if I explored the minutiae, I would have no room to write the rest of the story! If you wish to learn more, there are many wonderful resources available on the Internet such as BeyondBlue, or if you wish to discuss something personally, my contact details are listed at the end of this book.

Enjoy!

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE

It was that absurd dead time between midnight and morning when the city whispered echoes of days buried and premonitions of those yet to come. The swirling rush of wind as a lone car scooted through the streets, the distant blare of an indignant horn, the insistent clacking of pedestrian signals guiding naught but memories across the slick black asphalt; these the only remnants of the ordinarily bustling metropolis. The bars had silenced their spigots over an hour ago, and the last stumbling drunkards had found their way into torn-leather taxis or caught the last ghost train home. The early risers were still in blissful slumber, their alarm clocks ticking down the minutes until the ritual hot shower and even hotter coffee necessary for sustaining them through the wee hours. Trains lay dormant like discarded toys and buildings melted into indistinguishable obelisks, their gaudy signs and enticing interiors shrouded in thick shadows. One office defied the trend, however, with a dim light emanating from the row of windows on the third floor. The faint illumination girdled the maroon brick walls like a broken halo. From below and across the street a thin figure crouched in an alley, resting against the wall and ignorant to the light above.

Clad in a sleek black wetsuit that tightly hugged his masculine physique, he sidled from the mouth of the alleyway and into the street. Still crouching, he scurried across the road, throwing furtive glances left and right, scanning his surroundings for any hint of movement. Bulky headgear adorned his crown, combating the shadows with the fuzzy green haze of artificial night-vision.

Reaching an alcove between the maroon office building and the shuttered restaurant next to it, he ducked inside and slipped a hand into the rear pocket of his wetsuit, retrieving a slim black phone and cupping it inside his hands. With the glow of the screen adequately masked from the rest of the street, he tapped and swiped before nodding and sliding the phone back inside the pocket. He rose from his crouch and rubbed his legs briefly, trying to ward off the biting chill and massage the numb out of his muscles. He pressed his back against the wall and slowly crept around the corner, sliding step-by-step across the rough brick of the office towards the twin smoked-glass entry doors. His head swung surveillance arcs as he remained alert for movement. With utmost caution he approached the edge of the tepid pool of security lighting that bathed the automatic doors. All was still, silent.

The doors' sensor detected his presence and jolted apart on their metal railings, causing the slightly warmer air from inside to rush out and tickle the back of his neck. He spun around, flicked his eyes around the lobby and, deeming it deserted, dove forward in an awkward commando roll. He tumbled unsuccessfully onto his back, rolled sideways and lifted himself into a prone position. His hands immediately shot forward, a small Beretta 9mm aimed through the gap between the slowly closing doors. He lay still, his gaze unblinking and unwavering until the seals of the doors kissed with a soft rush of air, then rose to his feet, hands dusting himself off unnecessarily. He shook his head.

C'mon Kyle, get it together man. It's just the door.

He cleared his throat and gave the lobby a thorough assessment. A vacant marble reception desk sat opposite a grouping of black leather couches. A corridor burrowed further into the building on the far wall. His eyes settled on its strobe-lit maw and he strode purposefully down it, his stampeding heartbeat subsiding as the lack of reaction to his intrusion inflated him with bubbles of effervescent confidence. Or maybe that was just the Red Bull kicking in.

The corridor terminated in a small chamber. A pair of lifts sat nestled between frosted glass doors, each providing access to the stately first floor offices. With the sinfully empowering weight of the firearm still clutched in his hand, he briefly swept his gaze across the room and stepped forward. He hit the call button for the elevators.

And waited.

He tapped his foot impatiently, his right hand squeezing the silver steel grip of the pistol. His eyes flicked between the nearby doors and the backlit indicator arrows above the lifts. The elevator dinged its arrival and he jumped backwards, pointing his gun shakily at the speaker holes punched into the gunmetal above the call button. The left elevator's doors separated slowly, exposing the empty cabin and its chrome-mirrored interior. He stared hard at the masked man with the gun looking back at him, his buzzing brain taking a few seconds to consolidate the image as his own reflection. He closed his eyes and shook clear his head.

Man, I really shouldn't have had that third Red Bull.

A rush of air escaped his lungs. He lowered the weapon once more and stepped into the elevator. As he passed between the rubber seals of the thick steel doors, he spun and raised his hand to the inner panel. The floor buttons had been annotated with hastily ripped pieces of white masking tape, the names of the companies occupying each level scrawled out in black marker. Big block letters confirmed what he already knew; mBition was on the third floor.

He stabbed the button and the doors trundled ponderously shut, a steady rumble rising through the floor as the lift began its ascent. Preparing himself for whatever might be awaiting him, Kyle pressed his back against the inner wall and cocked the pistol in two hands, the barrel pointing death at the ceiling.

A few quick breaths and the short trip was over, the lift settling into position on the third floor and the silver steel doors splitting apart beside him. He stared at the back wall of the elevator, using the reflective surface to watch as an antechamber materialised outside. He released an unconsciously held breath when he saw the area was deserted—just as he'd been assured—and his eyes snapped to the narrow glass door on the far right. The pristine transparent surface offered a clear view into an open office populated by shoulder-high cubicles, each walled with thin grey carpeting. The lights were on inside, but that was not cause for concern. The lights were often left on at night, as the last employee to leave was notoriously absent-minded.

He counted to five and edged around the lift door. He spun quickly to either side, checking the corners of the room for an ambush.

Nothing.

He returned the pistol to his side and rummaged through his back pocket. He pulled out a stubby red key and approached the glass door. He slid the key into the lock and turned, pushing forward at the same time. The door opened easily, swinging away with little effort. He snapped the pistol back up and swept across the cluttered room, passing warily from cubicle to cubicle. The capacious room was bathed in bright light from the ceiling, numerous fluorescent tubes visible where broken panels had been removed and never replaced.

After assuring himself that he was indeed alone, Kyle dropped his arms to his sides and began walking to the thick black server cabinet occupying the distant corner of the room. He weaved amongst the cluttered desktops, glancing over unhooked computer monitors, tangles of USB and power cables, and an assortment of knick-knacks and tchotchkes—mostly action figures and other pop-culture memorabilia. A glimpse of something familiar caught his eye, and he paused. A 3 ¾ inch Boba Fett action figure was staring down a hulking Big Daddy from the videogame Bioshock. The former was posed with its wrist-mounted rocket launcher cocked forward, while the latter held its massive drill arm back in preparation to strike. A wan smile lit up Kyle's face beneath his mask, and a chuckle bubbled to the surface. He felt some of his tension melt away with the laughter, and let it continue for a few blissful seconds. When it began to subside he reluctantly shifted his focus back to the task at hand.

"Awesome," he muttered, striding away from the miniature battleground. "I'm totally ordering myself a Big Daddy when I get home."

His murmured comment persisted in echoes, the broken silence ringing in his ears and masking the low grunt of surprise that rumbled from behind a cubicle to his left. He continued towards the server cabinet, unaware of the bulky figure unfurling itself from where it had collapsed in exhaustion face-first on the desk. The portly body belonged to a balding middle-aged man, the impression of laptop keys tattooed across his cheek and a thick grey woolly coat draped over his shoulders. His eyelids were struggling to separate against the cloying remnants of sleep, and his arms swung above his head in a rolling stretch as he tried to stifle a yawn.

"Marcus, is that you?" he croaked. He finally managed to coax open his eyes and proceeded to blink rapidly against the harsh illumination of the office.

Without the echoes of his own voice to obscure it, Kyle heard every gravelly note of the groggily barked question, and he spun a rapid one-eighty with eyes flared wide and his heart hammering a solo stampede. His perception of reality slowed as he twisted, with the carpeted cubicle walls hemming him in like a rat in a maze.

With his mind relinquishing command to adrenaline-fuelled instinct, he nearly overshot his target, his balance teetering precariously in his haste to turn around. Reflexively his hands shot forward, trying to find something to grab for support, but instead of the muffled thud of his gloved hand hitting a smooth wooden desk, he was rewarded with a tiny click, a whining pew, and the wet slap of something solid hitting flesh.

Succumbing to his momentum and the inexorable force of gravity, he crashed onto the floor with a throaty gasp of pain, scrambling onto his hands and knees, struggling to his feet, and trying to ignore the stabbing pain reverberating up his spinal column. As he rose he saw that his white-knuckled hand still clasped his silver Beretta. A pungent burning aroma tickled the hairs of his nose. It took a few moments for his backseat brain to catch up, but the scattered fragments of moments past reformed into a cohesive whole and he jumped to his feet, scurrying between the rows of dull grey cubicles. He headed for where he had heard the grunted question come from just seconds earlier.

"No. No, no, no, no, no!" he wailed, his cry increasing in volume and desperation as he drew closer to the end of the cubicle wall. He paused at the corner, savouring the moment of blissful ignorance before peeking his head out and confronting the truth. The middle-aged man's body lay crumpled on the floor, sprawled on its back with a petrified expression frozen in time. Unblinking eyes stared lifelessly up into the bright light above. A small red stain blossomed across the undershirt, visible now that the flaps of the grey coat had fallen aside.

"Oh shit! No, no, no!" His cries had risen to a hysterical scream, and he clasped his hand over his mouth to mute the discordance as he rushed over and crouched beside the lumpy body. His trembling hand ventured forward to check for a pulse, but he snapped it back rapidly, as if the body were shrouded in an aura of invisible flame. He struggled to his feet and paced slowly backward, his eyes never swaying from the mass of limp flesh in front of him. He buried his free hand in his back pocket, searching for his phone. He came to a stop a few metres away, his gaze unbroken and the phone at his ear, the brrr-brrr resounding as a connection was established to the contact labelled Emergency Only. The ringing cut off abruptly after the second tone.

"This better be important." The voice blasting out of the phone's speaker sounded alien, parsed as it was through some sort of aural filter to obscure its identity. Despite that, the speaker's indignant tone came through loud and clear, with the words clipped short and the rush of escaping breath adding bursts of static to the transmission. Kyle hesitated, tearing his eyes from the morbid scene and focusing his attention to the conversation.

"Uh...Big Boss? It-it's Kyle. I-I f-fucked up..." he stuttered, his hands trembling as he began to pace back and forth across the office. "I-I-I think he's dead!" An abrasive lump formed in his throat and he swallowed hard. The walls and cubicles around him began to blur, and it left as though a thousand pinballs were ricocheting around his skull.

"What?! What do you mean 'dead'?! What have you done?" The roar was almost incomprehensible, the crackling in between words lending it the sound of breaking waves against a rough cliff face. Kyle recoiled and pulled the phone away from his ear, instinctively twisting his head and subjecting himself to the horror painted in cooling flesh and scarlet ink. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and waited for the unintelligible tirade to end before returning the phone to his ear.

"I-I didn't mean to!" he pleaded. "It was an accident! I only brought the gun as a scare tactic in case anybody was here! I-I didn't meant to use it!" His tremble had accelerated into a full-body quake, tears of guilt, fear, and despair coagulating in the corners of his eyes as the enormity of the grisly scene unfolded in his mind. His right hand still clenched the offending weapon, unwilling to abandon the cold steel confidence it provided.

"What compelled you to take a goddamn gun? What the hell was going through your head? How could you possibly think that was a good idea? Gah!" The voice filter was working overtime, with the volume spiking up and down and the pitch warbling frenetically.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Just...just tell me what to do!" He had folded into a crouch. He pressed his right hand, still clasping the gun, up against his temple as he rocked back and forth on his heels.

"Alright." A brief pause. "I'm assuming you weren't irrational enough to use an unsilenced weapon were you?"

"N-n-no?"

"Good. Leave the body, there isn't enough time to deal with it now. Grab the hard drives and destroy everything else. Make it look like a gang hit or something. Then get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Start the upload as soon as you get home. I'll send you an email with further instructions soon."

"A g-gang hit? W-we don't have gangs here..."

"Well, whatever then! Just get your ass into gear and finish the job!" The connection cut off and Kyle let his hand drop to the floor. After a few seconds of violent, fearful quivering he rose to his feet, fumbling the phone back into his pocket while stubbornly ignoring the silent accusations of the prone body and the slick of reflective blood pooling underneath it.

"Okay. Okay. Okay." His teeth chattered raucously and his head pulsed with alternating pangs of fear and regret. He turned his back on the mortifying display. He took a deep, choking breath, gulping oxygen greedily to steady his spinning head, and tried to return his focus to the task at hand. He eyed the jet black server cabinets in the corner of the room and stumbled forward, careening back and forth off the cubicle walls, oblivious to the pain in his arms and shins as they struck hard against exposed edges.

His eyes remained fixed on his goal, fear and despondency leering menacingly from the perimeter of his focus. He would let them encroach no further while he still had a job to do. There would be plenty of time later for regret.
ROUGH HANDS AND SHIFTING SANDS

Charlie awoke to the languid serenity of his empty apartment, the whining of the traffic outside little more than a muted, buzzing duet with the peaceful hum of his computer for accompaniment. A weak smile skittered across his mouth as he arched his back and stretched his arms. He struck the mahogany headboard of his bed with an echoing knock.

His smile rapidly transformed into a grimace. He rubbed his smarting knuckles and rolled sideways, mustering up the strength to fumble across his bedside table for the familiar rounded corners of his Samsung phone. He forced his eyes open and loosed an almighty yawn. He hammered at the various buttons, but to no effect. He stared at the blank black screen, mystified by his own tousled reflection glaring stubbornly back at him. He expended well over ten seconds with fruitless taps and swipes before he realised the phone was dead. His eyes flared from clouded and sleep-ridden to wide and alert.

"Crap!" he yelled, his sleep-choked cry corrupting the tranquil atmosphere that had suffused the apartment. He kicked his legs and leapt out of bed, sending the thick black-and-white checkered blankets tumbling to the floor. He hobbled through the doorway, his legs protesting the sudden call to arms. He halted with his hands resting on the back of his furry dark-green couch. He squinted at the clock hanging on the wall across the room. The leaving-home gift from his mother was of the minimalist school of design; two narrow black hands with barely-visible, unlabelled notches marking out the hours. Currently the hands were closest to 12 and 2.

Phew, thought Charlie, it's only 2:00 a.m. Back to bed.

He smiled and span back around before his brain finally escaped its dreamy quagmire.

Wait a minute...

Daylight bled in around the edges of the thick navy drapes hanging from the window beside his TV cabinet. The muffled toot of a blaring horn rose up to penetrate his consciousness as a taxi narrowly avoided a jaywalking pedestrian on the street below.

"Ooh...shit," Charlie mumbled through gritted teeth, hanging his head in his hands. He tenderly massaged his fleshy face before reluctantly bending down and picking up the remote from one of the couch cushions. He aimed it at his LCD television and tapped the power button. The screen blossomed into anticlimactic life, a small purple box in the top left corner the only blemish on a jet black canvas. The first line of text within the rectangle read HDMI1 – No input detected. He had left the TV on the channel for his Xbox. His eyes drifted to the proceeding line. The TV's digital clock displayed 14:03.

"Dammit! Stupid goddamn phone!"

He slammed the power button again and threw the remote back onto his couch. He ran towards the bathroom, stripping off his t-shirt as he ran inside. A thirty-second shower, and he was bounding back out, sprinting into his room and recklessly flinging clothes from his wardrobe as he searched for a clean shirt and a decent pair of pants.

Amidst the cavalcade of Mario, Halo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Futurama t-shirts he managed to extract the light brown button-up he was looking for and, along with a pair of thin, black suit pants, he deemed the outfit suitable for work.

In reality, anything that covered at least 75% of his body would have been suitable for work. IT wasn't exactly an industry known for its impeccable dress code. But Charlie still preferred to maintain a cloak of semi-professionalism. He had been lectured often in his youth with the old adage cleanliness is next to godliness, and though the state of his apartment belied that particular lesson, when it came to presenting himself for work, Charlie took to heart every word of advice his parents had given him.

Charlie, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by dressing yourself well. Clothes may not make the man, but they can sure as heck give him a leg up on the competition!

He scooped up his laptop and its power supply and shoved them both into his laptop bag. He stared accusingly at the lifeless phone resting on the bedside table. Grumbling unhappily, he added it and its charger to the bag before jogging out of his clothes-bombed bedroom and into his apartment's small kitchen.

"Bit late for breakfast. Oh well."

He procured a muesli bar from the pantry and ripped it open, biting a sizable chunk out of it while he gathered his wallet and keys from the bench and slipped them into his pockets. After taking his habitual survey of the living area to ensure he hadn't forgotten anything, he stepped out the front door, locked up, then half-jogged down the corridor towards the elevator lobby.

***

The street outside Charlie's apartment was bustling with traffic both mechanical and human, a far cry from the gentle smattering of early morning commuters he was accustomed to. A typical work day consisted of a 6:00 a.m. departure, the roads still warming up to peak-hour congestion, and the sleepy atmosphere only occasionally tainted with the ding of tram bells and squeaking brakes.

Today, though, was a public holiday, that bastion of slothfulness embraced with sleep-ins and lunchtime barbecues. Unfortunately for Charlie, he was not amongst those blessed with reprieve. Granted, he was permitted a late start, one that he had successfully managed to sleep right through, but that did little to assuage his disappointment.

He manoeuvred through the throng of carefree individuals, many of them clustered around the McDonalds just a few buildings down, and made his way towards the tram platform at the nearby intersection.

He let out a miserable sigh. A crowd clustered there, shoving and squirming against each other, fighting for the last few inches of free space on the already vac-packed tram. Yet another problem he normally managed to avoid with his early morning commute.

Interacting with people wasn't exactly Charlie's strong suit, and that was reflected in his choice of career. Working for a software development company, even in a predominantly Quality Assurance role, necessitated far less human interaction than most other occupations. He was still required to communicate regularly with his co-workers and, on occasion, his boss, but such discourse was conducted in the infinite digital void rather than the physical confines of meatspace. Emails, instant messaging, and Skype video-calls were far more palatable than face-to-face conversations.

It wasn't that he actively loathed the company of other people, it was just that he never felt quite at ease when the eyes of observation were upon him. Ridiculous though it may be, he could not help but imagine his every action scrutinised and judged by those around him, and he feared unwittingly causing disapproval or distress, of losing respect or inviting animosity with some errant comment or flippant remark. Digital correspondence granted him a buffer of distance and deliberation, a means by which he could vet his every word before surrendering the message to interpretation.

This mentality would occasionally manifest itself in a brusque, unintentionally rude demeanour. To avoid the inevitable embarrassment that came from trying to explain his peculiar mindset, Charlie limited himself to one-on-one interactions wherever possible, steeling himself with slow breathing and tunnel vision when the monthly team meetings rolled around.

Life online was an entirely different story. Without the humid claustrophobia that hallmarked physical communication, Charlie was able to mingle confidently with friends and strangers alike, free to employ thorough consideration and forethought to every reply without judgement. But the security of asynchronous communication offered little comfort to Charlie in his current situation, and he was forced to squeeze into the infinitesimal gap between a tall, lean man in a business suit and a rotund woman, her generous chest almost overflowing from her shockingly inadequate blouse.

Charlie clung to the nearest sweat-sticky silver support pole and closed his eyes, trying to picture himself somewhere else, anywhere else, pretending that the hot flesh rubbing into him was nothing more than the cushions of his couch, the gentle rocking motion of the tram simply a violent storm raging outside his apartment...

He longed for the aural escape his iPod provided.

I can't believe I left it on my desk. Idiot!

He tried to conjure the music in his head, the resonant crash of cymbals and the dirty chug of distorted guitar, but it was a fragile mockery and failed to drown out the drone of conversation and the irritating sniff of some unseen passenger with a phlegmy cold.

Squeezing his eyes tighter, he anxiously counted down the stops until he arrived at the office. One... Two... Three... Four... Five! The double ding of the tram's bell signalled a heavenly reprieve from the harsh confines of the metal casket, and Charlie catapulted himself out from the mass of sweaty flesh, apologising profusely to those he squeezed past even though he had no cause to. He dropped onto the platform and side-stepped the cluster of people waiting to board. He took a deep, hungry breath of the fresh, early-afternoon air. Unsullied oxygen had never tasted so sweet.

After permitting himself a few seconds for his claustrophobia to bleed away and for his galloping heart to revert to a gentle canter, he strolled down the length of the platform and crossed the white painted lines of the pedestrian strip to the unnaturally peopled footpath. His eyes remained locked at a forty-five degree angle, staring forwards at the ground just ahead of him, averted from any possible engagement with passers-by.

He knew the crack patterns in the sidewalk by heart, the same neglected tufts of weeds sprouting up amidst the worried slabs of concrete. He slipped from the left side of the path to the right as a particular window slid past in the corner of his eye, the exact same movement he performed every time he went to work. He knew it was counter-productive, knew it was the kind of regressive behaviour that he was supposed to quash, but he brushed the guilt aside. So what if a few echoes of the past lingered in spectral form? Everybody had their little quirks.

The raucous Greek restaurant next to his office flickered out of his vision and he finally brought his head up, just in time to shudder to an abrupt halt before the blue and white checker-box pattern of police cordon tape. The thin plastic billowed back and forth with the breeze, the word POLICE only visible in the spots where the tape wrapped around the trees and the orange bollards that had been temporarily erected in front of the building.

Charlie's heart fluttered and his breath caught in his throat. He stood, immobile, as he struggled to comprehend the scene before him. Two police officers had taken up sentry on either side of the glass entry doors, chatting idly with each other and throwing occasional disapproving glances to the footpath as pedestrians stopped to gawk.

Another officer was perched at the cordon perimeter a few metres down from Charlie, conversing with a visibly frustrated young couple. The officer shook his head and frowned, and the couple ambled away in obvious displeasure.

Charlie clamped his gaping mouth shut and summoned a measure of composure, striding alongside the police tape to catch the officer before another onlooker beat him to it. He approached nervously, feeling the same inescapable sense of guilt that clamped down like talons on his shoulders whenever he was in the presence of authority. He tried to suppress it, telling himself that it was ridiculous to think of the police as some omniscient alien entity that could peer inside his skull and weasel out every little questionable act he had ever committed. He was partially successful, but a tremulous waver persisted through his words as he called out to the officer.

"H-Hi. Umm, w-what's going on here?"

The officer's head slowly drift from the crowd to Charlie, a frown furrowing deep ridges on his forehead. He lifted his arms and folded them across his chest, sighing with the weary exasperation of having to deflect yet another inquisitive onlooker. A name tag pinned above his breast pocket identified him as S. Glover, Constable.

"Look buddy, this is a crime scene and no, I can't tell you anything about it. This is a police matter, and if you're really that interested, I suggest watching the news later tonight." The officer raised his eyebrows and stared expectantly at Charlie, waiting for him to move on. His brow dropped when Charlie refused to leave, the thin line of his mouth melting into a grimace. Before he could unleash his well-worn tirade, however, Charlie found his voice and piped up.

"Umm, b-but I work in there? I was supposed to start earlier today but I slept in..." he bumbled, finding the officer's steadfast glare incredibly intimidating. His stuttered words had a drastic effect on the officer's attitude, though, and frustration was quickly replaced by a more neutral look of understanding.

"Ah. You wouldn't happen to be Charles..." The officer pulled a small notepad out of his back pocket and flipped it open. "Bullard, is it?" He looked up from the blue pad questioningly. Charlie nodded slowly, swallowing hard to clear his throat and trying not to think about why his name was written on a policeman's notepad. "Do you have any ID on you to verify that?"

Charlie rummaged through his pockets and retrieved his wallet. After several failed attempts, he managed to extract his driver's license and fumbled it into the officer's waiting hand. The photo on the license was from three years prior, when Charlie's face had been noticeably skinnier and topped with a neat buzz cut, quite unlike the shaggy brown mess that currently adorned his crown. The need to justify this incongruity overwhelmed him.

"It-it's an old photo. I don't have anything more recent, sorry!" Charlie forced a nervous smile and looked up as the officer's eyes flicked between his face and the small green plastic card. Storm cloud seconds passed and Charlie, finding his mouth suddenly lined with sandpaper, swallowed painfully. The officer handed back his license and nodded solemnly.

"Okay, follow me."

The constable held the police tape up, and Charlie ducked underneath it. They followed the winding concrete path to the guarded entry doors and slipped inside. The building's shoebox foyer, normally a hollow echo chamber, was abuzz with purposeful activity.

In place of the lone receptionist Charlie nervously smiled at sat a young male police officer, his fingers dancing across the keyboard of his laptop with studious precision. A tall, broad-shouldered female in plain clothes stood near the opposite wall, deep in conversation with a stubby, hairy, heavy-set man that Charlie recognized as the building's owner. He had invaded the office twice since Charlie had started working there, both times in a visibly disgruntled state, hands gesticulating wildly and lips hurling incoherent abuse at unseen adversaries.

Charlie knew, from a slew of company-wide emails, that his boss was pressing the owner on the inadequacy of the building's security measures. He had emphatically 'requested' that a video surveillance system be installed, in addition to electronic locks on all the doors with alarms wired to the local police. The owner vehemently opposed it, claiming that such frivolities would only cause more problems than they would prevent. On his second reluctant visit the owner had left in a boiling rage, mumbling as he stormed out that in twenty years of renting the building there had never been a single theft.

The officer directed Charlie to sit down on one of the couches opposite the reception desk. Charlie obeyed and quietly settled into the black leather cushions. The officer strode towards the well-built brunette interrogating the building's owner, waiting patiently off to her side for a break in conversation.

Charlie's heart jackhammered his ribcage, and his quivering fingers contorted themselves around each other, forming complex patterns. He surrendered his head to the pull of gravity and stared blankly at his dull black dress shoes. His mind wandered, conjuring all sorts of fantastical scenarios to explain the significant police presence and their interest in him. The first image that manifested itself was that of a thick bundle of red, sausage-like cylinders strapped to a digital clock display. Seconds flashed by and the numbers fell, stripping away the last fleeting moments before total annihilation...

Get real, Charlie! He shook his head forcefully. You've been watching way too many action flicks lately. If there was a bomb here, they'd be quarantining the area, not bringing people inside the building. This is Melbourne for Christ's sake. Stuff like that only happens in movies...and maybe in America.

Charlie dismissed the notion and flicked his head up. The officer who had brought him here had struck up a hushed conversation with the plain-clothes woman. The owner of the building bounced from foot to foot, looking more than a little irate at being brushed aside. Charlie let his gaze drift back to the floor, a chilling concern washing over his mind.

Why am I the only one here? Where are Greg and all the others? What could the police want with me? Did I do something wrong? Think, think, think!

Memories collided before his eyes as every transgression he had committed, no matter how trivial or irrelevant, bubbled up from the depths of his mind. Riding public transport without a ticket. Pirating movies and music from the internet. Pretending his Xbox had spontaneously leapt off the TV cabinet, when it had really been sent flying by an aggressively hurled controller, just so he could claim a replacement under warranty.

Don't be an idiot. If it was something like that they would have shown up at the apartment, or more likely just sent out an infringement notice, not waited to ambush you here. No, this has to have something to do with work. Maybe one of the software testers leaked an early version of the app, one where we were still recording both sides of a phone call? Nah, we stripped that out ages ago. Besides, it was running on dummy data. No one's privacy was breached.

A torrential stream of possibilities flooded his mind, each wilder and more absurd than last. He tapped the toes of his shoes against the marble floor and drummed his fingers rhythmically against the top of his legs, electric anxiety urging his entire body to move, run, escape! He clamped his teeth down and erected a shield against the familiar temptation, deflecting its advances and herding it back into its pen. He became keenly aware of the skittish image he was presenting, and a sunbeam of a thought pierced the storm clouds in his mind, punching a hole through the fog and providing a brief moment of luminous clarity.

Crap! I'm making myself look guilty as sin sitting like this!

Charlie's shoulders were hunched and his head was bowed, his posture painting a thick-stroke portrait of furtive distress. He immediately snapped upright, straightening his back and staring intently at the dark wallpaper, striving for meek and innocent but certain he was coming off more robotic than anything else. Without turning his head he flicked his eyes across the room, worried that his nervous behaviour had garnered the attention of one of the police officers. They all appeared fixated on their own tasks, oblivious to Charlie's conflict of appearances. He released the breath he had been holding and relaxed, letting his shoulders slip back into their regular slump. He admonished himself for getting so carried away.

C'mon Charlie, you know that kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. You cannot let yourself fall down that hole again. Just relax; if they wanted to arrest you, you'd be in handcuffs right now.

Another long-drawn breath and the anxiety subsided. He closed his eyes, blanketing his mind with a haze of peaceful ignorance, assuming a meditative void state he had developed for situations such as these. He enjoyed only a few scant moments of solitude, however, before a simultaneous squawk burst out from all the walkie-talkies in the room, and he jumped in surprise, nearly tumbling off the couch. He regained his stability and he swivelled sideways, peering curiously at the powerful brunette and the officer that had brought him in. Both had their heads canted towards the officer's receiver, the spiralling black cord trailing from his hand into his breast pocket. From where he sat, Charlie could hear only the faint buzz of static, occasional fragments of coherent speech coalescing out of the discordance.

Zzzzzzt- un found in airport garbage bi- zzzzzzt- sibly made a late booki- zzzzzt- have been grounded- zzzzt.

"VKC, this is Essendon 501," answered the female, grasping the receiver from the officer's hand and barking confidently in to it. "Acknowledging the request with ID 20437. We're on our way."

She mumbled something to the officer, spoke briefly with the disgruntled owner of the premises then marched him out the door, the young male who had sat at reception trailing in her wake. The remaining officer strode towards Charlie, motioning for him to rise with a simple hand gesture and a nod. He stopped a few feet away and placed his hands on his hips, his expression stern with a sprinkling of sympathy.

"Sorry, son, but I'm afraid you're going to have to accompany me back to the station. Normally in cases like this we would conduct the preliminary questioning on-site but...uh... circumstances dictate otherwise. So, if you wouldn't mind...?" He swept his hand towards the door and cocked his head expectantly.

What?! What the hell's going on? What do you want with me, and why do we need to go to the police station to talk? Was I right about the bomb?

Questions stormed the fort of Charlie's brain, but the officer's confident demeanour and expectation of silent acquiescence left him reluctant to voice them. The policeman's façade was beginning to show cracks of impatience when Charlie finally mustered the courage to croak out a response.

"W-w-what's happening? W-where are the rest of the guys who work here?" He tried to meet the officer's steely gaze but failed, and ended up staring at a vacant spot just left of his head. The policeman locked eyes with Charlie for a few moments and opened his mouth to retort, but changed his mind and snapped it shut again. He grunted and sighed.

"Alright, listen. A homicide occurred here early this morning. One of your co-workers, Joel Montague, received a fatal gunshot wound to the chest." He paused to let his words sink in. "The rest of your co-workers have already been questioned and, aside from your employer who is still down at the station, they've been released pending further inquiries." He glanced impatiently at the glass entry doors. "C'mon. We need to get moving." Charlie followed the arc of the officer's hand and stumbled towards the door in a floaty daze, his head doused in cold, clammy confusion.

Murdered? No. No way. That's absurd. That kind of thing just doesn't happen, not here, not in my life. It's got to be some sort of mistake, a mix-up, or something! People don't get shot around here; this isn't America for Christ's sake!

Charlie knew that was utter tripe, fairy-tale lies to ease his discomfort, but he was finding it incredibly difficult to accept the harsh reality that the officer had so casually tossed his way. Words swallowed like icebergs, cold and abrasive and tearing his throat on the way down, settling in his chest and chilling his insides. Organs froze and sloughed snowflakes into his bloodstream, spreading the chill to his extremities. His ribcage felt hollow, his heart lost to the abyss, his entire body a frigid cave devoid of the warmth of life.

His very foundations quaked precariously. He struggled to hold himself together. The automatic glass doors parted in front of him, and Charlie stepped through, staring bafflingly at the world outside. He had expected dark violet storm clouds and heavy rain, furtive glances and scurrying people, a scene that reflected the death-clock despondency that pervaded his mind. But the sun retained its sing-song strength and bathed the heads of cheerful pedestrians as they strolled by, oblivious to the atrocity spreading its spider-web cracks through the fragile dam wall holding Charlie's anxiety at bay. He swayed under the brilliant rays, his hands clasped and pressed to his mouth and his eyes staring forward unseeing.

It's okay. It's okay. Joel must have been involved in... a shady business deal or something. Maybe he lost big in a back-alley poker game, and someone took their revenge. Whatever happened, it can't have been random. There had to be a legitimate reason. Melbourne's way too peaceful for murder on a whim!

Charlie bit down and focused, hammering the thought into his head, refusing to believe that his workplace, his town, his country, could be privy to the depravity of random slaughter. He could not, would not accept that the same thing could happen to anyone, could happen to him. A sudden gentle pat on the back fragmented his concentration and he started, flicking his head over his shoulder to see the officer staring at him impatiently.

"C'mon son. The quicker we get down to the station, the quicker you can be on your way." He lifted his right hand up, a black garbage bag suspended by thin yellow handles threaded between two fingers. "Your employer, Mr. Carlsson, asked us to give this to you." He proffered the dangling bag to Charlie who watched as it twisted back and forth like a pendulum, hypnotic, the yellow ties entwining themselves around the officer's fingers. It wasn't until the bag was physically pressed into his chest that Charlie snapped to and accepted it, fumbling with clumsy hands that felt twenty leagues distant.

"Oh... thanks," he mumbled, staring blankly at the black mass in his arms. The firm pressure in the small of his back returned, coaxing him down the stone path towards the billowing police tape. Charlie registered movement out of the corner of his eye and instinctively turned to look. The lone officer who guarded the entrance wandered over to one of the glass doors, withdrawing a tiny silver key from his pocket and inserting it into the semi-concealed manual lock. A flick of his wrist and the doors trundled shut, remaining steadfastly so as he waved his arm in front of the motion sensor. Satisfied, the officer pocketed the key and reassumed his deterrent posture in front of the doors.

Charlie felt the gentle encouragement on his back ease and he dragged his head forward, moving as if through a sea of cotton wool. They had arrived at the cordon of white and blue police tape, his escort chatting in a low-tone buzz with the officer manning the perimeter. The drone of their conversation passed clean through Charlie's ears, his mind consumed by the abhorrent shock of murder. Nothing else could find purchase.

Without the steady support of the officer's hand, Charlie's balance eroded and he teetered sideways, slumping against the rough bark of a nearby tree. He closed his eyes and let the cool breeze of mid-afternoon tickle the skin of his bare throat. His drowsy, peaceful visage was at odds with the dogfight of emotions raging within; pain, fear, confusion, relief, guilt, all vying for dominance over his battlefield mind, tracing scorch marks and carving shrapnel canyons across his fragile composure. His straining dam wall wept tears of anxiety, the fertile lands below already withering in response. He desperately needed to regain control, to reassert governance over his body and mind. This was hardly the first time that Charlie had felt his resistance falter, and it almost certainly would not be the last. The threat of resurgence was ever-persistent, a dense shadow of impenetrable gloom that could never be entirely purged, only carefully avoided.

Still, despite his best efforts, there were occasions when the clammy tendrils of anxiety managed to breach Charlie's stalwart defences, seeding his thoughts with misery and despair, dimming the lights of hope and joy, even inciting sporadic outbursts of uncontrollable fury, wounding any innocent bystander who happened to be caught in the line of fire. The shame and remorse that followed such displays only exacerbated his malaise, prolonging the careful reconstruction of his mental barriers and the methodical extermination of every malignant, toxic thought.

The psychiatrist his parents had demanded he see before moving out had supplied him with a retinue of calming exercises that worked surprisingly well, the effect like a breeze of clarity dispersing the roiling smog of emotional turmoil. Employing the simplest—and least noticeable—of these, he drew a lungful of air through his nose and began sifting through the tumult in his mind, seizing and isolating each feeling in turn, analysing them as if they were physical objects, flipping and rotating, poking and prodding, identifying possible weak points in their structure.

Pain. Pain is normal. You may not have known Joel all that well, but he was a human being, and it's normal to feel sad that he died. He filed the pain away, accepting it now that he clearly understood why it was there.

Fear. Of course you're scared, somebody freakin' died! Joel is really dead! And now you're acutely aware of just how fragile life really is. But you can't let that fear consume you. Everybody dies eventually, it's the immutable constant, the inevitable convergence, and there's nothing you can do about it. When your time comes, that's going to be it. There's nothing to gain from worrying about it. You'll just waste the precious time you have left!

Charlie's self-coercion was less successful this time around, failing to pinpoint the exact source of his distress, but it was still persuasive enough to sandbox the fear and sideline it for a more thorough consideration later.

His gale-force confusion dissipated as he organised his thoughts, tagging and filing them like a librarian would books, order constructed from compartmentalised chaos.

Relief and guilt. You're relieved because it wasn't you that got shot. That's normal. The rest of the guys will be feeling the exact same way. You don't need to feel guilty for that. What you do need to do is embrace life with welcome arms and an open mind, now that you've seen just quickly it can be wrenched away. Live life like there's no tomorrow.

With a tentative ceasefire negotiated amongst his quarrelsome thoughts, Charlie swallowed another deep breath and slowly reopened his eyes. The world appeared stable again, tangible, manageable. A warm burn in his biceps reminded him of the bag he was carrying and he hefted it faceward, tugging at the opening and peering inside. A poorly scrawled note on white printer paper jutted from a fissure between mountains of contorted action figures and squashed plush toys that had, until recently, adorned Charlie's desk, providing him with exactly the kind of mute companionship that he most preferred. He plucked the letter from between a Xenomorph face-hugger and a Yoshi plush toy, and squinted in concentration as he gradually deciphered his boss' familiar scratchy handwriting.

Charlie,

The rest of the guys packed up their desks and left, so I've just put everything of yours I could find in a bag and given it to the police. If I missed anything, you'll have to talk to them.

What happened to Joel is a goddamn tragedy, and I'm willing to admit that I'm shitting my pants thinking somebody as nice as him could be snuffed out, like a bloody candle in the wind. Sure as hell I know a lot more people deserving of a bullet than him. Makes you really start to question your life, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm shutting the business down. Whoever iced Joel trashed the servers and stole the drives. All our work, gone. My dreams, extinguished, just like Joel. Sorry, bud, but no two weeks' notice here. You'll get your last pay-check on Thursday, and if you want a letter of recommendation, you're going to have to give me a couple of weeks to recover from the raging bender I'm pulling tonight.

See you in another life.

Greg

Charlie's eyes screamed and his `mouth gaped in disbelief as he read through the letter once, twice, then a third time just to be sure.

Unemployed? No! I can't have lost my job!

He shut his eyes and pressed in with the heels of his hands, hard, an eruption of fireworks playing across the inside of his eyelids. The letter crinkled between his fingers, the dry paper abrasive against his forehead.

"Hey!"

The booming call yanked Charlie from his thoughts, his hands dropping from his face and his eyes snapping open to a haze of fading stardust. The officer was staring at him quizzically, bent slightly to match his height, hand outstretched to tap him on the shoulder. Registering his return to the world of the living, the officer straightened up and gestured in the direction of a police car mounted half on the curb nearby.

"Time to go," he stated bluntly, ducking under the police tape and holding it up for Charlie to follow. It took Charlie a few seconds to marshal his thoughts and seal the misery pit of sudden joblessness for future plumbing. He shook off his slump and stepped forward, catching his foot on the black garbage bag at his feet, half of its contents already strewn across the grass. He couldn't remember the bag ever leaving his hands.

Must have dropped it... he thought absent-mindedly as he scooped the remains of his career into the trash bag.

Ha, that's poetic. A humourless grunt fell from his lips and he ducked under the raised cordon, taking slow, lumbering steps towards the intimidating bulk of the police car, burying the steel-cold dread that the sight resurrected in his chest.

It's just a car, just dead metal and plastic like any other. It can't hurt you. Besides, you've done nothing wrong. The police just want to ask you some questions then you'll be free to go. There's no need to be afraid.

The officer powered past Charlie, the river of pedestrians streaming along the sidewalk parting before him like the Red Sea before Moses. He marched towards the rear of the vehicle and yanked open the passenger door, gesturing for Charlie to hop inside.

"Uh... the b-back?" he stammered, pausing at the periphery of the open door.

"Just get in," the officer replied, a flash of irritation momentarily overriding his stern visage. Charlie suppressed the urge to recoil from the officer's scowl and slid into the surprisingly comfortable fabric seats, feeling the nosy stare of passing pedestrians burning hot on the nape of his neck. A stampede of heavy footsteps and a bellowed command hastened his embarkation and he swivelled around on his seat so he could see out the open door. A tall, muscular woman in a sharp black suit strode purposefully towards the police car, her pinstripe jacket tight around her biceps and her brightly polished shoes clacking against the pavement. Traffic on the sidewalk cleared for her without question. The officer stepped forward and held up his hand, palm flat. She halted a few steps in front of him and thrust her hand into her inside pocket, sending a fleeting shiver of ice shooting up Charlie's spine that melted when all that emerged from the sheathe of her jacket was a slim, nonthreatening black wallet. Charlie lowered his tensed shoulders and shook his head in admonishment.

Like I said, Charlie, too many bloody James Bond movies.

With a flick of her wrist the woman unfolded her wallet and exposed the brilliant silver Victorian police emblem inside. Charlie squinted and tried to read the words engraved on the badge, but the wallet was snapped shut and slipped back into the jacket before he had the chance.

"Good afternoon..." She leaned forward and read the name off the officer's name tag. "Constable Glover. My name is Detective Shriver, and I need that young man you have there to come with me. I have reason to believe he is in possession of knowledge crucial to my investigation." Her voice was as sharp as her suit, a crystalline, authoritative tone that persisted beyond the mere lifespan of her words, like an echo without the need for walls to maintain it. The officer recoiled slightly under the force of her command, recovered, spread his feet wide and planted his hands on his hips.

"Uh... sorry ma'am, but I'm under orders to escort Mr Bullard back to—"

"I'm superseding those orders! You should be on your way to the airport. The situation has escalated and there are now multiple armed suspects on the loose!" The woman slipped past the temporarily shell-shocked constable and bent over the rear door of the police car, reaching in, seizing Charlie's wrist, and pulling him out. Her pace spoke of urgency, but her movements remained measured and gentle, and Charlie felt a curious reassurance in her touch.

"Ma'am, nothing has come through the radio, are you certain that—"

"I was just on the phone with airport security not sixty seconds ago! Dispatch must not have been informed yet. Now go!" She hooked her arm underneath Charlie's and led him around the back of the police car. A quick glance in both directions and she was flying across the asphalt, Charlie and his black laptop bag billowing behind like wind-whipped flags from her warm yet unyielding grip. Charlie cast a glance over his shoulder as they crested the median strip in the middle of the road, noting with curiosity the cocked head, the furrowed brow, and the chest-crossed arms of the perplexed police officer. He caught the faint opening line of a bemused radio call before the rest was swallowed by the Doppler whine of incoming traffic.

"Dispatch?"
Q&A WITH A SIDE OF FRIES

With both his trajectory and velocity spoken for, Charlie took the chance to get a clear look at his latest escort. She was a clean-cut athletic woman somewhere in her mid- to late-thirties, he guessed. Her arms and legs were lean trunks of muscle straining at the tight threads trapping them, fat banished to the ether, the kind of firm body seen pumping iron on billboard gym advertisements. Her confident gait accentuated these features, painting an intimidating figure as she mounted the curb and opened the driver's side door of a cheap blue Ford sedan. Charlie was taken aback by the unassuming and frankly mediocre appearance of the vehicle.

"L-last one to the motor pool, huh?" he joked. The woman paused halfway into the car, her disembodied head staring at him over the dented metal roof. For a fraction of a second her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, then a blink and it was gone, supplanted by soft eyes and an inviting smile.

"Yes, I guess I got the short end of the stick, didn't I?" Her laughter was like warm honey, thick with sugar and inexplicably reassuring. Much to Charlie's surprise he felt the taut knots in the atmosphere begin to unwind, the stress of the recent onslaught of rapid-fire despair soothed by her dulcet tones. She ducked below the roofline and slid into the driver's seat, motioning through the passenger window for Charlie to follow suit.

He hesitated, uncertainty pinning him between the front and rear doors. He bent down and pressed his head to the passenger side window, pointing first to the back of the car and then to the front, querying the detective with a tilt of his head and a cocked eyebrow. She leaned out of her seat and pushed opened the passenger side door, beckoning him in with emphatic full-arm waving.

"Come on, come on, no time to dawdle."

He hadn't noticed it before, but Charlie suddenly picked up the subtle twang of an American accent cavorting at the fringes of the detective's voice. He conducted a more thorough study of her face as he dropped into the harsh angles of the faux leather seat, the steel springs underneath pinching his skin like the supports of a canvas tent. Her stern face and thick neck bore the faded scars of a fighter, a lifetime of stories etched across the lined and weathered skin. That seemed a little odd, even for a police officer.

Maybe she used to be a criminal, and swapped suit after some life-changing epiphany?

Charlie stared ponderingly at the ragged upholstery, mulling over the possibility, a spike of intrigue surging through his body. The shabby sedan peeled away from the curb and into the flow of traffic, but it wasn't until a bellowing horn blast erupted from outside that Charlie turned his attention out the front windscreen. Saucer-wide eyes and the sudden loss of respiratory functions greeted the platoon of machined metal and headlight smiles rapidly bearing down on them.

"Oh shit!" he screamed. The car! She had the car parked the wrong way! How did I not notice that? Is this woman completely insane?

He slapped his hands onto the dashboard, gripping fiercely as the car lurched sideways and his view began to spin. He was flung to the right, inertia pitted against the skin-pinching nylon seatbelt, tufts of fluffy grey fabric flying up from the dash where his hands could no longer maintain purchase. They were turning, turning, the screech of rubber on tarmac lending voice to the scream caught in his throat. He clung desperately to the black life-line keeping him in his seat, squeezing shut his eyes and pleading to the universe for it all to stop.

Please! Please, please, please, please, please!

The lateral g-forces ceased and he fell back into his hard seat, tentatively opening his eyes and lifting his chin from his chest to peer out the windscreen. To his immense relief, they were no longer facing a wall of imminent metallic death. The detective had wrenched a tight one-eighty, bringing the car into alignment with the rest of the traffic, and though the irate motorists now streaming by on either side were trumpeting their horns and hurling obscene gestures towards them, it seemed no serious harm had been done.

"Sorry about that!" Charlie twisted his head to see the detective smiling at him sheepishly. She swung her gaze back to the road and planted her foot on the accelerator, mumbling something that Charlie could only half hear over the shrieking tyres. "Stupid left-hand side..." An explosion of violent movement out the driver's side window drew his attention away, and he stared out the glass at the officer from earlier, standing by his police car and waving his arms frantically at them. Charlie waited for the detective to pull over but they shot right past, and as he swivelled to watch out the back window, he could see the officer tilt his head and lift a hand to his breast-clipped police radio.

"Uh... didn't he want us to stop?" he asked, the wake of fear-born adrenaline pitching his voice into the higher octaves.

"Nah, it'll be fine," she said, with a casual wave and a questionably cheerful tone. Charlie nodded and hunkered down in his seat, silent but unconvinced. He sat in quiet contemplation, still clinging to the black seatbelt like it was a Pitfall vine above a river of ravenous crocodiles. The detective stabbed awkwardly at a GPS unit stuck to the inside of the windshield. Frustration fired out in grunts and groans as she struggled with the device, eventually abandoning her efforts with a sigh of exasperation and slapping it aside, sending it swinging impotently on its mechanical arm.

"Umm... Did you need a hand with that?" Charlie asked cautiously. His mind was a mess, his thoughts scattered by the relentless waves of breakneck change and oscillating emotions. He sought any solidity that would hold firm against the onrushing tide. He honed his gaze and reached for the anchor in the swirling storm of uncertainty.

"Oh, sure. I'm not too good with these things." She yanked the GPS off the glass, adhesive bracket and all, and casually tossed it towards the passenger seat. Charlie reacted slowly and fumbled the catch, but he managed to save it before it hit the floor. He turned it over in his hands and stared at the vibrant screen, roads and buildings represented with lines and blocks on the colourful 2D map. An eyebrow raised and an unexpected snigger escaped his lips.

"Umm, how exactly did you set our location to Mexico?" he queried incredulously, the tremor in his voice subsiding as he drew confidence from his familiar domain.

"What? Mexico? Goddammit! It was working fine before!" she replied, her frustration dampened by the trace laughter ringing her words. Her eyes squinted as she peered through the windshield, her fingers drumming a staccato rhythm across the grip of the steering wheel. Charlie tapped the menu icon on the GPS and activated the location auto-detection. The indecipherable Spanish blinked out and was replaced with a hash-pattern of familiar landmarks and street names.

"So, where are we go—" The question died in his throat, usurped by one more concerning. He swung his head to the right and favoured the detective with an inquisitive glance, noticing a brief pulse of white across the knuckles draped around the steering wheel. "Uh, why do we need to use the GPS? Aren't we just going to the station?"

"Actually, I was thinking of somewhere a little less, uh, formal. I saw a Mickey D's before, how about that? Can you get that heap of junk there to direct us to the nearest one?" Her mouth curled into an easy grin and favoured Charlie with a quick glance before returning her attention to the road.

He found the impromptu change of venue more than a little odd, but the prospect of avoiding the harrowing halls of justice's indomitable enforcers came as quite a relief. He had seen the featureless enclosures of countless interrogation rooms on TV, and did not particularly fancy being cooped up inside while questions were shotgunned at him, one by one, the cold, sterile walls pressing him into submission. He shivered, sweeping the image from his mind. No, even slop-stained seats and sugar-high kids were more desirable than that.

Wow, I never thought I'd willingly choose to go to a crowded restaurant again.

Surprisingly, his nagging anxiety was strangely docile under the assault of unfamiliarity, eschewing the usual composure-crushing flagellation for a barely noticeable thrum at the back of his mind. Ominous thoughts of murder and unemployment continued to lurk in the recesses, but thus far he had managed to stave them off with pitchforks of determination.

"Uh, sure," he said quietly, tapping in a search for the nearest McDonalds on the GPS. The route manifested itself on the map and a cool, robotic female voice announced Right turn in, 100 metres.

"Thanks. I'm Mel, by the way."

Charlie stuck the adhesive end of the GPS bracket onto the middle of the windscreen, bending the arm so that the screen was easily visible to both of them.

"No worries! I'm Charlie," he said, without thinking. It was reflexive and unnecessary—she would already know his name from the case file, wouldn't she? Although, come to think about it, she hadn't actually referred to him by name when she spoke to the constable...

Hmmm.

Her easy confidence and off-kilter behaviour had distracted him, burying her badge beneath layers of charisma and quirk. He had briefly forgotten that she was, in fact, a police officer, her only intent to extract information from him that she believed relevant to her investigation. But what information could that possibly be? Was it something to do with Joel's murder, or something else entirely? Charlie spent most of his time within the familiar walls of his own apartment, braving the city streets only for work or checklist-fast grocery shopping, all his leisure time spent immersed in fictional worlds conjured by eloquent prose or rendered in HD pixels.

"So," he said casually, after a few minutes of perilous turns and a few near collisions. Man, I thought the police had to pass a defensive driving course nowadays? Jeez. "What exactly do you need me for? In your case, I mean."

"Oh, I've just got a few questions I'd like to ask."

"About Joel?"

"Joel?" Her face compressed into frowning puzzlement, and she risked a quick glance in Charlie's direction. Too long, though, and as her head swung back she yanked the wheel to the right, hurling the car sideways as she narrowly avoided rear-ending a slow-moving van. Charlie felt his stomach dive like he was upside-down on a rollercoaster. He clamped his mouth and opted to remain mute for the rest of the trip, prizing his continued existence above the satiation of his curiosity.

Mel drove with her elbows bent and her shoulders hunched over the wheel, terrifyingly reminiscent of an old woman with cataracts struggling to pierce the glass of the windshield. Charlie averted his eyes for the sake of his sanity and began leafing through the contents of the garbage bag between his knees, searching for his boss' letter, fighting the rational side of his brain with the hope that he had imagined or simply misread it earlier. Instead of the crumpled sheet of A4, however, his questing hands unearthed a distinctly unexpected find, a smooth, palm-fitting slice of metal that matched none of Charlie's desktop adornments. He dug it out and realisation dawned.

Oh, the iPhone! Greg mustn't have realised it was the office one. I'll have to mail it back to him when I get home.

He tapped the unlock button and waited for the screen to light up, but it remained stubbornly blank.

Dead. Man, I am not having any luck with phones today.

He slipped it into his pocket, adding another piece of lifeless technology to his growing collection.

***

By the time the car crested the spine-jarring entry ramp beside the glowing golden arches, Charlie had found and re-read the poorly scribbled termination notice twice more, shattering the porcelain hope he had stubbornly held on to. Mel swung them around a manicured grass feature and towards the parking bays, sandwiching them between a rust-stricken ute and a fresh-off-the-lot 4WD. Charlie waited for Mel to open her door before following suit, egg-shell trepidation to avoid cracking her pleasant demeanour. He didn't want to get on a cop's bad side.

He stepped out onto the rough asphalt and traced a curve around the back of the car, shuffling to a halt in front of Mel and swaying awkwardly back and forth.

A sense of dislocation had been slowly pervading his mind ever since discovering the blue-and-white takeover of the office, a Dorothy-in-Oz kind of feeling, except with golden arches instead of a yellow-brick road. It was more severe than any such experience he could recall, more than being the quiet, homesick anomaly amongst the swarm of laughing, jeering cohorts at school camp, more than being the perpetual last-pick in mandatory phys-ed, relegated to the mug-clogged corners of the oval and neglected for the entirety of the match, more than receiving the high achievement award in front of a crowd of his fidgeting peers, peers who couldn't remember his name until it was announced by the principal.

C'mon, snap out of it Charlie. Nobody is judging you, remember?

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, releasing the tension in his muscles and ceasing his swaying. He eked out a smile for Mel and she smiled back, a subtle note of triumph resonating inside him.

"Shall we?" she asked, sweeping her hand towards the arched entryway. Charlie nodded and walked towards the doors, glancing at the children screaming bloody murder in the playground area, battling for dominance in their fantastical imaginary worlds.

With the ground now blissfully stable beneath his feet, Charlie felt comfortable returning to his earlier line of questioning. "So, this is about Joel, right?" His voice dropped to a cautious whisper as two middle-aged woman walked by, their offspring running laps around their legs.

"You mean the mBition employee who was found shot dead last night?"

"Uhh, yeah..." The way she had responded gave Charlie pause. She doesn't sound too confident on the details...how much does she actually know?

Mel seemed to pick up on his discomfort and shook her head sheepishly.

"Right, sorry, I've just been swamped with all these names. My head's a bit of a mess right now. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little scatter-brained. How about you just give me your take on Joel?"

"Sure..." His uncertainty persisted, but he managed to shunt it to the side for the time being.

Nothing you can do about it now anyway, not unless you plan on accusing a detective of being inept at her job!

"Okay, but I'll warn you, we weren't very close. He worked marketing, and I was QA, so our paths didn't cross all that often, and even when they did it was strictly business, no small talk or dumb jokes like some of the other guys. He seemed like a nice guy though, as best I could tell, and he sure as hell didn't deserve to get murdered." Charlie shuddered as scarlet death invaded his mind. "Greg said they smashed all the hardware and stole our drives; does that mean it was just a robbery gone awry? Was Joel just in the wrong place at the wrong time?" His voice was peppered with notes of pleading, though he wasn't quite sure what answer he sought.

"Greg?"

"Mr Carlsson. My boss?" Charlie tried to keep the sidelined suspicion out of his voice as they approached the plate-glass entry doors. He stepped forward and pulled on the thick metal U-bar handle, holding the door open for Mel to pass through.

"Right... Look, can we maybe hold the questions for just a second? I need to grab a coffee, my head is killing me, and then we'll sit down and run it through from the start. Did you want me to get you anything?"

Charlie's stomach rumbled at the thought of food. That muesli bar earlier had hardly been much of a breakfast, and lunchtime was a blip in the rear-view mirror with dinner fast approaching on the horizon. If Mel wasn't going to join him in stuffing his face, then he'd be subject to that dreadful needle-nose pressure at the back of his neck, and that harpy shriek that taunted incessantly You're being watched, you're being judged! He hadn't had cause to worry about it for years, not since getting caught pilfering late-night snacks from the pantry back when he was living with his parents, but he could recall the cloying heat of judgemental eyes and the subsequent condescending self-audit – Should you really be eating all that, Charlie?—well enough, and chose instead to deny his hunger and join Mel in a simple coffee.

"A coffee would be great, thanks!" He glanced down and slowly coerced his wallet out of the too-tight pocket of his dress pants, but when he looked up Mel had already muscled her way through a hovering horde of school-free teenagers and merged with the line snaking around the McCafe counter. He shrugged, sliding out a five-dollar note before returning the wallet to its bulging confines.

Something tells me being in debt to a police officer wouldn't be too good of an idea...

He located an unoccupied table close to the coffee lounge and disposed of the abandoned meal tray with its luggage of lukewarm chips. He seated himself so that he could wave Mel over once she had finished purchasing the drinks. He stared blankly at the back of her pinstripe jacket, and began drumming his fingers across the table's faux-wooden surface.

This is a weird day.

Charlie was in quite a peculiar state. Defying all expectation he felt remarkably stable, no brain-blending anxiety trampling through his mindscape and forcing a tactical retreat into sensory isolation. Even thoughts of Joel's tragic demise and his own loss of employment—depressing though they were—did not call for complete mental shutdown.

Now that's really weird.

He felt not the penetrating glare of strangers' eyes boring into his skull, silently mocking him for every discrepancy and flaw he exhibited. Nor did he feel the typical compulsion to lay bare his every thought for dissection and analysis, to ceaselessly second-guess his own motivations. Everything he had endured today had been so far out of his comfort zone, so completely unbound by routine, and yet the ground remained intact beneath his feet, the world still solid and stereoscopic. In recent months, all it had taken was the slightest deviation in routine to trigger a resurgence of the vice-like pressure in his head, the violent tremor in his hands, the volcanic eruption of his blood pressure.

This is good, Charlie. This is a sign that you're recovering.

Anxiety had been plaguing him for years, ever since the catastrophe that had been his last relationship finally crumbled. Armageddon had drawn itself out over nearly a year, with endless attempts to escape thwarted by the call of responsibility that had been imprinted on him by his parents.

His ex-girlfriend had suffered an abusive household, absent the love and attention that children so desperately craved. Parented by the demons of Neglect and Domestic Violence, her perception of life became corrupted and contorted until she was barely more than a crippled husk of a human being. Charlie had found her, alone and dishevelled, crying weakly behind a tree in the Botanical Gardens.

The palpable misery tugged at Charlie's heart, and he decided he could not simply walk away. He bent down and asked her what was wrong, if he could help, his voice marshmallow-soft, and was rewarded with a banshee scream and a warm kiss of blood splashing onto his cheek.

He stumbled backwards and saw that she had been cutting herself, drowning out her mental anguish with physical pain, and his sudden approach had prompted a misstep, a sudden twinge that sent the knife deeper than intended. A terrified phone call, the discordant music of sirens, a bone-rattling ambulance ride, the harrowing, interminable waiting, and then he was finally called in, and there she was, as fragile as the paper gown draped across her frame, her skin as pale as the crumpled bed sheets, the only colour the blood-warmed smile gracing her lips as she recognised her one good Samaritan, the solitary stranger out of dozens of gawkers who had stopped to check if she was okay. That guardian/ward dichotomy epitomised the entire first year of their relationship.

Charlie exposed her to a side of the world she had thought restricted to fiction, proving kindness and genuine affection were not simply products of a wishful imagination. In return, she exhibited an unbridled love and devotion the likes of which he had never experienced.

As time passed and her confidence grew, she became more independent, and it was soon clear that both she and Charlie shared very little when it came to their personal interests. Late-night parties, raging music concerts, and alcohol-fuelled sojourns quickly became the avenues of choice for her entertainment, soaking up all the life that had passed her by during her childhood. It made for stark contrast against Charlie's placid lifestyle, and stone-by-stone, a wall rose between them.

Despite his softly-worded objections and increasingly lame excuses, she never ceased trying to drag him along on her hedonistic adventures, citing lines from the boyfriend charter until his resistance crumbled into dust. He tried desperately to bring a bloodless end to the relationship, but each venture was shipwrecked by her veiled threats of a return to self-harm. Thus was the end protracted over months of bitter arguments, mini break-ups, and one heart-wrenching confession of infidelity committed to spite Charlie for his steadily dwindling libido.

Depression descended over the lonely months following the relationship's end, remnant misery grating against Charlie's sanity, subconsciously driving him into the protective arms of routine. The indoctrination was so subtle, so gradual, that even his parents didn't notice it until the embrace had him fully enfolded.

An exhaustive year of therapy had brought him to where he was now, sane and reasonably stable, his formerly strict regime massaged into an elastic framework of habit and organisation. The penalties for disobedience and deviation from the script were not so severe, and there were even blessed moments of freedom, times when he could see the world before him as the magical land of possibility that it really was.

Still, his rehabilitation was a work-in-progress, and he was not immune to the ghosts in his head demanding acquiescence to the familiar, the well-worn routine that offered no surprises, no danger. Today was one of the good days, a victorious skirmish in the continuing campaign for dominion over his mind.

Everything seems so vibrant, so much more... tangible.

He let his gaze wander around the room, drifting over the malevolent children and their inattentive parents, the red and yellow plastic benches and the mini-mountains of hollowed-out food containers piled on greasy meal trays. A smile danced across his lips as he savoured the cloudless panorama within his mind, a serenity that he had not felt in many, many years. His glass-eyed reverie was broken by Mel's approach, a steaming plastic cup grasped in each hand.

"Latte okay?" She placed the coffee on the table in front of him, fishing a handful of sugar sachets out of her jacket pocket.

"Sure, no worries," he replied dreamily, still riding the wave of delightfully intoxicating mindlessness. He slid the crisp five dollar note across the table.

"For the coffee," he said, answering the question posited by Mel's raised eyebrows. She nodded and smiled.

Following the tiny white sugar pillows onto the table was a slim black cartridge—a voice recorder—which she set down between them, depressing a circular button and briefly glancing at the LCD display. Finally a squat, fat notepad—blue cover, blue binding—was slapped down, a black biro poised in hand above its surface.

Mel sat down.

"Alright, shall we start?"

Charlie nodded, reaching for the anti-heat jacket around his coffee and bringing it to his lips.

"So, you mentioned that your boss said something about all your hardware being destroyed. Did that include the servers, or were they stolen?" Mel hunched over her notepad, ready to ignite the white paper with fresh flaming words. Charlie frowned, confused.

"The servers? Umm, I don't know, Greg's note was pretty light on details. But shouldn't that be in the case file, or something? I would have thought you'd know more about that than me..."

Mel's eyes glided up from her notepad to lock on to Charlie's, holding his gaze for a few fractured seconds while her tongue played across dry lips.

"Technically, I haven't been assigned to the mBition case. I'm working on something else, but I have good reason to believe the two are related. I haven't actually got my hands on the full briefing. Yet. You'll have to bear with me." Her voice maintained its formidable strength, but Charlie thought he could hear a faint undercurrent of worry—perhaps even desperation?—in the cracks between her words.

"Oh, okay," Charlie replied, his earlier concerns further quashed by Mel's explanation. "Well, I don't know whether the servers were destroyed, but he did say the hard drives were taken. Man, that's our entire source code repository! The only non-volatile copy too! If Greg hadn't been so damn paranoid about one of us stealing his intellectual property..." Charlie slapped a palm lightly on the table. "And now someone else has anyway!"

"Mmmm, interesting." Mel jotted something down with long, looping curves of blue pen. The corner of Charlie's lower lip dropped in a meek expression.

"Uhh, that's about all he said in the letter. I'm sure if we went back and asked the constable—"

"No, that's fine. Wait, letter?" Mel lifted her eyes from the explosion of blue-on-white and awaited an explanation.

"Yeah, I slept in this morning, that's why the everyone else was gone when I got to the office. The constable said they had already finished questioning them. But the boss had written me a letter, saying that Joel had been killed, the office trashed, the business down the crapper... and me out of a job." Charlie felt a resurgent spear of anxiety probing at his mental defences, trying to wedge underneath the wall and conquer his composure. He shook his head and focused on the now, heeding his psychiatrist's advice and dealing with the present, one step at a time. The despair retreated, thwarted once more.

"Your boss... that would be Greg, right?"

"Yep." Mel continued scribbling, filling the white canvas with boxes, lines, arrows, words—her cognitive process laid bare. A flick of her eyes and she caught his intent gaze, sending his own eyes scurrying away in fear. She finished tracing her scratchy thoughts onto the thick wad and brought her head back up.

"I'll need to grab a copy of that letter off you, after we're done here."

"Umm, okay."

"So what was, uh..." a quick glance at her notepad, "Joel working on that kept him in the office so late? Did he, or anybody else, often work overtime?" Charlie let his eyes drift, staring into memory as his fingers tapped drill-beat rhythms into the hollow table-top. He rewound time, trying to find a reference to Joel amidst the hundreds of emails scattered throughout his mental inbox. Oh, right! A light-bulb ping and his face was illuminated with the glow of recollection.

"Ooh, I remember! We've been in talks with this company in Japan, I forget the name, but I know that Joel, being the marketing guy, was spearheading our dealings with them. There was an email a couple of weeks back about organising a video-conference to demo the app; I think that might have been this weekend. Maybe he was mopping up the aftermath of that?"

"Hmm, okay." A flick of her wrist, a wrenching tear, another blank canvas; but the virgin page was quickly despoiled by more lines of harried blue script. "So what is it exactly that your company does? Mobile app development, wasn't it?"

"Yeah!" Pride and excitement surged unbidden, the familiar and predictable world of logic and reasoning like the tender embrace of a loved one. He flourished his knowledge with wide-eyed gusto. "Our app's actually got quite a few different features. It can automatically transcribe voice recordings into emails, SMSs, basically any text document, really, plus the speech-detection is way better than Siri's. Cooler than that, though, is that it can also plug into their phone conversations—their end only though, for legal reasons—so that, for example, if they forget what time they said they were going to meet their friend or something, they can go back and check the transcript!"

A beaming smile lit up his face. He never felt as content and relaxed as when he was surrounded by the absolutes of the technological realm. "And here's the kicker: We've developed two really neat software libraries that we integrated into the app. One is this ultra-efficient sound compression algorithm that keeps the file size of the recordings really low, so it doesn't eat up all the phone's storage. The other one is this power utilisation suite that reduces battery consumption something fierce! Because the app is always running in the background, we needed to keep both its memory and CPU footprint really lean." Charlie's smile slowly melted away as he realised the present tense was no longer applicable, and he retreated into a contemplative silence.

"Hmm...interesting indeed. But was it worth killing for?" Mel stared vacantly at the ceiling, her free hand clasped over her mouth as she pondered her own question.

Charlie waited patiently for a few moments and then opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off by the glass-shattering shriek of a young girl rushing past their table, a Happy Meal toy in hand as she careened throughout the restaurant in juvenile glee. Charlie shook his head longingly, and, for what was certainly not the first time, wished that he could return to the carefree innocence of childhood. Mel's all-business tone shattered his nostalgic fantasy and plunged him back into the cold, hard responsibilities of the here and now.

"So, what about the security? What measures did you have in place? Locks, cameras, alarm systems...?"

"Practically none." Charlie grimaced. "Greg had been fighting the landlord to get electric locks and a surveillance system installed, but the landlord's one stingy bastard. I think he was going to lodge a complaint against him with Consumer Affairs, but I guess there's not much point now.

"We had ordinary locks on all the doors, and I think we had a safe somewhere, but that was about it. Throw that on top of Greg's paranoia about letting the source code out of the building, and I guess this was kind of inevitable."

Mel sighed long and hard, massaging her forehead between thumb and forefinger. "What about servers? Did your app need servers to work, possibly a lot of them?" Her eyes sought confirmation in his and she leaned towards him, inviting a response he could not provide. Charlie hesitated, reluctant to disappoint his expectant inquisitor, but he had no more than the truth at his disposal.

"I'm sorry. It's a standalone client, no network connection needed. It wouldn't do you much good if you were out in the middle of nowhere, no reception, and you wanted to check your recordings, would it? Plus then there'd be the whole issue of data security..." He trailed off. Mel's honeysuckle demeanour had steadily soured over the course of the conversation, her bright-eyed anticipation dimming with each answer that Charlie provided. She continued to whittle away at the pad, but it was with a dejected expression and a noticeable lack of energy. Charlie blamed himself for her disappointment, and the urge to assist her with her investigation drove away his reluctance to pry for more details.

"S-so, what exactly is this case you're working on? H-how does it relate to what happened this morning?" Mel slowly lifted her head, settling her eyes on Charlie and clasping her hands together in front of her mouth, steeple-like. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Charlie figured he had crossed some invisible line and recoiled slightly. "S-sorry! I jus— I just thought I might be able to help if I knew more—"

"No, it's okay. I'd like to tell you. I really would. But that information is classified." Her tone offered empty consolation, a soothing tune sung to placate its listener. The simmering stew of excitement abruptly settled into still-water, the short-lived fantasy of being privy to a real-life conspiracy asphyxiated at birth.

A thick, stodgy silence descended between the pair. Mel began fiddling with the biro absent-mindedly, stabbing it down to within a centimetre of striking her notepad then shooting it back up again, over and over. Charlie started bouncing his leg, displacing the nervous energy below the table to keep it unseen.

"I don't suppose you can think of any rival businesses, or disgruntled ex-employees, who might have held a grudge against your company, can you? Somebody who would benefit to see you fail, perhaps?"

It was clearly a half-hearted hope, a life-preserver with no rope attached. Mel had her hands planted on the frame of the table, set to rise, ready to abandon the conversation as a plucked-clean harvest. Charlie could offer no more than a shake of his head. Another apology lay primed on his lips, but it proceeded no further. Mel's closed-book coda beat him to the punch.

"Oh well, I'm sorry for wasting your time then. If you think of anything else, though, please do contact me." She flipped her ravaged notepad to a blank page, scribbled for a moment and tore it off, folding the page and offering it to Charlie. He glanced briefly at the number scrawled within the folds then slipped it into his pocket, pausing with his hand still jammed into his pants, a frown and a question conjured by the looping blue numerals he had seen.

"Uhh, that's your mobile? Don't you want me to call the station, you know, so it's all logged and recorded?"

"Normally, yes, but my investigation has me constantly on the move, so it would be better if you just called me directly." Her voice had lost its lustre, stripped of its exuberant sheen by Charlie's disappointing responses. She pushed herself off the table with a sigh, rolling her neck and shoulders to relieve her hunched-over tension, and extended him a hand. He slid off his seat and stumbled hastily to his feet, meeting her firm grip and exchanging a wan smile.

"Thank you for your time Charlie." She spun on her heel and marched down the aisle of chair backs and window benches, sidestepping a puddle of melted milkshake crowned by the fez of an upturned cup.

Charlie stood unmoving and watched her depart, contemplating the thunderstorm of events that had swept him along only to dump him mere moments before the curtain was drawn.

Mel was out the door and sliding into the blue Ford before Charlie realised he had been quite literally abandoned, but by then it was too late, and his half-hearted attempt to wave her down proved completely ineffectual. He watched from under the entrance archway as the car pulled out of the parking lot, bouncing down the departure ramp and turning into the wrong lane of traffic. A graveyard chill tickled Charlie's spine and sucked dry his lungs, but with a screech of tyres and a violent jerk the sedan leapt out of the path of oncoming vehicles and into the regular flow. He exhaled and shook his head, laughing in slightly hysterical confusion at the day's absurdity.

Late to work, a murder, a lost job, a crazy police officer and an interrogation at McDonald's... Man, I think I'm going to need to lie down when I get home.

He ambled out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, scanning the street for the nearest tram stop and the white-on-grey numbers that signified which routes passed through. He spied one about a hundred metres down the road and set off, strolling at a brisk pace, his laptop bag swinging into his leg with each stride. He was in the middle of adjusting the strap so that it sat against his hip rather than his leg when he was struck blindside by a roundhouse realisation.

Crap! I left the garbage bag in her car! My figurines...

He stuck out his lower lip and pouted for a moment, before resolving to call her when he got home.

I'm sure she can swing by and drop them off, well, provided she doesn't crash the car on the way...

He sniggered humourlessly. The adrenaline rush of the morning was wearing off, and he could feel the armies of despair forming up at the fringes of his mind, rallying behind images of Joel, shot dead, blood pooling across a tiled floor, and Charlie himself, penniless, homeless, forced to live on the streets and beg for food. He shook his head roughly and dislodged the banner men from their mounts, clearing the threat on at least one front by rationalising his current financial status.

You've been putting money away for an emergency just like this, Charlie. You'll be okay. You've got enough to get by for a few weeks while you look for a new job, and now that you've got almost twelve months of industry experience under your belt, maybe you can swing something with a bit more room for career advancement...and a bigger pay-check.

Charlie perched on the edge of the bench underneath the tram shelter, maintaining the maximum buffer of distance between himself and the old woman already seated there, and tried once more to clear his mind.

He wrestled with images of white envelopes with huge block letters demanding IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED! Volcanic fissures split their paper facades and loosed an eruption of flaming bills, $100, $200, $300... an unrelenting shower of inescapable debt slowly burying him alive.

He clapped his hands to his face and pressed on his eyeballs until stars appeared, blinding the omen of economic despair with a dazzling inner-eyelid fireworks display. He was staring at the concrete beneath his feet and blinking away the residue sunspots when a rush of wind and a low whine alerted him to the tram's arrival. Staggering to his feet, he waited for the old woman to board then followed her up the steps, sidling towards a vacant handrail and curling his arm around it for support. He splayed his feet as the doors rattled shut, his body poised to dance the boxcar ballet, and tried to activate hibernate mode on his battery-drained mind.
THAT OLD, FAMILIAR FEELING

By the time the tram drew to a skittering halt at the intersection near Charlie's apartment, his previously clear, blue headspace had been shadowed by a murder of purple storm clouds fat with misery rain, quivering in anticipation of unleashing their payloads upon the fragile settlements below. Absent the distraction of adrenaline coursing through his veins, he was gradually ceding ground in the war for cranial control, recently exiled woes returning for another shot at his sanity.

Death. The complete obliteration of existence. Joel just stopped... being. Hard drive wiped and overwritten with NULL. No thought, no soul, no awareness, nothing!

His mind tore itself apart failing to comprehend the quandary of non-existence. Meanwhile, the second prong of a pincer manoeuvre was being captained by the consequences of his sudden unemployment. All the self-doubt that had graced his mind over the years came meandering back, bubbling up from the lakes of self-perception and shaking loose from the stubby trees of pride.

I knew it! You're a loser, you've always been one! You can't even hold down a job! You're never going to amount to anything! The only thing you're good at is sitting on your fat ass and playing videogames! You're a waste!

"No, no!" The scream slipped past his lips before he was able to catch it. His face flashed neon-red and he cast a shame-stricken glance at the other passengers aboard the tram. The few who were not ensconced in a world of stereophonic seclusion pumped from their headphones stared at him in scorn, labelling him as yet another loony disturbing their valuable peace with his mind-sick ravings. The ding as the doors concertinaed apart telephoned his escape, and he threw himself down the short steps and onto the platform, fleeing from the padded-room condemnation but unable to rid himself of the fever-pitch taunts reverberating his skull.

Useless, useless, useless!

"Noooo!" He powered down the street, ignoring the contemptuous glances of those he shoved aside as he sprinted for the solitude of home. Past the curious onlookers, through the glass doors, into the lobby, into the stairs, up, up, up, feel the burning muscles, let the pain drown out all thoughts, down, down, down the corridor and stop! He slid to a halt in front of the slab of faded oak that marked the last obstacle between him and the oasis of privacy. He fumbled in bottomless pockets for his keys, mishandling everything twice before seizing grip of the jingling chains and tchotchkes. He spread the set in his hands, searching for that one elusive key that went all fair-weather friend on him when he needed it most.

Loser, loser, loser!

His internal tormentor was singing now, cadence of a primary school bully pinning him to the wall to engorge his fragile ego. Charlie's hands were shaking and he could feel the volcano belching, pulsating, seconds away from violent eruption.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! Where the heck are you, you stupid key!"

Finally it materialised, emerging from behind a Darth Vader key-ring. Charlie shoved it at the door, stabbing it into the lock and twisting the handle with quaking hands. The door swung open and he collapsed into his apartment, hurling the keys at the kitchen bench.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Gravity bent him like a slinky, hands on knees and desperately gulping oxygen, waiting for the familiar walls to weave their magic and leech his mind of toxic thoughts and corrosive self-accusations. His battered senses, now free of the bleating crowds and confining steel, began to cool in the airy silence. A dull throbbing persisted in his temples, firing tendrils of electricity across his forehead, the pain independent of any specific thought.

He stumbled towards the kitchen, his vision blurry through wincing eyes, his hands making waves like an underwater swimmer propelling themselves along. He leapt towards the open pantry, searching for the double-edged saviour that he had hoped never to require again: the antidepressants, the mood stabilisers, the zombie drug that left him floating in a sea of thick, gelatinous numbness, every action slowed by three-fold gravity. He scooped the container from the back of the shelf, the pills singing like a rattlesnake's tail, the prelude to activating power-saver mode and under-clocking his skull-housed CPU.

He conquered the child-proof lock and spun off the cap, ambling over to the sink to pour a glass of water. The incessant pounding of his skull addled his coordination, and he splashed more water over himself and the bench than ended up in the glass. Nevertheless, he shoved two half-white, half-green capsules into his mouth, chasing them down with a lukewarm mouthful from the glass in his hand.

He waited a painfully long time for the pills to descend his oesophagus, getting caught by a lump in his throat and very nearly making a hasty and undesired return trip. Once he was confident they would stay down, he dropped the glass back into the sink with a loud ting and made slow, groggy progress towards his bedroom, his left hand drawing circles across his temple as the fire inside his head ratcheted the temperature up to infernal levels.

A faint whimper snuck past his teeth as he loped through the haze and flopped onto the half-strewn sheets of his bed, a tangible yet disappointingly temporary reprieve from the formless shadow enveloping and suffocating his mind. He curled into the foetal position, balling himself as tight as possible and rocking his head back and forth, choking back sobs of overwhelming hopelessness.

Seconds, minutes, hours passed, his limbs twitching and heaving in parallel with the shockwaves rippling through his head. Eventually his prescription lifeline wielded its magical sledgehammer and beat his brain into a dopey, dead-eyed docility, tucking him in with a blanket of medically-skewed dreams full of anthropomorphic foodstuffs singing sinfully saccharine advertising jingles.

Hours fled into the ether as he slumbered, his drug-tweaked body eschewing the typical eight-hour respite for a hibernation of feline proportions. When he awoke, it was to the lumbering snail-pace semi-consciousness he had hoped forever banished to the annals of fading memory. He was like a puppet submerged in water, every command refracted and diluted by the inky black depths. Minutes passed while he lay on his back and stared into the ceiling, into the void, seeing but not seeing, the cogs in his head revolving on unconnected spindles.

I should get up.

The thought advanced like a plodding turtle, taking its sweet time traversing his synapses before finally inciting a physical response. He rolled off the bed and crashed to his knees, picking himself up with the deliberate pace of an arthritic old man. Drunken steps brought him out to the kitchen, where his body's demand for nourishment resulted in a seven-minute cold war as he struggled with deciding what to eat. Then came the fifteen-minute slog of attempting to assemble a simple ham-and-cheese sandwich. Through quicksand marsh and stew-thick fog Charlie could still see the distant silhouettes of his miscreant thoughts, swords and spears held ready for the moment when the magic mist faded and left him vulnerable once more. But that was an issue for future-Charlie to deal with, as the current incarnation was having enough trouble merely staggering through his apartment without munching floorboard.

As a side-effect of the ocean of neutrality he was buoyed in, the antidepressants also injected a considerable amount of latency to all his bodily commands, like he was viewing a bandwidth-clogged stream over the internet, intent out of sync with action by often a second or more.

He avoided glancing at the clock on the wall as he sat down and took cautious deliberate bites out of the sandwich, aware even in his stupor that acknowledgement of how much time had been wasted curled up in self-pity could strike through his drug-assisted defences and render him impotent once more. The meal passed in a hollow silence disturbed only by the muffled chomping of his teeth, his eyes locked in a blank stare at the white stucco cupboards mounted above the stove in the kitchen.

Once finished, he mustered up the colossal motivation to waddle over to the couch and face-plant onto it, searching the cushions with his hand until he unearthed the remote and fingered the power button. He almost left it as it was on the jet black screen, no input providing a signal to interpret, but with a grunt of effort he rolled over and jabbed at the remote until the TV flicked over to HDMI2, and the room was suddenly blasted with an orchestral score, the credits of some concluded movie scrolling by.

Eyes closed, he thumbed the channel down button until an unmistakeable D'oh! bellowed from the speakers. The Simpsons was one of the few shows that never failed to bring a smile to Charlie's face. His eyes butterflied open and the corners of his mouth twitched skyward as a low drizzle of happiness sprinkled over his mind, faint but undoubtedly present, and he found himself unconsciously mouthing the dialogue as the show went on, so ingrained was it in his memory that not even the anti-depressants could suppress it.

The marathon broadcast continued and Charlie's vision slowly blurred, each blink becoming steadily more difficult to unshutter. Eventually the warm fuzz in his head overpowered his desire for consciousness, and he slipped into a dreamless, motionless sleep, the TV blaring the B-Sharps' 'Baby on Board' for an audience of none.

***

The next few days melted into a single amorphous blob, indistinguishable from one another as Charlie slipped back into a well-worn rhythm. Meal-times became strict affairs, executed at the same tick of the clock every day to an exacting script, adherence enforced by the non-rational side of his brain insisting that Armageddon loomed just over the horizon.

He filled the time between the precise pillars of wake and sleep with a cycle of videogames, movies, then videogames, then movies, on and on. The cycle rapidly became the norm, and, once established, deviation proved nigh impossible. His clothes became his cocoon, unchanging except for his underwear, a stale aroma of sweat and food scraps permeating the creased fabric. His soothing lullaby of racing engines, booming explosions and gun retorts was sporadically interrupted with the shrieking ring of the phone, but he left it to scream itself hoarse, fearing social contact and the damning judgement, spoken or unspoken, that would accompany it.

He dismissed any notion of diverging from his carefully constructed routine, drowning the intermittent speaker in the back of his head with a glass of water and two capsules of prescription stupor. He sought vindication within his virtual worlds, immersing himself in fantastical lands as the valiant hero, dethroning tyrants and subduing disaster to lend his days a semblance of purpose.

The voice of cold reason persisted, growing louder and more insistent as time blurred by, reminding him that the path he was treading led only deeper into the abyss. To escape would require a leap of faith, a break in the pattern to shuck the bonds of self-imposed habit that were holding him prisoner from reality. He shouted the voice down with claims of tomorrow, tomorrow, always tomorrow that he would pull himself together and crawl out of the pitiful torpor.

But tomorrow would come and the static haze of the antidepressants would drag him back into another cycle of sleepwalk routine.

"Blurgh!" came the dry croak from Charlie's mouth. His character had just been sent tumbling to the ground after the guards had foiled yet another of his attempts to scale a Borgian fortification.

He dropped the controller onto the cushion beside him in frustration, leaving Assassin's Creed to continue running unpaused, the character of Ezio exhibiting no resistance as he was promptly rent asunder by the falchions and rapiers of the guards.

Charlie stood up and stretched, his sleep weary muscles burning as his arms reached for the ceiling. He rolled his head to the side and glanced at the clock on the wall, checking to see if it had reached his designated lunchtime yet.

Nope, still got 27 minutes till I can eat...

He sighed and took a deep breath, coughing and almost choking on the foul odour that filtered through his nostrils. After recovering and wiping the pain-tears from the corners of his eyes, he sniffed the air, trying to locate the source of the repugnant smell. He tracked it to a green curry stain on the leg of his dress pants, a spoonful of last night's dinner that had rejected his mouth and decided to attack his clothes instead.

Dammit, guess I should change...

He hobbled into his bedroom, flinging open the drawers of his closet and pulling out a fresh pair of pants.

Might as well change my shirt, too.

A t-shirt followed the pants onto the bed, and Charlie began extracting himself from the sticky and crinkled outfit that had clung to him for days. He hurled the black pants into the corner of the room, turning his head curiously towards them when they landed with an unexpectedly heavy thud.

An explanation drifted laboriously up through the fog of his mind; he had not emptied the pockets since returning home days ago. He bent down and groped the ruffled material, searching for and finally locating the bloated pockets from which he withdrew the two dead phones, his own and the one from the office.

Spurred by his deep-seated urge to maintain and optimise any technology he got his hands on, Charlie rummaged through his desk drawers to find compatible chargers and plugged the phones in, subconsciously aligning them parallel when he set them down on the wooden desktop.

He twisted the iPhone a few degrees to perfectly mirror his Samsung and was hit by its physical presence, its solidity, and where mere thoughts had failed to penetrate the dense smog blanketing his headspace, the tangible black oblong succeeded. Images and emotions from that whirlwind morning materialised before his eyes, dumping an overlay across his vision and rendering invisible the smooth wooden desk. The distance of days tempered the painful memories and saved him from immediate neurological breakdown, but still a thin trickle of vibrant despair seeped onto his mind-canvas, contrasting starkly with the muted browns and greys of his ritualistic apathy. This minor blemish on his watercolour perception stung him like a static shock, just painful enough to rouse his plodding brain into a steady canter of activity.

I should really mail this to Greg, he's probably wondering what happened to it...

Ignited by the fires of pure, unadulterated motivation for the first time in almost a week, he picked the iPhone up and turned it on.

I think I remember this thing having Greg's mobile number in it...

The Apple logo splashed across the screen as the phone booted up, then the lock screen blinked into existence. Charlie swiped the arrow away with a flick of his finger. After entering the current fortnight's passcode—Greg had mandated a two-week password policy for all the office phones—he was rewarded with the main screen, a near-barren grid with only two icons. One was for the latest build of the mBition app, still a few months away from being ready for its commercial release despite being almost feature-complete; the UI was still an ugly shell and functional streamlining had yet to be implemented.

The adjacent app icon jumped off the screen and thrust open Charlie's eyes, flooding his senses with a violent lightning storm of terrifying realisation. It was a tool designed specifically for testing the storage efficiency and battery consumption of their app's main function. In effect little more than a voice recorder, it utilised the custom power- and space-usage algorithms to obtain a good estimate of how the app was currently performing without the need to make an actual phone call. It simply ran in the background and recorded sound through the phone's microphone, compressing the data while expending as little of the battery's charge as possible.

The butterfly excitement in Charlie's chest came from the realisation that he had left it recording before leaving work on the Friday night before Joel's death, set to run itself flat as a test for some last-minute optimisations the programmers had compiled into the latest build. Previous versions had averaged around forty-eight hours. Since the constable had specified that the murder occurred early Monday morning, there was a slim chance that the shooting had been captured in the recording.

Eager and apprehensive in equal measure, he thumbed the tiny wrench icon for the app, his pale wide eyes flickering reflections of the screen as he navigated to the recording archive section.

The app gave a visual summary of each audio file, splitting a new track each day in accordance with coded length limitations, and Charlie focused in on the most recent recording and calculated duration+timestamp—the moment when a dead battery corked the iPhone's ear.

Monday morning! Holy shit!

His hands were trembling, but it was anticipation rather than anxiety that was the puppet-master now. It summoned a nervous hope from deep within that he had discovered something of importance.

The waveform representation for Monday's recording was almost entirely a horizontal line, nothing but a slight warbling of distant background noise drifting up from the street and into the office. Charlie activated the app's audio clean-up function and stripped the file of dead air.

Now reduced to a fraction of its former size, Charlie tapped the image of the oscillating wave and a muffled trumpeting began playing from the phone's speaker. He increased the volume to its maximum and leaned in close, straining to decipher the indistinct mumblings.

His recently jump-started brain was struck by a memory from Friday night, of flinging a print-out manual of user documentation onto the desk as he packed up to leave, of maybe, just maybe watching it slap down on top of a thin black shape, but being more concerned with avoiding the evil peak-hour traffic on his short trip home.

Well, that might explain how the murderer missed it, given the constable said he took pains to destroy all the other hardware.

Holding the phone to one ear and covering the other with his free hand proved enough to translate the murmurings into a form more intelligible.

"Now where are those- mhrmmm –left them over there. Ah! What about my coffee? Time to- mhrmmmmm." The recording continued in a similar vein as Joel ranted and raved to himself, frantic questions thrown to the wind as he prepared for his conference call. His voice increased in volume dramatically when the Japanese representatives joined the conversation, forcing Charlie to yank the phone away from his ear lest he want to be reduced to single-channel audio for the rest of his life.

The discussion was dry and formal, of no real interest to Charlie anymore given the circumstances, but it was relatively brief and gave way to a tirade of self-adulation as Joel congratulated himself on a job well done.

Just as Charlie was slipping into a trance induced by the dull drone of Joel's voice, he was shocked into attention by the arrival of a new speaker, a crisp young male voice commenting on the action figures that Charlie had set up on his desk. He stared in open-mouth horror at the phone, the skin on the nape of his neck pricking and his ears tuned like satellite receivers. Joel gave a drowsy remark, suggesting that he had nodded off at some point and had been startled awake by the intruder. A high-pitched whistle burst out of the phone, a sound that anyone who had watched a high-budget spy flick could pick a mile off.

A silenced pistol! That guy shot Joel!

The wet slap of meat hitting a solid surface filtered through Charlie's bedroom, clapping a shiver up his spine as a clip of Joel's punctured body crashing to the floor played over and over in his head, his mental camera focusing on the look of utter horror rippling across Joel's face as he breathed his last.

Charlie shook his head and bent closer to the phone, listening as intently as possible to the killer's frantic cursing and subsequent phone call to his boss. He searched in between and around the words of the one-sided conversation, absorbing anything that could prove useful in identifying either party.

Without context, much of what the killer said was meaningless and confusing, but there was one thing that stood out, one thing that he embedded into his mind. He may have just been clutching at straws, but something about the way the killer referred to his superior as 'Big Boss' suggested it was more than just a casual nickname, more than a simple aside. Big Boss was the name of a character from the videogame series Metal Gear Solid. In addition to the comments made regarding his action figures, it gave him a rough idea of the kind of person Joel's killer was.

I have to get this to the police.

The adrenaline surging through his system restored clarity to his mind, but along with the ability to think coherently trailed a crashing storm of cold hard guilt, assaulting him with wave after wave of regret for a wasted week of miserable anxiety. He had wrapped himself in a thick frosted-glass bubble, reducing the world to an indistinct simulacrum of its former self, shrinking both joy and pain into tiny motes of dust swimming across his vision.

No, I can't let this happen again. I can't, I won't let it take over!

He had already lost far too much of his precious life to anxiety, and he wasn't about to let it take any more. That meant he needed to take action, to pick himself up and hurl himself out of the miserable seabed of zombified routine. Sure, it was colder outside the water, and he'd be dripping wet for a while, but the freedom of unrestricted movement would be worth it.

Charlie bent down and picked up his Samsung, not wanting to disturb the iPhone out of fear that the goblins of misfortune would cause him to "accidentally" delete the evidence, and dialled 000 for the police.

He hesitated before hitting the call button, a niggling thought squirming its way through his cerebrum to plant itself firmly in the forefront of his mind.

Maybe I should contact that detective first? What was her name again? Mel?

Charlie hopped over to the corner of the room where he had dumped his ruined suit pants. He thrust his hands into a side pocket and found the folded slip of paper that Mel had handed him before she took off. He unfolded it and stared at the phone number written there.

There was something about her, something weird, but also compelling. She clearly knew a lot more about the mBition attack than she was letting on. If Charlie went to her instead of the regular police, she just might let him help. It was a long shot, but the possibility of contributing to the apprehension of Joel's killer filled him with purpose and assuaged his rampant anxiety.

Plus, I could get our source code back, and with it, my job!

Charlie nodded his head, slowly at first but then more eagerly as he convinced himself of the benefits of his plan. He wandered back to the desk and scooped up his phone, punching in Mel's number from the paper slip and pressing it to his ear, stooping forward as the knotted charger cable threatened to come loose.

The dial-tone trilled and Charlie ran through a list of candidate propositions, mouthing the words silently, trying to pick the one that sounded the least pathetic.

'Please let me help' just sounds childish. Blackmail is not going to work, that would probably just end up with me in jail for obstruction of justice or something. What can I offer her that the police don't already have? Damn it, this is where psychic powers would come in real handy!

The ringing cut out and Mel's sharp and inquisitive voice greeted him.

"Hello?"

"Uhh...hi! Umm, it's Charlie, from the other day? The mBition murder?" He cleared his throat, the days of inactivity leaving his voice grainy and weak.

"Charlie? Charlie!" Her voice rose as the realisation hit her. "This is about the bag you left in my car, isn't it? I, uhh, was meaning to get your contact details sent through from the station but it must have slipped my mind. Sorry! Anyway, I'll give you an address and you can come pick it up now, if you want." Her tone was warm but weary, words delivered fast like a Band-Aid torn from the skin to reduce the pain. The mention of his bag surprised Charlie; he had forgotten completely about it in the drug-induced haze that had afflicted the intervening days.

"Umm, no, actually I wasn't calling about that. I think I might have something you'd be interested in, something that might help your case?" Charlie paused, unsure how to go on.

"Really?" Her voice suggested a cautious interest. "Okay. How about we meet again? I'm staying at a hotel not too far from that Mickey Dee's we went to. Hold on, I'll grab the address."

Charlie swallowed the nervous stones in his throat, acknowledging logically that a face-to-face meeting was the best way for him to plead his case for involvement. Clicks and rustling sounds burst through the phone's speaker as Mel rummaged around on the other end of the line, apparently searching for the address of her hotel.

Charlie wondered why, once again, Mel was choosing to meet somewhere other than the police station. Not that he was complaining; he had absolutely no desire to be subjected to the intimidating pressure that he would undoubtedly suffer within those walls, but it was so... odd.

This was the woman who had taken him to a McDonald's to get his statement, so it shouldn't exactly be surprising. Mel returned and provided him with the address of the hotel, talking fast to the background clicker-clack of a keyboard.

"Got that? Alright, see you soon." She hung up without waiting for him to reply.

Huh. I wonder what's keeping her so busy? I would have thought she'd be a little more interested in a potential lead...

Charlie dropped the phone back onto the desk and proceeded to gather up the fresh clothes he had retrieved from the wardrobe. On his trek to the shower, he thought on the absurdity of a 20-something year old guy meeting up with a 30-something year old woman at a fancy hotel.

It sounds like the premise to a bad adult film, or the start of an episode of Law & Order. He snorted loudly, savouring the raw emotion the way a weary traveller savoured the first sip of cool water after a long journey through the desert. Eh, she's a police officer, I doubt she's going to try and molest me or anything. Still, no denying it feels pretty darn weird.

He ditched the last of his demonically malodorous clothes and jumped into the shower, cleansing himself with ice-cold water first to eradicate the final vestiges of his antidepressant quagmire.

Following a significantly more pleasant hot wash, he dried, dressed, and proceeded to search for his wallet amidst the mountainous layers of debris that had steadily accumulated in his room during his week-long Thriller re-enactment.

Finding it spread open near his discarded dress pants, he slid in the cards that had fallen out and shoved the wallet into his pocket. He returned to the desk and unplugged then pocketed his Samsung before shutting off the iPhone to conserve battery power and bundling it into his laptop bag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and trudged out of his bedroom through the minefield of tangled blankets and naked pillows.

On his way to the front door he surveyed his pigsty of an apartment. Though many would still consider it clean, to Charlie it was an abomination.

I've got to clean this up when I get back. He shook his head in abashment. I can't believe I let myself get sucked back down.

He found his set of keys splayed on the floor underneath the bench, untouched since being hurled aside upon his return home. He scooped them up, stepped outside and locked the door, absent-mindedly swinging the jingling metal from his index finger as he strolled down the carpeted corridor. He made his way to the ground-floor lobby, the small reception cubicle predictably unmanned, and he strode on and out the heavy glass doors, taking his first steps into the living, breathing world after days of suffocating in isolation. The sun's unbridled gaze ravaged his eyes, and he was forced to throw his hand up in defence of his weakened pupils.

The harsh natural light was not the only shock to his system, and the cacophonous fury of people, cars and trams threatened to overwhelm him, momentarily tearing down his recently repaired fortitude and exposing him to the full brunt of sensory overload. Determined to avoid a repeat episode, he gritted his teeth and hurled a mental volley armed with rational might.

It's just noise, it's just noise, it's just noise! It can't hurt you, won't hurt you! Calm down Charlie. Calm down. Just take things one at a time.

He began picking out the individual sounds that formed the wall of noise drumming against his skull.

People talking into their phones. People chatting to each other. Cars revving, driving by, blasting horns. The clack of a tram bound by its tracks.

By quarantining the individual components he was able to see the aural assault for what it really was: a harmless blanket of noise, posing no inherent danger. He forced himself to take deep breaths, sucking in the hectic atmosphere, the aroma of dozens upon dozens of lives in motion. He stood stock still while the ferocious din vibrated through his body from the tips of his toes to the front of his brow and back again.

Once he had suitably acclimated to the orchestra of chaos, Charlie set his sights on the tram platform at the end of the street and powered towards it, keeping his breathing level and his mind loose as he slipped through the crowd. He lucked upon an idling tram waiting for him at the platform, and he climbed aboard.

A flush of relief cooled his flustered skin when the interior proved almost deserted. He dropped into a cheap fabric seat and leaned his head back against the glass window, fingers questing into his pocket to extract his phone. Once retrieved, he pulled up Google Maps to double-check the hotel's location. He could picture the façade in his head, having passed it a few times before on trips to the other side of the city, but he was not entirely sure which would be the closest stop to disembark. He pinched the zoom to expand the map and swiped down the tram route. His destination was twelve stops away. Knowing that the trip would take at least forty-five minutes, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and closed his eyes, relishing the return of the mental acuity that had been strangled limp for the past week.
LEISURE SUIT CHARLIE

A rush of warm air hit Charlie as the tram pulled away and jingled onward down the street. He left the platform and made his way down the sidewalk, panning his head around and feeling progressively more confident as he recognised buildings and landmarks.

Yep, there's the park, and that café, and the army reserve campus...

He nodded and smiled, his confidence nurtured by the familiar, and therefore safe, environment. The hotel was a few short streets away, nestled between two office buildings and opposite a row of restaurants and an overpriced convenience store.

Charlie arrived short of breath, and stood outside while his heart-rate settled into a stable rhythm. Traffic here was lighter than what he usually dealt with—his apartment being located that much closer to the Central Business District—and aside from the faint laughter drifting over from an Irish pub across the road, the area was reasonably quiet.

After permitting himself a minute of rest, he strode down the closest arm of the hotel's sweeping drive, appraising the building from stone's throw distance for the first time. Dark grey walls loomed thirty storeys high, stubby balconies with hanging laundry and lounging residents projecting from each level. Charlie pushed open the gigantic plate-glass doors, struggling for a moment against the immense weight before they finally ceded motion.

A library-hush enveloped the lobby, with air-conditioning vents spewing a gentle breeze while a porter rushed across the room, luggage bag swinging from her hand. The reception desk sat below an impressive double staircase, rising up to a plush landing lined with elevator doors.

Off to Charlie's right sat a small café. Matte black tables accompanied empty chairs—empty, that is, except for a single man wearing a turquoise turtleneck and reading a newspaper. A steaming cup of Chai cooled beside him.

To Charlie's left lay a row of pay phones and pamphlets, hunkered in an alcove as if hiding from the grandeur of the rest of the lobby. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling, glittering gold and flickering lights contributing to the opulent atmosphere the hotel was trying to evoke. Charlie felt more than a little out of place, and glanced down at his Futurama t-shirt and baggy cargo pants with a sigh.

I probably should have called ahead, so I wouldn't have to stand here like a doofus...

Charlie bit his lip and slid out his phone, tapping into his recent calls and selecting Mel's mobile number. He hesitated over the call button, then changed his mind and began nervously thumbing out a text message instead. He didn't want to disrupt her if she was still as busy as she had sounded earlier.

The evidence he held could be important—hell, could even by vital—to Mel's case, but there were some deeply embedded social principles he just couldn't ignore.

Halfway through tapping out his message, Charlie glanced up and caught the reception staff skewering him with looks of stern disapproval. A flood of arctic guilt washed over him.

What am I doing wrong? Am I in the way? Poisoning the atmosphere?

Anxious to escape their withering judgement, he ducked into the café.

A waitress approached him as he squirmed into the hard wooden chair and stared expectantly, waiting for his order. Charlie, loath to disappoint, requested a small cappuccino. The waitress retreated to the glass-fronted bar while Charlie finished typing out the text message and sent it off, drumming his fingers across the hard surface of the table. The beverage arrived a few minutes later and he took a sip, imbibing the warmth in the over-cooled lobby.

As Charlie flirted with his cappuccino, he watched an unkempt woman emerge from one of the elevators and stride down the banana-bent stairs. She wore a pair of navy sweatpants and a loose jumper with a small white logo on the breast—a closed padlock shaped like a grinning skull with a curved bone on its head. Her hair was a dishevelled mess and deep bags underscored her eyes.

Charlie averted his eyes from the laundry-day disaster, froze, then snapped his head back in a wide-eyed double-take. He almost hadn't recognised her. The casual bedclothes were such a marked departure from the formal attire she had worn previously. While the suit had been stretched taught around her muscular frame her current outfit hung loose, and her relaxed gait reflected the comfort it provided. It was extremely difficult for Charlie to connect this visual with the stern police officer who had bombarded him with questions earlier in the week.

She saw him and flashed a weak smile, stumbling and almost tripping over an errant chair as she threaded her way to Charlie's table.

"Hello—" Mel croaked, stopping and clearing her throat before continuing. "Hello again. You said you had something that might be of interest to me?"

Straight to the point.

She sat down and rested her elbows on the table, massaging her temple with her index and middle fingers.

Damn, she looks really tired. She looks like she hasn't slept since I last saw her!

"Umm, yeah. You know that bag I left in your car? That was my stuff from the office. Greg, my boss, had packed up my desk and left it for me that morning." Charlie paused for a moment to make sure she was following along. She took a long breath and motioned for him to continue. "Well, he accidentally put one of the office iPhones into the bag too. I had it out on my desk, testing the updated algorithms in the latest build, so it was just recording whatever came through the microphone." Mel's downcast eyes lit up, her attention suddenly riveted to Charlie with iron-sight focus. "Well, thanks to those new optimisations, it picked up Joel's murder and, more importantly, his murderer." Mel was now completely rapt, her ears pricked, her mouth agape, her upper body leaning forward eagerly.

"Have you got it here?! Play it!" Her hands had released her temples and were clawing at the table in anticipation. Charlie recoiled slightly, feeling intimidated by the sudden closeness and energy pouring out of her.

"Uhh...I think it might be best if we listened to it somewhere...less public, maybe? It's not exactly the most pleasant thing to hear..."

Mel pulled back and shook her head.

"Right. Sorry. I really haven't had much sleep the last few days. Let's go up to my room. We can listen to it there." She pushed off the table and stood fast, too fast, and wobbled unsteadily as she regained her balance. Charlie rose more slowly, adjusted his laptop bag on his shoulder, and followed Mel as she led him past reception and up the stairs. They came to a stop on the rich velvet rug running the length of the landing, and Mel leaned forward to hit the call button for the elevators.

This is totally ripped from a cheesy porn movie.

He diverted a chuckle into a snort and rolled his eyes. The elevator ride was brief. Mel occupied a room on the third floor, and before he knew it, he was standing behind her as she fiddled with the lock on a thick burgundy door. A click resounded, the knob turned, and the door swung inward, but Charlie could see no further than half a metre inside, the rest of the suite swallowed by the faceless black unknown. Mel ducked inside and flicked a switch on the wall, bathing the interior in a dim, musty-yellow illumination.

The first thing that popped into his head was a memory from early on in his stint working at mBition. He recalled the meeting room during the early stage of planning: whiteboards and carpeted walls adorned with overly complex flowcharts and use-case diagrams, thick bundles of documents covered with graphs evidencing the vulnerability of the target demographic and their myriad interests, bright and colourful logos of competing companies with similar products in development or already on the market.

Mel's room was, admittedly, a lot smaller than the meeting room was, but it was no less impressive in its chaos. Two pin-boards hung from the wall where the bedhead rested; one sporting a map of the world with various locations stuck through with drawing pins, the other covered with print-outs of flashy logos joined by thick black marker lines.

Against the opposite wall lay a crowded desk, a laptop connected to an external monitor sitting in prime position amongst a clutter of loose sheets. A small printer had been squeezed onto the edge of the desk, nearly half of its bulk dangling dangerously over empty space. A small rubbish bin to the side of the desk was brimming with crushed cans of energy drink and crinkled packets of mixed nuts. The large double bed was currently home to a neatly stacked grid of manila folders. The curtains on the far wall were drawn, and two doors led to what Charlie assumed must be a kitchen and a bathroom.

Wow, secret agent, much?

His eyes danced around the room, his mouth slightly ajar and warm, stale air flowing languidly into his lungs.

"This is nuts! How come you're working out of a hotel room instead of the station? Are you undercover?" A measure of confidence bubbled up inside him. Even though it was only the second time he had met Mel, the mere fact that she was no longer a complete stranger did wonders for his nerves. Her casual attire only served to lubricate the atmosphere. Mel motioned him inside and shut the door before responding.

"I'll explain after we've listened to this recording. Now, where is it?" She flicked her hand, gesturing impatiently for him to bring it out. Charlie tugged the strap of his laptop bag and spun it around, sliding his hand into the accessories pouch. He plucked the iPhone from under the entangled knot of the laptop's AC adapter and thumbed its silver power button, holding the phone out so that Mel could look on while it booted up.

"I listened to it before, and I couldn't pick up any really obvious slip-ups, but there was something..." Charlie trailed off as the screen lit up, and he quickly tapped through to the mBition utilities app. His hands were shaking slightly from the pressure of Mel's keen eyes, and he very nearly tapped the wrong recording, but he took a deep chest-swelling breath and carefully selected Monday morning's file.

They stood breathless-still while the recording played, Charlie sick with the same horror and revulsion he had felt first time. Mel displayed little visible reaction to the death-in-monophonic. Her wide eyes sharpened to daggers when the killer graced the scene. A few moments of awkward silence followed after the recording terminated, with Mel still staring intently at the phone and Charlie trying to come up with something appropriate to fill the dead air. He stood mulling this over when Mel sighed heavily and broke the solemn hush.

"It's something, but...I guess I couldn't have expected a revelation." She was mumbling to herself, one hand tracing ovals across her forehead. She lifted her eyes and smiled glumly at Charlie. "Thanks for this. I'll just grab a copy of the recording and let you be on your way."

Charlie saw the disappointment etched on her face and felt his own features mirror hers. His short-lived fantasy of assisting in a murder investigation was rapidly fading, his hope for a grandiose purpose stomped by Mel's dismissal. Mel began ushering him out the door.

"B-but the guy on the phone! The killer called him 'Big Boss'. That's a character in a videogame, and I think it might be a clue we could use to track him down!" He realised too late that his subconscious desire for inclusion had led him to say 'we', but Mel didn't seem to notice. She was frowning thoughtfully, eyes burrowing into the floor, mumbling sub-vocally to herself. Her head snapped up and she scanned Charlie with an appraising look.

"You wouldn't happen to be familiar with the phrase 'Boom head shot', would you?" she asked, speaking the phrase as three separate words.

"You mean, 'BOOM HEADSHOT!'?" shouted Charlie, adopting the boisterously excited tone that the catch-phrase was known for. He had seen quite a few episodes of the web series Pure Pwnage that had spawned the saying, and had even been on the receiving end of the taunt during one of his rare forays into the wastelands of online gaming. Mel was a little taken aback by his seemingly violent outburst but she recovered quickly, nodding and waving Charlie over to the desk and the idling laptop.

"You might just be onto something there, Charlie. Now I'm going to explain to you my...case...and I'd like you to try to find anything else that could be related to this 'Big Boss' or videogames in general, or just anything that jumps out at you." She sat down in the desk's lone chair and took command of the mouse.

Charlie stood behind her, at first reluctant to peer over her shoulder at the laptop's screen, but a shuffle and invitational nod made it clear that she wanted him running co-pilot. As he watched, she opened up a Word document containing a number of burglary articles sourced from popular news websites.

"Alright," she sighed. "Where do I start?"

THE RED PILL RABBIT-HOLE

"It all began back when I was working sec—" Mel's eyes flared and she suffered a sudden fit of hacking coughs. "—when I heard about a break-in at a Comcast office in Philadelphia." She swung her head back to face Charlie for a moment. "America, that is. Home soil, despite having been nomadic for a few months. Anyway, back to the break-in. So the thieves knocked out the security guards, the surveillance equipment, the digital locks, all the apparently 'fool-proof' technology they spent so many thousands of dollars on. It was a terribly well-planned heist, and they made off with a couple of high-end servers loaded with the personal information of millions of Comcast customers. They're one of the biggest ISP's in America, in case you didn't know. The police have had no luck tracking the culprits down, and the one possible lead proffered by an attentive security guard was completely ignored." A bitter taste had pervaded her tone, her words spat through gritted teeth. "A week later there was a similar incident, this time in Vietnam. The Foreign Ministry was raided in the middle of the night. Once again it was a couple of servers that were stolen, this time containing data pertaining to the Ministry employees, including highly influential political figures."

She scrolled through the Word document, moving too fast to read any of the text but pausing on the images that accompanied the articles. Most of the pictures were company logos or shots of the buildings where the thefts had occurred, but one in particular stood out from the rest. Charlie recognised it as the same white logo that was emblazoned on Mel's jumper, the white skull padlock, and he squinted to read the caption.

Security company ProSect have neglected to comment at this time.

Charlie felt the blood drain from his face and he reluctantly turned his head to stare in wide-eyed fear at Mel's facial profile. Small inconsistencies that had been scattered across the breadth of his mind, too innocuous by themselves to warrant concern, converged and slotted together to form a cohesive whole.

I knew I should have gone to the police instead! The beaten-up car, the avoidance of the police station, her unorthodox behaviour, her driving! But who the hell is she then? Is she some kind of loony conspiracy theorist? Oh shit, she's not going to do the whole 'I can't let you leave now that you know' thing is she?

Charlie's heart was running a marathon and his eyes had expanded to dark green pools, reflections of the fear flooding through his system. Mel watched on in confusion, snapping her gaze from the laptop to his face as she inferred the connection Charlie had made. A flicker of shock alighted briefly on her face before she caught it and let her features slacken, slumping her shoulders and donning a warm, conciliatory façade. She opened her mouth to reassure Charlie, but he edged in first.

"Y-you're not with the police, a-are you?"

Mel flashed a sheepish grin, hoping to massage the tension out of the situation before it drew taught and snapped.

"No...not exactly. I'm a security gua- I was a security guard. I worked for ProSect. That's how I got involved in all this. I was working security at the Comcast headquarters the night it got robbed. One of the bastards whacked me on the back of the head, tried to knock me out, but I've got a pretty thick skull." She rapped the back of her head with her knuckles for emphasis. "I hit the ground, but I retained consciousness for a while. I heard some of the idiots chatting amongst themselves, heard that 'Boom, head-shot' when they knocked out my partner, heard them talking about wanting to take part in the other raids. I explained all this to the police, but they made it abundantly clear they were just humouring me. The doctors said I had a mild concussion, and apparently that wrote off anything I saw as a hallucination. Anyway, those thieving pricks cost me my job. Well, not technically, but ProSect put me on forced 'vacation leave' which is code for 'we're waiting for the hype to die down so we can fire you without reproach'." She made air quotes and rolled her eyes, her words saturated in venom. "So I tried to forget about it, decided to go to Vietnam, thinking I'd take some R&R before looking for a new career, and that's where I heard about the incident at the Foreign Ministry. The fact that all the priceless artwork was completely ignored in favour of stealing those servers was what got me drawing connections to the Comcast attack." She paused to catch her breath, exhaustion written in fine-line fissures circumnavigating her face. Charlie was standing silently, one hand resting on the back of Mel's chair for support, letting the cogs in his head churn overtime as they processed the incoming data.

"It was the possibility that this criminal operation was not just limited to a single country that prompted me to start looking globally. Lo and behold..." She clicked her tongue and pointed both index fingers at the computer screen, indicating the news articles. Charlie was racing along as fast as he could, trying to keep up, and he spat out the first question that came to mind.

"Have you taken this to the police?" Charlie asked. Mel snorted and shook her head.

"Bah! You think I'd go back to the police after the way they treated me the first time? Not a chance. Besides, the group behind this seems to have a network spanning the entire globe, so who would I take it to? The cops back home have enough trouble co-ordinating between states, let alone entire countries. And don't get me started on the despotic FBI." She released a long, drawn-out sigh. "It's not like I've got any definitive proof either. These bastards are damn good at covering their asses. They've only slipped up once—twice if you count the mBition attack, though I'm not completely sold on that yet." Mel began paging through the document on the laptop, settling on an article with a header image boldly displaying the letters EA

"They slipped up? How?" asked Charlie, leaning closer to Mel and staring eagerly at the screen. His natural inclination to problem-solving was spurring a fevered excitement inside him.

"Well, they've been pretty ruthless at knocking out the surveillance before they make their move, but I guess they must have been having an off day or something when they hit this place. According to the report, a few of the cameras managed to record some footage before they were taken out, but the police never released any of their findings. Had no luck trying to get my hands on the recordings either." She turned briefly from the screen and muttered a curse under her breath.

"Electronic Arts' recently opened Seattle branch..." whispered Charlie to himself. "Huh, another videogame connection." Mel swung her head back and looked at him inquisitively. He dismissed her unspoken question with a wave of his hand.

"Never mind, just talking to myself. Did you try approaching EA directly, to see if they would give you a copy of the footage?" Mel rolled her eyes upwards and shook her head.

"Yeah, I tried the police officer charade, asking for another copy of the files for backup purposes, but they just fed me some crap about how their only remaining server was bogged down and having to compensate for the stolen ones by consolidating roles or something. They told me to just grab a copy of the footage from the station."

"Consolidating roles..." The seed of an idea begin to sprout in Charlie's mind, a small ray of hope emerging with the blossoming thought. "If they've got the PDC and the file server consolidated and they have a website..." He trailed off, eyes staring through the ceiling and his hand stroking his chin as his gears clacked away. After a few moments of deep thought he snapped his attention back to Mel, a querying frown creasing his forehead. "When did this happen? How long ago did the servers get stolen?" He had adopted an eager, urgent tone, the childhood fantasy of unravelling a real-life mystery filtering from dream to reality. He could feel the electricity tingling through his arms, shooting up his spine, sizzling inside his skull. Mel seemed to feed off his excitement, her eyes widening and a tepid smile gracing her lips.

"Only a couple of weeks ago. It was the last case before I decided to come to Australia." She pivoted her entire body in her seat so she could face Charlie. "What is it? Have you got something?" Her voice had risen from a tepid drone to a sharp yet cautious optimism.

"Maybe, maybe..." Charlie stepped over to the desk and gestured towards the chair. "May I?" She stood up and Charlie took her place, his fingers spreading into a familiar configuration over the keyboard and mouse. The monitor sitting beside the laptop was not plugged in, so, after receiving a wave of approval from Mel, he plugged it in and connected it as a second screen. The larger size made it far easier for the both of them to watch without knocking elbows.

An agonising screech erupted from behind Charlie, causing him to flinch and spin around, his hands clasped over his ears in auditory defence. Mel stood on the other side of the room, sliding the bed across the floorboards, the rubber grips on the bed's feet responsible for the horrific noise. She ceased her exertion once the bed-end was just half a metre from the desk, then carefully reorganised the manila folders and plonked herself down next to them. Charlie returned his attention to the computer.

"So what are you thinking? Was it something to do with videogames?" asked Mel, her enthusiasm almost palpable, her words coming so fast her mouth was struggling to keep up.

"No, not quite, although it does seem like there might be some connection there." He opened up the web browser and rapid-fired in a URL, his fingers tap-dancing across the keys and coming to rest after stabbing Enter. "If the Seattle branch of EA has their own website, and it's hosted locally, then it's going to be on the same server as everything else. That's assuming that they haven't replaced the stolen ones yet, that is. But it's worth a shot!" The browser finished loading and displayed the vibrant blue and white splash screen for EA Seattle. Ignoring the browser for the moment, he opened up a command prompt window and started typing into it.

"So, uh...what does that all mean?" Mel raised an eyebrow. Judging by her catastrophic failure with the GPS earlier, Mel was no tech-guru. Charlie needed to dial back the jargon if he wanted her to keep up.

"Okay, so you said this new Seattle branch was raided, and apparently the surveillance cameras managed to record some of it. When you tried to acquire a copy of the footage, they said they didn't want to add another burden to their already overloaded server. That means the video files must be stored on that one server, the very same server that is hosting this website." He indicated the computer screen with a flick of his wrist. "If we can crack into the web server, we can get our hands on those recordings." Charlie was smiling gleefully, embracing the wonderful world of technology he felt so in tune with. Adrenaline was screaming through his body, drawing the world in vivid strokes before his eyes and slowing time ever so slightly, just enough to lend an unreal air to everything he saw. Mel was watching with a mix of anticipation and scepticism.

"Alright, I know I'm no computer whizz but that can't be easy, can it? I mean, this EA is a pretty big company, they had to be to hire us, so they've got to have some pretty expensive hacking counter-measures, right?"

"Yeah. The consolidation into one server makes it a bit easier, but I'm still going to have to pull a few tricks..." Charlie was opening and closing new pages in the web browser faster than Mel could read them. The keyboard rattled like the pitter-patter of hundreds of little feet, and the screen flashed between programs as Charlie alt-tabbed with practiced ease. The furious action suddenly ceased and Charlie leant back in the chair, slowly turning towards Mel with a pensive look on his face.

"I may need your help here." He tilted his head in the direction of the computer. "I've got the IP address of their web server, just pinged it, so I should be able to connect to their VPN because that will be the PDC's IP too."

Mel stared at him blankly, giving him the 'are you serious' glare.

Charlie rolled his eyes and smiled sheepishly.

"Okay, okay, I forgot. So I've got the address that will let me connect to their network. Once connected, I should be able to search for those files. The only problem is I need a username and password to connect, aaaand that's where you come in."

Mel's frown deepened.

Charlie responded by spreading his hands and grinning slyly. "Don't worry, it'll be easy! We're just going to employ a little social engineering." Exhilaration propelled his voice into the clouds, floating on the easy confidence born of a strong sense of belonging. He rubbed his hands together, feeling a little like a cartoon villain. "Using my old pal Wikipedia, I dug up a list of the founding employees—they should all still be there given the studio was only formed this year—and the contact details for the office. I googled the names, found their Twitter handles, their Facebook accounts, forum posts, all that wonderful public information." Charlie tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle. His broad smile was beginning to tire out the muscles in his face. They had lain dormant for so long. "I searched their tweet history and posts for any references to errors, logins, EA, anything that could be related to their work. You've just gotta love social media for undermining security standards!" He shook his head. "Makes me wonder if anybody actually bothers to read their privacy guidelines anymore..." Charlie continued to let his head sway back and forth as he sniggered incredulously at the breach of protocol.

"That's fantastic and all, but what does it have to do with me?" asked Mel, impatience slowly trickling in.

"Right, right, sorry! So one of the character artists tweeted out the domain name when he was complaining about a file server error a couple of months ago, and I found a tweet from a..." He spun around and checked something on the screen before swivelling back. "...Sylvia Grant to one of her co-workers, wanting him to copy something to her personal folder. She happens to mention her username because, you know, she's an idiot." Charlie snorted derisively. "I performed a quick background search on her; she's held low-level graphic design positions for a couple of small software and web developers, and now she's working as technical artist for this new studio. I've also found a couple of podcasts that she guest-starred on. Let's have a listen." He swivelled back to the computer and clicked on the page he had left open. Voices began to mumble softly from the laptop's tinny speakers, and he adjusted the volume until they rang out clear.

"You still haven't told me what part I play in this," stated Mel rather brusquely, drowning out the other podcast with her increasingly agitated tone.

"Shhh, listen." Charlie held a finger to his lips and pointed at the laptop. A female voice introduced herself as one of the designers involved in EA's new hush-hush project. Charlie waited for her to finish before speaking again. "Okay, so we're going to call up the office, and you're going to pretend to be her. You're going to say you lost the password for the VPN and desperately need it to access your design documents." Charlie grinned, a full-mouth cheeky smile.

"Why me? Can't you do it? There's got to be guys working there as well."

"Ah, but you have an American accent. I think they'd smell something fishy if I rang up speaking like this." Charlie turned his palms up, feigning helplessness. "Plus, there's the simple fact that you're a woman and, well, you know..."

Mel's eyes narrowed into harpoon focus, pinning Charlie to the back of the chair.

"No...please do go on."

Charlie retreated from the inferno blazing in her eyes, stammering out a hasty apology.

"S-s-sorry, I-I didn't mean anything bad! I-I just meant that you're generally better at persuasion! C'mon, you know all guys are just brainless dopes when it comes to women..." He forced out a weak laugh, though the muscular, glowering woman absolutely terrified him. Seconds passed glacially slow, the frigid silence punctured only by the fuzzy voices spewing from the laptop. Charlie fought the urge to fidget, too nervous to move lest Mel snap and decide to show off the techniques she had honed during her years of private security work. The icicle harpoon pinning him to the seat melted with Mel's frown, slipping into a coy smile with a side order of sly chuckling. She had clearly taken considerable enjoyment in watching Charlie squirm.

"I know what you meant; I was just screwing with you. I've had to deal with some pretty shitty guys in my time, let me tell you, so don't worry about it. At any rate I see your point, and I think I can pull of a decent impersonation of this Sylvia person." The podcast continued to play in the background, oblivious to the see-sawing temperature in the room. "Is there anything specific I need to know? I'm not particularly fluent in geek. Is that going to matter?"

Charlie gulped down a few deep breaths to calm his galloping heart.

"Nah. I've sourced the basic details from her Facebook page and a couple of other places: her address, date of birth, phone number, all that. Hopefully we won't actually need any of it. Just try to make it sound casual, like you're tired and pissed off at yourself for losing the password or something. And try to keep a good rhythm going—it gives whoever's on the other end less time to get suspicious. Oh, and throw in mention of being arsed over by the theft, that should quell any, uh, misgivings they might have."

"Mmm...alright, just give me a sec." Mel bit her lip and glazed over in thought for a moment before turning to the piles of folders on the bed behind her. She picked one out of the grid and began rummaging through it. Out emerged a few sheets of hard-copy with more news articles taken from the web and she shuffled through them, discarding all but one and turning back to Charlie.

"I've been trying to keep up-to-date with as many of the targets post-burglary as possible: checking news sites, ringing the local police as a 'concerned citizen', and even calling a few of the businesses themselves." Mel counted them off on the fingers of her free hand. "Hadn't called these guys yet, though." She scanned through the article, finger trailing underneath the words as she skimmed over details to absorb the bigger picture. "Says here that the announcement of their new game had to be delayed due to lost assets. I guess I could spin something up regarding that?"

Charlie nodded enthusiastically. He began dialling the number into his phone, leaving it ready to call and handing it to Mel.

"Ready?" he asked, as she accepted the phone from him.

"One question. Will they be able to see the country of origin? You know, given that it's an overseas call?"

"Hmmm." Charlie paused, considering the question with a creased brow and a pinched mouth. "I hadn't thought of that. It probably won't be an issue, but maybe we should spoof the caller ID, just to be on the safe side." He swung back around to face the laptop, opening a tab in the web browser and hammering in a new URL.

"'Spoof'? Like, faking the caller ID?" Mel asked.

"Exactly. Most people don't realise how easy it is. There are a bunch of web services that do it. Most of them even offer free trials. We'll use one to disguise our origin, that should neuter any issues there." The website he had pulled up was called Spoof My ID, the name and logo a parody of the TV show Pimp My Ride. Charlie selected the country of origin as the United States of America, left the caller ID as unknown, entered the Seattle studio's phone number, then hit the submit button. A new page flashed up with a number to call, and he retrieved his phone from Mel, hit the clear button and typed it in. After handing the phone back to Mel, he returned his attention to the laptop, alt-tabbing to the Word document where he had pasted the details of Sylvia Grant for ready access.

"Chuck it on speaker too, and if I need you to say anything I'll type it on here."

Mel tapped the phone and a few seconds later it began to purr, the brrr-brrr of the dial-tone crackling through the cheap speaker.

"Jake, Seattle EA. What can I do for you?" A gruff male tone reciting a mantra firmly embedded in memory, elements of fatigue and irritation fraying the edges of his words.

"Hi!" Mel tried to mimic the bright and bubbly persona that Sylvia had exuded in the podcast but aimed a little too high, delivering an over-eager, this-will-only-take-five-minutes pamphlet-pusher greeting. Charlie flashed her a look of concern and for a fleeting second she actually seemed embarrassed, but she swiftly shrugged it off and regained her composure. She coughed loudly, clearing her throat to divert attention, and eased off the accelerator for her encore performance.

"This is Sylvia Grant. How are you doing?"

Her second attempt was far more successful, and Charlie was stunned at how authentically it mirrored the designer's voice. It was all the more impressive for how far it diverged from Mel's own authoritative tone.

"It's one o'clock in the morning, what do you want?" Jake responded harshly, his words clipping as he exceeded the speaker's maximum output level.

Charlie flailed his arms and cursed under his breath as he belatedly remembered the time differential between Australia and the US. He swivelled in his chair, preparing to bash out an excuse on the keyboard for Mel to read, but before he had the chance Mel snickered jovially, moving swiftly and fluently to stem the wound before it bled out.

"C'mon Jake! I'm loaded up on three coffees and a Red Bull here, where's your team spirit?"

Tension expanded like a mushroom cloud in the ensuing silence, and Charlie's nerves put his heart on standby while he awaited the pivotal reply. A brash, gravelly snort punctured the silence, Charlie's breath the escaping helium as his worries rapidly deflated.

"Whaddaya need, Sylvia?"

Charlie let his fingers fall onto the plastic keys, trilling their way across the ergonomically curved surface as they lent form to his thoughts.

Laptop stolen during attack. Lost design docs and art—environment texture maps. Need VPN password to pull backups.

He spun the chair around and looked to Mel, a raised eyebrow seeking confirmation of her understanding. She nodded firmly, her mouth drawn into a tight line, and picked up the news article print-out she had been reading before. She ran her eyes over it as she talked.

"Well, Jake, I've been trying to recover from last week, getting all my sh-...uh... stuff together. You know those dang clowns stole my laptop?" Charlie noted that Mel was taking cues from the podcast, substituting words like dang and clowns in place of cursing, just like Sylvia had in the recording. "I got it replaced, but now I need to pull all the backups of my work. I need my VPN password, please." Charlie pressed his lips together in silent approval, rather impressed by Mel's fluid improvisation.

"Oh God, tell me about it! I've been run off my feet trying to organise replacement hardware and new security measures all week. It's a goddamn nightmare! Anyway, just give us a sec and I'll email it through to you."

Charlie scowled and suppressed a frustrated grunt. He had hoped they would be able to finagle a simple dictation over the phone, but it seemed EA trained their personnel a little more diligently than that. He turned back to the laptop and furiously mashed the whisper-quiet keyboard.

No VPN access, can't sync with Outlook to check email. Ask him to read it out to you.

Again he checked that Mel had understood, and again she nodded.

"You must be tired, Jake! I've got no VPN access, remember, so I can't sync with Outlook to check my email!" Charlie crossed his fingers, hoping that either the webmail interface was not setup, or at least that Jake would not think of it. "Here, I've got a pen, just read it out for me."

"Uhhh...ah, alright then, but I'm going to need to confirm some details first, Sylvia. Security protocol, you know."

"Sure, sure! Shoot!"

Charlie deleted his recent text from the screen and scrolled back to the Sylvia dossier he had compiled. He smiled at Mel and gave her a thumbs-up.

"Okay Sylvia, just hold on for a moment, gotta pull up Pinnacle."

Jake quizzed her on Sylvia's birth date and current address, his attitude noticeably brusquer than it had been initially. He was clearly not enjoying this disruption to his already overlong work day. Mel confidently delivered the necessary details thanks to the enlarged Word document on the laptop screen.

"Alright, thanks for that Sylvia. I know it's a pain in the ass, but they'd dock my pay if they caught me disobeying protocol."

Charlie grimaced, feeling a stab of guilt at their manipulation of the innocent secretary. Social engineering was, to him, like stealing something that you could never afford. Sure, it might be the only way you'll own a Ferrari, but its illegitimate origins will linger like a bad smell, beyond the reach of any air-freshener. Exploiting the trusting nature of innocent people just did not sit well with Charlie.

Jake read out the key, a baffling amalgamation of letters, numbers, and obscure punctuation designed intentionally to be impossible to guess. Charlie tapped it into the Word document, his fingers slapping the Ctrl-S combination that was so deeply ingrained in his muscle memory that his corpse would be saving documents from the confines of its six-feet slumber. Well, that's what losing an entire evening of irreplaceable work on a deadline assignment will do. Lesson learned: Never rely solely on auto-save!

Charlie entered VPN_key as the filename and slammed the Enter button, his aggressive typing muffled almost entirely on the slickly designed keyboard.

"Thanks Jake, you've been a tremendous help! Now I can finally get back to drawing up those texture maps!"

Charlie winced at the way she sounded out the syllables in texture maps, like a child working their mouth around an unfamiliar word, but Jake didn't seem to notice. It had been extremely fortuitous that they had encountered a secretary rather than a designer or a developer, as somebody with a more intimate knowledge of game development may have noticed the inconsistencies in Mel's replies. The call ended with four drawn out beeps, and Mel handed the phone back to Charlie.

"That was some nice work there, Sylvia."

Mel chuckled, the hard lines of her face melting into warm curves. For the first time since Charlie had met her, she seemed genuinely vivacious.

"Thanks. So what now, whizz kid?"

Charlie grinned, eager to dive in and excited to have an audience. Of the few situations where he actually welcomed the physical company of others, one was expounding on the nuts and bolts of how technology functioned. He thrived on that feeling of validation, that cautious optimism that he could provide a useful service to society.

"Now it's time for the fun stuff."

MY SCRIPTIN' BRINGS ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD

Charlie scooted his chair into a more comfortable position and stretched his arms, cracking his knuckles one by one. He gripped the mouse with his right hand and rested his left in its accustomed position over the WASD keys: the PC gamer's well-worn groove. He clicked on the network icon in the corner of the taskbar and ran through the prompts to set up a new connection. When prompted he entered the IP address he had obtained from the Seattle website, followed by the username and password for Sylvia Grant.

"I always find it funny that people think these passwords are more secure." Charlie pointed to the mess of underscores, dollar signs, numbers, and alternating-case letters that made up the VPN password. "Sure, no person is going to be able to guess it, but it doesn't mean jack to a computer."

Mel frowned at the back of Charlie's head as he continued to click madly.

"What do you mean? Aren't you supposed to use all sorts of gibberish in your passwords? That's what it always says when you sign up for websites."

"Sure, sure, it's better than making it password or your birthday or something. But to a brute-force cracking program, it's all the same. Every character is treated equally; the way you make a password tougher is to make it longer. It's better to use full sentence passwords when you can. They're hard to guess and harder to crack, but not too difficult to remember."

The VPN connection established while they talked, and Charlie ran another quick ping on the Seattle web address. It came back with a new IP, this one the internal address assigned by the router rather than the outward-facing address of the router itself.

"Bingo! We're in. Now I'll just boot up the ol' Powershell..."

Mel peered over Charlie's shoulder as he worked. Her head flickered in and out of his peripheral vision, stiflingly close. Clearly she found it difficult to relinquish the reins, even when the task at hand exceeded her skillset. Charlie understood that desire for total control all too well.

Charlie bashed out a Powershell script to trawl the Seattle server's hard drives for the surveillance footage. He mapped the roots of the two main server drives to Z: and X: on the laptop, then crafted the script to search both of them recursively and list out all the video files it found, sorted by size. Mel stared blankly at the mass of white-on-blue code trickling down the screen.

$dirarg = "Z:/"

$Dir = get-childitem $dirarg -recurse

$extension = '.avi.mov.mp4.dvr.mkv'

$List = $Dir | where {"$extension".contains($_.extension) -and $_.extension -ne '' -and (!$_.PSIsContainer) } | Sort-Object Length -descending

$List | ft @{label="Directory";expression={$_.Directory}},@{label="Name";expression={$_.Name}},@{label="MB";expression={"{0:N2}" -f ($_.Length / 1MB)}}

Charlie had to google some of the finer points of syntax, but he was surprised at how much of his university education came flooding back.

"Man, it's been ages since I've worked in Powershell. I'd forgotten how flexible it was. It's almost as good as the Unix shell. Almost."

He finished tapping out the code and opened up Powershell proper, making liberal use of Tab and the auto-fill function to change the working directory to where he had saved the script. He smiled proudly and stabbed Enter. Once the script had begun burrowing into the server's hard drives Charlie started to turn back to Mel, but the tendrils of temptation coiled around him and held him fast.

I could get a sneak peek at that unannounced project...

Overcome by curiosity, he settled into the chair and opened Windows Explorer to manually peruse the file system.

Okay, what do we have here? That drive's the Windows installation, so this one should be the data...yep. HR...Social Media...Payroll...C'mon where's the interesting stuff?

The drive was organised into folders for each division of the company, most of them inaccessible under Sylvia's limited privileges. Charlie attacked the file system with increasing frustration, his plumbing rebuffed by terse and insistent error messages, until he finally came across an unrestricted folder labelled Props. Within were numerous subfolders, names like Initial Props and Benched Pitches perking up Charlie's eyebrows.

He opened then sorted the Initial Props folder by creation date, selecting the most recent file—a PDF with the incredibly generic name of Project Infinity. Charlie scrolled through the pages of legalese and typically bombastic marketing phrases like visceral and brutal combat and a rich and exciting story with heart-pounding twists and turns, rolling his eyes at the worn-out buzz words that no longer imparted any valuable meaning. He reached a dot point summary of the game's features and shook his head, disappointment nocking another arrow and firing it into the heart of his fleeting hope.

—Persistent online connection for IP protection and to ensure a consistent and controlled experience for all users.

—Integrated social networking features (e.g. posting to Facebook, Twitter, 'Likes' for in-game currency).

—iOS companion app to earn extra currency, sync into full game with connected EA Origin account.

—Multi-stage DLC plan, minimum six-week plan (inc. season pass)

To Charlie, it was essentially a hit list of all the trends poisoning the games industry.

Seriously, what happened to the days when games were developed to entertain first and foremost? Now everything's a bloody exercise in money-grubbing, with fun ancillary to profit! Man, it's so disheartening...

Charlie tsked and closed the document, pushing off from the desk and squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

"Is everything okay? What's going on?" Mel's cry echoed frustration and concern.

Charlie had slipped into his usual sensory deprivation trance, phasing out the room and Mel along with it. Her sudden interjection jolted him back to reality, extracting a reflexive flinch as payment for his keen focus. He damped down the fright and recovered his composure, shuffling around in the chair to reassure his worried observer.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I was just checking something out. Couldn't pass up the chance to see what that new game was..." Charlie trailed off, a guilty smile sneaking onto his face before the spark of realisation shunted it aside. "Hey, that's an idea..."

"What? What's an idea?" Mel's tone bespoke fast-crumbling patience, and she rose from the bed and planted a hand on the back of his chair, bending down so her head was only a foot from his. Charlie detected the hint of frustration in her voice, and cleared his throat nervously before delivering his explanation.

"Okay, so I figure that with all the references and allusions, the guys behind this are probably gamers. And now that they have access to a treasure trove of EA's internal documents, I'm betting a leak's coming, if it hasn't already."

"And this helps us how, exactly?" Mel cocked an eyebrow, her lips pursed in that get-to-the-point look that always stymied Charlie's spirit with the undeniable feeling that he was abusing somebody's precious time. It was more fallout from his anxiety: the insistence that nobody was ever interested in what he had to say, that they were just humouring him for the sake of being polite. He swallowed audibly and proceeded to talk faster.

"Right, well if it does get leaked, we might be able to trace the source back to these guys." He shrugged and splayed his hands in placation. "It's worth a shot, right?"

Mel nodded slowly, her eyes sailing past Charlie to the shores of stoic reflection. Charlie thought he could see the shadow of an approaching smile, but the intrusion of a musical chime shattered Mel's silent reverie, and along with Charlie her attention was drawn to the laptop.

"Aha! Search finished. Let's see...Phwoargh, that's a serious truckload of errors! Damn!"

The blue window was flooded with bright red text; permission denied errors stemming from the insufficient access privileges on Sylvia's account. Charlie scrolled down past the ocean of scarlet, stopping when the red ceded dominion to white and the comprehensive error details gave way to a neat list of file paths and sizes. He scanned over the first few results. The biggest files were well over a gigabyte each and they were all located in the same directory, buried under many layers of subfolders within the tmp_transfer_0301 root directory. They adopted a similar naming scheme too, containing what appeared to Charlie to be a timestamp, the duration, and what could have been a location tag, he wasn't quite sure. He highlighted the base directory for the files and copy-pasted it into Windows Explorer. Now he just had to wait for the list to load.

"When did that EA theft occur? The date and time, that is." Charlie didn't bother turning around, keeping his eyes trained on the screen while he awaited Mel's reply.

"Umm, let me see..." Mel leafed through another news article she had retrieved from the multi-dimensional array on the bed. "It was the third at...approximately 1:45 A.M."

"Cool, thanks."

Charlie sorted the directory by filename alpha-numerically and scrolled down to the relevant day's recording. A Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V later and the file was replicating itself at a tectonic pace from the server in Seattle to the laptop sitting in the plush Melbourne hotel room. Charlie leaned back and twisted around to face Mel.

"Okay, so I've got that copying over now. It's going to take a little while, your connection here isn't particularly great."

Mel frowned and looked a little taken aback. Her tone was sprinkled with indignation.

"I paid for the most expensive package the hotel offered, and I haven't had any problems so far."

Charlie smiled amicably and waved his hands to defuse the affront.

"Nah, it's not your fault. Internet here in Australia is pretty crappy at the best of times, plus we're pulling a big file; it's not chump change."

He chuckled and glanced over his shoulder to verify the transfer was progressing accordingly. It was cruising along steadily, the approximate time remaining: 45 minutes.

"So, uhhh, how did you know the mBition attack was going to occur? What tipped you off to come to Australia?" Charlie could feel his connection to Mel growing every second, his initial trepidation and inescapable fear of the unknown being worn down by proximity and exposure, the familiarisation process catalysed by the euphoric glee of tag-teaming a problem.

"Hmmm." Mel frowned and glared at the bright laptop screen. "That's not really important. Didn't you say something about a leak before? How do we check that?"

Charlie followed her gaze, watching the little green bar dawdle indefatigably across the screen.

"We could, but it's probably not the best idea to leech the bandwidth from the transfer. VPNs are notoriously finicky at the best of times, at least in my experience, and we don't want to have to restart the whole thing because of too many packet collisions or something. It's only got half an hour left, anyway."

Mel frowned and curled her lip, but the flicker of frustration did not linger. Her face softened and she ceded a thin smile.

"Alright. Well if that's the case then I suppose I can't really deny you a proper explanation." She retreated to the bed and set herself down, sliding backwards to get comfortable and clasping her hands in her lap. She pierced Charlie with her cool, unwavering stare.

"Like I said before, these guys have established a globally diverse operation over the last eight months, executing with checklist-efficiency dozens of server thefts across both hemispheres." She gestured to the map hanging over the bedhead. The red pins did indeed paint a bloody picture of a globe-spanning epidemic. "I've enlisted the assistance of some of my expat former colleagues to keep me abreast of the situation overseas, but my human resources are...limited, and I've had to resort to a considerable amount of air travel to follow up on some of the leads.

"If you look closely you will notice some disturbing gaps in my coverage. Lately there have been fewer incidents worthy of pursuit, so I've been attempting to close those gaps, establishing new contacts in previously unvisited countries; my own private information network." Mel smirked and Charlie sniggered, savouring the simple joy of a shared joke. "And that's what brought me here. I had no relations with any Australian PSCs, so my coverage was decidedly slim. I came here to rectify that."

"Oh, cool! So did you find any? Uhh...contacts, that is."

Mel shook her head and snorted.

"Haven't had the chance! My plane arrived the morning of the attack, so I've been flat-out trying to nail down possible leads. Hadn't had any real luck till you showed up."

Charlie felt a surge of self-worth warm his heart. He grinned and shuffled in his seat.

"I'm glad I could help! I've got to say, this all feels a bit Hollywood spy-flick, what with the conspiracy theories and the mole networks and the hacking..." Charlie swept his eyes over the pin-up papers and the incident map, the drawn curtains and the brilliant glow of the laptop screen, his mind abuzz with the stirrings of sinister plots foiled.

Mel's face darkened and her voice took on a reproachful tone.

"Yeah, well it's not all glitz and glamour like you see in the movies, kid. People get hurt." She rubbed the back of her head subconsciously. "Just look what happened to your friend."

Charlie realised that he had let himself get so caught up in the naïve fantasy of playing techno-sleuth that he had discarded all thought of Joel's horrific demise. A blistering wave of guilt crushed his newborn dreams and rent his composure in twain. He let his head droop forward and rubbed the heels of his palms into his forehead. The glorious fire that had raged in his chest only moments before was extinguished, doused with a heavy shower of self-condemnation for his frivolous attitude.

Mel grunted and moved off the bed, stumbling warily towards Charlie's trembling form. She placed her hand on his shoulder and awkwardly patted up and down, her movements stiff and robotic.

"There, there. It's, uh, not your fault. It's just a fact of life. And, well, at least you're doing something about it! You're helping me, aren't you? I'm going to make sure they face Lady Justice." Mel's voice dripped with honeyed enthusiasm, but her eyes suggested the taste was bittersweet. Hardly surprising, given she'd worked the case for six months without uncovering a single solid lead.

Charlie raised his head and unshuttered his eyes, his dilated pupils contracting in the dusty yellow light. He flashed Mel an apologetic smile and sighed abashedly.

"God, I'm so sorry, you don't need to see this. I'm such a freakin' loser. I really thought I'd beaten it. You know what I've done since the attack? Nothing. Nothing at all. I've lazed about in a bloody self-inflicted sarcophagus of routine, just like I used to. I thought I'd gotten over it, dammit!" Charlie slapped his hand to his forehead, disgusted with his precarious grip on self-control.

Mel sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

"I'm not cut out for this shit," she mumbled to the floor. Drawing a deep, unsteady breath, she raised her head.

"I was fifteen. It was a typical Saturday morning: I was hanging at the mall with some friends, and dad was clocking down his half-day shift. He was a mechanic, working for a garage that serviced exclusively the kinds of rare and vintage cars that you see modelled in miniature and mounted in glass cases. The shop was doing well, and they would draw in customers from towns fifty miles away. He loved it there; I can still smell the pungent aroma of oil and grease that clung to his overalls, stubbornly surviving through even the most nuclear of wash cycles.

"That day, he was repairing the driveshaft for one of their regulars—a 1963 Jaguar E-Type, a favourite of his—and the hydraulic lift gave way, unleashing the full weight of the car and crushing his legs, pinning him to the ground. It left him a paraplegic.

"It was his partner's fault. He was supposed to keep an eye on the gauge in case the pressure started to give—it was notoriously temperamental—but he was on his smoke break. By the time he came back inside, dad had passed out from the pain.

"Dad was out of a job, permanently, but his partner got barely a slap on the wrist. Dad refused to talk to him, refused to talk to anyone, really, except me. And even then it was all lectures; he kept telling me how important it was to remain vigilant, to never put your unshackled trust in anyone lest they abuse it. He taught me the value of independence, of placing yourself first and foremost because if you don't, who else will?

"He died four years ago. Only five people came to the funeral: the priest, me, his caretaker, and two 'friends' from the nursing home."

Charlie was speechless. Mel had maintained a level tone for the entire recitation, letting not a solitary tear trickle down her frozen poker-face, yet he could see the scars of old wounds behind her stoic mask, and in her eyes he caught a glimpse of the fifteen year-old girl who had lost her doting father to the evils of cynicism and spite. Charlie found it difficult to relate to the stiff-lipped upbringing that Mel had implied. He pitied her, recalling his picturesque childhood painted in luminescent joviality. He offered her a warm smile, one she tentatively returned after a bout of profuse blinking. The pair sat in contemplative silence, each reflecting on their current situation under a new light.

For Charlie, hearing Mel's tragic story had put his earlier woes in perspective, and he felt a renewed sense of purpose, a firm determination to never again be consumed by regret and remorse, to be hamstrung by guilt and sorrow. He needed to accept the past as immutable and not be controlled by the mistakes he had made. It was a stern reminder that his negative thoughts only had as much control over him as he gave them, that their power was his to grant or deny.

***

Mel, meanwhile, was deeply ensconced within a cloud of nostalgia, a carefree carousel of pre-teen memories twirling to a whimsical tune. Frolicking in the park on a warm spring day, her father playing the unchained ogre chasing down nosy, naughty child. Sitting down for dinner and listening to him wax poetic on the differences between engines in the Mercedes Benz W111 and W112 models. How different life had been before the accident, before the loss of ambulatory motion stripped her father of his spark, dulled the cheerful glint in his eyes, left his heart as crippled as his chair-bound body and robbed him of all but one ardent motivation: to ensure his daughter would never suffer the same crushing betrayal that had so utterly obliterated nigh everything he held dear.

But what had that cost her? What kind of life had she missed out on in her endeavour to remain independent? Sure, this Charlie kid sitting opposite her might be emotionally temperamental, but at least he had emotion. The way his face shone as he launched into explanations of his technical sorcery was frightfully similar to her father's visage when he had regaled her with his own tales of mechanical mastery. That enthusiasm had been nuked from orbit by his debilitating injury, and consequently Mel had endured the suffocating fallout, seeing the world through her father's greyscale glasses.

She could see clearly now the paths she had forsaken in adherence to her father's creed. No true 'friends' to offer advice and reassurance, no wondrous tales of sweet and sour relationships. No-one to share her life with. No-one to have, to hold, to love. Well, that was going to change. Mel decided it was time to abandon the dogma of emotional celibacy, to embrace the volatile lifeblood of the world itself: other living people. And it was time to start now.

***

Having both enjoyed the wisdom of a fresh perspective, Mel and Charlie looked upon each other with a newfound respect, a mutual recognition of the psychological baggage cluttering up their respective headspaces. Their shared reverie was splintered by a ding from the laptop's speakers. Charlie snapped his head up and blinked the fog from his eyes, abandoning the mental realignment and directing his attention to present concerns.

"Okay! Let's see what we have here." Charlie clapped his hands together, rubbing them in anticipation before seizing the mouse. Mel jumped up from the bed and bounded to his side, leaning over his shoulder for an unobstructed view. Charlie moved to click on the video file then stopped, hovering his finger over the left mouse button.

"Crap, it's a .dvr file. Hold on a sec, I'm going to have to grab VLC."

"VLC?"

"It's an open-source media player, it plays a lot of stuff Windows Media Player won't touch. It's good stuff, there's not much it can't handle."

With a speed born from countless hours behind mouse and keyboard, Charlie hit up the VideoLAN web page and downloaded the latest distribution of VLC. The setup took a matter of seconds, and once finished Charlie double-clicked the video file and the surveillance footage lit up the screen.

The shadows cast by the dust-caked streetlight nearby shrouded the entrance to the EA office in coagulated darkness. The surveillance camera viewed the scene from on high, perched a foot out from the wall above the doors to provide sweeping coverage of the building's frontage and the path leading to it. Nothing moved within the pixelated frame; no bushes to rustle, no traffic to be seen. Charlie dragged the time indicator forward in bursts, pausing at regular intervals to check for deviations in the static monotony. After jumping over three hours into the overnight file, he found what he was searching for.

Three masked figures coalesced from the shadows, clad entirely in midnight black with white-faced skull-shaped helmets. The figures sauntered forth casually, the two on either side of the third raising their arms and firing projectile weapons too small to discern. One aimed directly at the centre of the feed, the other at something off screen—presumably a second camera.

The video stream shook, oscillating between portrayals of the star-speckled night sky and the cracked concrete path below. But it recovered, slightly off-kilter but still affording a partial view of the entrance and the figures walking towards it. The three strode forward and were quickly joined by four more, all similarly disguised.

They crowded around the full-length mirror-sheen entry doors. Mel leaned in closer next to Charlie, her tight and wiry bicep brushing against Charlie's shoulder. Breathless silence engulfed the hotel room as they stared intently, watching as the group on screen surged through the doors and disappeared from the camera's view.

"Combine masks..." Charlie breathed, and Mel flashed him an inquisitive glance. He shook his head dismissively and returned focus to the motionless tableau on the computer screen. He held out a few moments to see if the masked figures would reappear, but when stillness persisted he moved the mouse pointer over the navigation panel and began very methodically dragging the cursor forward. The video became a stuttering slideshow tainted by compression artefacts, the frontage bereft of movement while pixelated glitches blossomed across the screen. As he scrolled through the video with mounting speed Charlie became complacent, nearly skipping right over the group's return and having to slide the video back a full sixty seconds to capture their reappearance.

The shadow-clad figures were hunched and moving backwards as they exited the building, using their backs to push open the glass doors while their hands remained busy lugging large rectangular metal boxes—the servers in their raw form, removed from the racks within their immense steel server cabinets.

Severely stooped shoulders spoke to the weight of the hefty computers, something that Charlie remembered well from his work experience days at a small business-software developer. Assembling and packaging what had been considered 'micro' servers had wreaked havoc on his lower back, the pain exacerbated by improper bending and lifting practices that Charlie had not learnt about until years later working stock replenishment at the local supermarket.

All seven hardware-thieves scuttled down the path and vanished into the shadows from whence they came. Charlie caught a gleam of polished metal as one of the figures stumbled under the weight of their precious burden. It was a polished grey crowbar, strapped to the underside of the black fleece jacket the crouched thief was wearing. Charlie tapped his finger on his chin as the figure recovered and disappeared off screen with the rest of his comrades.

"Hmmm...." With the display dormant once more, Charlie tilted his head and looked up at Mel, her face mere inches from his. "Was there any damage reported inside the building? Like, broken windows or forced locks, or anything like that?"

Mel furrowed her brow in concentration, then stepped back to confer with the hard-copy on the bed.

"Mmm...no. In fact, it mentions here that the entire building was secured with electronic locks, and that they were all left intact and virtually untouched. Why do you ask?"

Charlie dragged the video back and froze it so the crowbar was clearly visible. He pointed at the figure on screen and turned again as Mel strode back from the bed.

"Why would you bring a crowbar if you weren't going to use it?"

"Hmm. A backup plan perhaps, in case they had trouble with the locks?"

"Mmm...maybe..." Charlie wasn't so sure.

Combine masks? A crowbar? It has to be Half-Life, no question. There have been way too many gaming references for this to be a coincidence. But that doesn't explain why the heck these guys are stealing servers. Could they be building a server farm? But what for? Just one of those racks would be enough to host any number of private game servers, or do practically anything else a bunch of gamers would want. The only thing you would need that much grunt for is...well, scientific simulations, maybe? Genome research? Phfehh, I don't know.

"You said before that you got hit in the back of the head when you were attacked. Did you happen to get a look at any of the guys beforehand?"

Mel grimaced, running her hand over the back of her head.

"Yeah, I saw one of them. Not the bastard who hit me, mind you, not that goddamn coward. But I did get a good look at the one who approached me, the one who distracted me so his buddy could smash me on the head." Mel sneered, her tone spiteful and her fist clenched with ambitions of revenge.

Charlie swallowed nervously as the fury rose from Mel like steam from a boiling kettle.

"Uhh, w-was he d-dressed like these guys? With the skull-shaped gas mask? O-or an orange jumpsuit maybe, or another crowbar?"

Mel took a second to discard her rage with a full body shake.

"No." She sighed deeply. "No, he was your typical criminal: skin-tight wetsuit and a balaclava. Why, what's so special about what these guys are wearing?"

Charlie drew his hands into a steeple and rested his chin between his thumbs and forefingers. "Well, it bears a striking resemblance to the Combine from Half-Life 2. The crowbar is the iconic weapon of the protagonist." Charlie lowered his eyes in thought, only looking up and noticing Mel's baffled expression when she hadn't responded for a full ten seconds.

"Oh, right. Uhh, it's a videogame," he said.

"Ah." Mel's confusion quickly morphed into understanding, then shifted to boredom, her lack of interest in videogames readily apparent.

"So what does all that mean, then? Are these guys just really into games, or what? Does that really help us?" She cocked an eyebrow, her tone haemorrhaging scepticism.

Charlie pressed his hands onto the desk and lifted himself up off the chair, sidling out and turning to face Mel so he could continue the conversation from a less awkward position.

"You might be surprised at how extreme some gamers get. Cosplayers even more so. And if these guys are gearing up like the Combine and carrying crowbars just for the look of it, well, that suggests they're pretty hardcore."

"'Cosplayers'?" Mel fumbled with the unfamiliar word.

"Gamers who dress up as their favourite characters."

Mel grunted dismissively, then folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at Charlie. She seemed to be losing patience with his circular talking, and expressed her desire for the crux of the matter by tapping her foot and sighing audibly. Charlie took the hint.

"Right, well this leads back to what I said before, about the leak. A hardcore gamer is going to want to leak this EA stuff for sure, and they're the kind of person who takes offense to the so-called 'features'"—sarcastic air quotes—" that EA is touting. So if somebody were to come back and say, vehemently argue the benefits of said features, that would probably start quite the flame war."

Charlie had a diabolical glint in his eye, a cheeky smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"And that is where we can catch them out. People always say things they regret when they're angry, and I've seen my fair share of retribution attacks on punk forum kids who signed up with linked Facebook accounts or revealed too many personal details in their posts. It doesn't take much for the guy they're warring with to pull a Sherlock Holmes and nut out their address. They usually only end up with egged or paint-bombed houses, or at worst become the lucky recipients of several metric tonnes of spam mail campaigns, but if we could get our hands on the address of one of these guys...well, that'd come in quite handy, wouldn't it?" Charlie raised an eyebrow and donned a coy smile. Mel frowned back at him.

"You do realise that this is all based on your assumption that they're actually going to leak that information, right?"

Charlie cocked his head to the side and gave her a pitying look. "They'll leak it, believe me. In fact, I bet they already have. And I'd know one way or the other if I hadn't been holed up in a Faraday cage for the last few days." He grumbled and mentally slapped himself in admonition for his shameful collapse into despair. "Oh well, nothing I can do about that now. Let's go back to my place and we can check my feeds; we'll each have a computer to work on, and a better net connection too."

Mel thrust her chest out and looked down on Charlie, her extra few inches of height enhancing her intimidating appearance. It was only then that Charlie realised he had been taking charge, something that was uncharacteristic for him in the best of circumstances, let alone when in the presence of an older woman capable of twisting him up like a balloon animal if her mood soured. He had been swept along with the giddy momentum of tackling an obtuse problem, harkening back to the halcyon days of university when he had been in his element, commanding a merry band of like-minded geeks as they toppled project after project on their quest to earn their hallowed Bachelor degrees. As the puzzle-solving high ebbed, he found that he was no longer in that golden age of learning and pre-anxiety bliss, and he dropped his eyes to the floor.

"U-uhhh...s-sorry. I j-just thought it'd be easier—"

Mel's expression softened and she rolled her eyes, unfolding her arms and turning towards the computer desk.

"C'mon kid, take it easy. I was just yanking your chain. Just let me get my stuff together and we can head out. It's not like I was making much progress till you came along anyway."

She bustled around the room, scooping up her laptop and an assortment of print-outs from the boards on the wall and the stacks on the bed. Charlie watched on silently, still reassembling the fragments of his shattered composure. It had been a long time since he had experienced such a rollercoaster of emotions; antidepressants were like a guide wire, keeping him on the same dead-straight track with very little room for deviation. Even the crippling anxiety had been a one-sided affair; like The Giant Drop if its peak were apathy, or a rollercoaster that could never climb; doomed to flat-line between abyssal descents.

But now he could see the sky again. He had a purpose.

A mission.

And a new friend to share the ride with.

LOOSE LIPS AND FREUDIAN SLIPS

By the time Mel had gathered what the essentials for their excursion and packed it into a sausage-shaped duffle bag, Charlie was back on high, eager to return home and assault this mystery head-on. Insistent questions buzzed in his head like bees, swooping like magpies and plucking at the surface of his brain.

What do they need so many servers for? Is there some sort of Half-Life 2 connection? And why did they target mBition, stealing our source code and murdering Joel?

Charlie struggled to construct a coherent picture from the disparate parts as both he and Mel left the hotel, strolling underneath the warm afternoon sun to the nearby tram stop. Mel handed him the hard-copy articles to peruse as they rode the jostling tram—one of the older generation, rust-stained and rickety—and he gradually absorbed the enormous scale of the global operation. Thefts in Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sri Lanka, France, and dozens more, each executed with daunting efficiency and leaving little or no trace evidence.

Charlie fed the information into his brain, distilling it into a salient paste that he used as glue in his paper-mache mental concoctions. He unravelled spools of ribbon-like reason, knitting the facts together into various permutations to analyse the result. A flare shot up amidst the chaos as Charlie's wandering eyes drifted across the half-obscured corner of one of the articles piled in his lap.

Comcast! Shit! The phone records, of course!

But what is it they want to achieve here? Their goal can't be monetary; the report says that the financial details were stored off-site. Okay then, what about a spam attack? Or a phishing scheme? They've got the whole geographically distributed anonymity thing going, so maybe they just want to truck with some people, go the whole Anonymous route and expose the fallibility of information security and privacy in the digital age?

A double ding and a flash of familiar scenery dragged Charlie out of his rampant brainstorming. The tram had stopped, but the doors were clattering shut. On his platform!

Charlie leapt to his feet and shouted for the driver to stop. He waved frantically and tugged at the frayed and tattered pull-cord, drawing looks of ire as he stumbled over other passengers' legs in his effort to reach the driver's cabin. Luck was on his side. The driver was an old Indian man with a warm and genial temperament, and he brought the tram to a clattering halt. Charlie and Mel disembarked.

Charlie held the papers close to his chest as he led Mel through the ceaseless throng of pedestrian traffic, feeling the discarded heat from passing bodies as he squeezed carefully amongst them. He heard the faint susurrations of claustrophobia as his mind transformed the sidewalk into a raging white-water onslaught, the relentless current tossing him back and forth as he desperately searched for the respite of solid ground. A sudden pressure on his shoulder offered anchorage amidst the tumult, and he looked up, surprised to see Mel gazing down at him sympathetically.

Charlie dove through the now placid lake, the water parting ways before him, and it took but scant moments to reach the safe haven of the apartment he called home.

***

Five minutes was all Charlie required to get everything set up in his apartment, less time than it took for Mel to boot up her laptop, lose patience with the task of connecting to Charlie's wireless network, and call Charlie over to help.

Upon inspection he discovered that the physical wireless switch had been knocked into the off position, disabling the internal antennae and preventing the laptop from even sniffing out available connections. He reactivated it, typed in his password, and then they were up and running, primed and ready to continue their techno-sleuth investigation.

"Alright, time to find out what I've missed!"

Charlie loaded up Chrome and logged into FlipBoard, his eyes running up and down the list of subscribed RSS feeds, weighing up which would offer the best coverage of a purported leak.

IGN, Polygon, Gamespot, Kotaku, Joystiq...

The triviality of the decision hit him like a wet fish, and he loaded up Destructoid instead. He felt a niggling urge to open every unread news item as he scrolled down the list, a completionist compulsion that he dislodged with a violent twitch of his head.

"Ha, another Final Fantasy announcement. Squeenix just keeps churning those out, don't they?" He chuckled to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. Mel cleared her throat and caught Charlie's attention, motioning with her eyes to get him back on task.

"Right, right, sorry. Okay, let's see...Aha, here we are!" Charlie used his legs to push off the coffee table and roll his chair over to the couch so Mel could see the screen. "Posted two days ago. 'NeoGAF poster leaks internal design document from EA's new Seattle studio'. Told you." Charlie struck a sly smile without turning his head from the screen. Mel rolled her eyes but conceded the point with a low grunt.

Charlie clicked on the source link to the NeoGAF thread. The OP was a user aptly named '1337_134K3R'—'Leet leaker', obnoxious internet speak at its most vile. Charlie opened the user's public profile in a new tab and confirmed that the date of account creation was the same as the post, barely minutes apart. Thus, the account had likely been created for the sole purpose of posting the leak. There were no linked accounts, and no other personal details disclosed.

He scrolled down the main thread, skimming lightly over the panoply of inane comments and searching for the recurrence of the OP's avatar-less posts—they had evidently elected not to upload a picture for their account.

The replies ranged from supportive and mostly insipid—'lol, EAs dead in teh water. i used to be a loyol fan but now they suck and treat custoemrs liek crap. imma torrent theyre stuff now'—to the far more vitriolic and opinionated comments of fervent EA advocates—'ur all idiots. digital is the future and any1 who sez diffrent needs to be punched in the fucking throt. U dont hav to buy microtransactions if you dont wont to so y is every1 complaning?'

As he scanned through the immature and ignorant drivel, Charlie felt the tell-tale portents of internet rage simmering deep in his chest. The temptation to rectify the inconsistencies and educate the dim-witted commenters nearly drove him to reply, but he held himself back from poking the troglodyte armies by tearing his eyes away from the screen, taking a deep breath, and massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers.

Calm down Charlie, calm down. You know at least half of these idiots are just naive teenagers with nothing better to do than trumpet their opinions from under the cover of anonymity. They're not worth the aggro.

Mel shuffled forward and leaned in to inspect the source of Charlie's distress.

"What the...? What the hell is wrong with these people?!"

Mel stared at the laptop screen in jaw-to-floor disbelief, aghast at the verbal pugilism unfolding between the OP and a particularly repugnant EA fanboy. Charlie tilted his head and met Mel's mortification with a sympathetic yet eager smile.

"Oh God, where do I start?"

Charlie had seen enough to place Mel squarely in the 'technological hitchhiker' category—someone who bummed rides off others on the digital super-highway, incapable of getting behind the wheel themselves.

"Okay, so you know how everyone occasionally fantasises about a world without consequences, where they could eat as much as they want and never get fat, or live drunk and never get a hangover? Well, being a fantasy and all, people don't usually think too hard about what that would mean, what would really happen if everyone acted with reckless disregard for the repercussions of their behaviour. If you want to get a general idea though, this is probably a good place to start." Charlie swung his eyes back to the screen and scrolled down to the end of the page. The navigation section in the bottom corner showed 136 pages total for the thread. Charlie loaded up the most recent posts.

"Expecting people to be polite when they've been handed the cloak of anonymity is like asking a child to pick between having vegetables or caramel-glazed deep-fried Mars bars for dinner, and then expecting them to pick the healthy option. They're too young to understand the consequences of their decisions, and thus they do whatever gives them the most immediate satisfaction. The same thing happens with internet commenters. In both cases you end up with hyperactive infants bouncing off the walls and screaming their heads off."

Mel nodded her head in slow understanding. It was a lot to absorb—heck, even with years of experience Charlie still couldn't entirely grasp what motivated people to call each other a Motherfkucing retarded nobhead or a Dum bitchtits fanboy who crys to mommy everynight.

"Remind me again, how exactly will dealing with these morons help us?"

Charlie stabbed his finger at the screen, pointing to the rage-fuelled screaming match that was unfolding on the latest page of the thread.

"Actually, I don't think we are going to have to deal with anyone, not directly anyway. Some boisterous EA advocate has already done the job for us!" Charlie's eyes laser-locked onto the venomous bile being vomited back and forth, morbid fascination wrapping its tentacles around his head and not letting go. "Wow, these guys are really going to town on each other! At first they were just arguing about whether the document was fake or not, but now they're using rather, uhhh, colourful terms to discuss the merits of consoles banning used games. Urggh, this is almost too painful to read! I wonder how much longer till one of them invokes Godwin's Law?"

Despite the woeful pettiness on display he did keep reading, silently congratulating himself for never having stooped so low as to participate in flame wars or internet trolling. Mel, meanwhile, was still having problems dissecting the situation, and she stared blankly at the blurry laptop screen, her vision unfocused and her mouth upturned in confusion.

"I still don't understand how this guy getting pissed off is going to help us in any way. You don't even know that he was involved in the theft!"

Mel glared at Charlie with stern, almost reproachful vehemence, her mood sinking like a boulder dropped into the Atlantic.

Charlie chewed the bottom of his lip and suppressed a look of pity. He didn't want to come across condescending, but he was finding it extremely difficult to imagine how somebody could function in modern society with as little technological acumen as Mel seemed to possess.

"Alright then, I'll lay it out as simple as I can. So we've got these two guys dancing the schoolyard tango spewing diuretic opinion on whether this leaked document is real or not. We know it's real, but that's not important. What is important is the fact that for the last—" Charlie turned back to the laptop. "—50 or so pages, our guy has been fountaining crap left and right, and somewhere amongst all those posts there is bound to be something we can use to track him down."

Mel curled her lip sceptically.

Charlie picked up on her hesitation. "Hey, c'mon, I studied Psychology in high school, and I know it's no uni degree but I did learn a hell of a lot of useful stuff. We had this one class where we had to fire questions at people before and after physical exercise, and it proved that your ability to verbally restrain yourself decreases dramatically with increased levels of adrenaline. This is the same kind of thing. And, like I said before, I've seen it happen before, where trolls start flaming each other and someone accidentally drops a reference to their workplace, and then later some shop they went to or the name of their school, and someone else grabs all that information and figures out where they live. It sounds crazy but it's true!"

Mel conceded a mumbled affirmation, though whether she agreed it was crazy or true, Charlie couldn't tell.

"I just checked the timestamp on the latest post and these two guys are still going at it! The OP started the thread two days ago, but the most recent activity was logged in the last two hours. Everyone else seems to have given it the flick, but these two trash-talkers don't show any signs of stopping. Man, they are gnarly pissed at each other." Charlie sighed deeply, switching back to the OP's profile and clicking the link to display all their submitted posts. "Oh well, better start searching through these posts then. You want to help?" He twisted his head and queried Mel with an elevated brow.

"I'm going to have to leave this to you." Mel radiated reluctance, each word trickling out like blood from a wound. "You seem to know what you're looking for, at least."

"Oh, okay!"

Charlie linked his hands together and stretched them above his head, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders to relieve some of the tension his stooped position had generated.

Mel watched over Charlie's shoulder for ten minutes, her patience steadily crumbling into teeth-grinding agitation. She finally snapped with a cry of exasperation.

"This is just ridiculous." She pushed herself off the couch and stomped over to the kitchen bench. "None of this has anything to do with my case. I don't know what I was thinking, trusting some kid to do my job for me."

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" Charlie put down his laptop and stood up. "And you can't expect a miracle in mere minutes. This isn't exactly easy, you know."

"No, I don't know! That's the point!" Mel slapped her hand on the bench with a wet thwack. "You could be leading me on a goddamn goose chase for all I know."

Charlie took a wary step towards Mel. "You can trust me, Mel. I want to solve this too."

"Trust you? I don't even know you!" She turned and scooped her bag off the bench. "Sorry kid. I should have warned you: I work alone." She marched to the door and reached for the knob.

"Wait!" Charlie splayed his hands beseechingly and took another step forward. "You said yourself this is the best lead you've had in months. You're not going to throw that away just to satisfy your pride, are you?"

Mel hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. Charlie gulped. Maybe that hadn't been the wisest thing to say...

"Pride? What the hell would you know about pride?" She whirled on him, a blizzard brewing behind her eyes.

"I-I j-just—"

"Just what? What gives you the right to judge me? You don't know anything about me!"

Charlie flinched, but managed to hold his ground. "B-but I do. I u-used to be like that too. Total control. No dependence, no betrayal." He shook his head. "It doesn't make you any stronger. Trust is not weakness, Mel. Believe me." He channelled sincerity into his gaze and weathered Mel's icicle glare.

Mel didn't move a muscle, barely even blinked. Charlie waited, swaying slightly on his feet.

He shattered the frozen silence with a shuffle of his shoes. "Look, we can talk about it if you—"

The door slammed shut. Mel's pounding footsteps receded into the distance.

Charlie gaped, speechless. What was he supposed to do now? He was alone again. Alone, jobless, purposeless.

He lumbered back to the couch and slapped his laptop shut. Without Mel, what was the point? He'd have to hand everything over to the police, sacrificing personal justice for the bland, bureaucratic kind.

Collapsing onto the couch, he curled into a ball and huddled against the armrest. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. Not now. Not like this...

A trio of gunshot cracks snapped Charlie's eyes open. Huh? When had he fallen asleep?

Another sharp rapping drew his attention to the door. He rolled off the couch and stumbled to answer it.

Mel stood with her hand raised to knock again. She lowered it and mustered a shaky smile.

"Uhh, sorry about before. I'm just a little all over the place at the moment. Had to get my head straightened out." She bit her lip. "What say I make it up to you by cooking us some dinner?"

***

Mel lost her patience after five minutes of aimlessly peering over Charlie's shoulder, and offered to start cooking dinner just to quash the feeling of impotence creeping in. Charlie acquiesced eagerly and appreciatively, offering her free reign of his meagre food supply. Mel pottered around the kitchen to the tune of his clicking scroll wheel, occasionally punctuated by the tempered machine-gun fire of rapid typing as Charlie found some pertinent piece of information and recorded it into a growing text document.

Mel's thoughts wandered as she searched the various cupboards for a mixing bowl and a fry pan. She still wasn't sure about Charlie's lofty claims. Placing her trust in anyone, let alone a kid she barely knew, grated her pride. Even with his significant technical know-how, it was ludicrous to think that he could achieve in mere hours what she had pursued for months. Still, he was her only lead. What other choice did she have?

The possibilities Charlie hyped seemed like karmic reparation, a breakthrough that had been so long overdue. And he had managed to obtain the surveillance footage that Mel herself had failed to acquire despite numerous coercive entreaties—though that particular success was in large part due to her impressive impersonation; even she had to admit, it had been an admirable performance.

As the methodical motions of cooking soothed her jagged mind, she was able to zoom out and assess things from a cool, detached perspective. Even if Charlie's claims amounted to nothing, it had still been a surprisingly pleasant distraction to be in the company of another human being for more than five minutes.

Her investigation had sucked her into a black hole of isolation, but even prior to her seclusion, she had not had much of a social life. A few drinks at the bar after a long day at work, perhaps, but no further than that.

Mel prepared to cook up pancakes with an unexpected smile on her face. Her culinary choice had been spurred by her earlier excavation of buried childhood memories, recollections unearthed of enormous pancake breakfasts concocted by her sprightly, healthy father. The phantom smell of maple syrup, sizzling bacon, and fresh coffee ignited a rush of endorphins, and she bounced around the kitchen with a vigour lost long ago, entombed by her unwavering devotion to emotional independence.

***

Charlie tuned out Mel's suddenly chipper demeanour and focused on his Sherlock Holmesian attempt to deduce some vital clue from the torrent of trash that the OP had puked forth. The relentless tirade of violently delivered opinion got more and more repugnant as he read on, sensible arguments with at least a modicum of eloquence eroding into pre-pubescent, self-contradicting invective.

Despite the shameful examples of what humanity could devolve into without the shackles of consequences, Charlie was riding on a wave of electric enthusiasm, feeling remarkably imperturbable, capable of handling anything thrown his way. Even his most anxious concerns were reduced to a harmless background buzz. The allure of an unsolved puzzle was intoxicating and invigorating. Resurrecting problem-solving tactics he had employed during school exams felt wonderful; analysing paragraphs line-by-line for hidden clues or deviously concealed subtext came as naturally as it had half a decade earlier.

Charlie's obsession with finding solutions and eradicating the unknown drove him onward. The fruits of his labour appeared before him: two chronologically disparate yet thematically linked posts from 1337_134K3R. Their contents had seeded an intriguing idea, the foundations of a plan that, though a little audacious, was grounded in far more logic and reason than the wild discourse it had sprung from.

Satisfied that he had sufficiently plumbed the fetid waters of the thread, Charlie gave the posts a final once-over, as if simply re-reading them could somehow render his plan a little more secure.

Originally Posted By n0rrty_d0g

ur an idiot. u no nothin about game dev. if this wos rl it wood hav tech specks for nu consoles dumass.

> dude ive built levels in heaps of mods you dont kno shit. search 4 total_dungeon 4 source engine if you dont believe me.

Originally Posted By n0rrty_d0g

but u said u wer a dev. used games give devs no money so y wood u want that?!!!11!

> i said i did dev not that i was a dev. im working part time you rich prick i cant afford any thing except used games!

God damn! Charlie shivered, intellectually offended by the flagrant abuse of the English language and the ridiculously immaterial topics of argument. He dragged his eyes away from the screen, blinking profusely to bring his apartment back into focus. Along with his sight, his other senses began rebooting from their dormant states, waking up to the intoxicating aroma of frying bacon and sugary sweet maple syrup.

Charlie's stomach grumbled, demanding long overdue sustenance, and he leapt up from his chair without forethought, dislodging his laptop and only barely catching it by the tips of his fingers. He tentatively set it down on the couch next to Mel's and let his growling belly lead him into the kitchen.

Mel swayed and hummed tunelessly from behind the laminated bench, a smile on her face and a genuine spring in her step.

"Aww man, that smells sooo good!"

Mel recoiled from the splintered silence like she'd been hit with a surge of static electricity.

"Woah, didn't mean to scare you!"

Charlie grinned innocently as he swung onto one of the stools on the other side of the bench. Mel discarded her look of surprise and refocused on the sizzling bacon and eggs in front of her.

"Umm, I don't know if you're a fan, but I just had a craving for some real bacon and eggs, and pancakes. The hotel buffet breakfasts have been nothing to write home about, no offense, so I thought I'd whip it up myself. Hope that's okay?"

"Uhh, sure! No worries! I love bacon and eggs!"

Mel dished out their bountiful meals, layering pancake towers next to sunny-side-up eggs and pig-tail strips of bacon. She drowned her plate in syrup, Charlie opting for a decidedly tamer approach when it came his turn, and they both ate like starved desert wanderers, cleaning their plates without wasting a single moment on idle banter. Once sufficiently stuffed and content, they teamed up and quickly washed the dishes, making it all the way to drying and stacking before Charlie's mind finally wrested control back from his stomach and reminded him of concerns not related to food.

"Oh crap, right! I found something I think we can use!"

Mel turned her head and cocked an eyebrow at Charlie, a flash of confusion morphing into incredulity.

"Really?"

"Really!" Despite her best efforts to mask it, Charlie could hear the cynicism in her voice, and he bounded off to the couch to retrieve his laptop. He returned to the kitchen and set the laptop down on the bench where they could both see it.

"Alrighty. We've got two posts here: one where he mentions a history of constructing levels for game mods, and another where he says that he's only working part-time and seems to be a little tight for cash. So he's interested in game development, specifically creating the environments, but it doesn't sound like he's had any luck finding a job within the industry. I checked out a video walkthrough of that level he mentions in the first post; it actually looks pretty good. I mean, I know an argument on NeoGAF isn't exactly the best place to get a read on a person, but it's still kind of shocking that someone dishing out such vile and immature insults could actually have appreciable talent."

Mel scanned her eyes over the text document on-screen, tracing Charlie's lines of logic Satisfied, she rolled her lips thoughtfully and turned back to Charlie, his face lit up with pride.

"So I was thinking that we play the role of a small indie developer, a two- or three- man operation probably, and offer this guy an interview for the level designer position. If he was happy to leak the EA document, it's clear that he doesn't much care for big companies, so he should be all over the opportunity to work for a garage-style outfit. It's also pretty likely that he lives somewhere near that Seattle office, so we ask him to meet us somewhere nearby for the interview, somewhere suitably private, then we nab him and blast him with questions until he gives up the rest of the group! You said before that you were friends with a few pilots, right? So you could maybe get us there on the cheap?"

Mel's face crumpled like a sheet of paper hurled into a campfire. "That's beside the point. This isn't a James Bond movie, kid. We can't just fly halfway around the world and grab people off the street on the assumption that they're somehow involved."

"Hold on! How's this plan any different to what you did to me? You impersonated and lied to a cop then essentially kidnapped me, all without proof that I knew anything. Which I didn't, by the way. At least in this case we've got some evidence this guy is involved, so what's making you so reluctant all of a sudden?"

Mel opened her mouth and drew a preparatory breath, then released it like a dog relinquishing a well-worn chew toy.

"Alright, but what do you expect to do once we have him? I'll say it again; this isn't a videogame. We can't get a confession out of him with lie detectors and beat-downs."

Charlie huffed dismissively, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

"Did you have to throw me in a headlock to convince me to talk? Of course not! You scared the shit out of me the first time I laid eyes on you! All you need to do is wear that detective outfit and spout some BS legalese and he'll spill the beans for sure."

Mel ruminated in silence, her lips pursed and her eyes adrift. Charlie couldn't understand why she even had to think about it. Intimidation was the language of private security. She must have frightened countless peons into submission throughout her career. What made this any different?

"So, what do you think?" Charlie chewed his bottom lip and drummed his fingers across the bench top, his eyes keen for approval. Mel sighed, straightened up, and folded her arms across her chest.

"You're sure this is our guy? Not just some punk kid who hacked his way in like we did?"

Charlie frowned and mimicked Mel's rigid posture.

"Well no, I can't be one-hundred percent sure, but c'mon, there's no way this is a coincidence. Maybe this guy's not directly involved in the robberies, but the prop document he leaked came from the nicked servers, I'm sure of it. Besides, what have we got to lose simply asking a few questions?"

Unfiltered passion blazed in Charlie's eyes. Mel sighed and dropped her arms to her side.

"Alright then, if you're sure—"

"Awesome! I'm going to start putting together a website, to make it all seem legit. Once I'm finished I'll throw it on my web server and we'll send him a private message with the URL and our invitation. While I'm doing that, you can organise our tickets, right?"

An electric charge gallivanted through Charlie's veins, the giddy rush of establishing a plan and executing it step by step. For a fleeting moment he stumbled towards anxious thoughts—accusations of inadequacy, fear of failure—but it lasted only seconds, the malevolent presence banished by a concerted effort from his logic centre.

No! You have nothing to lose from taking charge. You did it back at uni, there's no reason why you can't do it now. No one is watching, no one is going to punish you if you fail. Stop pussy-footing around with cheap excuses!

Charlie gritted his teeth and nodded, his apprehension withering under his focus and determination. He smiled and clenched his fist in triumph as he regained control. The elation led to a rare moment of clarity, and he felt he could almost channel that serene ignorance of pre-anxiety life, could almost seize that same self-assurance he had taken for granted prior to his cataclysmic mental upheaval.

Muscles tingling with excitement, Charlie lugged his laptop back to the couch and crashed down enthusiastically.

Before, he had intentionally retrieved the desk chair from his bedroom to maintain a physical separation between Mel and himself. Now though, he felt confident enough to share a seat with Mel, should she feel like it. Charlie smiled, warm and wide, and relaxed into a comfortable slump with his laptop on his knees. He placed one hand firmly on the track-pad and the other in the familiar WASD position—his fighting stance, his sorcerer's poise, ready to unleash his personal brand of magic upon the digital world.

First, he needed a convincingly professional website. Fortunately, there were plenty of resources available online for just that purpose—csszengarden.com, for example, which offered a plethora of sleek, ready-made templates.

He selected a suitable template and began fleshing it out. He spent the next ten minutes or so constructing a fictional history and mission statement for his new development studio. He christened the company Freeman Games, taking inspiration from the Half-Life costumes the thieves had worn during the Seattle burglary. He filled out the development roster with names of former-classmates, figuring that they would be easier to recall should 1337_134K3R decide to probe deeper into his prospective employer. He conjured enticing details for their in-development game, ensuring that he made mention of it being built in the Source engine, given 134K3R's demonstrated proficiency with it.

Pleased with his efforts, Charlie connected to his web server. An RDP session over the local network was almost as fast as hauling the server in itself, and besides, the groove he'd nestled into the couch was too comfortable to abandon.

He booted up the Internet Information Services manager and set up a virtual directory for the new site. When it prompted him for a name he hesitated, realising that hosting this fake developer site alongside his portfolio was problematic.

If 1337_134K3R happened to be smarter than his posts implied, seeing the site running as a virtual directory—displayed as a /directoryname/ after the .com or .net part of a URL in the browser's address bar—could raise some awkward questions. A real game development studio with any serious designs on success wouldn't need to run their site as an offshoot of another domain name; they would just purchase a new one.

Charlie could do that too. He could easily afford the $10 a year for registration, but domain names could take up to three days to propagate throughout the world, meaning the site might not truly be 'live' until after they arrived in Seattle.

The storm of whirlwind energy vibrating him inside and out deemed the wait far too long, so instead he simply disabled all his other websites and setup the mock site on the root of his domain, skilliontrix.com.

Unfortunately, while he waited for IIS to finish applying his changes, Charlie identified an even more serious concern: the domain name didn't match up with the development studio's name. Charlie had purchased the domain during his first year of uni, the name skilliontrix chosen to mirror his online handle on the off chance that his helpful contributions to tech-support forums would garner the attention of a prospective employer—not too dissimilar, in fact, to the situation he was currently fabricating. Even though he had yet to receive such an invitation, and his site logging barely a dozen unique hits per year, he kept renewing the lease, allowing it to serve as a constant reminder of his once optimistic perception of the IT job market.

I can't believe you seriously thought companies would use tech-forums as head-hunting grounds. Man, that's about as likely as Firefly getting a second season.

He snorted briefly despite himself, then dove back into the HTML file and altered the page title, headings, and links to match up with his 1337-sounding domain name.

Once the site was up, Charlie grabbed his phone and called up the URL. The home page loaded without any problems, though Charlie noted that without adaptive scaling or a custom mobile version, the text was nigh illegible; on a four-inch screen the lines of text were just fuzzy black worms. He fought a nagging urge to dive back into the code and throw together a quick solution, banishing the thought with a rough shake of his head.

No time for that now! Jeez Charlie, your crazy need for perfection was useful back in school, but you know it can be really bloody annoying sometimes!

A thought tunnelled through his self-effacement. His web server received minimal traffic, which would make it extremely easy to obtain 134K3R's IP address from the server's access logs, once he logged onto the site.

Contrary to popular belief, knowing a person's IP address would not suddenly render them vulnerable to movie-trope hacking. But, even though an IP was practically useless in his hands, Charlie knew that for the police it was another matter entirely. In the event that 134K3R didn't take the bait, Charlie could give the IP address to the police and they could requisition the ISP records, unmasking his meatspace identity. Of course, that would hinge on Charlie actually convincing the police that 134K3R was involved in the Seattle theft.

Bah, you can cross that bridge if and when you come to it. Right now you've got more important things to focus on!

Charlie nodded his head while searching through the IIS configuration settings for the traffic-logging options. He wiped the existing logs clean and trimmed the recorded fields to include only the client IP address, the date and time, and the URL referrer. The referrer variable was supposed to store the URL of the page that the user had come from—the web-page that contained the hyperlink that the user had clicked—so for 134K3R it should reference the mailbox page from NeoGAF.

Thus, just in case skilliontrix.com was suddenly inundated with a torrent of internet traffic, Charlie would be able to easily isolate 134K3R's record by searching for the NeoGAF URL.

With everything prepped and primed, Charlie turned his attention to composing the email.

Hello 1337_134K3R,

I am the founder and lead developer for skilliontrix, a Seattle-based—Charlie had sprinkled a few stock images of office interiors into the 'About Us' section of the site, intentionally omitting the actual street address of the studio—game development studio, and we are currently looking for a level designer to join our talented team in embarking on a new project. One of our programmers discovered a few of the levels you constructed within the Source engine—the engine of choice for our new project—and recommended that we all test them out. Needless to say, we were quite impressed! Would you perhaps be interested in interviewing for the position? We are very flexible in our working arrangements, and we can set up a remote environment if commuting to the office does not suit your particular lifestyle.

Please bear in mind that we are looking for somebody with a keen intellect and an enthusiastic persona. If you think you fit the bill, we would love to meet you face-to-face to run through the details and get you started as soon as possible!

We look forward to hearing from you,

Charlie,

charlie@skilliontrix.com.au

Charlie leaned back and stretched, lifting his eyes from the screen for the first time since crashing onto the couch. An anvil gonged his head as a foggy weariness set in. His eyelids felt lined with lead and his shoulders riddled with steel needles. He yawned, a drawn-out full-body bellow, and caught a glimpse of the sky outside through a gap in the curtains.

Damn that's dark! Wait, what time is it?

He swung his head back to the laptop and checked the clock in the corner of the screen.

Nearly midnight? Holy crap!

He had been so enraptured that whole hours had stolen by unnoticed. He levered himself out of the couch, feeling every muscle shriek in protest as they were rudely summoned from their slumber. After his head ceased its twirling carousel and his vision returned to focus, he was blindsided by the realisation that he had neglected Mel for hours. He spun around, armed with an apology for his ill-mannered ignorance, but Mel was conspicuously absent. Only her black duffle bag remained, splayed over the kitchen bench. Mel's laptop was still next to his on the couch.

Maybe she went out for some food?

Sweeping his gaze back to the kitchen, he spied a paper note propped up next to the fruit bowl. He hobbled over on stubbornly sleepy legs and slid the tattered sheet of A4 across the laminate. The words were roughly scrawled in thin black ink.

Gone back to hotel. Will call tomorrow.

Charlie cocked his head like a puzzled squirrel.

I don't remember giving her my number...

The frigid breath of fear tickled the back of his neck as his brain careened through a forest of nonsensical conspiracy theories.

Oh shit, was Mel some sort of secret agent? Was everything she said just a ruse to gain my confidence? Or maybe was she a con-artist? Did she steal something?

Charlie swung his head wildly around the room, searching for gaps in the order, tell-tale dust-silhouettes. In his haste he overwhelmed his still-waking legs and spun a flailing-arms pirouette before collapsing to the floor in an awkward heap. By the time he collected himself and rose to a sitting position, rationality had overtaken his runaway thought-train, and he realised just how foolish he was being.

You idiot, you called her before you went to the hotel. She would have had your number in the call log.

Feeling gloriously stupid, he crawled across the floorboards to the couch and clambered to his feet. His hours of no-rest code-monkeying seemed eager to exact payment.

He fumbled his laptop closed and staggered between couch and coffee-table towards his bedroom. He flopped face-first onto his crumpled bed sheets, too tired to even bother removing his clothes. With his face buried in his lumpy mattress, he somehow managed to plug his phone into its charger, relying purely on muscle memory accompanied by a smattering of unintelligible grumbling. After slapping it onto his bedside table he sank further into the mess of bundled cotton sheets, a final thought streaking across his mind like a lone shooting star before he plunged into the all-consuming void of sleep.

Oh man, I did not just suggest flying to America, did I? Nah, no way, that's not possible. Must have imagined it...

***

Mel wandered the unfamiliar streets, wading through the sea of velvet darkness between islands of streetlamp illumination. Shadows thick with midnight mystery coated brick and concrete, hiding the horizon under a blanket of impenetrable black. The whispering wind spoke of cars and crowds, but Mel could accept it only as hearsay; no such sights greeted her.

Inside her head, the streets were far from empty.

Recent events had thrown a spanner into her mind-works, memories and bottled-up emotions clawing their way out of the recesses to assert their long denied influence. The anchors that normally held her hard and fast in the turbid waters had been uprooted, exposing her vulnerable hull to the battering waves of regret and self-doubt. Assurances that had once seemed undeniable crumbled under prolonged scrutiny. No longer did a fortified independence seem quite as lustrous, no more did her father's mantras resonate with unquestionable authority and wisdom.

It was as if she had been graced with the third-person perspective, her thorned-shell attitude laid bare, exposed for the crippling burden it really was. Life was a one-time-only affair, and by erecting walls both social and emotional, Mel had blinded herself to the wonders passing right in front of her eyes. Suppressing the base impulses of humanity—from joy and love to sorrow and despair—had not elevated her above the rest of society, had not granted her, as her father so eloquently put it, 'the power and respect of a general, or a king'. No, it had watered down the colours of life, diluted the vibrant hues into a greyscale approximation of a masterpiece landscape, a poor man's attempt to capture the magnitude of an orchestra with a solitary flute.

It was time to put that life of extreme emotional economy behind her. As Mel roamed the brightening streets, the black canvas of night tinged with the amber hues of sunrise and the eclectic menagerie of twilight-dwellers returning to their daylight coffins, she felt she finally understood the true price she had paid for her independence. Her abrasive demeanour had cost her deeply, and she vowed that she would no longer treat her father's cynical lessons as gospel, that she would approach each day with her eyes open and her heart receptive, determined to taste every bittersweet moment life had to offer.

***

The phrase 'slept like a baby' is, more often than not, unintentionally misused. Babies are notoriously fickle sleepers and rarely linger in the land of dreams for more than four hours unbroken, waking at the slightest disturbance to wail their claxon call. So to say Charlie slept like a baby would be factually inaccurate. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be the koala, a marsupial that remains motionless for up to twenty hours a day. Charlie did not sleep for quite that long, but when he did finally roll out of bed, a cursory glance at the clock revealed 'morning' to be something of a misnomer.

3 o'clock? I slept for more than 12 hours? Bloody hell!

Charlie braced himself for the mental barrage, awaiting accusations of laziness and worthlessness in light of his extended downtime. It never came. He creased his brow and stuck out his lower lip, cocking his head to the side as he smoothed out and examined his internal thought-map. He scoured the topography, treading lightly in case his shame was merely hiding in the shadows, waiting to strike when he was most vulnerable. But no, there it was, cowering in the corner of his mind like Godzilla shrunk down to ant-size. Its trumpeting roar had become meek, its claws and teeth reduced to dull nubs, the formidable forces of logic and reason exerting their dominance and holding it prisoner.

Relief untied the knots in his bunched shoulder muscles and a smile tugged at his lips. Discarding such a tenacious mental burden was undoubtedly cause for celebration, though Charlie knew he was not out of the woods yet. As always, there was no guarantee of permanence—his recent relapse attested to that—so he tempered his excitement, permitting himself only a moment of giddiness.

He took a long, relaxing shower to finalise his ascent into consciousness. The foul taste of sleep clung to his mouth, so he grabbed his toothbrush and mouthwash and proceeded to brush and gargle until his breath no longer caused him to recoil in disgust. A luxurious fifteen minutes later and Charlie was scrubbed and scoured to his satisfaction.

He trotted back to his bedroom and idly perused his wardrobe for something with a little more presence than the norm to reflect his renewed mental stability. He unplugged his phone from its adapter and thumbed the unlock button. The screen lit up with two missed calls and an unread text message, all from Mel. He swiped and tapped to open the message.

Call me asap.

Uh oh...

Charlie's heartbeat stuttered and he hammered the call button. Through an impressive display of phone juggling and hop-skip-jumping, he managed to slip into a pair of cargo shorts and a vibrant red t-shirt while the dial-tone trilled away. It continued to ring as he jogged out of his bedroom and over to the couch, opening the lid of his laptop and tapping the spacebar to wake it from sleep.

"Urggh, hello? Who's this?"

Charlie furrowed his brow; the voice sounded like it had been dragged across gravel, kicking up an avalanche of detritus along the way. He could barely discern the sex of the speaker, let alone whether or not it was Mel.

"Uhh, it's Charlie. Is that you Mel?"

"Oh, Charlie! Right, sorry, I just woke up."

Ooops. To be fair though, she did say to call asap...

"Oh, sorry! Umm, you asked me to call you as soon as I could...?"

"Right, right. I just wanted to say, uhhh...thanks. Thanks for, umm, yesterday. Helping me. With the investigation and everything." Mel's voice was stilted and sounded uncertain, a distant cousin to the commanding tone she had displayed the day before.

"Uhh, no worries?" It seemed she was holding back, the stutters and pauses in her speech marking words shot dead on her tongue. He could almost hear the thoughts ricocheting around her skull, desperately seeking a suitable vessel to escape her cluttered mind. Charlie knew the feeling all too well. It was utterly infuriating for the thoughts and emotions inside your head to be so vivid, so vibrant, so loud, yet at the same time be impossible to express through the bottlenecked vocabulary of words and gestures. He had found himself in that maddening position many a times when attempting to explain his irrational compulsions to his parents. Pitying expressions and useless advice had been his only reward for trying to clarify just why he needed to have lunch at the same time every day, or why he couldn't possibly attend a family BBQ because it conflicted with his perfectly constructed schedule.

Charlie was sympathetic to Mel's struggles, shuffling his curiosity off to the side and subtly changing the subject to deflate the uncomfortable silence.

"So, uhh, did you want to work on the case some more today? I was just about to check to see if our guy had responded to our invite." Charlie glanced down and grabbed his laptop, sliding it across the couch to make room and dropping down beside it. The NeoGAF page that he had left open last night was still there on the screen, and he refreshed the page.

"Sure, that sounds good." The relief in Mel's tone was palpable, her voice regaining some of its temporarily displaced confidence. "I'll just grab a quick shower and I'll be there soon. Don't do anything without me."

She hung up. That sounded more like the seasoned security enforcer with a severely intimidating physique, someone who was used to issuing commands and 'dealing' with rebellious miscreants.

I better make sure I never get on her bad side...

He shuddered as a frightening horror-scene conjured itself in his mind. Mel stalking down a filth-strewn alley, starless midnight framing her muscles, baton held in one raised hand, her eyes like icebergs, coldly calm but formidably dangerous, her mouth twisted into a menacing sneer. He banished the picture from his mind with a shake of his head, focusing back in on his laptop.

In the top corner of the NeoGAF home page a tiny icon indicated that there were two new private messages waiting in his inbox. He opened the first message and began to read:

Hi Charlie,

That resonates tremendously. I contemplate my skillset has a lot to supplement your establishment and I believe an interview would be delightful.

I have a project I'm functioning on at the moment that I'm categorically proud of. It's a plethora better than the former developments I've accomplished. Add me on Skype and I'll refer you the IP for the server where it's accommodated.

You ought to appoint me. I'll render your team remarkable.

Mike

"Oh god..." Charlie groaned, a fleeting moment of pity quickly dissipating as he remembered exactly who he was feeling sorry for.

Remember Charlie, this guy is a thief. He may have even had a hand in Joel's murder!

Charlie scanned over the patchwork atrocity a few more times. Mike must have overzealously employed a thesaurus in order to lend his message a degree of intellect. Charlie had been treated to the same thing back in high school, when some of the less linguistically-capable students in his English class had methodically utilised the Microsoft Word 'synonym' function before handing in their essays. The back wall of the classroom, where the most recent assignments were displayed in a futile attempt to promote friendly competition, had become a constant source of amusement for Charlie and his friends.

Despite his apparent intention to chat further on Skype, Mike had not actually provided his Skype username, or any other contact details in the message. Charlie was about to hit the quick reply button and request that he send them through when he remembered Mike had sent a second message. Charlie flipped back to the inbox and opened it up. It was considerably shorter, but far more representative of Mike's natural vernacular.

I forgot my skype name is mike.the.man.69 blog is milky_white.tumblr.com

Charlie unsuccessfully stifled a chuckle when he read the screen name. The stereotypical addition of '69' conjured images of thirteen year-old boys staring wide-eyed at pilfered copies of Playboy magazine and wrestling each other for the right to sit next to the cute girl in class.

Armed with his username, Charlie was sorely tempted to boot up Skype and see what information he could weasel out of Mike. However, Mel had made it adamantly clear that he should wait for her to arrive, and that skin-prickling, bowel-clenching image of her standing in the rain-soaked alleyway had not yet fled his mind.

Instead, Charlie chose to occupy the time until Mel arrived by doxing Mike—using the vast resources of the internet to compile as much information about him as possible.

He began by visiting Mike's tumblr blog. It was considerably tamer than Charlie had expected, clearly built for the sole purpose of displaying Mike's work to potential employers. Posts were made infrequently, but each contained screenshots and ModDB or Sendspace links to his latest creations.

From a completely impartial perspective, Mike seemed to be a productive aspiring level designer, eagerly honing his craft in the hopes of one day pursuing it as a career. That there existed a connection between the studiously organised blog and his juvenile posts on NeoGAF seemed almost impossible.

Charlie followed one of the posted links to ModDB, a site widely considered to be the premier source for independently developed game content.

Charlie discovered in the comments and reviews that Mike—of Milky White Development according to the developer profile—had garnered considerable praise amongst the mod community. His highest rated creation was an action-themed multiplayer mod called Suburban Daze that dumped the players into a purportedly accurate representation of a few blocks of suburbia in East Seattle—an area bordering Miller Park.

Commenters lauded his integration of Google Maps photography into the level textures to enhance the authenticity, and Charlie noted with a snigger that their approval was voiced in far more eloquent terms than Mike himself seemed capable of, at least, not without the aid of a thesaurus.

Having now gathered sufficient information to begin the real doxing, Charlie opened up a new tab and loaded up Pipl, a search engine tailored specifically for finding all the accounts a person had signed up for on the web. By entering a name, email address, username, or even phone number, Pipl would scour the most common of the social networks and user-driven sites and compile a list of probability-ordered matches.

Charlie typed in the email address Mike had listed on his tumblr and hit the search button. The blue progress bar slid across the screen as the algorithm filtered through public databases, criminal records, phone directories, and news articles, eventually vanishing into thin air as the results were printed on-screen.

Thanks to the unique nature of email addresses, there was no need for Charlie to scroll through pages upon pages of possible hits, something that was virtually assured when searching by name. The first result was the tumblr blog Charlie had already seen, but listed underneath were accounts for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even MySpace.

Jackpot!

Charlie grinned and opened all the links in new tabs. The YouTube account was the same one that had been used to post the level walkthrough on Mike's tumblr. The Facebook and Twitter accounts, however, were veritable jungles of data. Much of it was nothing more than irreverent banter inherent to the internet generation, but a few nuggets of valuable information poked up out of the slough. Mike's full name, for example.

Mike Whiteley. Huh. I guess that's where 'Milky White Development' came from.

Mike's Facebook timeline also contained a proliferation of Foursquare check-ins. From internet cafes to local delis, video arcades to 7-Elevens, Mike left quite the trail of breadcrumbs. Charlie opened Google Maps and fed in the location details as he scrolled through the timeline. By the time he reached the posts from 2011, an indisputable pattern had emerged, confirming what Charlie had already suspected.

Yep, he lives in Seattle. East Seattle, if I had to guess.

Now that he had an approximate address to hone in on, Charlie opened up the White Pages and keyed in Mike's name along with Seattle for the location.

Bingo!

Charlie pumped his eyebrows and rocked back and forth on the couch, pride trumpeting a celebratory tune that warmed the cockles of his heart. Along with his full address and home phone number, the profile page also contained an embedded map that marked the location of Mike's house with a tiny white star.

East Seattle, I knew it!

The corner of his mouth lifted skyward in a sly smirk as Charlie copied the address into a new Google Maps page, pinning a second marker on the location of the EA Seattle office that he pulled from their website. The map had to zoom out only a single increment in order to display both markers.

Damn, that's practically next door! Hey, I wonder if they're storing the servers at his place...

Charlie scratched at the faint patch of stubble on his chin and shook off the thought as inconsequential. Even if the servers were being kept at Mike's place, it's not as if Charlie could do anything about it from halfway across the world.

He switched back to Facebook, realising as he did so that he should be recording all of Mike's information. He opened up a new Word document and started copying over data, pertinent or otherwise, from Mike's various profiles: usernames, address details, names of friends and associates, check-in locations through Foursquare, hobbies and interests, pages he 'liked' on Facebook and people he followed on Twitter. Even the most mundane triviality might hold unseen worth, so Charlie made sure to grab everything, even going to the trouble of copying the profiles of the Facebook friends Mike interacted with most.

That was when he discovered a curious post from several months back, a seemingly innocuous comment from Mike to one of his friends. The content of the post was nothing unusual—did u c latest ep of walking dead? Killaaaaaa!!!1!—but the fact that it sported over 200 comments, the timestamps of which led right up to the current date, was peculiar enough to warrant immediate investigation.

Charlie loaded up the comments, his curiosity morphing into cocked-eye confusion at the incomprehensible gibberish on display. Paging further down the list offered no reprieve from the babbling incoherence, but a pattern did begin to emerge in relation to the various authors of the posted responses. The same group of four or five people would post for a week or so—usually around ten comments—but would then be replaced by an entirely new group, never to post again by the looks of it. The only constant participant throughout the nonsense conversation was Mike.

10-41, 55, 61? 11-25 REAR? What the bloody hell does that mean? It's got to be some sort of code, though I can't say I pictured Mike as much of a cryptographer. An idiot savant, perhaps? Wait, what was that?

Charlie abruptly froze his scrolling, which had been getting faster and more intense the deeper into the rabbit hole he fell. He honed in on a comment posted by Mike just a few days ago.

10-50, -80, Skype73P? Well at least part of that makes sense. Hmm, that was posted the day after the mBition attack. Interesting...

Charlie eyeballed the post, hoping to puzzle it out through sheer force of will.

A bass-drum thump prompted an icy chill to shudder down his spine from head to bowels. He let out an involuntary yelp, and a tingling sensation worried down his forearms. He rose to his feet and hobbled over to the door, his heart-rate downgrading from a stampede to a marathon by the time he reached for the handle.

"Hey Charlie! Uh, about before, on the phone, I was still half-asleep, so if I sounded weird or anything, uh, that was why." Though still stocked with authority, Mel's voice had taken on a fragile uncertainty, an inharmonious warble several layers deep that she was clearly fighting to suppress. Her eyes only lingered on him for a few moments before scattering to the distant corners of the room, almost like she was ashamed to meet his gaze.

"Uhh, sure, that's cool. Are you coming in?"

Charlie stepped to the side and motioned for Mel to enter. She hesitated before striding forward, her back straight and her arms held stiff at her sides. She wore a blood-red shirt and navy blue pants, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. The ironed-and-creased formality left Charlie feeling slovenly and underdressed.

Mel stood with her back to the kitchen bench, her arms still hanging robotically straight at her sides. Charlie closed the apartment door and wandered over to the couch, relocating the laptops onto the coffee table to clear space.

"Did you want to sit down? Can I get you something to eat, or a drink? Coffee, Coke, anything at all?"

"No, I'm fine thanks."

Mel took small, purposeful strides over to the couch and sat down. Her hands cupped her kneecaps and her eyes flickered around the room, bouncing around in their sockets like she was playing ocular pinball. It was plain to Charlie that Mel was in considerable discomfort, though the cause remained a complete mystery. The awkward tension steamed off her like an ice-block under the sun, permeating the air with a gaseous fog that smothered his eyes and crept into his throat, leaving him feeling just as uncomfortable as Mel looked.

Charlie carefully lowered himself onto the cushion next to Mel and cleared his throat.

"So, did you, umm, get a chance to organise the plane tickets?"

Mel turned and cocked her head to the side, flash-flood bewilderment cascading into creased concentration.

"Are you absolutely certain that this is our man? I was planning on returning to America in a few days anyway, can't see squeezing any more leads from down here. If you're going to tag along, I want you to understand what you're getting yourself into. You won't be able to call mommy or daddy to pick you up when you get bored or scared."

Charlie's enthusiasm retreated, his pride wounded. Mel sighed and started to speak, but Charlie waved her off and reached for his laptop, his face hardened in grim determination.

"I am sure. Look."

Charlie placed the laptop on his knees and turned it so that they could both see the screen. He flicked between the NeoGAF messages, tumblr, Pipl, Facebook, and Google Maps, showing Mel how he had tracked down Mike's accounts and flourishing the data he had collected as indisputable evidence of his involvement. When he reached the puzzling Facebook post and its retinue of cryptic comments, Mel gasped and leaned closer to the screen.

"Hmmm, interesting..."

"What? What? What is it? Did you figure it out?"

Charlie stared doggedly at Mel's cheek but her gaze remained fixed on the screen, maddeningly unresponsive. He swapped his focus to the laptop and mimicked Mel's intense scrutiny. Without warning, Mel seized the laptop and relocated it to her own lap, awkwardly stabbing at the touchpad. Charlie had to slide across the couch to bring the screen back into focus, and he drew as close to Mel as he could without overtly invading her private space. His shuffling movement was enough to snap her out of her solitary cone of concentration, and she offered up a delayed response to Charlie's questions.

"They're 10-codes. We used them on our walkie-talkies for the bigger jobs, airport security or school campuses, or just any time we needed real-time communication between squads. We were supposed to use them all the time and limit our 'conversation speech', but that went out the window as soon as Jerry caught on to how many of us were having troubles memorising the list. Carrying around a notepad for reference was just goddamn stupid. Spent more time trying to figure out what everyone was saying than it would have taken to just say it properly. I think Jerry had dreams of turning us into his own police force, or something."

Mel made a sour face and stared off into the distance. Charlie waited for her to drift back to reality before responding.

"Oh, okay. So what do they say? The messages?"

"My memory's not brilliant, but I think this one here refers to the person's current location, and this one is to notify when they're returning. There's a lot of repeated stuff here, and they've mixed other terms in here too, non-10-code stuff. If you grab me a piece of paper I can probably ferret out the meaning of a couple more."

Charlie jumped up from the couch and was about to retrieve his shopping-list notepad from the bench when he paused. He slapped himself in the forehead and spun back to Mel.

"Duh! Just google it! Here, let me."

He dropped back down onto the couch and grabbed up the laptop, hesitating just before his hands clasped the plastic trim. He looked to Mel for permission. She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands from the keyboard.

He slid it back onto his knees and within seconds he had a list of common 10-codes and their meanings. He arranged the windows so that he had the Facebook post and the 10-code list side by side, then picked a section at random and began translating.

"Okay...this one says 'suspicious vehicle 13P'. Does that make any sense to you?"

Mel shook her head.

"How about...'officer on-duty 6-12P'? 'Road blocked at Arthur/Camelot'?" Another shake of her head, and Charlie's short-lived excitement fizzled and sputtered.

"The thing is, 10-codes are meant to cut down the length of verbal communications in emergency situations. Writing them down doesn't really make sense." Mel lowered an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"No, you're right, it's definitely weird. Facebook doesn't have a character limit, either. Hmm...maybe they were just really pressed for time? No, wait, most of these are listed as posts from iPhones. Typing dashes and commas on those tiny keyboards would have taken longer than tapping out full sentences. Nope, it's got to be a privacy concern. But then why use something as public as Facebook? Why not email?" Charlie twisted his mouth and scrunched his face tight. The questions cartwheeled through his mind, dodging all the possible explanations he threw at them.

Mel curled her lips to expose grinding teeth. She heaved an exasperated sigh and slumped back into the couch. Charlie, too, leaned back and dropped his shoulders, his face a battlefield lost, the army of excitement vanquished.

"Damn, we're no better off than before! Uhh, no offense." Charlie turned and gave Mel an apologetic look.

"None taken. Still, I think you're right. This guy is involved in something, that's for sure, and there are just too many 'coincidences' for it not to be linked to the server thefts." Mel rose ponderously from the couch and tugged her phone out of her pocket. "Give me a sec, and I'll have those tickets ready for us."

***

Charlie's downcast expression underwent a dramatic metamorphosis at the mention of tickets, blossoming into a radiant pastiche of wonder and excitement with only the faintest hue of trepidation. Mel felt the corners of her mouth twinge and pull, a smile appropriating her lips as she turned away and lifted the phone to her ear. For months her driving motivation for collapsing the ever-expanding net of server thefts had been simple revenge, a hot-headed demand for compensation to staunch her wounded pride. But that blazing desire had withered down to smouldering coals when she realised the true cost of her 'independence'. By finally recognising her father's footprints treading the path before her, Mel could see clearly what future lay ahead and turn away, adamant that she not mimic her father's tumultuous descent into solitude and self-pity.

But that fresh perspective carried with it an unfortunate side-effect: an aggressively depressing insistence that she had spent her entire life on the wrong side of the road, barrelling towards the oncoming traffic while blatantly ignoring the numerous signs urging her to turn around. It was going to take considerable time and effort to make up for the many years of misdirection, and, like a lone survivor dumped unceremoniously from a sinking ship, Mel searched frantically for anything to help keep her afloat, anything that could steer her towards the comfort of dry land.

For her, it was Charlie.

Absent the clear-cut motivation of revenge, Mel sought purpose through her newfound connection with him, his genuine interest in every facet of her worldwide conspiracy providing a new goal. Fervent energy radiated from him like heat from a campfire, a tangible aura that spread warmth through her unlike anything she had felt before. A new resolution rose up to replace the old, her vengeance-quest surmounted by the desire to maintain the unusual symbiosis she and Charlie had established; her investigation provided fuel for his excitement, while she in turn drew from that excitement a feeling she had not experienced for what seemed an eternity: validation. Validation that she had the power to make the world a better place; validation that her existence could mean something more than just a birth certificate and an untended gravestone.

Cobwebbed memories tumbled down from her mental attic, vague recollections of arriving home from school with glowing report cards and seeing her father, his beaming smile lighting up the room and a tray of freshly baked chocolate cookies waiting just for her. But time had caked those memories in layers of dust and worn them down to faded impressions, mere plastic mockeries of what they had once been.

This moment, though, this was no meagre imitation.

Being the facilitator of Charlie's excitement reminded Mel that shared joy would always outstrip the singular tenfold. She already felt younger and livelier than she had in years, buoyed by emotions rising from the depths where they had spent so many years forgotten. Her urge to promote and share in Charlie's unabashed enthusiasm stood in utter defiance of nearly everything she had strived for up to this point, everything that her father had worked so hard to drill into her, and Mel absolutely relished it. What better way to begin making amends for the years spent convinced society was nothing more than a turbid hell-hole filled with anarchic deviants and self-serving narcissists? Treating someone else's happiness as paramount to her own; that was the definition of selflessness, was it not? And it had been selfishness that had driven her father six feet under with nary a tear shed to moisten the soil above him. She was not going to follow his class-act, not going to wear the shackles of restraint he had clamped on her any longer. It was time to end her social seclusion and leave her mark on the world, to establish a positive legacy that could carry her beyond the confines of mortal existence.

THE WHISPERING WALLS OF UNCANNY VALLEY

Mel paced along the apartment's front wall. Charlie watched in bemusement. Despite having the phone pressed to her ear, she uttered not a single word, nor did the faintest crackle of static emanate from the tiny speaker. But her eyes betrayed a fury of activity unfolding behind her stone veneer, so Charlie returned his attention to translating the obscure 10-codes.

He attacked line after line with the eager anticipation of discovering a corner piece to the jumbled jigsaw, but each time he uncovered only another useless sky-piece, another serving of indecipherable jargon just as insolent as the last. He battled on, hoping that the next, then the next, then the next, would provide the key to unlocking the mystery.

No such luck.

Fragments of Mel's conversation drifted in over the dull clack of his fingers on the laptop keyboard.

"Sam? Yeah, I'm alright, how are you?

"What? Oh, right, well it's a long story.

"Is there any chance of you organising two tickets to Seattle ASAP? Yes, I know it's only been a week! And yes, I said two!

"Thanks Sam, I owe you. Yeah, you too. Text it to me. Thanks! Bye."

Mel returned to the couch and Charlie felt his heart-conductor raise the tempo, a ghostly thought taking on corporeal form and seizing his body with its gravitational pull. Though it had been an integral part of his plan, Charlie had not allowed himself to truly entertain the notion that he would be flying to America. He had never enjoyed travel, especially the kind that involved twenty-thousand feet of naked air between his feet and solid ground. He preferred the creature comforts and protective embrace of the four walls he called home: safe, secure, and blessedly free of sweating, writhing bodies. When concocting his plan he had intentionally neglected dwelling on his role within it, focusing on the end result rather than the means to achieve it. But now he had to face the music. It was a daunting thought, one that sparked as much terror as it did excitement, the infinite void of the unknown capable of dishing out equal parts wonder and fear.

Charlie's hands trembled and he folded them in his lap, hiding his nerves from Mel as she sat down next to him.

"Well, that's sorted. Sam will get back to me soon; he's always come through for me when I needed him. I should probably tell him that the next time I see him."

Charlie nodded perfunctorily. Inside his skull a gladiatorial battle was unfolding, each warring thought throwing its strongest fighters into the pit and cheering on in a bloodlust orgy. One side attempted to shake Charlie to his core with images of gang violence, of teeming crowds in bustling city streets pulling him down into the unrelenting tide and swallowing him whole. Logic took up arms and fought back, citing the images as fiction, cribbed from games like GTA in an effort to scare him with mindless stereotypes. Reason answered the call next, providing a powerful argument in touting the benefits of stepping out of his comfort zone. As experience had proven time and again, all it took was a single step beyond the fence-line to loosen the oppressive hold routine had wrought.

Last to arrive was Purpose, towing along Justice and Responsibility in its wake. This wasn't just about him and what he wanted, this was about doing what was right, about ensuring that a consortium of thieves and murderers received the punishment they deserved. And anyway, he was already waist deep in conspiracies and conundrums; if he turned back now he'd still be soaking wet but with nothing to show for it.

Duty and Curiosity emerged from the conflict victorious. Charlie couldn't leave the puzzle unsolved, the task unfinished. Mel's phone trilled a jaunty tune and she yanked it out, smiling at the screen.

"Good old Sam. Just as I said, he always comes through for me." Mel smiled with half her mouth, a knowing look in her eyes. "We leave tomorrow morning."

***

Charlie's reaction was everything Mel had hoped for. First, just a questioning flick of the eyebrows. After receiving a nod of confirmation, the uncertainty receded, his eyes bulging and his lips drifting apart. Then the moment of understanding: his face split into an ear-to-ear grin, his excitement a tangible force, unmistakeable and endearing. Mel drank it up, consuming it like a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, and felt her own anticipation bubbling to the surface despite herself.

Flying to Seattle should not have warranted such high spirits; she had visited the city before and it had left no lasting impressions. Any novelty plane travel had once held had lost its lustre many moons ago. But Charlie's exuberance was infectious, reigniting the flames of virgin curiosity after decades of smouldering indifference. Through this vicarious innocence, Mel shared Charlie's fervour and found herself anxious to take action. Tomorrow morning was too far away.

"So, what's next?" Mel leaned forward conspiratorially, her approach apparently too keen even for Charlie, as he retreated under her bright-eyed gaze. She jerked back, reigning in her moment of drunken abandon. After a lifetime of playing gravedigger to any and all emotions threatening her stoic independence, Mel was woefully unprepared for the power of unbridled positivity. She would need to take it slow, filter her feelings little by little lest they stampede her inhibitions again.

"Uhh, well he wanted to have a chat on Skype, so I guess we could see if he was up for that?"

Mel blinked clear her mind and nodded. Charlie swallowed audibly and swung his attention back to the laptop. He loaded up Skype and minimised everything except it and the document containing the information he had collected.

"So, as far as I could tell from his obfuscation-by-synonym, he seemed pretty receptive to the idea of an interview. Have you got any idea of where and when we should meet him? I was thinking somewhere secluded but not overtly so; otherwise he might smell a rat and back down. Any places jump to mind?"

Mel paused for little more than a heartbeat. Most of her memories of Seattle were vague: suburban streets and plaster building fronts whitewashed into a hazy, indistinct blur. But one locale remained permanently lodged in her mind: a gaudily lit hemispherical awning announcing the 'Jus' Fer' Kicks' drinking establishment, a bar kitted out like a classy cabaret theatre.

Mel explained to Charlie how her company had been hired to work security for the inaugural week, and that the owner had been so impressed with how they handled the ineluctable onslaught of drunken gate-crashers that he promised each of them preferential treatment should they wish to experience the show from the other side of the velvet rope. Now seemed as good a time as any to take him up on that offer.

***

"Sure!" Charlie agreed enthusiastically, after Mel had finished reminiscing. "Loud background noise is good; it keeps stress levels high and will make it hard for Mike to concentrate. It might even make it easier for us to trick him into slipping up."

His smile faltered as a concern worried out of the woodwork.

"Oh crap, hold on a sec." Charlie spun back to the laptop and scanned through Mike's details.

C'mon date of birth, where are you? Ah! There you are! Okay, '91 is two years younger than me so...21!

"Ah, we're all good! Almost had to scrap that idea for a second there!" Charlie spun back and faced an inquiring look from Mel. "It's a bar, right? I couldn't remember if he was 21 yet. That's the legal drinking age in America, isn't it?"

"Ah." Mel's confusion dissipated from her face.

"Okay, so that's the location, now we just need a time. Tomorrow afternoon, maybe? When's the flight? And how long does it take to travel to America anyway?"

"So many questions!" Mel laughed, a rich, full-bodied melody with an undercurrent of obsolescence, like an ancient relic retrieved from behind thick, rust-covered doors, the layers of dust swept away to reveal a glorious treasure beneath. Charlie grinned sheepishly.

"Well our flight leaves 6:00 A.M. tomorrow morning, and arrival in Sea-Tac should be around 7:00 A.M. local time."

"Ha! So with the time difference our flight only technically takes an hour? Nice!"

Mel rolled her eyes and sighed. "That's not—"

Charlie interjected with a wave of his hand.

"No, no, I know how it works! I was just...never mind."

Mel skewered him with a puzzled gaze. "Right. Well, a twenty-hour flight's pretty rough on your body, so I wouldn't be scheduling the meeting for the afternoon. I'd give us a day to recover first, get everything set up and all our cards in order."

"A day, huh? Gotcha!"

Using his laptop's calendar, Charlie checked the proposed date—factoring in the time-zone differential—and committed it to memory. He switched over to Skype and prepared to add a new contact.

"So, that's everything, right? Time to see if he's online?" Charlie rushed through the new-contact wizard and paused over the final prompt, awaiting confirmation from Mel.

"I guess so. You're the boy genius here, remember, I'm just the muscle."

Another hearty laugh escaped Mel's ample chest, each guffaw sounding more natural than the last. Charlie chuckled along with her, picturing them both as a crime-fighting duo in ludicrously flamboyant costumes, dancing around with all the frivolity of the 60's era Batman and Robin as they unravelled mysteries with his intellect and her brawn.

I'd totally watch a show like that!

Once their mirth had subsided, Charlie stabbed the Enter key with dramatic finality, and watched as Skype polled mike.the.man.69 for his current online status. Charlie had barely a second to register the tiny green tick before an orange notification window popped up in the corner of the screen.

HEY ITS MIKE. HOW ARE YOU DOING?

Another message rapidly followed.

Sorry I had caps lock on! Thanks for the message btw. Humble brag but my work is pretty good!

"Oh god, he's arrogant and an idiot." Charlie sighed and rolled his eyes. "Oh well, let's hope he's not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth."

> Hey Mike, Charlie here. I'm quite well, thanks for asking. I hope you're feeling likewise?

sure sure. Im good.

> Excellent. I'm looking forward to meeting you. Your work has struck quite a chord with one of our programmers here.

thanks! did you want me to take you threw my latest level now?? i think its my best work yet!

Charlie smiled sadly at the woeful punctuation and mishandled grammar then looked up at Mel inquiringly.

"What do you reckon? It's probably not a bad idea, you know, maintain the charade and all."

Mel cocked her head to the side. "What does it involve, exactly? I'm— well both of us are going to need to start packing for the flight pretty soon. How long will this take?"

"Oh, it shouldn't take that long. Just let me see what he has in mind..."

> Are we talking a Twitch stream, or something else?

nah havent got any capture stuff setup. ill give you the server IP where its hosted. im using garrys mod. you know it?

> Yes, we've used it here in the past for some internal demonstrations. But before you take us through, how about we schedule this interview?

k

> Are you familiar with the bar 'Jus' Fer' Kicks'?—Mel spelled it out for Charlie as he typed.

yeh i know it. when did you wanna meet?

> How about Friday, 1:00 P.M.? Does that work for you?

sure ok. do i need to bring anything?

> No. Your portfolio of mods has served as sufficient resume material. All that's required is the formality of a face-to-face meeting to iron out the details.

awesome!!! ill be there! now let me just get the ip.

"Can you watch the chat and let me know if he says anything?" Charlie put the laptop down on the coffee table and struggled to his feet.

"Uh, sure. Okay."

Charlie smiled and nodded, then pivoted on his heels and strode over to the TV cabinet holding his exorbitant collection of electronic media devices. He bent down and fiddled with the plugs behind the TV, searching for the stubborn HDMI port and replacing the Xbox cable with the one from his gaming PC. While the PC flashed through a parade of boot-up screens, he fetched the wireless keyboard from one of the drawers underneath the coffee table. He used it to log in, then immediately discarded it for an Xbox controller, this one synced with a wireless dongle plugged into the PC. He had Xpadder set to run on boot—a program that allowed him to control the cursor and certain keys with his Xbox controller instead of a mouse and keyboard. He bounded back to the couch and pounced onto it, his eyes tracking straight to the laptop screen.

"Still waiting?"

"Still waiting."

Another minute passed before Mike finally replied with the IP address. While they were waiting, Charlie had booted up Steam to access his games library and updated his copy of Garry's Mod. He hadn't messed around with it in years, and all he could recall was one bizarre session where he had bolted gas canisters to the sides of a buggy and launched it off a makeshift ramp, attempting to fly but succeeding only in hard-locking the game and forcing a reboot. In retrospect, triggering fifty individually calculated explosions simultaneously on the highest graphical settings with what, at the time, had been only a middling spec computer was probably not the smartest idea in the world.

so just connect to the server and ill give you access. whats ur username?

> skilliontrix.

ok.i have to close skype cos it screws with my install for some reason. cya soon.

The conversation window greyed out and Mike's status changed to offline. Charlie shuffled the laptop off his knees and passed it over to Mel.

"You happy to ride co-pilot on this?"

"Sure, what do you need me to do?"

"Just keep the fake dev site up on screen, in case he starts asking questions. I don't think he's smart enough to be paranoid, but after seeing those coded Facebook communications... Anyway, best to have it ready, just in case."

"Okay."

Charlie hauled himself off the couch and retrieved the wireless keyboard and mouse, hitting 'Play' for Garry's mod and walking back while the game loaded. He settled into his couch groove and navigated to the multiplayer lobby, typing in the IP address that Mike had provided and waiting while the game established a connection. A minute later and he was in, his character standing in the middle of a short stretch of road, both ends engulfed by an impenetrable grey fog after only a few metres.

One side of the road gave way to the void, while the other housed an enormous multi-story office building, all beige brick and glass windows. A flat, blurry photograph covered the wall of most of the bottom floor: two storefronts with interiors too indistinct to recognise. To the very left was a set of glass entry doors set inside a short alcove.

Much like the Suburban Daze level that Charlie had investigated earlier, the building seemed to be textured using real-life photographs in conjunction with ordinary game assets. Charlie found the effect particularly jarring, especially considering how starkly it contrasted with the low-resolution graphics of the almost decade-old Source game engine.

Above the glass entrance doors was an address spelled out in silver letters: BENDER BUILDING. Charlie pointed it out to Mel.

"Hey, do you reckon you could google that?"

"Uhh, okay."

Charlie gave Mel fifteen seconds to find the information before he tore his eyes from the TV and glanced at the laptop. To his dismay, she had managed to locate the neglected icon for Internet Explorer. She then went through the painstakingly long process of typing the entire URL, http://www.google.com, into the address bar.

Charlie sighed and dropped the Xbox controller onto the couch, leaning over and gently brushing Mel's typing hands aside. He was surprised at how unfettered his behaviour around Mel was becoming, to the point where he no longer felt compelled to analyse each and every word before letting it take corporeal form.

"No offense, but how did you amass all that data on the thefts when your computer skills are so...uhh...lacking?"

Charlie's heart revved at the starting-line, fear of a wounded rebuke sitting behind the wheel, but he swallowed hard and doused the fear with reassurances of Mel's friendship. All concern was extinguished completely when Mel erupted into another glorious bout of laughter.

"Lacking? Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, I'm a technological tragedy! I have the Midas touch of computers, only it's stubborn disobedience, not gold, that plagues everything I set my hands on. All those case-files took months to compile, and most of it I collected from good old fashioned flesh-and-blood investigation. Oh, and you know that morning that we met, at the mBition office? My plane arrived in Melbourne early that morning, and I caught wind of the attack while I was organising my rental car. It should have taken half an hour at most to get into the city, but do you know how long it took me, thanks to that heap of junk GPS? Two hours! I was just lucky you slept in, or I would have probably hurled that thing onto the road and let the traffic exact my revenge. Honestly, I think computers have it in for me."

They shared a light-hearted chuckle while Charlie typed in the address and flicked open new tabs with practiced ease. He quickly discovered that the real-life Bender Building was located in Washington, D.C.—1200 Connecticut Avenue to be precise. A short trip to Google Maps verified the game-world connection, with Street View displaying the obvious source of inspiration for the three-dimensional model Charlie's character was currently standing in front of. According to the website of the building's real-estate agent, there were quite a few corporations housed within its thick brick walls, but the prime tenant for the last four decades had been the American Bankers Association.

"Hmm...the American Bankers Association? What a weird choice to base an entire level on..."

Mel started to respond but clammed shut and pointed at a flash of movement on the TV screen.

"Uhh, Charlie?"

Charlie followed the sweep of her arm and watched as a black-suited male ran out of the building entrance, orange-glow-infused gravity gun in hand. Charlie didn't recognise the character skin from within the game, nor did any obvious pop-culture reference come to mind. He relinquished control of the laptop to Mel and snapped up the gamepad from the couch.

"I guess this is him. Can you have a read over that page and see if anything jumps out at you while I deal with this?"

Mel snickered before answering. "I don't know, are you sure you can put up with my granny-pace this time? I'd hate to be too slow for you." Her jibe hit him like a playful punch in the shoulder.

"Oh, get off it!" Charlie smiled, the words tumbling out of his mouth with a chuckle while his attention remained focused on the TV. His inhibitions were eroding, conversation flowing liquid-easy, and he loved every second of it.

The suited character drew to a halt a metre away, and the chat box in the corner of the screen flickered with conversation.

hey charlie

like my char?

thought you might want to know how I look for teh interview

Charlie frowned and took another look at the character model in front of him. The suit was nothing remarkable, and the gravity gun in his hands was a fundamental element of all Source engine games, but the face...

In what Charlie was beginning to categorise as Mike's signature style, the head was textured with a real-life photograph, a tanned face with curling black hair plastered across it. The reduction in detail that came from flattening a three-dimensional object into two dimensions made for a rather peculiar look, with the unnaturally smooth head lacking any of the regular protrusions, and the hair so copious that little of the face could actually be seen.

its a bit rushed so sorry

> No worries

Mike's character started walking towards the building, so Charlie discarded the keyboard again and picked up the controller. He hunched forward, eyes trained keenly on the TV and his lower lip undulating as he subconsciously chewed at it.

Mike's avatar led Charlie's into the building and ushered him through room after room, pausing in each one to explain—in progressively less eloquent terms—the techniques he had used to render the building as faithfully as possible to its physical counterpart. Though not as comprehensive as the building's façade, the interior retained the odd real-world/in-game texture dichotomy, with certain pieces of furniture and most of the walls sporting patterns clearly constructed from a collage of blurry photographs.

problem is how crap the photos are

nobody listens to wot I tell them

there useless

Charlie's eyes perked up at the allusion to other parties, but before he had a chance to press for further information Mike's character shuffled out of the room, a trio of repeated messages calling for Charlie to follow.

I wonder if this has anything to do with those Facebook comments...

Charlie trailed Mike through the rest of the building, noting that every door or passageway they passed was either blocked by a non-interactive object, or simply opened into the grey void of null-code.

The guided tour ended in a broad, open-plan office, rows of cubicles surrounded by copy-and-pasted whiteboards each displaying the exact same diagrams and illegible text. The far wall was composed of panes of transparent glass, a narrow blue-lit room empty on the other side. A keypad-locked door barred entry, an intricately-detailed eccentricity that had not been used anywhere else in the building. Charlie was puzzled by its seemingly pointless inclusion.

> What's with the keypad lock to an empty room?

Mike took considerable time to respond, his character standing completely motionless while Charlie grew more suspicious. He moved closer to the glass panes, panning his view around the vacant room inside while he waited for Mike's explanation.

This is kind of weird. Every other room has been so meticulously furnished, so why is this one empty?

After nearly two minutes of inactivity, Mike responded.

havent finished that one yet. its gonna be the break room.

Charlie narrowed his eyes and chewed his lip. He turned to Mel, who watched on intently, her eyes squinted as she struggled to read the small text in the chat window.

"Weird, huh?"

Mel looked at him and shrugged.

"I guess. Is it really relevant, though?"

"Hmmm, maybe not, but still..."

Their journey through uncanny valley wrapped up in short order, with both parties signing off and expressing eagerness to meet in person. Charlie shut the computer and TV off, and Mel rose laboriously to her feet and stretched, rolling her shoulders and flailing her limbs. She glanced up at the clock on the wall and whistled in surprise.

"Damn! I think we're going to need to call it a night. We're going to want to rise early if we're going to make that flight at 6:00 A.M." Mel picked up her laptop and shoved it into her duffle bag, then slung the strap over her shoulder and began walking towards the door. "Pick you up around 4?"

"Uh, sure!" Charlie smirked and pinned Mel with a blatantly-fake look of admonition. "But you have to let me operate the GPS, or else we'll end up in Mexico!"

The pair shared a hearty, boisterous laugh. Mel bounced out the door with a mischievous grin on her face.

Charlie closed the door behind Mel and leapt onto the couch, kicking his feet up onto the armrest and steepling his hands beneath his chin. Before he started packing for tomorrow's flight, he wanted to collect his thoughts and process his life's recent hurricane upheaval.

Man, it's been, what, almost a week, and I've gone from anxiety out-patient to emotional zombie and back again, lost my job, somehow got myself embroiled in a global conspiracy, and in just a few short hours I'll be on a plane for the first time in my life! It's completely bat-shit insane! Scary as an army of goddamn clown-Cthulhus. But I need to do this. I need to smash out of my comfort zone. I can do it, I know I can!

Charlie slid his palms up over his face and rubbed it hard, flinging his hands aside and barking loudly into the empty apartment, expressing his determination with animal fervour. He clambered off the couch and scanned the room. He shut down his laptop and packed it into its carry case, along with the power cord and a USB mouse-and-keyboard combo. He also located his stash of blank and diagnostic USB flash drives and threw them in the front pouch.

USB drives: the duct tape of the digital world!

Next, he gathered up the rest of his cabal of portable electronics: iPad, Nintendo 3DS, phone-

"The iPhone!" He threw his hands into the air like he was conducting an invisible concerto. "I was supposed to backup that bloody recording! Crap, where did I leave it?"

Charlie stood in his bedroom doorway and swept his eyes over the storm-sundered scene. A minute of careful scrutiny discovered the iPhone lying neglected on the floor next to his bed.

Oh man, it must have slipped out of my pocket when I went to bed last night! You're a bloody idiot Charlie, if it's broken...

He rushed over and picked it up, impromptu heart-attack avoided when a tap of the centre button displayed the undamaged lock screen. He immediately slipped his own phone out of his pocket and Bluetoothed the file over, pinning a mental note to the inside of his skull to back it up to his laptop and server the next chance he got.

The subsequent half-hour was swallowed by a whirlwind of flung garments, impossibly knotted headphone cables and power adapters, as well as an extremely harrowing search for his passport that yielded only mountains of warranty notices and bank statements. Eventually, he remembered sequestering it underneath the utensil tray in the kitchen drawer. It was rather lucky he had a passport at all, given the absence of any plans to travel overseas, but he had needed one as a source of identification when applying to rent his apartment.

Once his bright blue suitcase was bulging at the seams, Charlie rolled the engorged monstrosity out to the front door on its tiny caster wheels.

Uhh, I am not looking forward to lugging this through the airport tomorrow morning.

Happy that he was now adequately prepared for anything short of interstellar travel, Charlie set early morning alarms on both his Samsung and the iPhone, as well as an old digital alarm clock he had found when searching for his passport.

There is no way I'm sleeping in again!

He slowly undressed, stripping down to his boxer shorts and t-shirt, and clambered into bed. Despite a cavalcade of rambunctious thoughts and more than a few suppressed concerns, sleep swiftly stole Charlie into its whisper-quiet arms.

THANK-YOU FOR FLYING AIR ANXIETY!

The night whisked Charlie through places magical and macabre. Brilliant towers of glass pierced the sky with their stunning silver blades, only to bow to the whims of an overzealous gravity and curve into bones enclosing Charlie within a nightmare rib-cage. Ants scurried around his feet, then ballooned out one-thousand-fold, transforming into comically oversized bugs suddenly armed with lasers and death rays, chasing Charlie through a barren landscape of rolling plains and cactus gardens.

A sporadic flash of pure, sight-purging light transported him to the edge of a jagged cliff, staring down into a fertile jungle valley alive with the dancing patterns of kaleidoscopic birds and the aroma of freshly tilled soil. He leapt from his fragile perch, plummeting headlong towards the thick green canopy before spreading his arms and levelling out, thin membrane wings stretching from his sides to his wrists catching the air and carrying him over the lush emerald carpet.

His peaceful flight was shattered by the screech of several million crickets chirping directly into his ear. The picturesque scenery dissolved into the shadowy gloom of Charlie's bedroom, the tenacious scream just the siren call of his ancient digital clock.

"Urrgggh."

Charlie flailed groggily at his bedside table, knocking his lampshade askew in his haze-stricken attempts to silence the boisterous alarm. He finally succeeded in shutting it off with a dull slap of his lead-burdened palm. "Grgggh. I knew I got rid of that thing for a reason."

Rolling back into the centre of his bed, Charlie closed his eyes and was about to succumb once more to sleep's seductive embrace when the iPhone began chirping its sinfully cheerful wake-up tune. It was soon joined by the opening chords of an energetic punk-rock song blasted from his Samsung, usually a rather agreeable way to cap off a night's slumber.

I need coffee, stat.

He wormed out of bed, discarding his cloak of sheets like a butterfly shedding its cocoon, and scurried through the thick gloom to the kitchen, navigating by memory and the meagre glow of street lights filtering in through his curtained windows.

Flicking on the fluorescent kitchen light bathed the apartment in harsh white light, forcing him to shield his eyes with the palm of his hand. Once he could see again, albeit through hazy, bloodshot eyes, he boiled the kettle and pumped himself full of caffeine. The rich brown liquid lifted him like a benevolent angel out of his stupor and re-ignited the fires of his consciousness. He reached the bottom of his mug depressingly fast and dumped it into the sink, returning to his bedroom and extracting the fresh set of clothes he had laid out before going to sleep.

He rushed through a scalding shower to pry the last tendrils of fatigue from his sleep-deprived body, then checked the time—3:27 A.M. He retrieved his phones from their chargers and shoved them into his pocket, stowed the adapters into his laptop bag, then dumped that next to the suitcase at the front door.

With little else to do, Charlie backed up the phone recording of the mBition theft to his server, then to his Dropbox account. He pottered aimlessly around the apartment, treating every crevice and niche to a thorough reorganisation while running through a constantly updating mental checklist of his preparations.

By the time his studious cleaning was broken by a knock at the door, he had managed to locate three long-forgotten Xbox games, two Star Wars action figures, a pair of thin, skeleton-patterned fingerless gloves, and several metric tonnes of loose Lego bricks. He had not discovered any obvious deficiencies in his travel inventory, yet he could not entirely erase the frustrating insistence that he had neglected something in his hasty packing.

Charlie trotted to the door and found Mel standing outside with her phone in her hand, jabbing at the screen with careful determination. She had on her 'detective' outfit, the tight pinstripe jacket and black pants exuding that same indomitable sense of power and authority that had coaxed Charlie into his motor-mouth obeisance. Now, though, he could dismantle the stone-wall façade and see the determined yet flawed human-being underneath.

"Ready to go?" Mel finished prodding at her phone and lifted her head, her face showing no signs of the weariness that smothered Charlie like a winter morning fog.

I guess she's just used to it.

"Sure, let's go!"

Charlie threw the strap of his laptop bag over his shoulder and extended the pull handle on his suitcase, rolling it out into the hallway and locking the apartment door. He zipped the keys into one of the side pouches on his suitcase then trundled along behind Mel as they made their way to the lifts.

They dropped down to the ground floor and exited from the rear of the building. The stars radiated crystal magnificence in the sky above, and the wind clung to the last vestiges of the cool night before the rising sun burned them away.

Mel's rental car was parked in a small bay designated for five-minute drop-offs and pick-ups, similar to those used in front of hospital emergency wards. The pair quickly heaved Charlie's suitcase into the boot next to Mel's and piled into the front.

Thanks to the graveyard traffic and Charlie's deft handling of the GPS, they made it to Tullamarine airport in twenty-five minutes, depositing the car at the rental depot before hauling their luggage into the terminal. In stubborn defiance of the sinfully early hour, the airport was alive-and-kicking, with uniformed minions scurrying to-and-fro, latecomer-passengers frantically rushing to the departure gates while they mumbled prayers to the flight gods, and bleary-eyed arrivals stumbling around the concourse, still trying to rouse their aching bodies from uncomfortable fourteen-hour flights.

With over an hour and a half until boarding, Charlie and Mel had plenty of time to check-in and digest a light breakfast of waffles and toast from one of the many overpriced cafes. Having been informed during the car ride that it would be his first time flying, Mel advised Charlie not to eat too heavily lest he want to treat everyone on the plane to a chunk-by-chunk playback replete with groaning commentary.

At Charlie's behest, they arrived at their boarding gate forty-five minutes ahead of their departure time, and, courtesy of the inevitable fallibility of flight scheduling, were left shuffling their feet and twiddling their thumbs for nearly an hour before they were finally permitted to board. Within the expanse of the departure gate's lounge, Charlie felt the influx of other passengers like a light breeze tickling the back of his neck. Only when they were seated and belted inside the plane, with the doors shut tight and the flight attendants drawling through the emergency landing procedures, did the breeze explode into a gale-force storm. The cloying pressure began to hammer at his skull, whipping his heart into a chaotic, convulsing rhythm.

Mel laid her hand on his shoulder, a light but firm anchor amidst the battering turbulence. She smiled with genuine warmth, but Charlie could only muster a feeble grimace in return. Mel proved remarkably quick-thinking and requested the immediate distribution of the complimentary headphones. By plugging them into the armrest jack and cranking up the volume, Charlie drowned out the encroaching drone of conversation and fled into the bastion of the TV world embedded in the chair in front of him. Dry shelter was obtained; the raging tempest had been avoided.

Charlie occupied the flight with the latest flashy Hollywood blockbusters and re-runs of old episodes of The Simpsons. Only during his few unavoidable trips to the bathroom did he feel the crushing reality of being trapped in a cramped metal coffin thousands of feet in the air, escape a non-negotiable impossibility. He even managed to catch a fleeting catnap, though afterwards his neck and back felt like they had been shot through with several hundred tiny nails, every twist of his head firing an iron spike of pain down the length of his spine.

With no flight paths directly from Melbourne to Seattle, their trip required a two and a half hour layover in L.A. The prospect of setting foot in one of the most renowned cities on Earth, the home to so many artists, writers, and actors that it was frequently touted as the 'Creative Capital of the World', had seemed extremely appealing the night before. Unfortunately, Charlie had neglected to follow his train of thought to its logical conclusion: that a city so brimming with culture, glamour, and spectacle would also be bursting at the seams with people, the magnitude of the crowds far beyond anything he had experienced back home.

Stumbling wearily out of the docking gate, Charlie confronted the raging serpentine crowd slithering out onto the concourse and down towards the terminal exit, every available inch of the walkway consumed by its heaving, bulging form. Fortunately, his prolonged confinement and miserable attempt at sleep had left him so woozy and disoriented that his brain was barely operating at half its rated performance, too sluggish to process the terrifying enormity of the monstrous multicellular organism surrounding him.

Mel, exhibiting another bout of alacritous perception, shuttled Charlie along the concourse and towards the exit as fast and painlessly as possible. They made it to the screening area without incident, suffering through the hawk-eyed scrutiny of the TSA officers as they passed through the scanners. They had almost achieved freedom when Charlie was called to stop, a grizzled and bearded young man questioning his half-drawn eyelids and clumsy gait. Mel managed to allay his suspicions by explaining that it was Charlie's first time flying, but he nevertheless endured a rough, full-body pat down and a disapproving glare before they were finally given the green-light.

After the brief semblance of order instituted by the stoic TSA officers, Mel and Charlie were thrust back into the flailing arms of chaos as they passed through the glass exit doors and out onto the pavement. The brisk morning gale welcomed them with its chilly breath.

The protracted screening process had afforded Charlie's brain enough time to re-ignite its engines, and he could no longer ignore the bloodless warfare raging all around him. The heat from nearby bodies defied the biting wind and clung to Charlie's skin like saran wrap. The sulphurous odour of neglected personal hygiene permeated the air and burrowed deep into his nostrils. He started to tremble, his vision blurring and his legs transforming into rickety Jenga towers threatening to collapse at any moment.

Charlie urged Mel onwards, and she grabbed his wrist and broke into a canter, cutting and slicing effortlessly through the amorphous wall of flesh, her skilful manoeuvring reminding Charlie of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, slipping between impossible gaps without a moment's hesitation.

Their departure gate was located within the closest terminal, and with Mel's unstoppable bull-at-a-gate charge they reached their destination in minutes, Charlie still quivering but otherwise reasonably stable.

"Thank you Mel. God, I'm so sorry, I'm such a bloody burden..."

Charlie hung his head, ashamed that though he had reclaimed much territory in the battle for mental dominance, plenty of unconquered ground remained.

"Nonsense! It's just nice to get a chance to use my crowd-control training once in a while! Can't have you hogging all the glory, can we?"

Mel grinned and brushed Charlie playfully on his arm. He managed a weak chuckle before collapsing into one of the boarding lounge's horrendously lumpy plastic chairs.

Charlie felt markedly calmer after spending several minutes slumped silently, his eyes closed while he drank in the refreshingly body-odour-free air around him. As his head cleared, he expressed profusely his undying gratitude for Mel's gladiatorial charge. When she suggested that they remain within the terminal rather than venture out into the untamed wilds of Los Angeles, Charlie agreed wholeheartedly, all desire to sight-see vanquished in the wake of their frantic gauntlet run.

While they lounged, Mel explained to Charlie that Los Angeles was one of the most populated cities in the world, ranking up there with many of the ridiculously overcrowded provinces in China and south-east Asia. Charlie discovered that LAX served as a rather accurate microcosm for the city at large, with never-ending swarms of 28 Days Later-style zombies crashing into and through each other, occasionally merging into chaotic balls of flesh-born fury. Mel and Charlie watched on from their safe haven in the departure lounge, observing the ebb and flow as landing planes disgorged their cargo of screaming children and volatile parents, and took on-board crisp-suited business folk and clusters of chattering tourists.

Their mutual people-watching evolved into a shared experience, with Charlie pointing out extravagantly expensive laptops and tablets carried by those with far more money than sense, and Mel predicting who of the arriving passengers looked shady enough to be singled out for 'random' screening.

Their downtime raced by, and before they knew it, their flight was being called over the PA system. Mel helped Charlie up from his chair, his legs stiff and disobedient after the fierce workout they had endured, and they meandered to the back of the line to save Charlie the stress of being hemmed in from all sides.

Unlike the international flight, their domestic voyage was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair, considerably lighter on passengers. Charlie found he could even relax in the docile environment, a vacant seat next to him providing both his mind and body with ample buffer to breathe. He eschewed the use of headphones, feeling confident enough to chat with Mel instead of seeking solace in escapism. The irrational portion of his mind was slowly acclimating itself to flight, subsuming it as a known quantity, shifting it from unpredictable horror to a trial he had survived and thus had some measure of control over.

They were provided with breakfast, their third of the day thanks to the magic of time-zone traversal. It was also the least appetising of the bunch: a small bowl of pre-packaged oatmeal with a carton of UHT milk, a pint-sized tub of organic yoghurt, and an apple and cinnamon muffin that packed about as much flavour as week-old bread. Nevertheless it refuelled their diminishing energy reserves, and by the time they landed in Seattle, Charlie was clear of the cloud of lethargy that had descended during the abominably-long international flight.

They disembarked swiftly, the many empty seats eliminating the need for passengers to play chicken with each other as they retrieved their carry-on and hustled to be first to the exit. Regardless, Charlie and Mel waited until the majority of the travellers had left before rising from their seats and ambling through the umbilical and into Sea-Tac airport.

***

Their transit through the airport was almost pleasant after the chaos of LAX. The crowds were a light drizzle in the wake of the tsunami they had battled through, and Charlie felt not a single tendril of discomfort pluck at his brain while they retrieved their baggage and made their way out into the crisp morning chill. For a brief moment even the frigid temperature did not penetrate his senses, his spirits bolstered by pride at the realisation that he had survived not one, but two airports, one of them classed among the busiest in the world. High spirits only stymied the brisk weather for an instant though, and the cold soon seeped through his thin layers and crawled spider-like across his skin.

"Oh man, I'm a freakin' idiot! I completely forgot that it's winter here!"

Mel smirked and shook her head.

Charlie unzipped the main compartment of his suitcase and rummaged inside for his jumper. He had given it little thought at the time, but right now he was eminently grateful to past-Charlie for having thrown it in amongst the tangle of wafer-thin t-shirts. He shrugged into the black hoodie, relishing the immediate buffer it provided against the breeze. He closed the suitcase and turned back to find Mel intently scanning the drop-off/pick-up zone.

"Uhh, what are you looking for?"

Mel's smiling eyes answered for her. A bulky white van careened around the corner of the drive, weaving between the rows of taxis and negligent pedestrians loitering in the middle of the road. Mel raised her arm and waved, and the van screeched to a halt in front of a lime-green tourist bus a few metres down the road.

"This is our ride. C'mon, let's go."

Mel trotted towards the van, the wheels of her leather suitcase clacking loudly on the pavement as she swerved around a cluster of jabbering sightseers. Charlie jogged to catch up, his laptop bag swinging wildly against his leg. The side door of the van slid open in anticipation of their approach and a lined and wrinkled face poked out, greeting them with a wide-eyed, full-teeth smile. As the age-weathered man helped them load their suitcases into the back of the van, he launched into loud, boisterous speech, his voice an open invitation printed on cracked and well-worn parchment.

"Melinda! Back so soon? And who do we have here?"

"Hey Antonio. This is Charlie. Charlie, Antonio. He was...a friend of my father's."

Antonio thrust his arm towards Charlie and pulled him into an enthusiastic, double-palmed handshake.

"Friend? What kind of introduction is that?" Antonio cocked his head at Mel and his patch-riddled face took on a bemused expression. He turned back to Charlie and fixed him with a conspiratorial stare. "I was his chauffeur, his personal assistant, his manservant, if you will." He guffawed and slapped a wrinkled hand on Charlie's shoulder. Charlie recoiled in surprise and flashed bewilderment in Mel's direction. She avoided meeting his eyes until they had finished loading the luggage into the van.

"Dad loathed having to rely on other people. When I moved out he wouldn't even let me organise a Meals on Wheels service for him. He wanted to do his shopping personally every week, even though he couldn't reach halfway up the goddamn shelves!" Mel closed her eyes and shook her head violently. "I finally managed to convince him that he needed a driver; at first he wanted to do it himself, get his car modified so that he could operate it with just his hands, but he failed the reaction tests the doctors made him take." Mel sighed heavily. "He was pissed that night. Bottle-of-Jack pissed.

"Fortunately, we found Antonio, and he and Dad hit it off better than I could have hoped for. He became more than just a driver, too, as close a friend as Dad ever had after the accident."

"Manservant," Antonio chipped in from the front seat, a cheeky grin from ear to ear.

Mel smiled sadly, sliding into the passenger seat next to Antonio while Charlie clambered into the back. They belted in and Antonio rammed the gear-stick into drive, pounding the accelerator and leaping into a gap in the traffic far too small for Charlie's liking. With a seemingly preternatural awareness of everything around them, Antonio had them travelling northbound on the I-5 towards Seattle in under five minutes, Charlie choking the life out of the interior door handle whenever a slow-moving truck threatened their warp-speed path.

The ride softened by degrees as they barrelled down the highway, and when Charlie no longer felt like his stomach was wedged halfway up his trachea, he voiced the question that had been buzzing around in his mind ever since discovering Antonio's role in Mel's sorrowful story.

"So, if Antonio was your dad's chauffeur, does that mean you used to live here in Seattle? I know you said you don't bother with a permanent place now because of your job and all, but what happened to your dad's place after...umm...you know..." Charlie trailed off, realising too late that with Antonio present, Mel might not be rather reluctant to dredge up the past and its library of old wounds. Coagulated silence oozed by painfully slow, and Charlie began preparing a change of topic, but before he could open his mouth, Mel swivelled around in her seat and stared at him with distant, wistful eyes.

"No, we lived near Macon, Georgia. Antonio moved here after Dad died."

Antonio chimed in, turning his head and taking his eyes off the road for a three mortifying seconds. "Too many memories."

Mel grimaced and Antonio returned his attention to his 80mph game of vehicular dodge-ball.

"As for the house, well. I had to move Dad to a nursing home after his second heart attack, and I tried to get him to sell the house, but he wouldn't listen. Eventually I gave up, but six months later I got a call from Antonio saying the government had repossessed and demolished it so they could build a strip mall." Mel pursed her lips and glared into the distance. "Found out that Dad had been boycotting his taxes for the last two years. When I confronted him about it, he told me he was protesting the shitty state of public health care. But he had private insurance; it didn't affect him! He was such an idiot."

Antonio's breath caught in his throat and he nearly choked, his hands losing their iron grip on the wheel and sending the van cavorting across multiple lanes for several petrifying seconds. Mel reached for the wheel but Antonio recovered, his coughing fit subsiding as he brought the van back under control.

"What's gotten into you Melinda? In all my life I've never heard you utter a single bad word about your father!"

Mel's mouth twisted into a crude smile, a clash of happiness and misery across a backdrop of embarrassment.

"Yes, well, let's just say this past week has been rather...eye-opening. Thanks to young Charlie here I'm starting to see things clearly, and I have to say I'm not too happy with some of the decisions good ol' dad made. All his talk about being strong and independent, and look where it got him." She shook her head sadly. "I don't want to follow him down that path anymore."

Antonio's eyebrows raced up his forehead, his eyes bulging in surprise and threatening to launch right out of their sockets. Charlie thanked God that, despite his evident shock, he kept his eyes firmly locked on the road ahead.

"Jesus H. Christ Melinda! Next thing I know you'll be telling me that young Charlie here is your fiancé!"

Charlie blushed involuntarily, a cold shower of weightlessness trickling from his head to his toes. He harboured no romantic feelings towards Mel, and he was pretty sure Mel felt the same. Even ignoring the fact that she was at least 10 years older than him, Charlie saw Mel more like the big sister from an old 90's TV drama, the effortlessly cool one, street-tough and world-wise, always ready to lend a hand when her younger sibling got into trouble.

"Ha ha, very funny Toni. How about you just shut your trap and focus on getting us to the hotel, okay?"

Antonio chuckled and mumbled incomprehensibly under his breath, but he obeyed Mel's request, keeping his eyes bitumen-trained as they tore along I-5 into Seattle proper. His mouth, however, was reluctant to lie dormant, and he probed Mel on the subject of her sudden return to Seattle. She had been there only weeks before, hoping to uncover more information on the theft at EA than she could gleam from mere news reports. Though she had told Antonio nothing of her purpose at the time, it had been plain enough from her ragged appearance and brusque demeanour—offensive even by Mel's usual standards—that something was amiss.

Mel confessed to Antonio her forced 'vacation' from work and the trip to Vietnam that had sparked her private investigation. Antonio maintained a grim-faced silence through it all, waiting for Mel to finish before voicing his opinion.

"Well, well, you've been quite the busy girl haven't you? Living out that detective dream of yours, I see. Can't say it really surprises me; your father was never one to back down once he'd set his mind on something. Still, isn't this something you should be letting the police deal with?"

"If you had asked me that last week, I would have told you to F off, plain and simple." Mel smirked and Antonio snorted in amusement. "But you're right. It's reckless, no, worse than that, idiotic, to think that we could take down an entire global network of thieves and murderers by ourselves.

"But we're not going to do that. If Charlie's right, very soon we'll have our hands on evidence capable of getting the police off their doughnut-padded asses." Mel's head drifted towards the window and she stared daggers into the distance. "I tell you, I would love to see the look on that bastard's face when he sees that I did his job for him. That'll teach the prick for saying I'm not cut out for detective training!"

Charlie cocked his head in surprise. He waited expectantly for Mel to elaborate, but she seemed lost in thought, a thick and pensive silence descending on the van's interior. With a shrug of his shoulders, Charlie directed his attention out the window, watching curiously as the emerald fields and towering pines gave way to sweeping industrial lots and cloud-piercing edifices.

I can't believe I'm in America. Not just an entirely different country, but an entirely different continent!

He revelled in the unfamiliar sights like a newborn babe: the yellow school buses ripped straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, the American flags rippling in the breeze, the speed limits measured in MPH and ending in numbers other than 0.

After basking in stunned silence for several minutes, Charlie finally turned his thoughts to the situation that had brought him to this weird and wonderful place halfway across the globe.

So, Charlie, how exactly do you plan to get Mike to spill the beans? Sure, Mel's got that whole you-won't-like-me-when-I'm-angry thing going for her, but you have to remember that's just your perception of her. Your mind interprets things quite differently to most people, remember? Maybe physical intimidation won't work on Mike. Hell, he could be a bloody gangbanger for all you know!

Charlie shuddered as a bone-chilling image coalesced behind his eyelids. He and Mel sitting across a table from Mike, a stabbing finger threatening him with exposure, his response a concealed Glock-17 flourished from under his shirt, peppering them with cold metal death, their bodies dancing like poorly-wielded puppets in a high-school production. Then silence, two Swiss cheese corpses propped up in their chairs, murder-scene mannequins advertising the latest in blood-stained outfits. The image faded slowly, dissolving like an undeveloped photograph exposed to light.

Think about it Charlie. If all those crime procedurals and action movies were truly indicative of life in America, do you think anybody would ever step out their front door? Of course not! It's manufactured for entertainment purposes, you know that.

Mollified, at least for the time being, he shifted to more productive thoughts. He began compiling a list of questions to ask Mike, assuming they could get him to co-operate.

First and foremost in Charlie's mind was why Mike's compatriots had attacked mBition. Even though Mel had been hesitant to acknowledge a definite connection, Charlie was confident that it too was part of the conspiracy. Until recently he'd had naught but intuition to back up that assertion, but the increased volume of cryptic Facebook comments prior to the dates of both the EA theft and the mBition attack had convinced him that it was all inextricably linked.

Besides, he quite fancied the idea that he was avenging mBition's legacy, fighting for the only company that had taken a chance on this lowly undergraduate fresh out of uni. On a more personal note, Joel's death had poisoned that naïve portion of his brain that wanted to believe murder only happened to bad people, people who deserved it, and he needed to know what could be so important as to drive someone to kill for it.

Second on his list was the broader issue of why they were pinching so many servers. It seemed likely they were building a server farm, but if so, what kind of data-crunching were they doing that required 50+ high-end servers to sustain? Hell, 50 could be a gross underestimate; there could be dozens of other attacks that Mel had simply not yet discovered. For that matter, what if the servers themselves weren't the target? This group could be after the data stored on them, or perhaps they wanted to screw with the companies, pull a meat-space version of one of Anonymous' denial of service attacks.

Charlie's mind ticked and whirred furiously as more questions and hypotheses blossomed like New Year's Eve fireworks. Entranced by colourful conspiracies, he didn't notice that they had arrived at their destination until the van door was flung open beside him and a brutal gust of ice wind assaulted his unprotected face. He threw his hands up to ward off the tenacious breeze and clambered out onto the street, moving around to the back of the van and away from the flow of traffic to join Antonio and Mel in unpacking their luggage.

After heaving their suitcases onto the sidewalk, Antonio shut the boot with a clang and stood in front of Mel, treating her to a stern, appraising look. Mel cocked her head and shot him a quizzical smile.

"You alright there Antonio?"

Not a single muscle twitched for several long seconds, then he stumbled forward and engulfed her in a tight hug.

"Oh Melinda, you don't know how good it is to see a genuine smile on your face. You and I both know how miserable your father was; I always hated the thought that you would wind up the same."

Mel's eyes flared from the strength of Antonio's hug, but her face soon melted from surprise into forlorn happiness, a sad smile tweaking the corners of her lips. Charlie felt like a voyeur intruding on their personal moment, so he spun on his heels and gave the hotel they had arrived at a thorough survey. The blunt red-pink brick building loomed tall, cast-iron railings encasing the squat balconies that afforded guests view of the street below. The building consumed one entire side of the street, with the intoxicating aroma of freshly ground coffee drifting over from the café tucked in beside the double-door entry. The heavenly scent triggered a pleasant shudder down Charlie's spine, and he took a longing step towards the collection of umbrella-covered outdoor tables before realising that he had only Australian currency on him.

Bugger! Nobody would guess you'd never travelled before, would they Charlie?

He pouted in disappointment and swung back to see Mel and Antonio engrossed in what was evidently an emotionally stirring conversation. Antonio pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and trumpeted his nose loudly while Mel ran her hand over her face and cleared her throat.

Charlie smiled at the pair. Mel's abandonment of her stone-walled, spike-lined attitude really struck home, reminding him of his own behaviour during the zenith of his anxiety. He too had repelled all social contact, dishing out poisonous barbs at all who ventured close. Seeing someone else break free of that terrible, self-perpetuating cycle was both heartening and empowering.

And she said it was because of you, Charlie! She attributed her epiphany to you!

He had no idea what exactly he had done to earn such lofty praise, but he allowed the pride to inflate his spirits regardless.

Antonio twisted away politely when blowing his nose, and in doing so caught sight of Charlie. He replaced his sombre mask with a rambunctious full-faced grin and beckoned Charlie closer.

"Charlie, my young man! You take care of Melinda now, you hear? She's had too much pain in her life already and she doesn't need any more, especially now that she's finally come out of her shell."

Mel smiled wanly, and Antonio spun back and planted a light kiss on her forehead, rising to the tips of his toes to compensate for the height differential. When Charlie drew near enough, Antonio slapped one hand down on his shoulder and pumped the other in a firm handshake. After releasing him from his clutches Antonio took a step back and eyed both Charlie and Mel in turn.

"If you need anything, anything at all, you call me. Hell, forget that, why don't you come stay at my place? I've got a spare bedroom and a couch going wanting, and you won't have to put up with any knobby-nosed busybodies crowding your space."

Charlie watched Mel chew the suggestion over for a few seconds.

"Thanks for the offer Antonio, but I think we'll be okay here."

Antonio's excitement ebbed and he looked a little crestfallen, but he smiled and nodded, touching Mel on the arm affectionately.

"Okay, but promise me that you'll stay safe."

Mel put on a sly smirk and cocked an eyebrow.

"Of course Antonio, you know I can look after myself."

"I know, I know..."

Antonio sighed and meandered around the front of the van, waiting for a break in the traffic before opening his door and sliding into the driver's seat. Mel and Charlie waved goodbye as he revved the engine and launched out from the curb, quickly disappearing amidst the throng of irate, peak-hour motorists.

***

Mel and Charlie trundled through the hotel doors and into the marble-tiled lobby. Mel obtained their room key from the front desk with ruthless efficiency, and they took an elevator up to the third floor and found their room at the far end of the hall.

The room exuded austerity: a black-and-white motif accentuated hard edges and sharp lines, with the occasional curlicue curve thrown in to set the mood askew. The main area included both the lounge—a white couch facing a black, wall-hung LCD—and a small kitchen—fridge, sink, pantry, microwave. The bathroom and bedroom lay beyond heavy black doors, while a floor-to-ceiling window afforded a grand, balcony-less view of the street below.

"Wow!" Charlie whistled loud and appreciatively. "This is really schwick! You know I've never stayed in a hotel before?"

He let go of his suitcase and it rocked slowly backwards on its caster wheels. He stepped into the hotel suite, devouring every intricate detail with bright eyes and a gaping mouth. Mel stood in the doorway and smiled fondly.

When Charlie reached the door to the bedroom he stopped, tilting his head and frowning at the intricately laid out double bed, welcome mints pressed softly into the corners of the pillows.

"Uhh...Mel?"

Mel trotted into the suite, suitcase in tow. She sidled up next to Charlie and joined him in staring at the black and white double bed.

"Oh, dammit! I forgot to ask them for two beds!" She grumbled and spun around, heading towards the wall-phone hanging next to the open hallway door. "I'm so used to making bookings for one. Just give me a sec and I'll see what they can do."

Charlie swivelled and moved to follow Mel, one arm lifting in a placatory gesture.

"No, no! It's fine! I'll just take the couch. No need to bother them."

Mel stopped mid-stride and pivoted on her heels, her eyes pre-empting the question her lips delivered a second later.

"Are you sure? They can probably switch us to another room, if I make enough of a fuss. They usually cave pretty quickly once you start yelling."

Charlie waved his arms frantically.

"No, no, no! I don't want to cause any trouble! I'll be fine on the couch, really!"

Mel eyed him sceptically, but Charlie maintained his conviction. She shrugged indifferently.

"Alright then, but I can take the couch if you want. I've slept on far worse, so it wouldn't bother me."

Charlie baulked at her suggestion, his look one of genuine horror.

"Get off it! As if I could let you sleep on the couch, you're the one who organised all this! Besides, it's just wrong for the guy to take the bed."

Mel opened her mouth to interrupt, but changed her mind. Charlie continued, unperturbed. "And speaking of money, how much do I owe you for the tickets, and the room? All I've got on me is Australian currency, but I can transfer my share online if you give me your bank account details." Charlie took on a slightly skittish look as he shrugged off his laptop bag and unzipped the flap. "It's not going to be more than $5000, is it? That's all I've got in my savings account..."

Charlie chewed his lip anxiously as he booted up his laptop and waited for Mel's response.

"Bah, don't worry about it. You've already earned your keep."

Now it was Charlie's turn to look sceptical, his eyes scanning Mel's face intently for signs of untruth.

"Really?"

"Really."

Charlie let his shoulders slump back, but maintained his iron-eyed scrutiny. Mel met his gaze with a meagre smile.

"Look, when I was here the other week, I probably spoke a grand total of twenty words to Antonio, if that. But back down there"—Mel gestured in the direction of the street outside—"I was finally able to thank him properly for everything he did for Dad, for me. Since the accident he's been more of a parent to me than Dad has, and yet in 20 years I'd not once thanked him for it." Mel stepped forward and placed a cautious hand on Charlie's shoulder, a warm smile elevating the curves of her lips. "And you're the reason I could do that Charlie. You've helped me to see everything I've been missing, all the wasted opportunities. I'm not living a half-life anymore."

An intense burst of pride exploded inside Charlie's chest, working its way up to his face where it sprouted into a bashful grin. Instinctively he changed the subject, embarrassed by Mel's display of heartfelt praise.

"So, uhh, what's the plan now? Should we go scope out that bar to make sure it's all good for the meeting? Also, at some point I will need to go to a currency exchange place, or a bank or whatever, so I can change over some money."

Mel wandered out into the hallway and retrieved Charlie's suitcase, closing the door on her way back in. She left the suitcase leaning against the wall and collapsed into the couch.

"Nope! We're going to rest, because if there's one thing I've learnt from a life consumed by plane travel, it's that jet lag can knock you out for days if you don't treat it with respect. So we're going to take a couple of benzo pills, set an alarm for after lunch, and catch a few hours of sleep.

Charlie deferred to Mel's wisdom and closed his untouched laptop, found a set of spare blankets within the bedroom closet, and erected as comfortable a bed as he could manage on the glaringly white couch. Despite its harsh and blocky appearance, the couch melted under his weight, conforming to his stocky frame with the perfect balance of give and resistance.

Charlie was certain that with all the excitement of jet-setting halfway across the globe to bust open a real-life criminal conspiracy—living out the secret-agent dreams of every kid who had ever seen a James Bond film—he would be awake for hours, his mind abuzz with electric intrigue.

Thirty seconds in the couch's supple embrace proved him utterly wrong.
JUDGE DEAD

An alarm bell claxon tore Charlie from his wispy dreamland with all the tenderness of a blood-lusting T-Rex. By the time his brain had whirred into gear, he found himself up and swaying precariously, knees bent and arms raised in a reflexive fighting stance. His head honed in on the offending sound. He lowered his guard when he realised it was just the phone buzzing on the kitchen bench, and a blood-rush to the head knocked him back down into the comforting embrace of his makeshift bed.

His vision stopped swimming just as Mel stumbled out of the bedroom, her tangled hair a good approximation of the current state of Charlie's mind.

"Rrrgh?" Charlie grunted, his lips glued together with the residue of sleep.

Mel hobbled over to the bench and slapped at her phone until it stopped its incessant squawking.

"Mmmnnhm." Mel massaged her temples with one hand and rummaged around in one of the kitchen cupboards with the other. She pulled out an electric kettle and filled it up with water before setting it to boil. Charlie carefully extracted himself from the den of smothering sheets and trundled over to the kitchen to join her.

100mg of gloriously strong caffeine later, Charlie had successfully evolved from brain-dead zombie into something a little closer to functioning human-being, and he wrestled his mouth into a simulacrum of coherent speech, albeit delivered in a slow, ponderous drawl.

"So, what's the plan?"

Mel had resurfaced fully-formed after her shot of straight-black elixir, and she washed the mugs out in the sink with seemingly unwarranted enthusiasm. Her eyes were bright and alert, and she had wrangled her birds-nest hair back into a neat ponytail.

"Well, first up is checking in with the owner of Jus' Fer' Kicks, I think his name was Seth, or Seb, I don't remember. Then we're going to need to get you a suit. I know you didn't pack one, but if we're planning on intimidating this guy into spilling his guts, we can't be wearing slacks and tees. And finally, I have a house call I want to make. It won't take long, but it's something I should have done a long time ago."

Mel stopped mid-scrub and stared fog-eyed at the soap bubbles in the sink. Charlie nodded slowly, like a see-saw rocking back and forth in the breeze, and slid off his stool with the intention of walking back to his suitcase and retrieving a pair of fresh, unsullied clothes. His plans were foiled, however, when his head elected to perform a cartwheel and his legs jellied up underneath him, forcing him back into the stool with an awkward, painful thump.

"Are you okay?"

Mel materialised at his side, bending down to look up into his hand-cradled face. Charlie tried to shake it off, but that only exacerbated the fury with which the tiny gremlins hammered at the inside of his skull.

"Urrgggh. Jusss give me a sec."

His second attempt at standing proved even worse than the first, and would have ended in an intimate face-to-floor confrontation—Charlie the undisputed loser of the bout—if Mel hadn't been there to catch him. With effortless ease she manoeuvred him back to the couch, carefully helping him to lie down with his head propped up against a plump cushion. Charlie massaged his forehead roughly, his face fractured with creases of pain.

"I guess I kind of forgot how hard the jet-lag hits you when you haven't flown before. I've built up something of an immunity to it now, provided I get that nap in. But it looks like you're out of action, at least for today."

Charlie dropped his hand from his face and saw Mel's pressed-lip sympathy. He gritted his teeth in a macabre smile, and tried to lever himself back off the couch.

"I'll be fine, just need another—"

Mel shoved him firmly backwards into the marshmallow couch, her hand lingering on his shoulder.

"Uh uh! You're staying right there. You need to be ready to fire on all cylinders during the meeting tomorrow. And don't give me any of that macho shit either, because if you try and truck through it now, you'll just be a write-off come tomorrow morning. And I can't deal with that guy by myself; all that computer stuff is your department."

Charlie wanted to object, wanted to say he was feeling better now that he had rested for a moment, but Mel's stern gaze convinced him otherwise. He collapsed back, and Mel removed her hand from his shoulder.

"Good. Now don't take any more benzo while I'm gone, that'll just screw your sleep-cycle completely. Just rest for now, and you can take some tonight if you need it."

"You're going without me?"

Charlie hadn't intended to sound so feeble and needy, and regretted it the second he opened his mouth. Mel frowned and raised a hand to her chin, rubbing it ponderingly.

"Well, I guess I can stay here if you need me to. I just wanted to get that stuff out of the way so we didn't have to worry about it before the meeting tomorrow."

"No, no, I-I'll be fine. Go! I was just...d-don't worry." Charlie worked his face into a weak smile. "But before you go, can you grab my laptop, please? I'll start typing up a list of questions we can ask Mike."

Mel jogged over to the door and retrieved the laptop bag from atop Charlie's suitcase. She handed over the bag then fished through her pockets, pulling out a small beige card and passing that to Charlie as well.

"This is for the hotel wifi. I normally just go to a coffee shop, but I thought you might want something a little more convenient."

"Thanks!"

Charlie accepted the card with a pained smile before another wave of red-hot magma enveloped his skull. He closed his eyes and grimaced until the angry throbbing receded. Mel rummaged through her suitcase and returned with a glass of water and some aspirin.

After deeming his condition stable, she retreated to the bathroom with a fresh change of clothes, returning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, all trace evidence of sleep scrubbed clean. She disappeared into the bedroom for a few minutes, ambling back out with the duffle bag slung over her shoulder and her pockets bulging.

"Okay, I've got my phone and you've got my number, so if you need anything, just give me a call, I guess." Mel drummed her hands against her hips. "Uhh. See you soon?"

Charlie wrestled his laptop out of its bag, avoiding eye contact after how frail and dependant his earlier question had made him sound.

"Sure! Uhh...take care out there. I don't think Antonio would be too happy with me if something happened to you!"

Charlie intended it as a joke, but Mel seemed to ruminate on it gravely before responding.

"Yeah...of course." She turned and strode to the door, taking her time opening it and stepping into the hallway. Just before closing the door she spun back and flashed Charlie a queer smile, her lips quivering almost imperceptibly and her eyes betraying just a hint of moisture. Charlie cocked his head in puzzlement as the thick door thudded shut.

That was weird.

Avoiding the temptation to shake his tender head, Charlie shrugged and returned his attention to the laptop. Within seconds his pounding headache had been forgotten, his sleep-weak body no impediment in the digital 'verse. He snatched at the questions buzzing around his honeycombed mind, typing them into a fresh Word document so he could scrutinise them in physical form. He poked and prodded at the tangible facts he had in his possession, trying to scrape together something he could use to convince Mike that they knew more than they actually did.

Okay Charlie, what do we know for sure? Well, he's got the EA data; he lives somewhere close to the Seattle office; and he's been exchanging coded communications with a perpetually shifting group of people via Facebook comments. We really need something more solid that links him to the theft...

While his mind ticked away, well-worn habit took over and he subconsciously flipped through his news feeds and emails. He absorbed only a fraction of the content he scrolled through, skimming over screenshots and announcements with waxed and glazed eyes. When he reached his inbox, only a single email even warranted more than a cursory glance.

hi charlie <mike.the.star.69@hotmail.com>

Sent: Thu 1:32 AM PDT

To: charlie@skilliontrix.com.au

Charlie! Syked to see you tomorrow! Thought you might want to see another level I did a little wile ago. I made a video for you. The links down below. Take a look!!

Charlie winced in intellectual discomfort, each spelling mistake or grammatical error leaving a foul taste in his mouth.

Honestly, how do these people make it through school? Did they sleep through their English classes or something?

The email contained a SendSpace link to a video file, and Charlie set it to download in the background while he continued his search for hard proof connecting Mike to the EA theft. The download finished in mere minutes, but Charlie continued to struggle through half an hour of searching before finally relenting and taking a break.

He unpacked the downloaded zip-file and opened the video. The play-through had been captured from the first-person perspective. The trademark gravity gun bobbed in the lower corner of the screen as the character alternated between slow-walk and full-sprint. Similar to the guided tour from the previous day, the session began on a short stretch of road, a singular office building dominating the landscape. Recognising the clear parallel, Charlie shrunk the video window down to half-screen and set it to Always on Top, then opened Google in the background and hovered his fingers over the keyboard.

The video ran for three minutes, most of which was spent roaming around an upper-level, open-plan office. The view weaved among a maze of small grey cubicles, their inner surfaces painted with blurry photos of real-life desktops. A few of the less fuzzy cubicles revealed pancake-flattened computer hardware, novelty stationery, and other typical office clutter.

Though privy to an ample supply of google-able material, Charlie's nimble fingers remained stalwartly poised above the laptop keyboard, trembling fractionally as they hung impotent. The frozen tableau was mirrored on Charlie's face, where his jaw had hung slack since the video had first panned through the building's ground-floor lobby. It wasn't until the camera swung across an impossibly familiar sight that he managed to regain agency and snap out of his dumbstruck stupor. He dropped his fingers to the keys and hit the pause button, then expanded the video to full-screen and leaned forward intently.

The blurry freeze-frame depicted a crowded desktop, the surface littered with smudged objects corrupted by motion-blur and pixilation. Yet despite the visual noise bleeding into the picture, Charlie knew exactly what each object was. A Yoda-head USB stick, a mess of contorted power adapters, a sleek black phone, a Dilbert day-calendar, a plush toy of Yoshi. It didn't matter how distorted the on-screen image was, Charlie's mental picture was razor sharp. It had been burnt into his retina over thousands of hours of mindless documenting and tedious use-case testing. The building was mBition's office. The desk was his desk.

***

After restarting his heart with a thump to the chest, Charlie wound the video back to the beginning and stepped through it slowly, each frame adding coffin-nail confirmation of Mike's involvement in the mBition attack, in Joel's murder.

No way in hell is this a coincidence. A photo-dressed replica of an office that just happens to play host to a murder-flavoured smash-and-grab? Mike's clearly neck-deep in the whole sordid affair; EA, mBition, and God knows how many others.

Charlie's eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth as his former workplace flew by on screen. He had envisioned Mike as a patsy, a mindless pawn who, though undoubtedly involved in the EA theft to some extent, was more likely to be a bumbling scape-goat accomplice than a ruthless criminal contributor.

Now, however, any pity that Charlie had felt after reading his naïve, uneducated ramblings had been utterly annihilated. Mike had been elevated to the level of personal enemy, a face that Charlie now attributed with the chaotic disruption of his life.

Looping through the video again and again, Charlie wondered how exactly Mike had acquired the photographs he'd used in the building interior.

Sure, snapping a picture of the building from outside would have been a breeze, and even the lobby and elevator are easily accessible to Joe Public, but how the heck did he get those shots inside the office, the close-up of my desk?

Charlie shivered violently, frosted tendrils wrapping themselves around his spine. Mike—or more likely one of his cohorts—had managed to sneak a picture of his private workstation. The realisation left Charlie feeling at once unclean and incredibly exposed. A wave of paranoia crashed over him and he instinctively glanced over his shoulder, certain that someone was lurking in the shadows, watching him with beady eyes and salivating lips.

Deep chest-straining breaths helped banish the ridiculous notion to the hinterlands of his mind, and he turned his focus to parsing actions from the newfound information. He almost gave into temptation and replied to Mike's email with a tirade of rampant abuse, threatening to expose his criminal involvement to the media and the police. But that would accomplish nothing, less than nothing, giving Mike a reason to flee and a chance to alert his fellow conspirators.

I know you want to shove it in his face, Charlie, but just wait until tomorrow. You'll be able to see his reaction in all its flabbergasted glory then.

Taking a more rational approach, Charlie decided to give Mel a call and inform her of his discovery. He plucked his phone out of his pocket and flipped through his address book, finding Mel and hitting the call button. Halfway through the second ring he changed his mind, slamming disconnect and dropping the phone into his lap.

Wait a minute Charlie, remember what Mel said? She was going to 'do something she should have done a long time ago'. Maybe it's not the best idea to interrupt that... Besides, she'll probably be back soon, and you can just tell her then. It's not like you can do anything about it until the meeting tomorrow anyway.

Feeling deflated, Charlie spent a few distracted minutes adding new questions to his Word document, then shut down the laptop and set it aside, an unsettling moment of disorientation knocking him askew as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the hotel room. A yawn crept up his chest and into his throat, seizing control of his mouth and demanding a rolling stretch of his shoulders. The yawn brought with it an overwhelming explosion of fatigue, resurrecting the throbbing headache and stiff neck that Charlie had been neglecting for the last hour. He fought against it as valiantly as he could, hoping to stave it off until Mel returned, but the sleep-succubus was a sly devil, hiding in his cloud of buzzing thoughts and striking when he was most distracted.

Within ten minutes Charlie was murmuring incoherently from the depths of his dreams, revenge-fuelled fantasies conjuring a world where he leaped from the shadows as Batman to deliver justice to an army of Mike-faced goons.

***

When Mel arrived back at the hotel, she found Charlie utterly dead-to-the-world, his body sprawled over the couch in a comically inelegant configuration: one leg propped up on the armrest, his arms hugging the couch like a long-lost friend, his mouth ajar with a thin globule of saliva dangling from his lower lip. The bed sheets were in a crumpled heap on the floor, Charlie's closed laptop peeking out from beneath plush white hillocks. As uncomfortable as it appeared, Mel opted to leave him in the innocuous clutches of dreamtime, knowing from experience that uninterrupted sleep paid out in spades the day after.

She crept on mouse-feet across the floorboards to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her with a gentle click. She smiled and carefully laid a plastic-wrapped suit across the base of the bed. Though it would have been far easier if Charlie had been present for a fitting, buying him a suit had been an unexpectedly thrilling experience. The unadulterated pride in considering someone else's needs instead of her own, the subtle intimation from the clerk that it was destined for her partner, the anticipation of how Charlie would react when he saw it...

The rest of her excursion had proved just as fruitful, with all the pieces in place for tomorrow's potentially case-breaking interrogation. The owner of Jus' Fer' Kicks had not remembered her personally, but it had taken only a casual mention of ProSect and a flash of her security ID to convince him to hear her out.

Mel bent and polished the truth to present it more agreeably, claiming that she and Charlie were working as private investigators on a top-secret case, and could not involve the police for fear of prematurely tipping off their target. She emphasised that they were operating well within legal boundaries, and that there was no chance his establishment could be held responsible for any of their actions, not that she expected their target to offer up any sort of resistance. She even hinted that success here might warrant a commendation to the establishment for services rendered, a rare privilege and a chance for some money-can't-buy publicity.

To facilitate their need for privacy, the owner set aside a corner booth as well as its two neighbours. He also promised to inform his internal security to 'look the other way' should things escalate, though he stressed that if push came to shove they would be immediately expelled from the building. Mel accepted the terms and left the bar with a heady sense of accomplishment, a coy grin cracking her stone-serious façade as she trotted out the door.

Back in the bedroom, Mel pulled her phone out and checked the time: 18:13.

"Hmmm..." Her soft mumbling was amplified by the shoebox room, unnaturally loud against the insect-like buzz of traffic seeping in from the street below. With no intention of disturbing Charlie's ungainly repose, Mel settled in for the night. She wanted to be at the top of her game tomorrow afternoon.

She tapped at her phone and set an alarm for 7:00 AM. She burrowed through her suitcase for her pyjamas: a faded Dodgers t-shirt and a pair of thick, cotton sweatpants. After shedding the discomfort of her day-weathered outfit for the immediate relief of the pyjamas, she downed a single sleeping pill sans water—she didn't want to risk waking Charlie—and drew the heavy curtains shut before clambering into bed. The pill took twenty minutes to sound the sleep-gong, just enough time for her to ruminate on the last of her day's accomplishments.

After leaving Jus' Fer' Kicks, she had hailed a taxi—no need to bother Antonio for this meagre trip—and ridden it to the nearest church. Mel had no religious inclinations to speak of, tending more towards agnosticism than total theological rejection. She readily acknowledged the possibility of a higher plane of existence, but said acceptance held no vote in the court of her mind. Her father, however, had been a fierce atheist, decrying the foolishness of believing some omnipotent entity existed that could observe and puppeteer the lives of autonomous human-beings. Prior to the accident, his beliefs only manifested outwardly as pity for his fellow man, a sporadically-voiced superiority complex that never once escalated into outright anger. With the theft of both his legs and the subsequent humiliation of being bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, his tolerance swiftly decomposed. He regarded the accident as irrefutable proof of the absence of any god, a stance that sparked more than a few smashed-glass arguments when Mel brought home church-going school friends.

But the genesis of his iron-fisted disbelief occurred many years earlier with the loss of his wife. Mel had been only three years old when her mother had passed away, too young to fully appreciate the permanence of the situation, yet too old for it to be whitewashed over by the spin-cycle of an infant mind. Mel's mother had been a devout Christian, attending church every Sunday without fail, a rosary made from amber fragments swaying from her pale neck. Her husband had remained open-minded in light of his wife's ardent faith, but once the wretched claw of breast-cancer had ensnared her with its pestilent grip, he lost his guiding flame and slipped into the black, cynical shadows of devoted anti-faith. What god could be so cruel as to strip an innocent and beloved Christian of her life so prematurely?

For the young and utterly bewildered Mel, the topic of her mother fast became taboo. Photos and clothes were discarded or hidden behind lock and key, a systematic exorcism of the shadow ghosts and phantom echoes that whispered of her father's too-brief love. As years passed and the inexorable waves of time crashed against her memories, they became cracked, faded, indistinct. Eventually they seemed so distant as to be part of another life, another girl's memories, another girl's pain. She convinced herself that she had never known a mother, patching over the hole in her heart by compensating two-fold with her one remaining parent, adopting her father's mannerisms and attitude with the tenacity only a child can muster. It drew the pair close and helped them move past their tragic loss, but in doing so paved the way for the mutual social withdrawal that followed her father's accident.

It had been an egregiously long time since her thoughts had ventured into the forbidden grove of her maternal progenitor. But with the recent unravelling of her irrationally insular doctrine, Mel had braved the gloom of her mental graveyard and resurrected the entombed memories, restoring her mother's tragically short existence in all its depressing glory.

Guilt swiftly overshadowed her misery, the decades of wilful ignorance of the woman who gave her life weighing heavily on her conscience. A simple apology was poor reparation for so many years of neglect, but it was all Mel had to offer, and she needed to do something to ease the burden of being a self-confessed mental murderer.

Her mother had been buried back in Macon, in a demure plot that both she and her father had stubbornly avoided ever since the funeral. At some stage soon she would need to visit and seek forgiveness in the flesh, but for now at least she could honour her mother's beliefs by attending the institution she had held so dear.

Oddly enough, Mel had actually spent a considerable amount of time on church grounds during her adult life. Not recreationally, but in a strictly professional capacity, serving as security for the weddings of quasi-famous celebrities and the communion ceremonies for spoiled-rich heiresses. But not once had she taken the chance to offer up even a half-hearted hallelujah, not once had she lent her voice to the choir of the faithful masses. Well, it was time to change that.

Mel needed to let her mother know just how much she regretted her pig-headed ignorance, how painful it was not to remember the warmth of her breast, the glow of her face, the melody of her voice. She didn't even have a photograph to refresh her fragile memories; her father had locked the only family album in the basement with the rest of his irretrievable dreams: his bike, his workbench, his tools, his football gear.

A suitable destination presented itself in All Pilgrims Christian Church, a quaint brown-bricked building with white awnings and vivid blue doors. She spent a few minutes loitering on the opposite side of the street, sidestepping a flock of spandex-clad gym junkies as they hustled to the nearby Starbucks for some post-workout refreshment. After watching a young dark-skinned woman trot down the church's front path and enter with no apparent need for ceremony, Mel jogged across the pedestrian crossing and cautiously followed her inside.

A sense of sacrilege enveloped her.

Her footsteps echoed brazenly off the polished floorboards, corrupting the sacrosanct atmosphere. Silent accusations of sin and moral transgression descended like ravens from the rafters high above. She paused after just a few steps and took a deep breath, waiting for the feeling to pass. Her gaze flittered over the sparsely populated pews and their pious denizens, each completely oblivious to her presence.

When the sense of wrongdoing had faded to a meek whimper, she tiptoed to the closest pew and assumed the same kneeling posture employed by the rest of the mute worshippers. With no knowledge of the rules or procedure that governed the act of prayer she simply knelt in silence, feeling more like a fish in the desert with each second that crawled by. The air exuded reverence, every cough or cleared throat echoing boisterously off the stout walls and arched roof.

After a minute of aimless mental perambulation, Mel realised that she needed to start somewhere, so she directed her tentative thoughts skyward in the hopes of reaching her mother.

Okay, let's see, how should I start this? Hi Mom. Umm...it's been a really long time, hasn't it? Oh god Melinda, that was awful. Oh no, now you've sworn in the middle of a prayer!

She let out an exasperated sigh, clamping her mouth shut as it rang unintentionally loud in the hall's muffled silence.

This is a lot harder than it should be. Okay, let's try again. Mom. I'm...uhh...really sorry it's taken this long for me to do this. I haven't exactly been the best daughter, have I? I wish I could go back and tell myself not to listen to Dad so religiously, but I can't. But I can't blame him for everything either, because he had no control over my thoughts; that was all me. Oh god, I'm so sorry Mom. There I go again, taking the Lord's name in vain. I really hope you can forgive me. I promise I'm never going to let something like this happen again. As soon as everything with Charlie is done, I'm going to go back to Macon and visit you properly, and then I'm going to open Dad's storage locker and find every photo of you he had. I'm so, so sorry!

Salty tears formed unbidden behind her eyelids. She wiped them away with the heels of her hands and cradled her head, waiting for her body to fall back into line after this rare lapse in composure. As the tears receded so too did her unchained emotions, withdrawing to the cobwebbed burrows from whence they came. Her sentimental quota well-exceeded, she rose from her genuflection and strode swiftly out the doors and onto the street, welcoming with open arms the rushing wind, the purring engines, and the idle sidewalk banter after the stifling reverence of the hush-shrouded church.

***

Charlie slipped free of the cloying bonds of sleep with smog in his eyes and fuzz in his skull. He sat up and cleared his face of sleep-grit, rolling his shoulders and discovering that the crick in his neck had mercifully vanished.

Scanning the room offered little in the way of clues as to the current time, so with a stifled yawn he fished his phone out of his pocket and thumbed the unlock button. 6:34.

Dang! Must have slept through Mel coming back. Oh man, I can't wait to show her what I found!

Charlie slid his legs off the couch, nearly tripping on the mess of blankets entwined around his feet. He kicked them off and tottered sideways, his arms flailing wildly until they found the armrest of the couch and clung tight. The room transformed into a twisted M.C. Escher painting, the walls and floor trading places with careless disregard for the laws of physics. Charlie closed his eyes tight and waited for the tumbling Ferris-wheel to cease its nauseating gyrations.

Once he no longer felt like one of the coloured pebbles inside a rotating kaleidoscope, Charlie stumbled into the kitchen and applied a judicious splash of cold water to his dry face, chasing it up with a gargled glass to try and purge the foul sleep-breath from his mouth. When that endeavour proved unsuccessful, Charlie fetched his toothbrush and an armful of fresh clothes from his suitcase and ambled into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later he stepped out feeling crisp and rejuvenated, his mind and body back in sync and ready to tackle whatever the day had in store.

As he dumped his dirty clothes into one of his suitcase's side pockets, the shrieking siren of Mel's phone erupted from the bedroom, trumpeting its insistent tune for five short seconds before being cut off mid-ditty. A parade of thudding footsteps, buzzing zippers, and a single muffled curse filtered through the gap beneath the bedroom door, climaxing with the door itself swinging open and Mel striding out. She looked unnaturally composed for someone who had just been woken up by the cries of ten-thousand tortured banshees.

Standing in the doorway with pursed lips and her hands on her hips, she took a moment to survey the scene. She nodded at Charlie when her eyes graced his, then spun on her heels and disappeared back into the unlit bedroom. She returned armed with a bundle of clothes and a cosmetics bag, and strode purposefully into the bathroom.

While Mel saw to her morning ministrations, Charlie folded his blankets into a neat pile on the couch and booted up his laptop. He opened the walkthrough video then set the laptop down on the coffee table.

Charlie wore a smile of confliction as he awaited Mel's return, anticipation for her excitement and approval tempered by the knowledge that in a few short hours he would be staring into the eyes of a real-life criminal, complicit in both theft and murder.

Soaped-up and sharply dressed, Mel bustled straight from bathroom to bedroom, depositing her laundry and returning with a plastic-wrapped suit held out in front of her.

"Ta-da!" Mel removed the layer of transparent film and flourished the suit enthusiastically.

Charlie tilted his head and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"It's for you! You need to look the part if we want this guy to crack." Mel stepped over and handed the suit to Charlie. "I had to take a stab at your measurements, so I hope it fits alright. Your height wasn't too hard to guess, but the rest..."

Charlie patted his belly-bulge self-consciously before accepting the garment from Mel. He stroked his fingers lovingly across the dark-grey jacket, admiring the soft cut of the fabric and its subtle pinstripe pattern.

"Wow! This must have cost you a fortune! Uh, Mel...I really can't afford this..." He tried to hand the suit back, holding it with the care usually afforded museum pieces or unexploded bombs. Mel stepped back and glared at him, the smirk on her face stripping her eyes of any hostility.

"Don't be ridiculous! If there's one thing I don't need to worry about, it's money. Private security pays quite well I'll have you know, and when you've got nothing much to spend that money on... Well, before you know it you find yourself in possession of a pretty sizable nest-egg. So just forget about it, okay?" Mel flashed him a warm smile and waved away his refusal.

"Wow Mel, thank you so much!" Charlie's eyes tracked up and down the suit in astonishment. The only suit he had ever owned had been a hand-me-down from his father, and he had worn it exactly once, on the day of his high school graduation. Even the presentation ceremony for his university degree had not called for the full suit-and-tie formality, providing instead plush magenta robes with the traditional mortarboard hats. As for his employment, the dress code at mBition aped the flexibility of the industry it operated within. In fact, Charlie's typical button-up shirt and black pants combo often made him the dressiest employee there, and that included Greg, his boss.

Charlie carefully draped the suit over the end of the couch before turning back to Mel.

"Well, I might not be able to repay you in cash, but I do have something to offer in return..."

Charlie leant forward and spun the laptop around on the coffee table so that both he and Mel could see. He flicked the spacebar with the tip of his finger and the video began.

"Mike sent this last night. It's another one of his trippy photo-infused levels, and it just so happens that I recognise the place it's supposed to be." Charlie looked away from the screen and into Mel's eyes, his mouth curling upwards in anticipation. "It's my old office. It's mBition."

***

It took Mel several seconds to fully digest Charlie's remark, thrusting her eyebrows skyward when the implication became clear.

"You mean there is a connection between mBition and the other attacks? Hmm...that's interesting..." Mel's eyes lost focus and she absent-mindedly scratched her chin.

"Yep. Now we have something really concrete to shove in Mike's face when we see him. He's going to crap himself!" Charlie slipped into a full-toothed grin, a predatory hunger lurking behind his eyes.

Mel pressed her lips into a thin line and let her eyebrows fall back to their natural positions.

"I'm not so sure about that, Charlie. Don't get me wrong, this is great, really, but it's not exactly damning evidence, is it? I mean, he's not stupid enough to shoot someone in the video, is he?"

Charlie's grin melted into slag and he slowly shook his head.

"Well, n-no, b-but the recording made it clear that the shooting wasn't supposed to happen..." He trailed off, crestfallen, all hope for a response of rapturous approval shattered into knife-edge fragments that cut furrows in his pride.

A crack cascaded down Mel's stony facade, and she mumbled contemplatively.

"Okay, let's say Mike was involved in the attack. That still doesn't explain why he would make this videogame thing. That's almost like recording a damn confession!"

Charlie lifted his head, a tentative smile tiptoeing across his face.

"I've been thinking about that. I doubt this was made after the attack; that just wouldn't make sense. The picture of my desk does place it in the last two months though, and I think that's the key here. He's a real stickler for using photographs in his textures, which is pretty odd considering how much clearer it would be to use HD textures instead. So what advantage is there to using photos? Well, for one, if you're aiming for accuracy a photo is always going to be better than trying to recreate it by hand. And two, it's way faster to just slap a bunch of photos together than it is to draw or paint, so he's probably able to churn these levels out pretty quickly, quicker than if he were to do it all manually anyway."

Charlie paused to catch his breath, watching Mel's forehead crease as she processed his explanation. He gathered himself and continued.

"So why would he be more interested in speed and accuracy instead of making his levels look pretty? It wouldn't make much sense if his primary goal was entertainment, but if he was building a virtual training course..."

Seconds ticked by, and Charlie's eagerness faltered as he steeled himself for rejection.

"Wait, you're saying that they used this to practise the attack before carrying it out?"

Charlie nodded, his smile tight and grim.

"Makes sense, doesn't it? All those reports remarked on how professional the thefts were. They always made a beeline for the server room and left everything else untouched. Heck, you saw that video of the EA theft; they were inside for less than fifteen minutes! Short of having years of Special Forces training, the only way they could achieve that kind of efficiency is through practising it over and over and over. And something tells me a professional military outfit would be kind of reluctant to let someone as dim-witted as Mike into its ranks, don't you think?"

Charlie awaited Mel's reaction with renewed excitement, his restraint forgotten in the wake of his own self-convincing argument.

Mel nodded slowly.

"That...actually makes a lot of sense. I know at least some of these guys aren't ex-military. The prick that hit me over the head sounded far too young and immature to have endured a term of service. And you're right about the video, there's no way they could have pulled that off so quickly without having drilled it again and again. I guess I've just been thinking purely in physical terms. Building a mock environment for each theft would have required an enormous investment of time and material, not to mention unmonitored access to vacant warehouses the world over. I dismissed that as unfeasible pretty early on. But I never thought about doing it on a computer..."

Mel rubbed her jaw and stared at the wall. Charlie felt the sense of satisfaction he had anticipated earlier rise up and wash over him, his mouth crafting a proud smile as he relaxed back into the couch's embrace.

A minute of quiet contemplation passed before Mel returned with a resounding clap of her hands.

"Right, you've convinced me. It seems our boy Mike is playing the cartographer for their little expedition, which is why they've been so damn good at getting in and out without setting off alarms or leaving traceable evidence." The glow of light-bulb inspiration slowly bled across her face, her lips parting and rising into tepid curves. "Actually...if we can get him to admit that on record, we might be able to shut down their whole operation! This could really work!"

Charlie chose to ignore the shocked undertones in Mel's voice.

Riding high on the waves of giddiness generated by this new revelation, the pair coasted through the questions that Charlie had prepared, delivering leading statements and subtle insinuations to their invisible foe with gusto, fervent electricity charging the air while they manufactured scenario after scenario of naked and veiled coercion.

When hoarse throats finally called a halt to their fun, they discovered that over three hours had flown by, leaving a mere ninety minutes until their scheduled meeting with Mike.

"Dammit, we've got to get ready!" Mel rubbed her hands over her face then jogged to the phone hanging on the wall. "Are you hungry? If I don't get something into me I'll probably end up chewing the kid's head off."

Charlie nodded eagerly. The mock interrogation had picked his stomach clean, and he craved something hearty to satisfy his groaning pit. Mel obliged, dialling in a delivery order for two large meat-laden monstrosities from a local pizza place. Fifteen minutes and ten slices later, both Charlie and Mel were happily stuffed, tottering slightly thanks to their overzealous appetites as they readied themselves to leave the hotel.

"Okay Charlie, you go throw on that suit of yours while I clean up."

"No worries! Oh, don't forget to grab those question sheets too!"

Charlie washed his hands thoroughly before reverentially picking up the suit and taking it into the bathroom, leaving Mel to finish disposing of the remains of their meal and collect the printouts that they had compiled earlier.

Courtesy of Mel's portable multi-function printer (that she had no clue how to use), Charlie had made hard-copies of all their incriminating evidence against Mike. The sheets were to serve as a prompt should the need arise during the faux interview. If Mike happened to enquire as to their purpose, they were going to sell them as employment forms for him to sign after the meeting had concluded.

Mel greeted Charlie's return from the bathroom with a firm smile and a nod of approval.

"Much better. A suit can command you a lot of respect, if you wear it right. Just let me fix that..."

She strode over to Charlie and made a few adjustments, buttoning his undershirt to the collar and taking the unbound tie from his limp hands.

"Yeah...sorry...I don't know how to tie a tie..." Charlie hung his head in shame. Mel rolled her eyes and gently lifted his chin back up.

"Well then, it's time you learned, isn't it?"

She flashed him a reassuring smile and swung the tie around his neck, looping it around, under, and over before pulling it tight and stepping back to admire her handiwork. Charlie looked up at her, a quizzical expression arming his face.

"You do realise I had zero chance of following what you just did, right?"

Mel shrugged. "Eh, I'll teach you another time. C'mon, we've got to go."

After checking off their inventory one last time, Mel led Charlie out into the hall and locked the door behind them. They strolled towards the lifts, and a prickly question crept up the back of Charlie's neck.

"Uhh, Mel? We're not walking to this place, are we?"

Though he could probably use the exercise, Charlie already felt rather uncomfortable in the heavy suit, and he had no desire to find out just how badly it would chafe under the strain of extended perambulation.

Mel smirked and shook her head.

"No, no, it's much too far for that. We'll catch a cab." They stepped into the lift and Mel slapped the button for ground floor.

"Why not call Antonio?"

"There's no need to bother him."

Mel's tone adopted a stamp of finality, and Charlie could see clearly the shadows of words unspoken. But he knew better than most when not to prod and pry, and he veered the conversation in another direction.

"Guess what? I've never ridden in a taxi before. Never!" He chuckled as Mel's distant gaze retreated and her head cocked in surprise. "Man, you must think I'm the biggest hermit ever. I swear though, I do go outside...sometimes..." He grinned sheepishly, hanging his head in mock embarrassment as the lift doors clattered open. Mel rolled her eyes and strode out of the elevator towards the entrance doors, her shiny black dress shoes clacking across the marble tiles. Charlie jogged to catch up, his own shoes noticeably duller as they slapped a thumping bass line to Mel's treble lead.

CABARET CONFIDENTIAL

A damp wind whipped down the gloomy street and stung Charlie's bare cheek. The midday sky wore a thick grey overcoat, stripping the world below of its vibrancy so all appeared bleak and forlorn. The air hinted at rain, sporadic flecks of moisture tickling naked skin just often enough to raise alarm.

Charlie brushed an errant drop of water from his cheek and followed Mel to the curb. She waved her hands emphatically and a canary-yellow cab veered out of traffic, shuddering to a halt with one wheel halfway onto the sidewalk. For Charlie it was a surreal experience; the first real postcard moment, a powerful reminder that he was ten-thousand miles from home, the protective walls of his apartment far beyond his reach, no bastion from the chaos, no fortress from the unknown.

"C'mon Charlie, get in!"

Mel beckoned to him from the front seat of the cab. He shucked off the brief moment of hesitation and clambered into the back.

Mel fed the driver their destination and he wrenched the car back into the flow of traffic, launching into a boisterously confident tirade on why all the world's problems stemmed from the fallibility of modern technology. Charlie listened in dismay to his baseless and contradictory arguments, almost chiming in with advice when he began complaining about his iPhone's poor battery life when playing Angry Birds, but Mel silenced him with a shake of her head.

When the cab finally jerked to a stop in one of the empty bays outside Jus' Fer' Kicks, Charlie practically torpedoed out the door in his haste to escape the ire-raising fallacies issuing from the driver's mouth. Mel paid the fare and swiftly joined Charlie on the sidewalk.

Charlie craned his neck to admire the extravagantly garish awning that swept across the building's facade. Thick block letters spelled out the name of the establishment in a curve from wall to wall, with an impressively large sign cut and painted to resemble a redhead in a black corset resting above. The woman was depicted lying on her back, her legs slightly bent and thrust into the air. Unlit light-bulbs traced her angles and curves.

"Not too shabby, is it? Just wait till you see inside."

Mel patted Charlie on the back and strode towards the heavy wooden doors. They passed through the velvet-clad lobby, the entrance to the bar proper framed by twin spiral staircases blocked for public access until the evening show. Mel led them onward to the main theatre, the scarlet mood lighting toned down during the daylight hours. The music hummed in dulcet tones, the stage unlit and unoccupied sans an A-frame wooden sign announcing the first show at 5:00PM.

Charlie slid his hand into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out his phone. He had put it into that pocket intentionally, being of the opinion that inner pockets offered the advantage of mystery and suspense over visible outside ones. They were like hidden compartments, their treasures secret to all but the wearer.

He tapped the unlock button and checked the time.

12:40. Twenty minutes left. I wonder if he's here already. Nah...I don't think he's the punctual type.

Mel swerved right of the stage and arrowed to the bar. Charlie trotted along behind her, his eyes drawn to the veritable smorgasbord of exotic liqueurs and gaily coloured spirits that gleamed from behind glass-pane shelves. About half the stools were occupied: mostly small groups of retirees or tourists advertising their origins with overstuffed bags and sleek camera pouches.

Mel slid between empty stools and leaned casually across the bar-top, waiting for the bartender to finish her ministrations with a group of chatty European backpackers. Charlie amused himself by scanning the booths that lined the walls opposite the stage. Most were vacant, though the ones tucked into the corner on the far side of the stage were too shrouded in shadow to know for sure.

"What are you having?"

A chirpy, high-pitched tone quite unlike Mel's punchy, six-string chords brought Charlie whirling back around to face the bar. The thin brunette bartender smiled with large round eyes and blood-red lips, her outfit eschewing a corset but otherwise in keeping with the cabaret theme.

"We've got a reservation for Melinda, should be a booth somewhere..."

The girl's smile tempered slightly and her brow crinkled in thought. She turned away and strode back up the bar, rummaging in something out of sight and returning with a crumpled sheet of paper in her hand.

"Melinda. Right. We've got you in the corner, booth twenty-three."

She gestured to the far corner booth, it and its brethren projecting sinister vibes from their impenetrable interiors.

"Thanks. If you get a kid named Mike asking, just send him over to us, would you?"

"Sure."

The bartender smiled and returned to her duties. Mel pushed off the bar and weaved between the empty tables towards their designated booth. Charlie's gaze lingered on the bartender for just a second—he knew she was several galaxies out of his league, but it was fun to dream—before he pivoted on his heels and cantered to Mel's side.

As they drew closer to their booth, Mel remarked that the owner had been true to his word and not only closed off the neighbouring booths, but had also dropped the lighting to evening show levels, giving them an extra layer of protection against prying eyes.

The voluptuous velvet seats moulded to their curves as they slid into position, Mel facing out with a panoramic view of the room and Charlie on one side, ready to 'interview' Mike when he arrived.

From another inside pocket Charlie retrieved the mBition iPhone and opened up the dev app that had captured the attack. With its superior compression algorithm and power consumption, the app turned the phone into the perfect hidden-in-plain-sight listening device. Nobody looked twice when a phone came out any more; they were practically grafted to the hands of Generation Y down.

Charlie set the phone down behind the salt and pepper shakers and the laminated menu stand. It didn't hide it completely, but he hoped it would be enough. Mel pulled the binder out of her bag and set it down on the table in front of Charlie since he would be the one taking the lead.

They were left twiddling their thumbs for another twenty minutes before Mike arrived, ten minutes past their scheduled meeting time. He stumbled in from the lobby in a fluster, pausing to swing his head wildly from side to side before fast-walking over to the bar. From their reclusive position Charlie could not actually see his face, but the nervous energy, the shirt left untucked at the back, and the fact that he was the only person to arrive since they had, made Charlie pretty confident in his assumption. Verification arrived thirty seconds later when the bartender shot a pointed finger in their direction and Mike began scurrying over, disturbing a few errant chairs in his haste to reach them.

Charlie had planned on standing up and shaking Mike's hand to maintain an appearance of professionalism. As he drew close, however, and his face took form, Charlie found himself flush with rage, his mind placing a gun in Mike's hand and staining his pristine clothes with Joel's crimson essence. He gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes, forcing the anger back and boxing it up for later unwrapping.

Mike drew to a halt in front of their booth, his expression oscillating between barely-contained excitement and visible nervousness, eventually settling into something between a smile and a sneer.

"Hi! Charlie, right? Sorry I'm late, the bus driver was a real asshole, didn't want to give me change for a twenty."

Mike stuck out his hand and Charlie reluctantly took it, squeezing perhaps just a little tighter than necessary. He gestured to the seat opposite him and Mike sat down. Forcing a friendly tone, Charlie introduced Mel as the company's HR manager. He flashed a brief guilty smile as Mike winced under the force of Mel's powerful handshake. Introductions complete, Charlie jumped straight into the business at hand.

"So Mike, what inspired you to start using real-life photos in your levels?"

"Well, to be honest, the first time I did it just to be different, you know? But then people starting saying it was really cool, so I kinda made it my thing."

As Mike talked, his vibrato nerves began to melt away, the cracks in his voice plastered over with growing confidence. Charlie nodded, his eyes drifting down to the binder in front of him.

"You seem to have a...predilection for creating levels based on office buildings and skyscrapers. What is it you find so interesting about them? What force compels you to choose them over, say, a museum or an amusement park?"

Mike seemed to stagger under the question, a bewildered expression contorting his face for an uncomfortably long time before he finally composed a stammered response.

"Uhh...well, you know, they're umm...easier to get photos for, and stuff—"

"Easier than a museum or a theme park?"

Mike reeled as if from a physical blow, his speech crumbling into unintelligible mumbling. A thin sheen of perspiration gleamed on his forehead.

"And how exactly do you procure those photos, Mike? In particular, those interior shots. I can't imagine they were easy to acquire."

Mike fidgeted in his seat, his hand compulsively rubbing his neck and his fingers plucking and prodding at his stiff collar.

"Yeah...they were kinda tricky..."

He giggled nervously, his mirth high-pitched and forced like the response to a bad joke. His eyes refused to meet Charlie's, instead tracking an invisible tennis match as it played out across the table-top. Charlie glanced at Mel and they exchanged terse nods.

"We know about the server thefts, Mike. About you hitting the EA office right here in Seattle. About you facilitating a murder halfway across the world."

Mike's eyes bulged comically large, screaming for escape, and his hand plummeted from his neck-line to hit the table with a dull thud.

"W-w-wh-what? W-what are you t-t-talking about? What about th-the interview?"

He swallowed hard, the lump sliding laboriously down his throat, and he started to edge slowly toward the end of his seat. Mel cleared her throat and addressed Mike for the first time in their conversation.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, buddy. Even if you run, we know where you live, and the more you piss us off the worse it will get. Cooperate with us and you'll find we can be quite merciful."

The cogs whirred visibly behind Mike's eyes, a tiny drop of sweat breaking free of his forehead and staining the surface of his crisp, factory-fresh white shirt. Charlie let a small chunk of his boxed-up anger seep out, narrowing his eyes and pulling back his lips just enough to bare the tips of his cream-white incisors.

"Someone died, Mike! Died! Do you understand that? And you were party to it! His blood is on your hands!"

Mike's face rent in twain, one half on the brink of tears, the other assuming stubborn indignation.

"It-it wasn't my fault! I did my job same as always! No one was supposed to get hurt! I-I didn't know!"

He stopped shuffling towards a frantic getaway and rested his head in his hands, his quaking elbows sending shockwaves through the table-top. Charlie and Mel looked at each other and swapped another sharp nod. Charlie felt almost giddy with the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins, but he kept his excitement punched down by scooping more rage out of his reserve.

"It's alright, Mike, we understand. But all the wishing in the world won't bring back the dead. No, if you want to make amends, you need to help us cut the head off this snake. You're going to hand over your boss."

"B-big Boss? B-but I don't know anything...h-he...it's just a name. I don't know who he really is or anything..."

Charlie lifted his gaze from the trembling heap in front of him and turned to Mel, his mouth twisted quizzically. For the most part during their exhaustive preparatory session, they had operated under the assumption that while Mike might not be intimately familiar with the 'Big Boss' referenced in the mBition recording, he would at least have a history of digital communication that they could use to track him down.

"Then how does he contact you? Email, IM, IRC? Or through those cryptic 10-code Facebook messages?"

Mike sighed heavily and scrubbed his face with his hands. Fingers of ruby cracked his pale eyes, and it took him three stop-starts before he reclaimed his voice and managed to eke out a response.

"C-c-can we maybe go back to my place? Please? I can sh-show you everything th-there."

Charlie turned to Mel and raised his eyebrows inquisitively. She gave it stern consideration before slowly nodding.

"Alright Mike, we'll continue this back at your place. I warn you though, don't try anything stupid. Mel here is quite fluent in the physical language, and she has many exotic ways of expressing disappointment without even uttering a single word."

Mike's eyes bugged out again, fear flaring his nostrils and bleaching his cheeks. Charlie, in contrast, revelled in his newfound power. Rarely had he felt so in control of a situation, so unafraid of the unknown, and he was taking every chance he got to reap a little revenge for his years of submissive anxiety.

Charlie scooped up the iPhone and binder from the table and rose, motioning for Mike to do the same. Mel slid out last, and the trio made their way out of their shadow blanket and towards the lobby doors. As the light grew brighter, the wounds their interrogation had inflicted on Mike became more evident. Deep worry lines carved up his face, his skin itself mimicking the colour of his bloodshot eyes. Charlie felt a momentary pang of guilt at the pitiful sight, but it was fast sent packing as thoughts of Joel's untimely demise painted bloodstains and gunshot residue across Mike's trembling hands.

He may not have pulled the trigger, but he's just as goddamn responsible as whoever did. If he hadn't built those stupid levels, Joel might still be alive...

***

They traded the opulent grandeur of the cabaret bar for the miserable midday haze, a wan mist having soaked the street during their absence. Mel strode to the curb and began the unfavourable task of hailing a cab in the rain. Charlie kept his dagger-sharp eyes trained on Mike as shivers wholly unrelated to the weather racked his body.

Mel eventually drew the attention of an unoccupied cab and they all piled in, Mel in front and Charlie and Mike on the back seat with a continental gulf between them. Charlie's bubbling excitement trickled away as Mike shrank further and further into the torn leather cushion, his attempt to become one with the weathered fabric no less earnest in its failure.

Charlie fed Mike's address to the driver, reading it straight out of the binder to ensure no duplicity from their quivering captive. The bog-thick atmosphere suffocated any attempt at conversation, and even the driver could sense the caustic tension in the air and kept his mouth blessedly shut.

The cab trundled to a stop on the side of a typical suburban street. Mel handed the driver their fare then slid smoothly out onto the age-cracked sidewalk. She moved to the rear door and held it open for Mike, observing keenly every muscle twitch as he timidly clambered out. Charlie swiftly joined them, and the cab pulled away the second his door seal suctioned shut.

They had been deposited in front of a paint-stripped weatherboard bungalow. Nature's untended growth framed the house in greens and browns, life and death clogging the gutters and burrowing through the walls.

Mike reluctantly led them through a rusted half-height iron gate and up an uneven cobblestone path. The front yard was a portrait of neglect, with foot-long weeds and trash aplenty carpeting the shrivelled brown lawn. Passing through the shredded fly-screen and warped-wood front door revealed another scene of waste and destruction: the aftermath of a laundry tsunami clashing with a fast food earthquake in the middle of a computer lab. Loose cables and cracked LCDs, empty instant ramen bowls and bundles of inside-out t-shirts; the room represented every irrational fear Charlie's mum had expressed when he'd mentioned his plan to move out.

Mike regained a measure of confidence as he led them through the disaster zone and ushered them into a sparsely furnished kitchen. It appeared far less post-apocalyptic than the previous room had, a fact contributed to primarily by the utter lack of typical kitchen fodder: no utensils, no cutlery, no cups or mugs, no visible food at all. The bench lay bare and remarkably clean, the sink drained and empty, the dining table a slab of plain black plastic. Mike retrieved two chairs from a stack by the wall and set them opposite the one at the table. He collapsed into the cheap plastic and motioned for Charlie and Mel to do the same. Charlie took the cue but Mel remained standing, holding vigil with her arms folded across her chest and her eyes tracing lasers over every nook and niche with practised efficiency.

"You live by yourself, Mike?"

Mike looked reluctantly up at Mel, his expression downcast and his shoulders slumped low.

"Y-yeah. T-tried a roommate for a while, but it didn't work out..."

Mel walked towards the nearest open door and cautiously poked her head through. Charlie waited silently while she proceeded to search the rest of the house, returning a minute later with a nod of all-clear. After casually slipping the iPhone—still recording—out of his pocket and onto the table, Charlie resumed their interrogation.

"So Mike, I think it would be best if we start from the beginning. Remember, it's your boss we're after, not you. Cooperate and you'll come out of this fine and dandy. So, how did you first get involved in this mess?"

Mike sucked in a deep breath and expelled a weary, pain-choked sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut tight. When he opened them again most of the fear and despair had vanished, replaced by a look of impotent acceptance.

"Well, it all started after I built Suburban Daze. A lot of people really liked it, but this one guy in particular was really interested in how close it was to real-life. I told him it was basically spot-on, you know, 'cos I used actual Google Maps photos as the base for everything. Anyway, he asked me if I'd be interested in doing some commission work, unpaid but 'for a good cause'." Mike made sarcastic air quotes and rolled his eyes. "Wish I hadn't listened to him now. But I didn't really have much else to do, you know, so I said yes, and he started sending me these addresses for a bunch of places all around the world.

"I did what I could with Google Maps, but it was all just shots from the street and shit, so I could only do the outsides. But after I sent them back to him, he asked if I could do the insides too. I told him that Google Maps couldn't do that, but he said he already had the photos and started sending them through. Most of them were pretty blurry, and a lot of them were clearly taken from crappy phone cameras, but there sure was a shitload of them."

Mike paused for a few seconds, taking a long, drawn out breath before continuing.

"I knew there was something fishy about it straight away, but I was hoping that maybe if I did a good enough job, this guy might eventually pay me or something. After a while though, it just got too weird, and I asked him what the heck he was using my levels for. He said he couldn't talk about it over email, so he gave me this VPN address to connect to and then told me to open Garry's Mod and search for local network servers. There was only one, and it was running one of my levels, so I joined it and found a bunch of players storming through a building I had created, not shooting or anything, just shouting commands at each other over voice-chat and running from room to room. Then Big Boss jumped in on private chat, and explained it all to me.

"They were training up for a raid on the place, an RL robbery to teach the fat cats who worked there a lesson in proper business practices for the 21st century. See, all the buildings I had done, they were offices for companies that had supported shit like the SOPA or PIPA initiatives from a few years back, or organisations that were already screwing with the freedom of information.

"Anyone who agreed with those demented bills was a complete dickhead! Information is supposed to be free, not locked up behind copyrights and pay-walls! Those companies still want to charge people for the right to post a goddamn video they took themselves just because it has someone else's music playing in the background! They want to send America back to the fuckin' Stone Age!"

Electricity surged through Mike's voice, his dejection temporarily displaced by the weight of his fervent belief. His fists were clenched and pressing down hard on the cheap plastic table, tilting it so steeply that Charlie's iPhone began to slide forward and he had to lunge forward to keep it from escaping his reach.

"So this is all about punishing the supporters of a bunch of BS internet regulations that didn't even get passed? You killed a man just to send a goddamn message?"

Charlie's steel-girded gaze honed in on Mike, his pent-up anger breaking free of its enclosure and igniting the blazing inferno in his chest. His knuckles bled colour as he subconsciously squeezed the life out of the iPhone clutched between his hands. He caught himself and put the phone back down carefully, clasping his bare hands together to keep them occupied.

"Fuck you! I didn't kill anybody!" Mike rocketed out of his seat and threw his hands about furiously. "It was the guy running that op! And he was just acting in self-defence! He was just going to grab the server before those guys jumped him!"

Mel took a single step closer, unfolding her arms and crouching slightly, a suit-clad leopard ready to pounce on its skittish prey.

"Self-defence? That's bullshit! And what the heck do you mean 'guys'? It was just one guy, one innocent, hard-working guy who you and your friends murdered in cold-fucking-blood!"

Charlie rose from his seat too, one hand planted on the table as he leaned close to Mike and drilled through his indignation with a pneumatic stare.

Mike's rebellious façade began to crack, bewilderment revoking his license to confidence and forcing him to stumble back a step.

"W-w-what? N-n-no, that's not possible! B-b-big B-boss said that it wa—"

"You want proof? Listen to this!"

Charlie thrust his hand inside his jacket and yanked out his phone. He found the audio file from the mBition attack and hit play, skipping through until he reached the moment where Kyle passed close by his desk. Mike's uncertainty melted into abject horror as Joel's death knell was tolled, the final layer of his short-lived defiance consumed by wide-eyed fear. The recording simmered into silence and Charlie slipped the phone back in his pocket.

"So why did you target us? We've got nothing to do with SOPA or information restriction or any of that crap!" Charlie slapped his hands onto the black plastic, the sudden wet thwack making Mike flinch and retreat another step. "And why the hell did you steal our code and destroy our servers? You didn't do that for the rest of them!"

Mike gaped like a mute ventriloquist dummy, his brain incapable of translating the chaos unfolding in his mind into coherent speech. Charlie rounded the table, his entire body ablaze with hellfire fury, several years of fear and frustration seizing this sudden opportunity for their long awaited release.

"Bu-? Whu-? N-n-no...I-I-I d-don't know! I don't know!"

Confusion and terror racked Mike's body, sending him crumpling to the floor. On hands and knees he shook and sobbed, a few lonely tears finding home on the scuffed kitchen tiles. He sniffed loudly and wiped his face clean, the sleeve of his formerly crisp white shirt stained with snot-thick misery.

Charlie felt the storm that held him aloft loosen its grip, his anger sliding slowly towards pity for the quaking mass on the floor in front of him. Subsequent waves of disappointment and guilt battered against the walls of his composure, but he fended them off, reminding himself of what was at stake and discarding his personal investment to focus on the bigger picture.

Mel had remained a voiceless sentinel throughout the exchange, poised to intervene at a moment's notice. But with Mike's resistance obliterated, Mel released her coiled-spring stance and strode around the table to stand by Charlie's side. By unspoken agreement they gave Mike a few minutes to wallow in his crisis of morality, waiting for his shaking to subside before helping him up and depositing him carefully but firmly into his chair. Mel gave his shoulder a tight squeeze before letting go.

After ensuring Mike wasn't going to topple out of the chair without their support, Charlie and Mel retreated to either side of the table, spatially divided to keep him from getting too comfortable. Charlie cleared his throat before adopting his best calm yet authoritative tone, his searing rage sidelined for someone more deserving of its corrosive burn.

"You might not have wanted things to end up this way Mike, but they have. Maybe you didn't pull the trigger, but you played your part, and Joel's blood is on your hands just the same. If you want a shot at redemption, you need to give us your boss."

Mike nodded slowly, his face red, raw, and beaten, but his eyes firmly locked on Charlie's.

"I-I know when the next op is going down. And where it is. I-I can give you that information."

Charlie smiled grimly. "That's good Mike, but we really need to cut this thing off at the head. We need Big Boss."

"I kn-know, b-but I told you, he just sends me emails..."

"Can you show us the emails?"

Mike swallowed hard before nodding and gently lifting himself up from his seat. With wobbling steps and the support of the kitchen bench, Mike led them back into the lounge room, its state even sorrier after the austerity of the kitchen. By sidestepping an upturned serving tray pilfered from McDonalds and clambering over a deflated beanbag, they made it to a much-loved couch where a battered Dell laptop lay with a loose HDMI cable dangling onto the floor.

Mike flipped the lid and sat down with it resting on his lap, sweeping the food scraps off the cushion with the back of his hand. Charlie took the invitation and sat down, leaving Mel to purchase awkward real-estate on the edge of the armrest.

Mike logged in and loaded up his Hotmail inbox, scrolling futilely through a mountain of inane spam before Charlie suggested using the search function to filter it down. A far more concise list of a few dozen emails flashed on the screen, and Mike opened the most recent.

"Here it is. This is the latest op report. N-normally it just says 'Operation Successful', but this one was a little longer..."

Charlie motioned for Mike to hand over the laptop. He hesitated for a moment before relinquishing it with a heavy sigh.

"Thanks."

Charlie focused first on the sender's email address. He grumbled when he saw that it too was a Hotmail account; if it had belonged to some other provider or—in the event of a catastrophic lapse of judgement on Big Boss' part—a private email server, Charlie might have been able to trace the IP back. It may still have amounted to nothing—a proxy server would have rendered it immediately useless—but with Hotmail excluding the client's IP address from their email headers, it meant that Charlie could not even try.

Letting his gaze wander down to the email body, he began to read.

Operational Success Denied!

Operative ambushed by unforeseen enemy force. Superior numbers left operative beaten and bloody. A narrow escape required the elimination of a member of the opposition. Through a remarkable display of bravery, operative accomplished secondary measures and destroyed the target when retrieval was no longer a possibility. Debrief suggests enemy is aware of our intentions. Remain vigilant! Next operation will continue as scheduled.

VIXIN—Fighting to Free our Future

Charlie snorted derisively and shook his head. The ludicrous portrayal of cold-blooded murder as the harrowing escape of an injured and beleaguered individual, outnumbered and outgunned, was arrogant beyond measure.

"What's this VIXIN thing?"

"That's what we call ourselves. The Vanguards of Independent eXpression and Internet Neutrality."

Charlie gave Mike his best you've-got-to-be-kidding face and stifled another snort.

"This is just ridiculous! How did you buy this crap? Didn't you check the news or anything?"

Mike sneered in exasperation. "Yeah, but don't you get it? That's what VIXIN is all about! Companies are buying out the news and the police all the time, only letting the public see what they want them to see, hear what they want them to hear."

"That sounds an awful lot like propaganda to me."

"But it's true! Loads of our other ops were reported with bullshit facts too! One article said we were terrorists, and another said we were working for Al-Qaeda! And when we raided Universal Music, they went and jacked up their fucking subscription fees because they apparently lost so much money having to replace the servers! Can you believe that shit?"

Mike's impassioned rant did little to sway Charlie's opinion, though it did seem to support the notion that Mike was just an ignorant pawn in this convoluted chess game.

He might be a bit of a dickhead, but it's kind of hard to lay all the blame on his shoulders when it's clear that this 'Big Boss' guy is the one pulling the strings.

"Yeah, well, I guess you know the truth now, don't you? You've been strung along, Mike."

"Right..."

Mike's fervour fizzled and died, and he slumped back into the battle-scarred couch, hanging his head in shame. Charlie returned his attention to the emails.

Aside from numerous earlier reports of 'Operation Successful', the only other emails between Mike and Big Boss had been during initial contact, when Big Boss had expressed interest in Mike's creations and enquired as to whether he would be interested in contributing to some 'important work'.

"Where's the rest, Mike? Where's all this stuff about SOPA and 'information restriction' and all that? And shouldn't there be specifications or something for the buildings he wanted you to map out?"

Charlie's voice slipped back into his authoritative tone—a magnitude less formidable than Mel's, but powerful nonetheless. While Mike seemed willing to cooperate, Charlie was hardly ready to treat him as an ally, at least not yet.

If he's hiding something...

"Security protocol. We couldn't use plaintext communication when discussing details of an operation, so we either had to use the VIXIN code, run a Skype session through TOR, or wait till the next op run-through on one of Big Boss' private servers. The op sessions were the only time I got to talk to Big Boss; he didn't trust Skype for himself and he thought the VIXIN code was too weak. The only reason he let us use it was because we needed instant multi-user communication during recon."

"The VIXIN code? That's the 10-code thing on Facebook, right?"

"Yeah. It's a dual layer cipher though. 10-code for the top layer, then translation table lookup for the second. Here, I'll show you." Mike took the laptop and handed it back with an extensive Word document open on-screen. "See, on the left is the 10-code phrase, and on the right is what it means. Bomb means server, fire means danger, 'road blocked' means new obstacle in place. It's crazy complex, but we weren't allowed to use something as public as Facebook without it."

Charlie suppressed the temptation to whistle in admiration. Some of the measures big businesses employed to hinder the free flow of information were rather draconian, and a punishment that stripped them of the very information they were withholding embodied a particularly delicious irony.

Using Mike's Hotmail account, Charlie sent himself a copy of the translation document for later perusal. He followed it up by executing a dox attack on Big Boss' patently generic Hotmail address, achieving a whole fat wad of nothing. Charlie shrugged apathetically. He'd expected as much.

After closing Word and sneering in disappointment at the practically worthless email archive, Charlie set the laptop down on the edge of a deformed cardboard box and swivelled on the couch to face Mike.

"This server you mentioned, how do you access it? If you can get us in, we could start dumping the access logs and running traceroute to get a rough geo-fix."

"Don't bother, all the ports except FTP are blocked outside of the training runs. And even then you have to wait for the host, usually Big Boss, to invite you in or you just sit in the lobby forever."

"Hmmm..." Charlie furrowed his brow and lifted his hand to his chin. A scratchy layer of stubble had formed in the last week, courtesy of his mind being too preoccupied to pay attention to the minutiae of personal hygiene. "FTP huh, that's how you submit the finished levels?"

"Yeah, and that's where I grab the uploaded recon photos from too."

"Okay, hold it!" The frustrated cry echoed like a thunderclap, and both Charlie and Mike snapped their heads around in unison to find Mel with her arms flailing like a police officer directing traffic. "Look, I'm glad you two are having a wonderful time talking about FPPs and VIXINs or whatever, but do you think you could maybe give me the English version of all this crap?"

"Dammit! Sorry Mel, I completely forgot!" He chewed his lip pensively. "Okay, let me see if I've got this right:

"Mike here was hired by Big Boss, the same guy who Kyle called after killing Joel in the mBition attack." Charlie suppressed a shiver, startled by how casual the topic of Joel's death was becoming. "Big Boss wanted him to create levels in Garry's mod that accurately reflected their real-life counterparts, and he wanted them made quick, hence using the photographs instead of hand-crafting textures and furnishings.

"The buildings Mike was tasked with recreating were all offices or headquarters for companies that supported SOPA and other similar initiatives; companies that were pushing for tighter restrictions on the free distribution of information."

"You keep mentioning this 'SOPA'. I remember hearing it mentioned on the news a few years ago, but..." Mel splayed her hands and shrugged her shoulders.

Charlie nodded tersely.

"Yeah, it's a bill that got proposed in...2011, I think? Anyway, it was mostly concerned with restricting what kind of videos you could stream online. Copyright gone completely bonkers. It would have seriously impinged on the freedoms of speech and expression on the internet if it had made it through. Fortunately enough intelligent people kicked up a stink for it to be rejected, in that particular form anyway. The mega-corps haven't given up though; they just keep throwing new coats of paint over the same bullshit and hope we won't notice the stench until they've snuck it past."

Charlie slowly shifted his gaze from Mel to Mike as the foundations of his own understanding began to sway in the breeze.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, but you use Google Maps in conjunction with the photos that Big Boss sends you to create these levels, then whoever else in your group is assigned to that target runs through the level as a training course for the real thing. How am I going so far?"

"That's pretty much it." Mike sighed, the tension in his face melting like the ice around a frozen caveman. "Except Big Boss doesn't actually send the photos, I grab them from the FTP server after recon's finished."

"Right, you did say that, my mistake." Charlie scratched at his chin while his brain steamed with locomotion. "So I assume the Facebook codes have something to do with the recon, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't really use it that much though; I just wait for a mention in the comments so I know when all the images have been uploaded."

Charlie chewed at his lower lip and mumbled under his breath, frowning as his mental computations ground to a halt over a piece of spurious data and spat out an error message.

Segmentation fault (core dumped).

"Wait, but you were part of the EA op, weren't you? Didn't you have to help with the recon for that?"

"Huh?" Mike recoiled at the suggestion, his brow arrowed to his nose and his mouth split in confusion. "What are you talking about? I haven't run any ops! I just do the levels, man, believe me, there's no fucking way you'd get me involved in the really illegal shit."

Charlie considered pointing out that Mike's role was hardly squeaky clean, but he brushed it aside for more pertinent concerns.

"How did you get those documents then? The project specs?"

"The specs...?" Mike frowned quizzically again. "Oh, right, the NeoGAF post. I...uhh...oh, I guess there's no point hiding it now..."

Mike stood up, defeatism shaping his slumped posture, and scrambled between the haphazard piles of clothes, computers, and endless cardboard boxes, halting before a low rectangular mass shrouded with a thin brown sheet. Charlie looked to Mel and nodded before clambering to his feet and joining Mike in the corner. With a sigh of glum resignation Mike dragged the sheet away and revealed two squat gunmetal boxes. Charlie recognised them as mini rack-server cases, the rectangular slab servers protruding from their slots like trays in a filing cabinet.

"Ta-da!" Mike's tone and flourish bled sarcasm, another dejected sigh parting his lips. "I knew I shouldn't have let them store them here, but my house was the closest..."

"Wow! You mean these are the servers you stole from EA?" Charlie gaped in awe at the computational monstrosities gleaming imposingly from the floor below.

Damn, that's some expensive looking hardware. I bet you could do some serious gaming if you plugged a high-end graphics card into one of these puppies...

"Well I didn't steal them!" Mike's voice rose in indignation, but his protestation fell on deaf ears.

A flash of blinking lights caught Charlie's eye, and his ears tuned to the wind-whisper hum of heavy-duty cooling fans.

"Wait, you've got these on?" Charlie's tone mixed curiosity with incredulity, his thoughts immediately turning to power consumption and excess heat produced by such bleeding-edge hardware.

"Yeah, powered on and networked up, that was the deal. I'm not looking forward to my next electricity bill, let me tell you. Big Boss said he'd comp me, but I guess that ain't going to happen now..."

Charlie bent down to a get a closer look and his eyes swept over the thin brown sheet lying crumpled next to the cabinets. He shook his head and marvelled at the sheer idiocy of wrapping several industrial-grade heat factories in a blanket of cheap, flammable cotton.

Probably didn't want to have to face the naked truth of his complicity. Out of sight, out of mind. Still, he's lucky he didn't burn the whole goddamn house down.

"Hmmm..." An idea bubbled up as Charlie examined the sleek steel server cases. He swung his head around and intercepted Mike's glum expression. "Have you got a monitor here I can use? A keyboard and mouse would be good too." Charlie stood and gave the room a cursory scan. He spotted at least three dormant monitors, though one sported a wicked spider-web crack and another was an ancient CRT.

Mike snapped to attention and swung his head wildly from junk pile to junk pile.

"Uhh, sure, let's see..."

A minute of dumpster-diving returned a dust-caked LCD and a VGA cable that Charlie connected to the foremost of the rack servers. Mike extracted a keyboard from behind the couch and—after a considerable amount of curse-soaked effort—untangled a mouse from a cluster of twisted headphone cables. Charlie powered the monitor on and watched as the dull blue background of Windows Server flickered to life.

"So, uhh, what are you doing?" Mike asked. He uncovered two half-deflated beanbags, and he and Charlie sat within visual distance of the grimy 15-inch screen.

Charlie mumbled a noncommittal response. He still wasn't completely sold on Mike's change of heart, though his less-than-graceful emotional breakdown and admittedly minor role in Big Boss' grand machinations had served to flat-line much of Charlie's animosity. The simple act of seeing Mike as another human being, a person with flaws and desires not so dissimilar to his own, made it impossible to maintain the level of disconnected loathing he had felt when Mike had just been a name on a computer screen.

Familiarity breeds complacency...but I can't keep blaming him for Joel's death. I've got to focus on the guy who pulled the trigger...and the one who put him there. Kyle and Big Boss...

"Uhh...are you okay?"

Mike's voice broke through Charlie's contemplation and he felt a firm pressure alight on his shoulder. Charlie realised he was staring silently at the blank computer screen, hands poised over mouse and keyboard. He turned his head and saw Mel looking down at him, mild but affectionate concern etched on her face. He dismissed it with a shake of his head and a wan smile.

"Sorry, got a little lost in my own head for a second there."

Mel nodded and stepped back, returning to the seat she had staked out on top of an upturned plastic crate. Charlie squeezed his eyes tight to clear his mind then seized control of the mouse and keyboard, brandishing them as weapons and attacking the server with vigorous clicks and furious clacks.

Using his wealth of SQL Server knowledge and a little programming ingenuity, he broke through layer after layer of security measures, tweaking configuration files and piggybacking on a data reporting website he discovered running on IIS. Direct access to the database remained out of reach, but by exploiting a weakness in IIS authentication protocols he bypassed the login requirements and enabled anonymous access to the reporting site. Presently, he found himself staring at the main page for SQL Reporting Services, a module that provided for the creation of clean and concise reports and statistical documents based on the data in a database.

Charlie pumped his fist and leaned forward excitedly. Two columns of links ran down the page, with well over a dozen different reports sporting names like FullDossierByName, and SummaryByEmployer. Charlie browsed the conveniently descriptive labels and settled on one entitled GeneralSummary, figuring it would be the best place to start.

The first page of the report opened in a new window and, as the title suggested, displayed a number of general statistics pertaining to the current state of the underlying database. 736571 records in total, 14000 unique occupations, 83000 unique employers, 3500 political positions, 17000 friendship groups established; the information was as bafflingly diverse as it was intriguing, and Charlie paged further into the report with radar-eyes and a loose-hinged jaw.

The first ten pages were devoted to rows of endless summation—black-and-white figures interspersed with a few rainbow pie-charts—but beyond that the report became a pared-down snapshot of the raw data residing in the database.

A neat, multi-column grid spread across the page, populated by the first 20 records of the 700,000+ stored in the database. Column headings ran across the top of the page: Full Name, D.O.B, Address, Email, Phone Number, Occupation, Social Links, Data Source.

Charlie's jaw went slack and his eyes ballooned in shock. His heart stuttered, ice water shooting through his veins and his throat seizing up like a deer under headlights. It took several seconds of light-headedness before his body remembered to breathe, and he choked out a hacking cough and gulped fresh air back into his hungry lungs.

"Charlie? Are you okay?"

Mel seemed to appear out of nowhere, crouching down to match the low height of his miserably deflated beanbag. Charlie caught his breath and waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. But I think you might want to take a look at this."

Charlie pointed at the screen and Mel's eyes followed, a frown compressing her brow as she scanned the rows of personal records.

"Huh? Looks like a phone directory or something. Like the White Pages."

"Yeah, except the White Pages doesn't link people to their online identities. See."

Charlie gestured to the Social Links field for one of the records. Contained within were links to a Facebook profile, a Twitter page, even an old Myspace account. Mel looked at the links like they were ancient hieroglyphics, tilting her head on the side as if it would help her discern their meaning.

"Uhh, that's a bad thing, is it?"

"You bet. Most of the vitriol that gets spewed on the internet only exists because people can hide behind their anonymity. Zero repercussions, zero responsibility. But imagine if Mr Anonymous, who likes to go around calling everybody Nazis and homosexuals, had a real name, an address, a phone number, all the means with which a victim of his online abuse could exact revenge... Well, you can see where I'm going with this."

Mel murmured thoughtfully and settled onto the beanbag next to Charlie.

"So, what, this directory connects everybody in the world with their online profiles?"

Charlie chuckled despite himself. "No, it's not quite that bad. This database only has 700,000 records or so, and not all of them are complete. But still, if this data is real..."

Charlie shivered. Suddenly concerned for his own privacy, he switched back to the list of reports and opened the one labelled FullDossierByName, entering his own name when prompted. He swallowed the boulder in his throat as the report queried the database.

Blank white screen.

Loading.

Loading.

Out spat a single lonely record. Charlie felt his heart hold for a quarter-beat before exploding into a frenzied bass-line thrum, pounding away with the intensity of a metal-core mosh pit.

"Is that you?"

Mel's cool and unaffected voice offered anchorage for Charlie's sanity, and he clung to it while the initial rush of terror faded and his composure returned. He sucked in a chill, warbling breath.

"Yep."

DISHONOUR AMONG THIEVES

Charlie blinked clear the haze of confusion and gave the report a more thorough assessment. His galloping heart-rate slowed to a canter as he realised the record was incomplete—only a handful of fields actually contained data. The data source reported 'mBition DB'.

They must have pulled the payroll database off the stolen hard drives and copied the records over to this one. That would explain some of the network traffic, I guess. But why?

Still a little shaken, Charlie switched back to the summary report and paged through the results. His eyes glazed over as the data scrolled past, his mind distracted by the implications of an internet stripped of anonymity.

This is a goddamn data nuke! Identity theft, blackmail and extortion, stalking... This is big, seriously big. What have you gotten yourself into, Charlie?

"Hey, look at that."

Mel's frown-spoken summons drew Charlie's attention back to the screen. He stopped his scrolling and Mel leaned forward, tapping her finger over the data source field. Each record on the page contained the same value: Comcast DB.

"Comcast..." Charlie's brow creased as he tried to recall where he'd heard the name recently. "Wait, you were working security for Comcast that night you got attacked, weren't you?"

"Mmmm." Mel nodded, her eyes narrowing to slits and her hand rubbing the back of her head tenderly.

Charlie nibbled at his lower lip like he could chew right through the convoluted conundrum. This 'Big Boss' had big plans, that much was clear, but the shape of those plans remained frustratingly obscure.

"Uhh, how many servers were stolen? All of them, or just specific ones?"

"No, not all of them, they only took four if memory serves. I guess they either didn't have the time or the manpower to grab them all."

"Do you happen to know which ones they were? You know, were they web servers, or file servers, or database servers, or what?"

Mel frowned and scratched her chin. "Ummm..."

Charlie recognised Mel's confusion and tried a different approach.

"How about customer data? You know, financial records, account information, employee databases. Do you know if they got any of that?"

Mel's irritation blossomed into a look of understanding, and she nodded slowly.

"Now that I remember. It was the first thing that egg-head on the phone wanted to know. Had to read off a bunch of numbers from all of the servers they had left behind before the guy would calm down. He was ecstatic when he realised all the customer data was safe, and the only thing they had managed to get was an archive of old employees from a couple of decades prior. Still not great, but not so much of a PR nightmare for the poor bastard."

Charlie studied the Comcast records again. The occupations listed did seem to gel with roles in telecommunications, and the years of birth were all in the 80's or earlier. The last vestiges of hope drained from his face, replaced by a grim smile.

Damn, I knew I was right. That's two sets of employee data they've got for sure, mBition and Comcast, and there's probably a hell of a lot more in there too. Which means this is about something more than just stealing hardware and exacting petty revenge. Maybe Big Boss is planning a nuclear ruination strike against anybody who ever worked for a SOPA-supporting company, exposing their private chat logs and their every little internet misdemeanour to the entire world? Or worse, use their credentials to apply for loans and credit cards and send them all bankrupt? Man...this is heavy...

"Ummm..."

Mike's quivering voice reverberated through the air, slapping Charlie with a reminder of the enemy in their midst.

"Did you know about this?" Charlie's voice sang like forged steel, eager to carve blame from flesh.

Mike recoiled, his face splitting into disparate shards of horror and defiance.

"N-n-no, I t-t-told you, they just dropped them off and I p-p-plugged them in..."

Charlie searched his face for the cracks and seams of a traitorous mask, but found none.

Is he lying, or could he really be just a pawn in Big Boss' game plan?

"C-could you try searching my name? I w-want to know if I'm in there too." Mike shuffled closer, scooting his beanbag across a pile of old gaming magazines.

Charlie shrugged and turned back to the computer. Mike seemed far too inept to be anything more than a marionette in this shadow-puppet play.

He typed in Mike's name and a complete record flashed up, only the data source field left blank. The social links column contained an entire paragraph of blue hyperlinks, various forums and a few less-than-salubrious adult sites in addition to the ubiquitous social networks.

"Oh shit..."

Mike's head drifted ominously towards the screen, his skin ghost-pale and his jaw hanging slack, the rest of his body frozen stiff on the edge of his beanbag. His ungainly posture almost caused him to topple forward, but he snapped out of his trance in time and slid onto the floor. Tearing his eyes away from the screen, he reached tentatively out to Charlie, making a silent request for the keyboard and mouse with his weak, trembling hands. Charlie acquiesced, feeling again the horror that seeing his own—considerably less detailed—record on-screen had elicited.

While Mike perused the list with grave solemnity, Mel turned and whispered into Charlie's ear.

"Can't we just delete it? Or destroy the servers?"

Charlie shook his head and offered up a sad smile.

"Sure, but I'd bet that every one of the other servers they've stolen has this exact same database sitting on it too. There's a steady stream of network traffic flying in and out of here from dozens of different IPs, and I reckon it's all part of a redundancy system that's checking to make sure the databases are kept consistent and up-to-date."

Mel scowled and grumbled like a gravel mulcher.

"So, no go?"

"Nope. It'd be about as effective as pissing in the wind. Pardon my French."

"Damn. Got any other bright ideas, whiz kid, or is it time we called it a day?"

"Hmm..." Charlie wasn't ready to give up, not yet. He wanted to be the one to find Big Boss and put an end to whatever malevolent machinations he had in mind for the stolen servers and their misappropriated data. The fact that his own details were part of that data too just made him more determined to bring it down.

C'mon Charlie, think! This guy's got the digital equivalent of a freakin' dirty bomb here! There's got to be something we can do to stop him...

Realisation hit Charlie like a slap to the forehead. He hadn't checked out the rest of the search results from earlier!

"Don't start dialling 911 just yet Mel. I've got something I need to check first..."

Charlie swung his head back to the blazing incandescence of the monitor, seeing Mike resting on his knees in front of it and staring blankly at the white screen. The keyboard and mouse lay inert on the floor next to him. Charlie frowned, puzzled, and lifted himself out of his seat, creeping closer to the peculiar visage.

"Uhh, Mike?"

Mike appeared oblivious to Charlie's query, his eyes locked tight on the pixels before him. Charlie stepped closer and shifted his gaze from Mike to the screen. Two reports were open side-by-side, one entitled FinanceInstitutions, the other MessageTranscripts. As Charlie read, a languorous, plodding voice rose up from the depths of Mike's chest, a tone sifted through layers of disbelief and incomprehension.

"It's all here. Everything. My bank accounts, my credit cards, my loans. My Skype convos with Big Boss, the emails I sent him, copies of the chat logs from Garry's Mod. He-he's been spying on me this whole time..."

Charlie stared in morbid fascination. The financial report exposed his bank accounts and credit cards in excruciating detail: passwords, PIN numbers, and security questions all ripe for misuse. The other report displayed an extract from a Skype conversation, stripped of all but Mike's dialogue so it no longer flowed coherently.

Well, I guess this settles it then. Unless Mike is some sort of mastermind con-artist, he's as much a victim as anyone else in that database. Man, what kind of person is Big Boss that he can betray his own allies so easily?

Leaving Mike to his glassy-eyed stupor, Charlie retrieved the mouse and keyboard and repositioned the monitor in front of the beanbag he and Mel shared. He closed down the report windows, suppressing a shudder as Mike's naked finances and chat logs vanished from the screen, their absence from his vision not echoed in the confines of his mind.

Switching back to the search results, Charlie checked out the smaller files he had previously overlooked. A host of executables, scripts, batch files, and XML files had all been recently transferred, with a new directory created specifically for them. Charlie navigated to the folder and opened the files in Notepad, examining their contents intently. Declarations, conditionals, and iterative loops were translated into boxes and branches on an elaborate mental flowchart, the complex code reduced to a simple puzzle of execution paths.

Despite bearing frustratingly generic filenames like 'script.sql' or 'test.bat', Charlie gradually deduced a common pattern: they were all command-line tools closely linked to the privacy-breaching database. Thanks to copious amounts of code pilfered verbatim from other open-source programs, the files even contained a smattering of helpful comments explaining the function of some of the more esoteric programming. Voice-to-text translation, image and video analysis, international bank and wire transfers; plus a Google Maps suite that did everything from converting addresses into longitude and latitude to plotting and printing route maps from GPS co-ordinates.

The most interesting tool accepted a minimal input of personal information and performed a doxing attempt similar to the one Charlie had used to track down Mike, albeit with the preternatural scope and efficiency available only to a brain built of circuit boards and transistors.

A batch file with an infinite loop revealed that the programs were intended to run perpetually in the background, sourcing personal data from fields within the database and feeding their collated output back into it. After updating the local database, though, the batch file executed one last function before advancing to the next iteration of its loop. Charlie found the script being referenced and loaded it up.

The code was short and simple. It sent off a single command to a specific domain name, a call to the web service method 'Resync'. Its purpose appeared crystal clear.

That's got to be the central server. Whenever it receives a call to the Resync method, it must notify all the other servers so they can update their own databases.

Charlie shook his head gravely, his mouth hanging open, mortified and impressed in equal measure.

This thing is just insane! What kind of person could put something like this together?

He dispelled his shock with a silent curse.

Okay, so Big Boss will have to be keeping that central server close at hand, most likely wherever he's holed up. With data this sensitive, I can't see him risking his operation by letting someone else host it. He's already chosen to illegally cobble together a private server farm instead of paying for one, so it's pretty clear he wants full control. Alright, for starters let's see what we can get from this domain name.

Using the first WHOIS lookup service he could find on Google, Charlie fed in the domain name and equivalent IP address, receiving a frightfully comprehensive dossier in return. Both the ISP and the Domain Name registrar were reportedly based in Japan, the former with their headquarters in Osaka, the latter in Tokyo.

Charlie's heart bounded allegro as he caught sight of a section marked 'Registrant Contact Information'. The first bar of a victory tune swelled through his body and a triumphant grin scrawled itself across his face.

"Haha!"

This is it! I've got you now, Big Boss. Or should I say, David Kessel!

***

Armed with his real name, Charlie ruled out the hail-Mary hope that Big Boss had been brainless enough to leave his own details in the privacy-nuking database.

Nothing's ever that easy, is it?

Sighing half-heartedly, he switched back to the web browser and got to work. Adrenaline transformed his fingers into spider-leg blurs, and he launched into a furious dox attack on the no-longer-pseudonymous David Kessel.

His pulsing excitement withered and frayed as page after page returned barren, or with blatantly unrelated results. The few David Kessels that had joined social networks or established websites evinced no connection to Japan whatsoever, and judging from their bios, none appeared to have experience with technology either.

I suppose the Japan connection could be a ruse. I mean, it's not that hard to use a proxy server to disguise your location—though he'd be suffering some pretty woeful internet speeds if he is—and you don't have to live in Japan to register a Japanese domain. Still, none of these guys really fit the whole anarchist/activist mould. A 53-year old plumber who makes Facebook posts in all-caps? Yeah, I don't think so...

Disappointment slowed his frantic typing down to angry, emphatic stabs, the keyboard clacking louder with every failed search. After ten minutes of fruitlessly trawling the interweb, Charlie collapsed back into the beanbag, his lip curling in dismay.

"Damn! I guess I shouldn't have expected it to be that easy. Maybe we will have to hand this over to the authorities..."

He sighed and stared blankly at the screen, chewing his bottom lip and taking mental stock of the situation.

So, no go on the dox attack. Hell, maybe 'David Kessel' is just a fake name he used to sign up for the domain. C'mon Charlie, think! There's got to be something else you can try!

"Don't you have his name though?" Mel's tone echoed confusion, parallel creases lining her forehead. "Can't you do the same thing you did with Mike?"

Mel's croaked question waylaid Charlie's thoughts, bringing his eyes back to focus on the fuzzy screen before him.

Charlie turned to face Mel, his eyes forecasting his apology.

"I'm sorry Mel, but he's just not as reckless with his online activity as Mike was. Uhh, no offense." Charlie cast a brief glance in Mike's direction, but he remained lost in his semi-meditative stance. Charlie shrugged and returned his attention to Mel. "It's pretty likely he's in Japan, so any info we found would have been practically useless. I'd expected him to be in America somewhere, given how most of the thefts have occurred here plus the fact that SOPA and CISPA and all that were American bills. I guess I was wrong." Charlie sighed, the feverish energy that had been building over the past few days fizzling out like a spent firecracker. "I suppose that means the FBI or the NSA or whoever will have to call in their Japanese counterpart to track the bastard down. Huh, I wonder what their acronym is..."

"It's the PSIA," Mel said absent-mindedly. "Wait, what the heck are you talking about?" Mel's voice shifted pitch, ringing shrill and incredulous. "Why would we hand the whole thing over to the police when we're so close to cracking it open? Didn't you just say he was in Japan? What's stopping us from going over there and throwing his name around, see what we can dig up? I'm thinking it's a pretty safe bet there aren't too many David Kessels living in Japan, wouldn't you agree?"

Charlie's face twisted in disbelief. "Uhh, you do realise we're talking about Japan here, right? Tiny island, thousands of miles away, with a population of well over a hundred million, most of whom don't even speak English?"

"So? What's your point?"

Charlie was struck speechless by Mel's casual dismissal, his unhinged jaw and upraised hands conveying the confusion caught in his throat. Mel rose to her feet and looked down at Charlie with rigid determination.

"How certain are you he's in Japan?"

"Uhh, well, he could be using a proxy but they're notoriously flaky, especially when you're pushing around as much data as they are here. Plus, it adds a single point of failure to the system, one that Big Boss has no control over. And whoever's running the proxy could be making copies of all the data that passes through, which would give them just much leverage as Big Boss—"

Mel cleared her throat loudly and stared at him.

"Right, sorry. I guess I'm maybe 75% sure?"

Mel scrunched up her mouth and stroked her chin.

"Charlie. In barely a week you've made more progress on this case than I did in six months. You've blown this thing wide open in ways I could never have managed alone. I barely understand half of the stuff you do, but you've been bang on the money every single time, so if you think he's in Japan, then we're damn well going to Japan!" She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, a faint smile wiggling across her lips. "And as for Japan itself, well, I've been there before, twice, and I'm well aware of how crowded it can get. But after coming this far we can't let a miserable little speed-bump like that stop us! And I know enough Japanese to get us by, so that's no excuse either!" Fear twinkled in the corner of Charlie's eye and Mel faltered, her smile eroding like a dynamited cliff-face. "Oh Charlie, I'm so sorry, I forgot! Ignore what I said. We can just let the police handle it, like you said, there's no need to—"

"No." Charlie reclaimed his voice and levered himself to his feet, holding Mel's gaze with fierce conviction. Any trace of fear had been banished from his face. "You're right, we can't just palm this off after all the work we've done. That'd be like Sherlock expecting the police to solve the case all by themselves!" Charlie threw his hands into the air. "No, if you're seriously willing to fly to freakin' Japan, then I'll truck through. I want to face the bastard who's happy to have his minions do all the dirty work while he sharpens his knife to stab them in the back."

Charlie gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, the whistle of a silenced gunshot echoing through his mind. He glanced towards Mike. He had his arms wrapped around his knees like a strait-jacket, his whole body rocking back and forth like a death-clock pendulum. His lips moved ceaselessly, the silent words incomprehensible to anyone but himself. Round, distant eyes blinked so infrequently that Charlie thought for a moment he had gone catatonic.

"What are we going to do about him?" Charlie asked, gesturing at Mike's eerie repose.

"Hmmm. Well I guess we could send the police a copy of his confession, let them deal with him. Your phone recorded all that, right?" Charlie nodded, patting his iPhone. "We'd have to do it anonymously though, otherwise we'll get bogged down in making statements and being called in as witnesses and all that bureaucrapic red tape."

Charlie cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure it's a good idea to call the police? That might tip Big Boss off that we're on his trail. Maybe we should just leave Mike be. He's no threat; I'm pretty sure he's not going run back to Big Boss, not now that he knows he's been played for a chump."

"Mmmm, you've got a point there." Mel stared dispassionately at Mike's frail form. "Alright, I guess this is suffering enough for his terrible choice in bunkmates. But we should still squeeze him for details of the next theft and send that to the police. Otherwise we'd be nearly as bad as him." Mel swept her hand towards Mike, who continued to shape silent words and stare off into the distance, seemingly oblivious to their conversation.

"Yeah, good idea..." Charlie mumbled. On one hand, they were obligated to prevent another crime from being committed, especially when there was every chance the theft could escalate into another murder. But on the other hand, Charlie agreed with the whole freedom-on-the-internet uproar, and he had to admit that some of the SOPA supporters probably deserved a little harassment for their archaic attitude towards the inexorable evolution of technology.

But the end does not justify the means, Charlie, everyone knows that. There are plenty of ways to protest senseless rules and social stagnation that don't involve breaking the law.

Charlie swung his gaze over to Mike, then back to Mel.

"So, I guess we should try bringing him back to the land of the living, yeah?"

Mel nodded, and they both padded over to Mike and dropped to the floor beside him. Charlie laid a cautious hand on his shoulder, moving his head into the path of Mike's vacant stare.

"Mike? Mike? You there buddy?" Charlie shook him gently, searching for signs of awareness in the pits of his lifeless eyes.

Mike convulsed like he'd just been jabbed with a cattle prod.

"Arrggh. Blugh? Wha?"

Mike swallowed hard, blinking like he'd just been slapped and swinging his head wildly from side to side. Charlie waited for his bewilderment to evaporate before speaking in a slow, deliberate tone.

"Mike, you said you knew when and where the next theft was going to occur, right? Can you tell us?"

Mike took a few seconds to respond, his voice a fragile mockery of its former self.

"Yeah...yeah, I wrote it d-down somewhere, h-hold on."

With the effort of a tree uprooted, Mike struggled to his feet. He stumbled drunkenly sideways, his foot catching on a discarded desk lamp. Charlie and Mel both leapt forward to intercept the impending fall, but it was Charlie that managed to get his shoulder underneath Mike's and save him from kissing grit.

With Charlie's aid, Mike retrieved a notepad from atop a head-height wooden shelf and opened it to the latest page, revealing a chicken-scratch conglomeration of illegible notes and small sketches. Though completely unintelligible to Charlie, Mike quickly traced his finger down the page and tapped on a few lines of text written at a 45 degree angle.

"There. ABA. 1120 Connecticut Avenue. Op's set for next week."

Mike spoke slowly, his drawl like the echo of a mile-long tunnel.

"ABA? Wait, that was the level you showed us, wasn't it?"

"Yeah..."

Mike hung his head, the notepad slipping from his grasp to merge with the rest of the clutter coating the floor.

"C'mon dude, let's sit you back down."

Charlie led Mike back to his beanbag and gently lowered him down. Mike closed his eyes and withdrew from reality once more, curling into a tight ball and rolling onto his side. Mel approached from behind and patted Charlie on the shoulder, smiling at him when he turned to face her.

"Alright, time we got moving Charlie. We've got another trip to organise!"

Mel injected a surfeit of enthusiasm into her tone, but Mike's doleful demeanour had cooled Charlie's mood somewhat. He managed a weak smile that gradually stretched and spread across his face as they turned to leave.

"Wow, Japan...You know it's basically the tech capital of the world? I've always wanted to go, but, well..."

Japan, Charlie? Are you serious? If you thought Sea-Tac was bad, Japan will be a thousand times worse!

Charlie frowned and grunted under his breath, purging the thought and focusing on the neon-lit cyberpunk fantasia that was his mind's eye view of Japan. Years of consuming science-fiction had conditioned him to hold Japan in an almost reverential state, as if it were some tech-nirvana that floated above the rest of the world. He knew his mind's creation was folly, but the possibility that cities of jet-black and neon, of robots and augmentations, of underground research and sentient AIs, could really exist was just too wonderful to subject to the ice-shower of reality.

As Charlie followed Mel back across the junk-strewn floor towards the front door, he took one last look at the strobing lights of the servers and stopped. An idea that had been stewing in the back of his mind suddenly burst forth, eager to test itself against the challenges of corporeal existence.

Hmmm, that could actually work...

Mel's voice drifted over from the front door. "Charlie? What's wrong?"

Charlie lifted his head and favoured Mel with a distant look, his brain already preoccupied with hammering his idea into a solid and executable plan.

"Just a sec..." Charlie raised a hand to ward off further questioning, the final pieces slotting into place inside his head. "Okay, I think I've got it." His eyes snapped back to focus, and he met Mel's inquisitive stare. "I've got one last thing I want to try. Is that cool?"

"Uhh...okay..."

Charlie bounded back towards the servers. Mel navigated the mess to join him.

"What miracle are you going to perform now, whiz kid?"

Mel lowered herself down next to Charlie, jabbing him playfully in the arm. Charlie threw a quick smile in Mel's direction before unleashing himself on the computer, his eyes burning holes in the screen and his fingers tap-dancing a ferocious song across the keyboard. Without sacrificing the intensity of his assault, Charlie began to explain.

"It's no miracle, but if this works it'll narrow down our search to something a little more reasonable than an entire friggin' country. I'm going to try and exploit the fact that they're piping the raw records straight from this database into the Resync call whenever they're updated. There's no processing, no character escaping, nothing. So I'm going to throw some good ol' SQL injection at it and see whether they're doing any server-side processing or not. Even if they are, we might be able to squeeze some code past it, depending on how thorough they've been..."

"Explain that again, this time in English."

Charlie kept his eyes trained on the screen while he chewed his lip and restructured his explanation.

"Right, my bad. So these servers are scraping the web for any information related to the records they have in the database, and when they find something new, they add it in. But to maintain consistency with all the other servers they've got set up, that new information is sent back to a central server which can then update its own database and notify the rest of the network to do the same. The thing is, they're doing this through a batch file, and they're making the call through a command-line web browser instead of through code, so there's none of the usual security checks and such going on. Which means that if they're not checking the data at the other end either, we can insert some of our own code and hijack control of the central server, at least for a little while."

Charlie gave Mel a few moments to absorb his words, wondering if perhaps he had just confused her further. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her nod understanding and he smiled, resuming his narration with increased enthusiasm.

"So what I'm doing at the moment is putting together a string of code that should hopefully boot up a browser on the central server and feed it the address of a website I made back at uni. I had to remote into my server back home, because I deactivated all my old sites when we were trying to convince Mike that we were game developers. They're back up now though, and I hit the geo-tracking one and it came back with Seattle, which is a pretty good approximation considering we're running through a direct connection here."

Charlie's jolted with the realisation that he'd reverted back to jargon beyond Mel's ken. He took a long calming breath and dialling down his intensity.

"Oh right, I didn't explain what the site was!" He chuckled, shaking his head and twisting the monitor to offer Mel a better view.

The screen displayed a basic web page: title banner across the top, navigation bar down the left, the body content centred inside a light grey rectangle. Charlie pointed to a few lines of text in the middle of the page.

"It's a pretty simple site, really. It uses geo-location to retrieve the physical location of the client accessing it. Then it dumps the results into my database too, because my uni project was to see how accurately you could track someone's location without using any GPS services. It's not too shabby either, provided you're connected via WiFi, otherwise you get something like this where it just says 'Seattle'. Still, it's worth a shot."

Charlie closed the page and resumed his voracious assault on the server, his fingers pirouetting across the keyboard like a deranged concert pianist. Mel continued to watch on in silence.

"Okay, code's done." Charlie clapped his hands together and stared pointedly at the screen. "Time to test this bad boy out!"

He loaded up an SQL injection exploit he'd downloaded and input the IP addresses of both the central server and the one in front of him.

With deliberate gravitas, Charlie raised his index finger high above the keyboard, paused for effect, then stabbed it down and hit the Enter key. Very little changed on-screen, with the command prompt simply advancing to the next line after successful execution of the module. Charlie waited, counting to sixty in his head before switching to the Remote Desktop session he had established with his home server. He queried his database for the latest results in the geo-location table, his eyes tracking to the top and checking for the IP address of the central server.

"Yes!" Charlie grinned and pumped his arm excitedly. "Haha! I can't believe that worked so well. I mean, I knew the logic was sound, but still."

Mel smiled and waited while Charlie celebrated his victory. Presently, he composed himself.

"It's given us an error radius of fifty metres, which is normally small enough to get a fix on a particular building, but in this case it's just listing the street and latitude and longitude. I guess Osaka is pretty crowded. Let's see how it looks on Google Maps."

Charlie copied the latitude and longitude coordinates into Google Maps. The map honed in on an area marked as Kawaguchi, the little green arrow pointing to the middle of a pencil-thin street. Charlie switched to street view and gave the area a cursory scan.

A cloud of depression seemed to blanket the street. All the buildings were clad in dull browns and drab greys, exuding an oppressive gloominess that not even the potted plants lining the street could ameliorate.

Realising that there was nothing to gain from staring at blank concrete walls, Charlie turned away from the screen and looked inquisitively at Mel, one eyebrow cocked and his hands clasped under his chin. Mel returned his quizzical expression, and after a few moments he gave voice to his thoughts.

"We still need to nail down which house he's in. But how the heck are we going to do that...?" Charlie's gaze drifted ponderously upwards.

Mel shrugged her shoulders.

"We could ask around, see if anyone recognises the name. My Japanese should be good enough to handle that, though I might purchase a phrase book just in case."

Charlie shook his head, his eyes still trained on the ceiling.

"No. If we do that, we risk tipping him off. We don't even know what he looks like! He could be Asian, American, European... We could end up talking to him and not even realise it." Charlie grumbled unintelligibly, chewing his lip as his train of thought chugged along silently inside his head.

C'mon Charlie, we're so close now. There's got to be something else you can do with that SQL exploit, something that could hone in on his signal... that's it! Signal! Wireless! If we can get the SSID of his wireless network, we'll just need to follow the signal strength. How did you not think of that before?

***

Charlie snapped his attention back to the server and hammered at the keyboard, leaving Mel to simply shake her head and smile. Though the pair had grown remarkably close in just a few short days, Charlie was clearly accustomed to working alone, to ignoring everything but himself and his computer when a hearty problem ensnared him with its seductive mind-puzzles. Mel respected his keen devotion to their quest, even when it meant she was forced to play passenger while he took the driver's seat.

In truth, she knew most of it would be lost on her anyway, even if Charlie tried to dumb down the geek-speak. A week ago that would have set her insides aflame; like an addict turning to crime to finance another hit, she would have wrested control away from Charlie just to satiate her need for pure independence. But that was a burden she bore no longer, a weight that meeting Charlie had helped her discard, and she welcomed the chance to relax while someone else took the reins.

Mel folded her hands in her lap and leaned back in the emaciated beanbag, casting a wayward glance to her right where Mike remained curled up like a frightened animal. His shivering had subsided and his body lay still, possibly asleep. She grumbled under her breath, disappointed that the group she had been pursuing for so long could contain a member so incompetent and fragile. She felt none of the satisfaction she had expected would accompany such a confrontation. All the excitement of chasing Mike down had become diluted upon the realisation that he was just a pawn, a foolish, naïve puppet who knew even less than they did. She almost pitied him: lured in by the promise of a false ideology (one that apparently Charlie thought had some merit), his odd 'talent' exploited for someone else's gain, his reward the discovery that his 'friends' had been stockpiling a wealth of blackmail material on him.

She turned back to Charlie and continued to watch him in silence, patiently awaiting yet another miracle courtesy of his incredible and incomprehensible techno-magic.

***

Charlie bashed out code like a madman, modifying in mere minutes his geo-location site to accept a new URL parameter and dump it into the database with the rest of the location data. That would allow him to append private details sourced from the central server's command-line to the end of the URL, creating a pipeline to his home server through which he could funnel valuable data, such as the SSID of the server's wireless network.

The SSID was easy enough to obtain: a simple combination of netsh -> wlan -> show interfaces would display a summary of all wireless adapters installed in the server, and the SSID was among the details reported. Charlie began integrating the required code into his exploit when a niggling thought bubbled to the surface of his mind stew.

He's probably hiding the SSID—not that that's any serious impediment—but what if he's really paranoid and has the ID set to mimic a neighbouring network? If I was the head of a global syndicate of server and information thieves, that's what I'd do. True, if that was the case I probably wouldn't be using a wireless network either, but hey, maybe he's just lazy?

Charlie shook the irrelevant thoughts from his head and refocused.

Okay, so just in case he really is that paranoid, I should grab the MAC address of the router too. Although, spoofing a MAC address isn't that hard either... Damn it! Oh well, there's not much I can do about that. If he's gone to the trouble of mimicking both the SSID and the MAC address of one of his neighbours, I guess we'll just have to check them both.

Retrieving the MAC address of the router was another simple task: print out the routing table, then filter out every line other than the one containing the router's IP address—easily obtained from the ipconfig command.

After combining both the SSID and the MAC address into a single string and appending the result to the geo-location URL, Charlie executed the exploit, waited another painstaking minute, then refreshed the database query on his home server and copied the two new records into a text document on his phone. He also emailed them to himself, just for the sake of redundancy.

"Okay, I think we're done here!"

Charlie let out an exhausted breath and leaned back into the beanbag, clasping his hands behind his head and resting his LCD-fried eyes. He heard Mel rise to her feet, stretching and unleashing a frightfully loud yawn. The sleigh-bell tinkle of a phone unlocking preceded a gasp of surprise.

"Holy shit!"

Charlie snapped his eyes open and craned his neck to look at Mel. She stood by the nearest window, the dusty brown curtains whipped back to reveal a velvet lamp-lit street, the murky grey afternoon having ceded its dominion to night's endless abyss.

"What's wrong?"

He heaved himself out of the beanbag and crept over to her, avoiding the shaft of street-light that pierced the clouded window lest she had spied enemies outside. Mel released the curtain and turned to face Charlie as he approached. She noted his stealthy advance with a nod of approval, but she banished his concern with a low sweep of her hand.

"Oh no, it's nothing serious. I just hadn't realised we'd been here so long."

Mel looked down at her phone and tapped at the screen. Charlie shot her a questioning glance as she raised the phone to her head.

"Calling us a cab."

Charlie's face relaxed for a moment, then contorted itself into furrowed confusion with the recollection of a promise Mel had made earlier. His concern mounted as he waited for her to finish the call, and when the phone disappeared back into the pockets of her black pants, he gave immediate voice to his worries.

"I just remembered. You promised Antonio that you weren't going to get involved in anything. You said you were going to hand anything you found over to the police and let it be." Charlie tried unsuccessfully to maintain an even tone, disappointment creeping into the furrows between his words. "Does this mean we're not going to Japan?"

Mel chuckled under her breath and melted Charlie's dejection with a warm smile.

"No, no, I just told Antonio that to keep him from worrying. He used to insist that I was too smart to be working security, and he would give me this crushing look every time I left for a shift, like he wasn't sure if he'd ever see me again. And then when he did, he'd always give me this massive bear hug, even though I kept telling him how much I hated it." Mel's mirth crumbled, her eyes staring wistfully through the annals of time. "Damn, I wish I could go back and slap some sense into myself."

Charlie nodded thoughtfully, knowing only too well the impossible desire to rid the past of foolish mistakes and reclaim wasted time. But that was a bottomless pit best avoided, despair and sorrow the only companions when battling against the past immutable.

Their taxi arrived swiftly. Mel spotted the headlights in the street a moment before the horn bayed its discordant howl into the night air. She patted Charlie affectionately on the shoulder and they made their way to the front door.

"Oh crap! Just a sec." Charlie raced over to the servers and yanked out their network cables. Jogging back, he flashed Mel a mirthless smile. "Better to be safe than sorry, right?"

Mel matched his grim smile and turned back to the door. Charlie stole one final sympathetic glance at the curled up figure on the beanbag before they departed the ramshackle abode.

That was you just a few days ago Charlie, huddled in the foetal position on your couch back home, barely able to get up to eat. Now look at you. You're chasing down an honest-to-god cyber-terrorist so devious he's successfully masked his true intentions from at least one—possibly all—of his legion of followers; one hand selling a noble cause while the other readies the knife of betrayal. If someone had been writing up a list of the least likely people to foil a global conspiracy, you would have been numero uno. Just imagine what your psychiatrist would say if she could see you now!

THE GOLDEN TICKET

Charlie had only one priority when they got back to the hotel: to shed the heavy wool and tight cuffs of his new suit for the breezy comfort of a t-shirt and a loose pair of tracksuit pants. The suit had performed its job admirably, projecting an image of confidence and control that had affected Charlie as much as it had Mike, but he unleashed a tremendous sigh of relief nevertheless as he parted ways with the stiff collar and ironed creases.

With a sly grin he reminded himself how wonderful it was to work in a profession that was flexible enough for him to occasionally work from home, where wrinkled pyjamas constituted garment of the day and his hair could play host to a flock of seagulls for all anyone cared.

Feeling far more relaxed, he returned to the main room of the suite to find Mel finalising the preparations for the next leg in their globe-trotting campaign. She had phoned Sam from the taxi, announcing another impromptu change of plans to depart America just days after arriving. Sam noted this repeat bout of uncharacteristic impulsiveness with confusion loud enough for Charlie to overhear.

"You're too young for a mid-life crisis, so just what the eff is going on, Mel? You haven't gone and gotten yourself married behind my back have you? This isn't some extravagant honeymoon you've gone and embarked on, is it?"

Mel had rebuked his suggestions with a retaliatory jibe, but followed it up by expressing sincere gratitude for all the hands that Sam had lent, not only since her forced 'vacation', but over the many years since their careers had first intersected.

The call ended with Sam clearly flummoxed, his perception of the world knocked askew by Mel's candid display of emotion, lost for words even as he set about organising two tickets to Japan for the following afternoon. On such short notice the flight was hardly cheap, but Mel had insisted that time was of the essence, and price no object; she was in no danger of begging on the street corner anytime soon.

With that priority done-and-dusted, Mel fumbled through a handful of pamphlets from beside the hotel phone and, after confirming that Charlie shared her fondness for Eastern cuisine, ordered a tantalising Thai banquet to celebrate the day's accomplishments.

When the food arrived they devoured it rapturously, Charlie's excitement at the prospect of visiting the technological epicentre of the world spilling out between mouthfuls of Tom Yum. Mel grinned broadly as his enthusiasm infected her with rambunctious cheer. She commended him on his incomprehensibly spectacular computer-hacking skills and Charlie blushed, hiding behind a bowl of Pad Thai while he wrestled with his embarrassment. He attempted to demystify his contributions by educating Mel on the flaws he had exploited, but she silenced him with a smile and a shake of her head, insisting that she trusted his abilities implicitly. Charlie's face grew even more beet, a bowl of noodles no longer sufficient cover for his crimson abashment.

They finished their meal and retreated to their respective beds with bellies full and hearts warm, a sound sleep enfolding them with pleasant dreams for nine blissfully unbroken hours.

***

Mel relinquished her ursine hibernation with a marvellous stretch and a body-quaking yawn. The exhalation turned into a yelp of surprise when she caught sight of the bedside clock and realised, for the first time in years, she had stolen more than eight hours of un-drugged, uninterrupted sleep from the capricious Sandman. Whether it had been stress or an overreliance on benzo, Mel had been sleeping late, waking early, and more often than not stirring three or more times a night, staring up into innumerable unfamiliar ceilings until exhaustion dragged her back into the void.

Unaccustomed to such fitful respite, Mel felt practically radiant after nine solid hours, rejuvenated with an inexplicably keen attitude towards even the most humdrum of tasks. She trotted to the bathroom with a spring in her step, conceding Charlie an extra hour of sleep while she showered, dressed, packed, and cooked breakfast.

***

Charlie awoke to the sizzling susurrations of frying eggs and the invigorating incense of fresh toast and steaming coffee. Thinking he was in his own bed, he rolled onto his side and tumbled heavily to the floor, splaying his arms out just in time to prevent an unwanted facial reconstruction. After picking himself up and self-consciously dusting himself off, he made his way to the kitchen and commandeered a stool in front of the bench, drinking in the heavenly fragrance wafting towards him with gleeful abandon.

"50ccs of caffeine, stat!" Charlie announced, slapping his hand down on the marble bench-top and grinning cheekily. He had not felt this socially aplomb since back in high school, before life cracked open his skull and poured in a lugubrious litre of self-doubt.

While they ate, Mel laid out their plans for the day. After breakfast she intended on submitting an anonymous tip to the Metropolitan Police in Washington D.C., warning of an impending robbery on the American Bankers Association headquarters on the date Mike had indicated. Charlie nodded politely, a mouthful of toast saving him from suppressing his scepticism in a verbal response. Mel caught the look of uncertainty in his eyes, though, and sighed, setting down her mug of coffee and swivelling on the stool to face Charlie.

"I know, I know, they're probably going to lend it about as much credence as a hobo's doomsday prediction, if that. Believe me, I received plenty of their 'we'll look into it' responses when I first started digging into this whole shebang, but, well, 'sometimes it's worth pissing in the wind just to feel the breeze on your balls'."

Charlie's eyes goggled and his brow flexed like a crawling earthworm.

"Wow, that's uhh, quite poetic."

Mel laughed, a forlorn undercurrent lurking below the surface. "Yeah, it's something dad used to say, after he'd had a few..."

Her eyes glazed over, abandoning the here-and-now for the misty hall of distant memories.

Charlie averted his eyes, wondering if perhaps Mel's sense of moral obligation wasn't some sort of subconscious response to the nature of her father's paralysis. His life-crushing injury had been the result of negligent behaviour and a blind-eye to proper protocol; knowing that might have seeded a lifelong inclination towards establishing order and following procedure. That would explain her choice of career too—judge, jury, and executioner operating from a clear and explicit handbook.

What the heck Charlie? I thought we'd weeded out all the high-school psychoanalysis years ago! Dammit Ms Gates, why did you have to be such a darn good teacher?

With breakfast demolished, Mel left Charlie to clean up while she took care of the anonymous police tip-off. Charlie had advised against using a mobile or the hotel phone, just in case the police decided to trace the call, so Mel headed off to find a suitably distant payphone.

Charlie buffed and scrubbed the kitchen back to a state fit for check-out, then proceeded to pack his suitcase and tidy up the rest of the suite. Mel returned sooner than Charlie had expected, the embers of a disappointed scowl still smouldering on her face.

"No luck, I take it?" Charlie asked sympathetically.

"Ha! Without any 'presentable evidence' the best they could do was take it under consideration. Useless cretins! I gave them plenty of 'presentable evidence' before and they still didn't give two shits! Pssh."

Mel flailed her hands to excise her frustration and the lingering coals disappeared from her face, replaced by a cool smile and an upturned brow.

"Anyway, you all ready to go?"

"Uh, sure. When's the flight again?"

"Not for another two hours, but I'd rather we get there nice and early. That'll give us plenty of time to 'enjoy' the manhandling TSA agents and sort out check-in. And I want to grab that Japanese phrase book too."

Charlie shuddered at the mention of the TSA. He had only been partially cognisant of his surroundings at the time of his unceremonious deflowering, but the fuzzy memories were enough to conjure goose bumps the size of golf balls.

Unfortunately, with the TSA being one of the defining characteristics of the American airline industry, Charlie had little choice but to accept his fate and steel himself for the imminent pleasure of being poked, prodded, and groped like a marketplace cow being inspected by a hungry butcher.

A butcher with no qualms about where he shoved his cold, cold hands.

***

Mel's advice proved remarkably prescient. The backlog for check-in at Sea-Tac was severe enough to warrant the installation of extra bollards to partition the serpentine queues, and their painstakingly slow progress through the line kept them occupied for well over an hour. By the time they were free of suitcases and possessed of boarding passes, they had but a scant twenty minutes with which to find their gate and scramble through the umbilical before their plane departed.

Iron will—and a little assistance from Mel—kept Charlie from succumbing to the dominion of anxiety while squeezing through the frantic crowds. Once they were safely ensconced within their designated seats, the tension wound down significantly. Their flight proved almost serene, with no screaming babies, no arguing couples, and no chairs being reclined into the knees of the unlucky passengers behind them. Charlie even fell asleep for a few hours in the luxuriantly padded chairs—Sam had managed to fit them in on a direct flight from Sea-Tac to Kansai International, freeing them from the stress of racing for a connecting flight or the tediousness of a lengthy layover.

Twelve hours passed with blessedly few woes, the addition of an extra twenty-four hours as they crossed the International Date Line the only event of note for the entire flight. Charlie's excitement surged to the fore during landing: for the second time in a monumentally unforgettable week, he was about to experience first-hand the wonders of a culture he had spent countless hours absorbing from afar. Books, movies, games, news reports, word-of-mouth—all had served to paint a utopian vision of Japan that he knew reality could never live up to. Yet still he felt his heart-rate rising, his fingers rapping and tapping the tops of his thighs while he eagerly awaited the fulfilment of a life-long fantasy.

Japan Charlie, freakin' Japan! Screw your anxiety dude, you've been dreaming about this day for years! Street-markets, neon lights, anime dolls, sushi! Man, as soon as this whole Big Boss thing is taken care of, it'll be time for one epic food binge. Japanese cuisine for the win!

A rush of heady glee pumped through Charlie's veins, and a broad grin devoured the lower half of his face. He stared intently at the flight data on the chair-screen in front of him, watching the ETA drop below the one-minute mark and tick steadily downwards.

Five, four, three, two, one, Japan!
SNITCHES GET STITCHES

Approximately twenty-four hours earlier...

Mike felt like his brain had been encased in solid ice then smashed repeatedly with hammer and chisel. His skull seemed bloated with turgid liquid, the rest of his body drained of its life-force so that even the simplest movement required a colossal force of will.

With verticality feeling as achievable as cresting Mt Everest, Mike remained in his beanbag embrace for many hours after Charlie and Mel had left. He retained consciousness but lacked directed thought. Every attempt to assess the recent storm of events was accompanied by a powerful wave of nausea gurgling up from the pit of his stomach.

A tiny thread of cognition disentangled itself from the mess of his mind, just enough to convince Mike to tackle the monolithic task of floundering to his bedroom and clambering into the comfort of his bed.

He struggled off the malodorous beanbag and onto his trembling knees. With gargantuan effort he commando-crawled across the trash-strewn floor, taking what seemed like an eon to cover the measly ten metres that separated the lounge from his bedroom.

The familiar depressions of his mattress imparted a calming sense of security, and Mike soon departed the waking world for the welcome abyss of unconsciousness. His dreamscape swallowed all thought of the many naïve months he had given to a sham 'noble' cause, transporting him to a sea of fluorescent neon and strobe lights. Pink panthers cavorted alongside coat-clad detectives, Cuban cigars dangled from between unmasked teeth, wispy tendrils of smoke wafted through the air and morphed into the shape of burlesque dancers, legs swinging, arms twirling, calling to Mike without a single word ever being uttered.

The blissful nonsense of his abstract fantasy was not to last.

Crash!

An almighty clamour thrust Mike back into his cold and lonely bedroom. Bright morning sun blazed through the window above the bedhead, blinding his sleep-softened eyes. He buried his face in his pillow.

He made no effort to move until a second thunderous blast assaulted his ears, dispelling the notion that the first had simply been a lingering remnant of his bizarre dream. A third monstrous thump was accompanied by a bellowed curse, a female voice edged in gruff, charcoal tones.

"Ah fuck it!"

The disgruntled cry drove everything but a chilling bone-deep panic from Mike's mind. Screaming adrenaline raced through his flaccid muscles and he hurled himself out of the bed. Crouching low, he crept slowly towards the open door, his eyes and ears perked and alert. His heart pounded out a drumroll introduction for whatever danger lurked nearby.

He peered around the edge of his bedroom doorway and scanned the kitchen with fear-stretched eyes. Nothing appeared amiss, and he found no source for the abnormal noises that had roused him from his slumber. With tentative steps that inexplicably managed to hit every squeaky tile and rattling floorboard, he crossed the dining area and cut behind the kitchen bench, approaching the side door into the living area pressed predator-low to the floor.

He reached the kitchen perimeter and halted, straining his ears towards the murmuring trickling in from the other room. The sound remained muffled fuzz. With deliberate movements, Mike placed his hands on the corner of the doorframe and slipped his head past the threshold.

In the far corner that—prior to the events of the previous day—Mike had pretended did not exist, was a lone shadowy figure, and zero illegitimate servers. He inched his head out and the shadow resolved into a young woman, mid-twenties at best guess. She gesticulated violently and whispered something unintelligible.

Mike yanked his head back into the kitchen.

What do I do? What do I do?

He struggled desperately to marshal his frantic thoughts.

A painful shove in the small of his back completed the task for him. He careened forward into the lounge room, stumbling and tumbling and coming to a rest with his face embedded in an months-old bath-towel.

"Found him."

The brusque male voice boomed from behind him. A well-worn sneaker tread pressed down on his back before he had the chance to move, crushing his spine and any hope for escape.

Flagrant cursing and the crash-bang of a minor avalanche accompanied the sound of heavy footsteps. The stampede ceased, and Mike felt an extra pairs of eyes training pinpoint lasers at his exposed back.

"Are you sure? Roll him over. Let me check his face before you go jumping to any conclusions."

The pressure on Mike's back eased. Something sharp jabbed into his side, squirrelling into the space between his body and the floor, and flipping him roughly onto his back. Two figures loomed over him: the woman he had seen flailing her arms, and his apparent attacker, a generously proportioned male of similar age with an ugly sneer and an evil glint in his eye.

"Yep, that's him."

Mike barely had time to turn his gaze to the female speaker before the big man brought his foot down once again, planting it on Mike's chest and shifting his weight until breathing felt like drinking a steak through a straw.

"You've been a right little bastard, haven't you? Thinking you could just pull out when things got too tough and leave us to take the fall? Pah!"

The big man made as if to spit on Mike but changed his mind, instead pressing his foot down a little harder and twisting his heel back and forth. Mike gasped in pain and tried to pry the foot away with his hands.

"Now now, none of that, Mikey boy! Just hold him down while I pin his arms."

The woman pulled out a roll of duct tape and circled around and out of Mike's peripheral vision. He knew exactly what was coming, but there was sweet bugger-all he could do to prevent it.

A pair of strong hands clamped down on his wrists and yanked his arms back over his head. His hands slapped together painfully and a tearing sound sundered the air. Within seconds his hands were tightly bound together at the wrists, the additional weight convincing Mike that the woman had used up the entire roll of tape for his makeshift handcuffs.

Gritting his teeth and fighting through the pain on his chest, Mike choked out a faint response to his captors' allegations.

"Wha—? What are you talking about?" His voice cracked like a geriatric pack-a-day smoker.

"Yeah, nice one buddy, but I think you might want to sharpen those acting skills a little before you take on Hollywood. Your delivery's kind of weak."

Mike's face melted into a look of pure bewilderment, fear bleaching his skin a stark white to match the décor of his trembling eyes.

"What the fuck? Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about!"

That wasn't entirely true. Mike suspected it had something to do with the previous day's 'interview', and the sudden disappearance of the stolen servers all but ruled out coincidence. Plus, how else could they have known his name and address when he had never seen them before—

"Wait, I remember you! You were the guys who dumped the servers here in the first place. Why the fuck are you doing this? I haven't done anything to you!"

The woman re-entered his cone of vision and glared at him with frost-borne eyes.

"Dude, you betrayed us! What the hell did you expect?"

Mike's own eyes swelled even wider as the enormity of the situation made itself apparent. He strained once more against his captor's indomitable foot, twisting his body left and right in a vain attempt to escape the excruciating meat-sandwich.

"Betrayed? Whazza? Wait, you don't think I'm Big Boss, do you? Oh, you've got to be fuckin' kidding!"

For a fleeting moment Mike convinced himself it was all just a simple misunderstanding, that his cantankerous captors had caught wind of yesterday's detective fun-time and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

The big man unleashed a booming laugh, grinding Mikes' threadbare hope into a fine powder.

"Ha! You, Big Boss? Get real! Big Boss clued us in to your little scheme, and now we've had to arse around to make sure that you can't screw us over any more than you already have."

The big man dug his heel in again, sneering sinisterly. The woman slapped him across his large arm and shook her head.

"C'mon, let's just pack him into the van and get out of here."

With obvious reluctance, the big man removed his leg and lifted Mike up by his ankles. Regaining the ability to breathe pain-free was a blinding relief, and Mike scarcely noticed when his arms soon followed his legs into the air and he started swaying from side to side like a human hammock.

Showing blatant disregard for his physical wellbeing, Mike's captors recklessly hauled him across the valley of trash to the front door. His momentary bliss shattered into a thousand shards of jagged desperation and he stammered out a belated response.

"M-my scheme? B-but Big Boss is the one who's been lying all this time! He's the one spying on us, not me! I-I can show you! It's all on the servers!"

The woman supporting Mike's arms hesitated, scrutinising his face with surgical severity. Her companion stopped too. The big man stared at the woman and shook his head.

"Don't let him bullshit you Jill, he's just a filthy rat who doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. Big Boss said he'd try to feed us some cock-and-bull story, remember?"

Jill narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Seconds of agonising silence crawled by while Mike hung limp and impotent.

"Tell you what. We'll take a look at those servers when we get back to my place. If you're telling the truth... Well, then we'll have a lot to talk about, I imagine."

Jill lifted her head and she and the big man continued towards the door. Mike, exhibiting a rare bout of emotional restraint, decided that the best course of action was to simply shut up and pray. Pushing his luck in the presence of the big man would be tantamount to suicide.

The big man lowered Mike's legs to the floor and slipped an arm around his back. The gesture appeared friendly but the intention was clear: try to run, and I'll snap you like a goddamn Kit-Kat. Jill let Mike's bound hands drop to rest against his legs, then slid her firm grip to Mike's upper arm and assumed the other side of the prison-guard formation.

They hustled him out of the front door and down the weed-choked path to where a dusty white van waited with its side door open and engine idling. Mike caught a glimpse of movement through the passenger side window, but the big man shepherded him into the van before he could get a closer look. Jill remained outside and slammed the door shut with a suspension-rocking thump.

The van grumbled and barked, then pulled out from the curb and departed for destination unknown.

Mike sat on the edge of his seat like a cornered squirrel, his eyes darting frenetically in search of escape. The lone side door was a no-go, and a thick metal grill prevented access to the front of the van. Through it, two indiscernible silhouettes were just visible. Mike assumed one was Jill, but the other remained an unknown quantity.

Resting against the back wall of the van sat the servers. Mike glared at the grey metal accusingly, blaming the squat boxes for the sudden unwanted twist his life had taken. After a minute of ultimately unfulfilling eye-rage, he turned his gaze back to his stoically silent warden. His judgemental stare burrowed through his skull and charred the tender tissue of his brain. Despite his earlier resolve not to harp on about his innocence, he felt compelled to explain himself.

"Look, I don't know what Big Boss told you, but I swear I haven't betrayed you, or anyone! I'm not the bad guy, he is!"

He might as well have been talking to a stone monolith.

As his words faded to an echo inside his rolling metal prison, a terrifying realisation struck him. His captors had not, in fact, been incorrect when they accused him of being a traitor. Memories that had been shunted aside unprocessed returned to the forefront of his mind, uncloaking to reveal what he had refused to admit: he had betrayed Big Boss, and consequently, VIXIN.

Oh shit, Big Boss knows, he fucking knows! How the hell did he find out? Oh man, probably the same way he got all my credit card info and shit. Is my place bugged? Fuck! Has that prick been keeping an eye on me all this time?

Mike's head swam with thoughts both rational and ludicrous, and he followed his captors' suit and clammed up tight for the rest of the half hour trip. He tried feverishly to justify his treacherous actions first to himself, then to imaginary versions of his incensed kidnappers.

He successfully quelled his self-doubt by reasoning that he had only really betrayed Big Boss, and given he had already lied about his true goals for VIXIN, not to mention the fact he was basically spying on Mike and probably the whole goddamn organisation, a little snitching was no more than his just desserts.

His attempt to persuade his mind-mirrored captors, however, proved less successful. None of them had discovered themselves the unwitting star of a Lifetime documentary, their intimate details stripped as naked as a Brazilian bodybuilder. Mike's entire argument hinged on that data, the bits and bytes locked away inside the squat metal cases clanging dully against the back wall of the rocking van.

A new fear bubbled up from his mind's cauldron of despair.

What if Big Boss wiped the servers once he realised what I'd seen? Shit, but if he's got my place bugged, why would he let me see it in the first place? Fuck, this makes no sense! How did I get sucked into this bullshit?

Occupied by the choking dread that his one fragile lifeline had been cut before it could carry him to safety, Mike didn't notice the van had stopped until the door in front of him slid open and a wall of cloud-filtered sunlight momentarily overwhelmed his dilated pupils. Dazed, he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder, lifting him bodily from his seat and thrusting him out into the brisk afternoon breeze.

His eyes gradually adjusted to the fractured sunrays. A square courtyard of chipped concrete coalesced before him. The van had deposited them at the end of a brick-and-mould alleyway, facing a ring of tall brown and white apartment buildings with naught but stunted balconies and fire escapes to enliven their otherwise plain facades.

A corrugated garage door screeched hideously from the closest building, and the big man—Neil, if he remembered correctly—pushed Mike towards it. The door retracted in stops and starts, its whine like a chisel on a chalkboard amplified through Marty McFly's sound system. Mike tried to cover his ears but his bound wrists would not comply. He settled for pressing one ear to his shoulder and wincing instead, which threw him off balance when Neil rammed down on his back and shoved him under the door. He stumbled awkwardly and fell to his knees on the concrete floor.

"Get up."

Neil's arm slipped under Mike's shoulder and forced him to his feet. More friendly encouragement directed him towards a dark, shadow-shrouded corner of the garage. The fluorescent tube lighting was either switched off or not working, but the dappled sunlight streaming in from outside purged the gloom and revealed a heavy steel door alongside a long wooden workbench. Neil propelled Mike through the door, then down a dimly lit corridor and into a musty stairwell.

They ascended to the fourth floor and exited into another corridor, this one lined with apartment doors, the gold-painted numbers hanging askew on age-worn oak. Jill stood outside a door halfway down the corridor, fumbling with a set of keys and muttering under her breath. Neil prodded Mike onward, following Jill as she conquered her slippery foe and disappeared into the depths of the apartment.

The apartment was entirely unremarkable: a modest three-room affair with bedroom, bathroom, and a multi-purpose kitchen/living/dining area. The faded wallpaper had peeled in places, and the floorboards had long ago been stripped of their polish by scuffed feet and dragged furniture. The furniture itself appeared cheap but well looked after.

Neil heaved Mike onto a couch patterned with 60's era psychedelic flowers. The rainbow spectrum provided a peculiar contrast with the rest of the tepid decor. Neil glared down at Mike, his cheeks flushed and his chest heaving, the exertion of climbing four flights of stairs evident on the big man's face. The sound of a running tap drew Mike's attention to one of the two closed doors to his left. The door opened and Jill stepped out, her serene smile discarded for stern concentration. Fixing her eyes on Mike, she strode over to Neil's side and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Go help with the servers. I'll keep an eye him."

Neil hesitated and drew a preparatory breath, but another slap on his arm convinced him to remain mute. He scowled witheringly at Mike, then turned and powered out into the corridor.

"Now, Mike, while we wait for the boys to bring up the servers, how about you explain to me just what you meant when you said Big Boss was the betrayer here?"

Her voice was surprisingly calm and soothing, especially after Neil's jagged and accusatory tone. Whether he perceived her as less of a threat because of her gender, or because she was willing to listen to his side of the story, he wasn't sure. If nothing else, it was a damn sight more amenable than Neil's manhandling.

Starting with his ill-advised NeoGAF post, Mike recounted the cavalcade of chaos that had trampled his life into a pancake of pain and paranoia.

He contemplated paving over the parts where loose lips got the better of him, twisting the story to paint his interrogators omniscient, but he hurled that idea out the window. Who knew what information his captors had received from Big Boss? Being caught in a lie would destroy any chance of converting his enemies into allies.

After spinning his tale raw and unfiltered, Mike petered out with a round of vehement cursing, his fury and despair reawakened by reliving the discovery of Big Boss' duplicity.

"All those months wasted working for a goddamn shyster! I could have spent my time looking for a real job, instead of helping that bastard build a blackmail database or whatever the hell it is! I thought we were doing something good, something important for fuck's sake!"

Jill observed Mike's outburst with a wary eye, her forehead crinkled and her mouth knitted in a zigzag pattern. She had uttered not a single word during Mike's confusing saga, but now she mumbled softly to herself, far too quiet for Mike to hear over his own vocal indignation. He clamped his mouth shut as soon as he realised Jill's lips were moving, and caught the last few words before she again fell silent.

"—months, what about frakkin' years?"

"Huh? What was that?" asked Mike, worried that he might have missed something important.

Before Jill could respond, a grunt sounded through the open door of the apartment, signalling the arrival of the servers and drawing Jill's attention away from him. She spun around and pushed the door aside to admit Neil and another young male struggling against the weight of one of the server cases.

"Okay, good, we'll set them up over here," Jill announced.

Jill directed Neil to a section of the room where an impressively large and robust power-board lay ready. The figure assisting Neil with the heavy lifting was the previously unseen third member of the group, the one who had sat in the front of the van with Jill on the ride over.

He was of middling height and stick-thin, a pallid complexion completing the image of a D&D geek. His black and yellow The Cake is a Lie t-shirt rounded out the stereotype.

Mike tried to catch his eye and size him up as friend or foe, but Portal guy seemed determined to always present his back to Mike. He helped Neil lower the server case to the ground, then plugged in the power and set up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse that had been resting atop the steel case. Mike recognised them as his own tarnished peripherals, stained and chipped in familiar places, though he hadn't noticed them in the van on the ride over.

Once the cables had been connected and the server powered on, Neil left to pick up the last of the load and Portal guy sat down at the booting server. The Windows logo flashed up on screen, a pixelated progress bar scrolling beneath it.

A ball of ice exploded in the centre of Mike's chest, cascading to his every extremity.

"Oh shit! Don't connect it to the internet! Big Boss might have set up a remote purge!"

The reaction to Mike's frantic cry was disappointingly anticlimactic. Jill tilted her head slightly and raised an eyebrow, while Portal guy kept his eyes locked forward and only pffted derisively.

"I'm not that stupid, jeez."

Within a minute Portal guy had the server booted up and logged in, running under the admin account with an exorbitantly long and complex password that he had copied out of his phone. Wanting a better view of proceedings, Mike tried to stand up, but the couch proved an incredibly effective snare with his hands taped together. He grunted in frustration, questioning how he had never noticed the extent to which he relied on his hands for such a simple task.

Jill spotted Mike's comical trampolining and wandered over to the couch, helping Mike to his feet with a sly grin.

"Shut up."

Jill scowled and shot Mike a warning glance. Mike felt a flush of regret and nodded, mentally slapping himself for forgetting the gravity of his situation. He needed to focus on clearing his name before getting chummy with Jill, as friendly as she seemed to be.

"So what now? We looking at a database, or raw files?" Portal guy asked, still not taking his eyes off the screen but directing his question to Jill.

Jill turned to Mike and motioned for him to answer. Mike had glossed over the technical details when pleading his case, focusing instead on the emotional turmoil of discovering the strings jerking him along, but now it was time to dive into the nitty gritty.

Speaking to Portal guy's back, he explained how Charlie had avoided the login requirement for the database by exploiting the less secure reporting server. Portal guy opened up a web browser and loaded the site, much to Mike's relief.

Okay, so at least Big Boss didn't cut access to the site. Now I just have to hope he didn't touch the data either...

Mike directed Portal guy to the database reports and was about to tell him to search for 'Mike Whiteley' when Portal guy typed it in unbidden. Ludicrously, he felt a twinge of discomfort. They already knew where he lived; what did it matter if they knew his full name too?

His distress vanished as his detailed finances blossomed across the screen, showcasing his scarlet-red propensity for accumulating debt. Immense relief that the data had not been purged clashed with renewed anguish at the harrowing invasion of his privacy. Once more he felt naked, like his skin had been coloured translucent and his every thought was broadcasting in clear-text, his life converted to open-source.

A morbidly appreciative whistle banished Mike's resurrected misery to the depths from whence it came. He watched Portal guy briefly scan over the financial digest as well as the spliced chat logs, then close the windows and load a new report with a different parameter that vanished from the screen too fast for Mike to read.

From the way Portal guy snapped ramrod straight when the results flashed up, Mike guessed that he had just discovered The Truman Show twist, confronted with the truth of the life he'd been living. With neck veins bulging like an emaciated tree-trunk, Portal guy spent a good thirty seconds transfixed by the content on-screen before swivelling his head by degrees to face Mike, meeting his gaze for the first time since he had entered the apartment.

His eyes were the size of saucers, and his pupils reflected a fiery anger fuelled by poorly concealed fear. Mike knew exactly how he felt, and consequently ignored his spiteful tone.

"I can't believe it." Portal guy swung his head towards Jill. "He's right. The goddamn bastard's right. Big Boss is playing us for fucking chumps."

REBELS WITH A BRAND NEW CAUSE

While Jill experienced for herself the horror of privacy disassembled, Portal guy removed Mike's bonds and introduced himself as Phillip, blaming his earlier abrasiveness on the ferocity with which Big Boss had denounced Mike as 'traitorous scum threatening VIXIN's goals our very lives'.

According to Phillip, Big Boss had sent out a group email to all members of VIXIN, claiming their map designer—Mike—had gone rogue, breaching the security of their server network and obtaining incriminating evidence he intended to hand to the police. A subsequent email had gone out to just the participants of the Seattle EA raid, tasking them with retrieving the servers from Mike's place and moving them to a more secure location. Due to the extremely short notice, quite a few of the participants were out of town or occupied with other obligations, leaving it up to Jill, Neil, and Phillip to carry out the retrieval themselves. With regards to the issue of Mike himself, Big Boss had advised discreetly detaining him before he could cause any more damage, employing whatever means they deemed appropriate for a backstabbing turncoat such as he.

Phillip paused after mentioning the second email. His posture took on a defensive edge, his face twitching as if an invisible war raged across its surface. A volcano bubbled beneath his lips, threatening to tear his mouth asunder.

The pressure eventually exceeded the limits of his restraint and the words geysered out, Phillip's erstwhile confidence deflating like a punctured balloon.

"I-I need to tell you something." He raised his voice, delivering his words to the room at large. By this time Neil had returned, joining Jill in staring at the computer screen with train-wreck fascination. Realising he did not have the captive audience he had expected, Phillip swallowed and cleared his throat loudly, grabbing the attention of Jill who alerted the Neil with a light jab of her elbow.

"I-I have something to confess. B-Big Boss, he asked...no, h-he ordered me to keep Mike from talking, not just to the police, but to you guys too." Phillip looked in turn at everyone but Mike, his face pleading for forgiveness. "H-he told me to do whatever it took to ensure he remained silent. W-whatever it took..." Phillip shuddered and reluctantly confronted Mike, his lip quivering like it was caked in ice.

"I-I'm sorry Mike. Big Boss w-wanted me to k-kill you..."

"What? Kill me? Are you fucking serious?" Mike's voice exploded into a violent and piercing crescendo, his face skewed like a deformed visage from the House of Mirrors.

Phillip flinched and shuffled backwards, his hands instinctively rising as if to ward off an incoming blow. He started to stammer out another apology but Mike caught his eye and shook his head.

"Dude, calm down. It's fine. I'm not going to shoot the messenger." He exhaled like a car backfiring. "Still, you're lucky you didn't try to kill me. I would have annihilated you."

Artificial confidence swelled Mike's chest. He had no martial arts training whatsoever—unless you counted Street Fighter—and his aggressive defence was little more than a vapid smokescreen to hide his fear. He'd had plenty of practice employing such tactics across the turgid waves of the internet, unloading volleys of empty threats from behind the anonymity of an online mask.

Only now... that mask had been ripped clean off. Big Boss knew who he was, where he lived, and was pissed enough to sentence Mike to a long walk off a short plank—concrete shoes included. No amount of cocksure boasting could change that.

Neil helped Phillip regain his composure and he resumed his tale, his voice emboldened by his recent confession.

"Big Boss made me promise to keep it on the down-low, but for about six months now he's been having me do a bunch of odd jobs on the side. It started after I made a comment about how stealing a couple of grand's worth of servers was basically pissing in the ocean against companies like Comcast and CBS. He confronted me about it and asked if I was interested in something a little more 'serious'." Phillip shrugged and splayed his hands in a show of impotence. "I said yes, and he started feeding me small tasks, preparatory work for a full-scale assault. At first it seemed pretty innocuous: throwing together a few spam bots, a piece of wanky malware, a shitty match-3 game that would act as the front for that malware on iOS and Android. It sucked I couldn't tell you guys about it before, but I have to admit it felt a shitload better than just sitting on my ass and waiting for our server op.

"Lately, though, things have been getting kind of shifty. He FedExed me a box of jury-rigged transmitters, and he's been having me piggyback them on local surveillance feeds. They're set to grab a copy of the footage and transmit it over RF to a base station at my place, which uploads it to one of Boss' servers."

Phillip paused and took a deep breath, surveying his silent audience. Neil had adopted a cautious and contemplative air. Jill was frowning, scrutinising Phillip with a befuddled look, her lips parted and her head tilted to one side. Mike was only half-listening, his mind still processing the enormity of having an honest-to-god hit on his life.

Phillip continued, his shoulders squared and his jaw set.

"I was pretty reluctant when he first suggested the whole transmitter thing, being that it introduced an element of physical traceability to the operation, but Big Boss said he needed the feeds to track down local political activists to sway to our cause. I caved, and I know it was illegal and all that, but goddammit planting those things was freakin' cool, some real James Bond style shit, you know?"

Phillip searched the faces of his cohorts, his eyes seeking vindication. From all but Mike he received looks of wary acceptance. He smiled meekly and ploughed onward.

"Anyway, it really bit me on the ass when all this stuff with Mike blew up."

Hearing his name, Mike abandoned thoughts of his frail mortality and tuned his eyes and ears to Phillip's confessional frequency. Phillip clearly noticed Mike's renewed lucidity, and addressed him directly.

"Big Boss told me you discovered his 'confidential' operations and misinterpreted their purpose, believing they subverted VIXIN's ultimate goals. He said you planned on spilling information that would threaten our mission and implicate me in criminal activity!"

Pitiful eyes beseeched Mike to understand Phillip's situation. Mike narrowed his eyes and cradled his chin in his hands, masking the tell of his lips and leaving Phillip with little choice but to proceed with his ardent defence.

"He didn't say what you found, but he stressed that it would mean a life sentence for both of us if it got out. I couldn't even begin to comprehend the idea of going to jail so I had to play along. I could even imagine myself doing it when it was just words on a screen. But when we actually got to your place, well...

"I couldn't get out of the van. I prayed that you'd left already, gone into hiding or something so I wouldn't have to do it. Turns out God wasn't listening, 'cause they found you. Although maybe he was, because if you hadn't shown us these reports, I don't know what would have happened..." Phillip unleashed a violent shiver, like a wet dog shaking off a coat of rain. "I should've seen it earlier. Big Boss was always holding something back, saying the less I knew, the less trouble I could get into. Ha! Prick. Ignorance is not bliss, let me tell you."

Deflated, Phillip slumped back against the wall, closing his eyes and massaging his face with his hands. Mike waded through the murky swamp of lies and deceit that he now found himself in.

Shit. I remember thinking this was all supposed to be simple: build a level and that was it, job done. Now it's all assassination contracts and blackmail rackets and fuck knows what else. Why did I get involved in this again?

***

Silence clouded the apartment. Neil ground his teeth back and forth, glowering at a blank section of wall. Phillip linked his hands behind his neck and buried his face in his forearms. Shaking his head, Mike mouthed curses vulgar enough to curl the hair of even the most jaded prison guard.

"We can't let that arsehole get away with invading our privacy like this!" Jill clenched her fists. "We need to let the rest of VIXIN know that he's the traitor, and then we need to take him on a tour of the ninth circle of hell!"

Blank and baffled stares met Jill's proclamation.

"C'mon guys, have none of you read Dante's Inferno?"

Neil's eyebrows shot up. "I played the game, but I quit when it got repetitive. Does that count?"

Jill rolled her eyes. Neil smirked and she flashed him a warm smile.

"The ninth circle of hell is reserved for acts of treachery. It's where Satan resides, so I think a backstabbing bastard like Big Boss will feel right at home."

Phillip clapped his hands together with a thunderous boom. "Great, well, now that we've all had our literature lesson for the day, how exactly do you plan on contacting the others? Most of them will be busy administering the DDOS attacks."

Jill's smirk melted and she chewed the corner of her lip in thought. "Shit, you're right."

"DDOS attacks?" Mike asked, feeling like the spare tyre hanging limply on the back of a 4x4.

"Oh, right." Phillip mumbled, not opening his eyes. "You guys fill him in."

Neil snorted and opened his mouth but Jill got in first, swinging her attention back to Mike and clearing her throat. "Okay, well, in order to keep the 5-0 off our backs while we grabbed the servers, Big Boss got the rest of VIXIN to set up a bunch of DDOS attacks targeting the Metro police and a couple of local offices for net-regulation supporters."

"Don't forget the relocations," Phillip added from his wall slump, prompting another disapproving snort from Neil.

"Oh yeah. Big Boss wanted all the servers—globally, not just in America—transferred to new locations and running on new networks with fresh IPs. For the safety of VIXIN and its members, he said. Deceitful dickhead."

Jill mimed hocking a glob of saliva into the face of her invisible adversary.

Mike took a second to absorb the explanation then frowned.

"Fair enough, but didn't you guys jump the gun a bit by doing this today? Shouldn't you have given it at least a day for the effects of the DDOS to really kick in?"

Neil offered up yet another patronising snort, this time directed at Mike. "Uhh, dude, we did give it a day. The DDOS attacks were set off yesterday."

"Yesterday? Dammit, how the fuck did Big Boss react that fast?" Mike shook his head in dismay.

That settles it. He must have my place bugged. Goddamn sonofabitch!

It wasn't really that fast," Jill said. "He sent the emails on Friday night, but the DDOS wasn't sorted until about midday yesterday, right guys?"

The group nodded their heads in confirmation, Phillip doing so while remaining ensconced in the world behind his eyelids.

"Wait, what day is it today?" Mike's face morphed back into knotted confusion, his mouth dangling open as he awaited a reply.

"Umm, it's Sunday, dude. What day did you think it was?"

"Shit! You mean I've been out of it for like..." Mike paused and his eyes drifted to the ceiling. "30-something hours? How is that even possible? I mean, I remember waking up a few times, but still..."

Mike looked to Jill like she might have an answer for him, but she just shrugged and turned back to Neil.

"Sure, they'll be busy with the DDOS attacks, but no-one's going to be completely off the grid. They'll still be checking their email and stuff."

"Yeah, that's true. Still, we're going to be sitting on our asses for quite a while if you plan on waiting for everyone. Most of Europe's probably asleep right now. Heck, on that topic, do any of you have a clue where Big Boss lives?"

Neil's question was met with glum and grim negatives. Phillip shifted out of his slump and opened his eyes, but he too had nothing salient to offer. Mike was still baffled by his obnoxiously long hibernation, and it took him a few extra seconds to catch up with the conversation.

He furrowed his brow and curled his lip, incredulity fast becoming his default emotional state.

"Umm, I told you, he's in Japan! At least, that's where those detectives think he is. Hey, maybe we could use them to get back at Big Boss..."

All eyes in the room honed in on Mike. Jill took the initiative and gave voice to the communal confusion.

"Japan? You never mentioned Japan."

"Oh shit, really?" Mike stretched one corner of his mouth in a sheepish smile. "I guess I forgot. Everything after the Benedict report is kind of hazy, but I definitely remember them saying they thought Big Boss was in Japan, and they were going to fly there and try to catch him. I don't think they had an exact location, though..."

"Okay," Neil said. "At least that gives us something to go on. I'm no fan of the fuzz, but you've got to admit they're usually pretty thorough with their investigations. They don't go chasing down leads unless they've got an army of evidence shoring up their flank, especially when it goes international."

"True, but I really don't like the idea of helping the police. Makes me feel dirty." Phillip shuddered and looked to Jill expectantly.

Jill grimaced and splayed her hands in deference to the powers that be.

"I'm not super keen on it either, but if we don't do anything we might miss our chance for payback altogether. Unless you plan on shouting us all a trip to Japan?"

Phillip pouted.

"Alright, but what happens once they've caught Big Boss? They'll be coming for us next, and if Big Boss sells us out—not much of a stretch after all this—then they'll be sitting pretty on a database full of our addresses and contact details! We should be focusing on saving our own asses, getting fake identities or something, not making it easier for them."

Mike could see where Phillip was coming from. Just the thought of judges and jails sent icicle fingers trickling down his back. Still, there had been something about the guy—Charlie—that tempered the edge of his fear, an earnest and honest demeanour that convinced Mike they were on the same side.

"C'mon guys, it's Big Boss they care about, not us. We're just small fries compared to him." Mike aimed his rhetoric at Phillip, an involuntary note of adjuration creeping into his tone. "They had me on a silver platter, just like you guys did, but they let me go because they knew that it was Big Boss pulling the strings. And that guy, Charlie, I'm pretty sure he's on our side in the info war." Phillip cringed at Mike's choice of words, but Mike ignored it. "He supports VIXIN's goals, I could tell, so he's not going to piss all over us just because Big Boss has gone rogue."

With heavy reluctance, Phillip dropped his shoulders and nodded.

"Fine, but have you got a plan? Because you said they're heading to Japan, and I can't really see how we're supposed to help them from here. It's halfway across the frakkin' world, dude."

Mike sneered and the urge welled up within him to give Phillip the finger, but he thought better of it and scratched his head instead. "Hold on for an effin' sec, will ya? I've got Charlie's email address, so it's not like they're on Mars or something. And as for what we can do, well, there's got to be something useful we can get out of these things—" Mike gestured to the nearby servers "—otherwise why would Big Boss send you guys to get them back?"

Phillip stuck out his lip but remained silent. After receiving a stern look from Jill he grumbled acquiescence, and the group crowded around Mike's small, weathered monitor.

Phillip took point.

"Okay, let's see what we've got here..."

***

With a cast of backseat tech-heads hurling advice—advice he emphatically ignored—Phillip scoured the server's digital landscape for any clue to Big Boss' location, or his ultimate goal.

"Man, this is pointless. There are tens of thousands of records in this goddamn database, and we don't even know what Big Boss' real name is. Even if we sat here all day we'd get nowhere. I'm going to check out the file system."

With preternatural speed, Phillip ploughed through the various disparate hard drives, noting with curiosity that they were not running in a RAID configuration. His rapid directory diving came to a screeching halt when a particular filename struck a very familiar chord.

"Hey, that's the name of that crappy match-3 game I made! But why is it the name of a batch file?"

Phillip opened the file and briefly scanned through the text, narrowing his eyes as he tried to picture the execution chain in his mind. As best he could tell, the batch file merely executed a bunch of other programs—most of which were other scripts from the same directory—and piped the data between them as input and output, dumping the result into the database once it had been dutifully processed. The very first line of the batch file searched for new audio files in a directory associated with a locally running FTP server.

"Dude, this is weird. It looks like there's some serious audio processing going on, converting it into binary, then into XML, but I'm not well-versed enough in audio manipulation to know what it's actually doing. You guys got any idea?"

Phillip turned to his cohorts, but they were more stumped than he was. Mike spent only a few seconds looking at the convoluted batch file before giving up and letting his attention wander. Phillip shrugged and turned back to the screen.

"Eh, maybe some of these other scripts will give us a clue."

Phillip skimmed through the rest of the files, each adding a few more tiles to the complex mosaic he was piecing together in his head.

"Damn...this goes deep...real deep..."

Neil cleared his throat and tapped Phillip on the shoulder. Apparently his rapid scrolling and window-switching had proved too much for his companions.

"Right, sorry, sorry. Basically, Big Boss has set these servers up to process a heap of surveillance data: images, video, audio, text. No matter what format it is, it all gets translated to plaintext, then a bunch of keyword searches and switch statements are run to determine the actual nature of the data. Those results are used to update the database, either by adding new detail records for the people identified in the surveillance data, or by mapping relationships between existing records and recording that as metadata."

Jill steepled her hands in front of her face and sighed. Neil whistled admiringly and shook his head.

"I guess this is the real reason he had me bug those camera feeds..." Phillip mumbled, a dagger of guilt piercing his side.

"Sheeet. There anyway we can shut this thing down?" Neil asked.

Phillip turned to Neil and shook his head glumly. "It's all getting pushed back to a central server, which I'm guessing updates the rest of the distribution—"

Phillip's eyes snapped open from their half-blinkered state.

"Wait! If everything's syncing off that central server, then all we'd need to do is wipe its DB and the rest would follow suit. Jill!" Phillip swung his head from Neil to Jill, his eyes now bright and alert, trembling with anticipation. "You got an external hard drive I can use? I want to back everything up first, just in case..."

Jill nodded and scrambled to her feet, jogging over to a thick wooden cabinet with a sleek LCD TV resting on top. She bent down and rummaged through a collection of impossibly entwined power adapters and obsolete hardware peripherals before finally locating a small USB-powered Passport drive. She trotted back and placed it in Phillip's waiting hands. He slammed it into the nearest USB port on the server and waited for the drivers to install.

Knowing a full database backup would require credentials he did not have, Phillip copied the entire SQL program directory over to the USB drive, following it up with exported PDF copies of all the summary reports he could find on the report server. Last of all he backed up the script directory he had found, including with it a few sample input files from the various FTP directories.

"Okay, that should be good." Phillip unplugged the USB drive and handed it back to Jill. "Now I just need..." He swept his eyes over the room, searching for the link to the next part of his plan.

"What do you—?"

Phillip cut Jill off by leaping to his feet and scrambling over to the side of the TV cabinet. A vertically-oriented router sat partially obscured by the bulk of the LCD. Phillip sidestepped the cabinet and thrust his hand into the gap between TV and wall, searching for his prize with a look of concentration smeared across his face.

"Gotcha!"

He emerged with a knotted yellow Ethernet cable in his clutches. After sizing it up for length, he snaked it back to the server and plugged it in. He seated himself back in front of the keyboard and watched as the red cross disappeared from the network icon in the tray of the taskbar.

"Alright, let's see how good my SQL memory is..."

Utilising an SQL injection exploit—the very same one that Charlie had used two days prior—Phillip sent a query to the central server that would wipe the database, backups and log files included.

The exploit module reported that it had been refused connection to the remote SQL server. Phillip barked in frustration and threw his hands into the air.

"I knew that would be too easy! Bastard must have blocked incoming connections after he discovered whatever those detectives did. Damn, if they just hadn't been so careless..."

Phillip stared keenly at the monitor, his angry glare melting away as he concocted a new plan. While he ambled through his mental repository of hacks and exploits, Jill stood up and offered a round of drinks. She turned to make her way to the fridge in the kitchen and froze, staring perplexedly at the back of the server case.

"Uhh, Phillip? You might want to check the network logs; something's a bit keen on the activity."

Phillip frowned and followed her gaze. The light on the Ethernet port flashed furiously.

Ducking his head back, he quickly opened the Resource Monitor and switched to the network tab. Aside from the expected traffic from the system processes, the SQL Server output a hefty stream of data.

"Crap!"

Phillip lunged forward and yanked out the Ethernet cable, then, for good measure, ripped out the power cable too. The screen went dark and the whirring fans subsided, the room suddenly unnaturally quiet.

"Let me guess," Mike piped in, his arms folded and a smug smile stealing across his face. "Remote purge?"

Phillip rolled his eyes and nodded reluctantly.

"Told you," Mike said with childish self-satisfaction.

"Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter anyway, that's why I backed it all up beforehand. I told you, I'm not an idiot." Phillip scowled at Mike.

Mike bared his teeth and sneered back. Phillip started to stand up and—

Jill clapped her hands.

"You're both idiots. We have a much more pressing concern here: how are we supposed to nuke the server if we can't even access it?"

Jill shot an enquiring gaze at each of the group in turn.

"Hmm. I've got an idea, but we'll need to swing by my place to pick up some stuff." Phillip bounced to his feet and rubbed his hands together, an eager glint sparkling in the corner of his eye.

"Who's up for a trip?"

LITTLE OTAKU IN BIG OSAKA

"Wow, this isn't half as busy as I thought it would be!" Charlie announced. He swung his head like a ball-in-the-mouth carnival clown, marvelling at the grandeur of Kansai International Airport.

Mel smiled and patted Charlie on the shoulder. She led him down the concourse, passing innumerable tiny restaurants and food stalls.

The alluring infusions of spices, herbs, and oils wafted under Charlie's nose and beckoned him to stop and taste. Dim Sum, sushi, and noodles; wraps, focaccias, and sandwiches; McDonald's, Subway, and Starbucks; every cuisine he could imagine seemed to be on offer from the legion of ruthlessly space-efficient shoeboxes. Serving staff swept about with mechanical efficiency, clearing tables and ushering diners into still-warm seats.

Further down the concourse, Charlie spotted a crowd forming around one of the many massive LCDs scattered throughout the terminal. Onlookers swarmed in and jostled for a closer look, departing in animated conversation with their companions.

Intrigued, Charlie pointed out the odd congregation to Mel. They slipped out of the flow of bustling travellers and approached the murmuring crowd. Mel stepped forward and took point, protecting Charlie from the press of bodies.

They advanced until the until they could make out the TV audio over the murmur of the throng. Charlie stood on his tiptoes and perked his ears. It appeared to be a news report of some kind...

In Japanese.

Of course.

Fortunately, English subtitles ran across the bottom of the screen. Along with the slideshow of images flashing above the reporter's shoulder, Charlie was able to piece together the core elements of the news story.

"This can't be a coincidence..." Charlie commented, shaking his head and turning to Mel.

"Yeah, I agree, the timing is too perfect. You're going to have to explain to me what a DDOS is, though."

"Sure, but let's go find somewhere a bit quieter first. We passed a McDonald's before; it should have free WiFi I can snag."

Mel steamrolled a path out of the crowd and they made their way back up the concourse. They found an empty corner booth inside the McDonald's, and they sat down. Charlie pulled out his laptop and booted it up, connecting to the surprisingly fast WiFi and loading up a selection of international news sites.

"Okay, let's see if this makes a bit more sense in English..."

Charlie scanned past inane celebrity gossip and opinion pieces on the threat of North Korea employing their nuclear arsenal before he found what he was looking for.

"Here we are: 'Metropolitan Police swamped by recent spate of DDOS hacks on Seattle-run businesses.' Oh, c'mon CNN, a DDOS attack is not a 'hack'. Why are these articles never written by someone who knows what they're talking about?"

Charlie shook his head and clicked through to the article proper, skimming the report and its multitude of bold-marked updates. It appeared that, aside from the cost of the police investigation, no serious damage had yet been caused by the still-active attacks.

"That's weird. There's no way this is a coincidence, but I can't see what the heck it's supposed to achieve. All the companies listed here: none of them are supporters of internet regulations, and none of their websites are even that heavily trafficked. I mean, who's really going to care that they can't access the website of...Seattle Sanitation Services for a couple of days?"

"Maybe it's a diversionary tactic?" Mel sat opposite Charlie and watched another subtitled news report on a wall-mounted TV. A female correspondent was interviewing the owner of a Seattle florist. The coverage leaned heavily towards human-interest and focused on the disruption to the florist's online ordering system.

Mel's gaze drifted back to the table and settled on Charlie's laptop. "So what is this DDOS thing?"

"Oh, right!" Charlie exclaimed, lowering the lid of his laptop. He shunted it to the side and clasped his hands on the table in front of him. "So, DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service, which basically means getting a butt tonne of computers in different physical locations to try and access a particular website or service all at the same time. The aim is to flood the controlling server—or servers—with more requests than it can handle so that it gets bogged down and nobody else can access it."

Mel nodded ponderously. "Is it hard to do? I can't say I've ever heard of other DDOS attacks in the news before."

"Eh, they happen a fair bit, they just don't get covered by typical news channels. Most of the time they only last a day or so, and more often than not it's a group like Anonymous or LulzSec pursuing some personal vendetta. Or worse, doing it because it's 'fun'." Charlie shook his head, disapproval etched across his face.

"Anyway, the thing is, you need to have a lot of computers to hit a website hard enough to bring it down. I'm talking thousands, at least. The way groups like Anonymous and LulzSec usually do it is by employing botnets. Now, botnets are..." Charlie paused as he compressed the library of information in his head down to smaller, digestible chunks. "Botnets are just groups of regular computers connected over the internet, except those computers are infected with a virus or malware that allows somebody else to seize control of them. It's kind of like a network of sleeper agents; inert and unaware until the right signal is given. Whoever sent the signal can take command of those computers and use them for any manner of nefarious deeds. In this case: inundating a bunch of cheap web servers with page requests to bring them grinding to a halt."

Mel rested her chin on clasped hands, her eyes narrowed but distant. She inhaled deeply.

"Okay. So you think Big Boss is behind all this, then?" Mel gestured to the nearby TV where a scene of consumer chaos was unfolding inside the tiny flower shop.

"Well, it would make sense if we assume that our efforts yesterday didn't go unnoticed. There wasn't a hell of a lot I could do to mask my access, so if Big Boss is paranoid enough to regularly check his server logs, then my little 'excursion' would be kind of hard to miss." Charlie smile weakly then grimaced. "He's bound to have a list of all of the stolen servers' IPs and MAC addresses and their respective physical locations, so he'd know the intrusion came from Seattle. If he thought we were still there, well..."

Charlie thought the implication was obvious, but Mel seemed to have trouble boarding his train of thought: too much technical jargon clogged up the platform.

"You've lost me. Why exactly would he do this DDOS thing if he thought we were still in Seattle?"

"Well, he probably expects us to go to the police, or heck, maybe he thinks we are the police. Either way, the DDOS attack would jam up the system and give him time to cover his tracks. Which means we need to move fast, before he decides his physical security needs an upgrade too."

Mel nodded slowly, a thoughtful crease adorning her brow. "Yeah, you're right. And we know Mike has no fortitude for interrogation, so we can't bank on the element of surprise anymore either."

"Wait, what?" Charlie's choked cry attracted a few curious and disapproving glances from nearby patrons. "What does Mike have to do with this?"

"You said Big Boss would know we were at Mike's place when you did all that techno hocus-pocus. The first thing he'd do would be to send his goons in after us."

"Shit! You're right!" Charlie stared in dismay as Mel's logic sank in. "And the DDOS attack would be a perfect way to keep the police busy while his minions worked on tracking us down! Dammit, why didn't I think to wipe the bloody server logs before we left?"

Mel shrugged and dismissed the issue with a wave of her hand. "Oh well, nothing we can do about it now. You're right though, we need to get our asses into gear before our lead goes cold. We'll make a quick pit stop at the hotel and drop off our luggage and then we're heading straight for Kawaguchi to track that bastard down."

Charlie nodded, his mouth set in a grim, determined line. He started to pack away his laptop, then froze. Mel's earlier statement t-boned him like a tardy delivery truck.

"Crap! What about Mike? We've got to tell him to get out of there before Big Boss' goons show up! I know he's a bit of a dickhead and all, but if he gets hurt because we forced him to talk..."

Charlie suppressed a mild wave of nausea that crashed against the walls of his stomach. Mel frowned quizzically, then softened and offered a sympathetic smile.

"Charlie, the news report said the attacks have been going on since yesterday. If Big Boss was planning to send somebody after us, he's already done it." Mel reached across the table and patted Charlie on his arm. "It's too late for a warning."

Charlie's face twisted in pain, every word Mel uttered carving deep gashes into his forehead. Guilt and concern mounted behind his widening eyes.

He turned to his laptop, sliding it back towards him and unfolding the screen. He hammered ferociously on the keys, pulling up the White Pages directory service and punching in Mike's name and address.

"Uhh, Charlie? What are you doing?" Mel asked, her tone warm and concerned.

"Maybe it is too late, but I still have to try! He wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for us."

Mel sighed and locked eyes with Charlie.

"If anything happened to Mike, it's not our fault. He was in this shit long before we showed up, and it's not like we beat that confession out of him; he gave it up willingly. Besides, he had to know the risks involved in associating with criminals like Big Boss. You don't play with fire unless you're prepared to get burnt."

"Mmm..." Charlie mumbled noncommittally. Mel's logic was sound, but his guilt was not in the mood to be rational.

Charlie found the number for Mike's landline and keyed it into his phone, his thumb hesitating above the fat green call button.

"Gah! We're in Japan, aren't we? How the heck do you dial international numbers?"

Mel opened her mouth to respond, but promptly slammed it shut again as Charlie resumed his tap-dancing keyboard sonata. Irritation flashed across her face, but she dislodged it with a shake of her head.

Charlie found a tourism website that listed the international and country codes, tapped in Mike's number, and hit the call button. He lifted the phone to his ear, his eyes squinted in concern and his lower lip clamped between his teeth.

"C'mon Mike, pick up, pick up, pick up! Dammit!"

Charlie dropped his hand to the table and let the phone slide out of his grasp. He stared at it menacingly.

Mel cleared her throat.

"Look, just because he didn't answer his phone doesn't mean something's wrong. He could be out, or maybe he's just asleep."

Charlie could tell Mel was reaching.

"Yeah, maybe..." He tried to shunt his concern to the back of his mind and regain focus, but a niggling sense of guilt lingered, poking and prodding with dogged insistence. He sighed in resignation. His conscience could be a real stubborn SOB. "Alright, but just let me send him an email. At least then I can say I tried."

Mel trilled her fingers across the table top as Charlie stared glumly at his laptop screen. He typed and swiped slowly, his usual energy absent.

His eyes lit up like lighthouse towers.

"He's okay!"

A rush of air billowed out of his lungs in a lengthy sigh. He rubbed hard at his face, the worry lines gone when his hands dropped back to the keyboard.

Mel rose from her seat and shuffled around to Charlie's side of the table, her eyes tracking immediately to the bright screen.

IMPORTANT!!!11! <mike.the.star.69@hotmail.com>

Sent: Sun 4:17 PM PDT

To: charlie@skilliontrix.com.au

charlie!!! bad news!!1 big boss knows we found him out! Actually i dont think he knows u guys but he tried to set me up as a snich! he ordered Phillip to kill me!!~!! can u believ that?1?! he called in a ddos and a hitman!!! its so fucked!!!1!

Anywayz I showed these guys those reports so now they want to kick big bosses ass to. Phillip came up with a pretty sick plan but I cant say what it is cos he said we cant be sure whose listening.

Philipl says its almost ready to go now but I said to wait for you guys cos we want u to catch big boss so he can pay for fucking us over. I got them to give you 8 hrs to give us the signal cos we really dont want big boss to escape but Phillip will do it anyway after that if we dont here from u.

Jill said we should give u a few ways to signal us in case one doesnt work so when ur ready u can send an email or call/txt one of the numbers I attachd.

Now go catch big boss!!1! Hes an asshole and he needs to pay!!1!

"Wow, sounds like Mike's putting together a mutineer army! Who'd have thought?" Charlie chuckled, the relief in his voice palpable. "I wonder what this plan of theirs is. It's obviously something that would spook Big Boss, otherwise they wouldn't be waiting for us to pin him down first. But it can't be anything too incriminating either, or they wouldn't need us to catch him; they could just leave it to the police." Charlie tapped his finger on his chin, his lip jutting out in graceless concentration.

While Charlie continued to mumble to himself, Mel shuffled back out of the booth and rose to her feet. The horrifically worded email had made one thing painfully clear: they were now operating on a deadline, and if they wanted to catch Big Boss, they needed to move fast.

Mel scooped up her travel bag, slinging the strap over her shoulder. "C'mon Charlie, there's no point worrying about what they're up to. We've got far more important things to take care of." Mel slid her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the display, hissing through her teeth. "And by my count we've only got five hours till good ol' Mike and his friends pull whatever bullshit they have planned and completely fuck our chances of catching Big Boss with his pants down."

Mel spat the profanity like poison, her frustration cutting sharp angles into her face. If Charlie had not been so focused on her portentous proclamation, he would have found her visage terrifying.

"Holy crap, you're right! Now we're really under the pump!" Charlie's fingers clacked across the keyboard like angry ants, a final emphatic stab of his index finger marking the end with appropriate gravitas. "Alright. I just sent Mike a reply asking if they can extend their deadline a bit, but don't hold your breath. From the sounds of it this Phillip guy didn't want to wait for us at all..."

Charlie shrugged and slammed the lid of his laptop shut, then zipped it into his bag. He started to stand up, but a worrying thought knocked him back into his seat. The strings of their sudden time constraint drew even tighter.

"Oh bugger! We still have to go pick up our suitcases from baggage claim. And we have to drop them off at the hotel too! Dammit. Is the hotel near Kawaguchi?"

Mel nodded, her corrosive mask slowly dissolving. "Yeah, it's not too far. It's the same place I stayed last time I was here, near the Osaka International Convention Centre..." Mel suddenly trailed off and tilted her head, taking a momentary excursion to the distant lands of recollection. "Wait! They had a baggage delivery service last time I was here! I should still have the phone number here somewhere..."

Mel pulled her phone back out and swiped at it.

"Ah, there it is! Alright, let's see if they're happy to take last-minute bookings..."

Mel struggled through the automated reservation system, repeating herself on more than one occasion until her words were interpreted correctly.

"Gah!" Mel grunted in exasperation. "I really hate computers." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, exhaled frustration. "Okay, no more distractions. It's time to hunt down this master of puppets and cut his strings."

Mel thrust her phone back into her pocket and turned towards the exit. She stopped when she saw Charlie staring at her incredulously, a tepid smile dancing across his lips.

"Metallica?" he asked, his tone flecked with admiration.

Mel grinned then reflected his raised eyebrows back at him. "You sound shocked."

"No, I just...uhh...didn't pick you as a fan, that's all."

Mel waved her hand dismissively and picked her way between the tables, back to the terminal proper. "Eh, I wouldn't say I'm a fan exactly, but you can't deny what they did for the metal scene in the late 80's. Kick-started my interest in music and turned me onto bands like Slayer and Pantera, so they're not too bad in my eyes."

Charlie puckered his lips approvingly and tried to wipe the look of surprise off his face. Back in high school he had been a self-proclaimed metal-head, splashing his part-time income on the latest albums and tickets to see the scant few bands that trekked all the way to Australia. His musical interests had waned over the years though, with a cynicism and an aversion to new bands developing alongside an increased disdain for the relentless physicality of the mosh pit. His tastes had veered into less intense territory, a preference for softer melodies with a lower BPM leading him away from the head-banging, blood-pumping tunes of his high school years. Nevertheless, hearing the opening bars of tracks like Opeth's Ghost of Perdition never failed to draw him into a state of heart-racing kinetic potential, a useful trait he would still employ whenever caffeine failed in its duty as midnight whip-cracker.

"C'mon Charlie, we don't have all day!"

Charlie blew off the remnants of his nostalgic reverie and scrambled to catch up to Mel.

***

They proceeded through the airport at a brisk trot, weaving in and out of the schools of stragglers without causing undue havoc. They emerged into the crisp dew of early morning, the sun deigning to make brief appearances from behind thick marshmallow clouds. Before them lay the incomprehensible anarchy of the taxi ranks, a chaotic free-for-all that defied any attempt by an observer to understand its logic. Charlie's ears were greeted by a cacophony of blasting horns, squealing brakes, and enthusiastic haggling. Drivers young and old hefted luggage into their vehicles with Tetris-like precision, elastic belts and knotted rope employed when supply exceeded capacity.

Mel scanned the cavalcade of cars, vans, and bikes, and pointed to a faded orange sedan with a short old man reading a newspaper across its hood. They jogged towards it, threading their way between islands of less decisive travellers with ease thanks to their lack of burdensome suitcases.

Barely twenty metres separated them from the taxi, yet in that distance they were hounded by no less than five impassioned drivers desperately seeking their custom. Their zealous insistence pricked Charlie's skin like acidic acupuncture.

When a clumsy fellow foreigner stumbled into him he recoiled in horror, shrugging away from the contact and accelerating his jog into a pavement-pounding sprint.

He barrelled towards their chosen chariot and threw open the door, flinging himself into the back seat. He paid no attention to the startled cry of protest from the driver and welcomed the embrace of torn leather and warped plastic like his mother's tender hug. Relief promptly replaced discomfort and he swivelled around into a seated position, scolding himself for letting his emotions bypass his brain and corrupt his composure.

Casting his eyes through the open door, Charlie saw Mel trying to calm the frantic old man, her jilted Japanese painstakingly slow in comparison to the torrent surging forth from the old man's lips. With a frustrated scowl Mel retrieved the phrase book she had purchased at Sea-Tac and flipped through the pages, her basic grasp of the Japanese language evidently insufficient in the face of the old man's rambunctious vernacular.

Seeing the phrase book finally brought the old man's tirade to an end, his wild gesticulating ceasing with an exasperated sigh. Charlie slid across the cheap leather and poked his head out the open door, an apology poised on his lips. The old man might not understand the words, but he figured the meaning should be pretty obvious.

It proved unnecessary however, as the old man began speaking to Mel in fractured English. He completely glossed over the topic of Charlie's odd behaviour in favour of discussing the details of their fare.

Satisfied that he had not caused any irreparable damage, Charlie retreated into the cab, closing the door and savouring the solitude for the few short moments it lasted.

Mel and the old man concluded their negotiations and joined Charlie in the taxi.

The old man whistled tunelessly and started the car with slow and deliberate movements. He took his time adjusting the mirrors and triple-checking his surroundings before carefully slipping the taxi into a gap in the swirling vortex of airport traffic.

The trip to Kawaguchi was long and cloaked almost entirely in silence. Mel attempted a few bouts of small talk, but gave up when it was clear the driver's English couldn't support it.

Apparently forgotten by the two figures in the front half of the taxi, Charlie spent the vast majority of the cab ride with his face pressed to the glass, voraciously drinking in the passing sights with bug-eyed childish wonder.

Towers poised like spears threatened the sky. Contortions of phone, electric, and data cables thicker than his midriff dangled above ludicrously narrow alleyways, so thin in some places they could only be traversed via sidelong shuffle. Shoebox houses stacked three or more high, their tiny gardens constructed with mathematical precision to utilise every square inch of free space. Hastily erected market stalls so overflowing with frivolous knick-knacks and tchotchkes that their cheap material walls bowed under the weight.

The journey sparked moments of surreal convergence in Charlie's mind, where the culture he had explored almost exclusively by proxy was suddenly close enough to touch. His osmosis experiences through videogames, anime, and the internet were lent new meaning with human context, like the dissonance of an optical illusion finally coalescing to reveal the secret within.

The smorgasbord of visual delights held Charlie in its fantastical clutches for nearly the full two-hour taxi ride, boredom only just taking seed when they reached Kawaguchi and pulled into the narrow alley Charlie's geo-location site had identified.

The old man brought the taxi to a squeaky halt next to a corrugated warehouse door. Mel fished a generous sum of 10K-yen notes out of her pocket and handed them to the old man. He accepted the payment with a show of reverence, bowing his head and muttering thanks in Japanese.

Charlie opened the door and slid out of the taxi, stretching the kinks out of his arms and legs then pumping them to stimulate blood flow. He yawned and rolled his neck while Mel clambered out to join him.

The taxi trundled off down the alley, merging with the traffic on the adjoining street and disappearing from view.

Mel folded her arms across her chest and gave their surroundings a 360 degree survey.

"Alright, time to shine Charlie boy. You've got that scanner thing of yours. What's it say?"

"Just a sec." Charlie pulled out his phone and opened the WiFi Analyzer app. "Okay, let's see..."

Charlie strolled up and down the alley, his eyes glued to his phone. After several minutes he had walked the entire length of the alley two times over, but aside from the physical exercise, his efforts had accomplished naught. He returned to Mel dejected.

"Can't see it. Either he's changed both the SSID and the MAC of the router, or he's switched off his wireless completely. Or maybe he just decided he wasn't safe here anymore and packed up and left..."

Charlie stared forlornly at his phone, trying through sheer force of will to make Big Boss' wireless network appear. It took him a good while to realise that Mel had not responded to his despondent proclamation.

He jerked his head up.

Mel peered intently over his shoulder, the gears of cognition revolving visibly behind her keenly focused eyes. Charlie spun on his heel and ducked in instinctual self-defence. After confirming the absence of any imminent threat, Charlie lifted his head and looked around.

He frowned, confused. Nothing in his line of sight seemed to have changed; at least, nothing that would justify Mel's studiously fixated gaze.

"Uhh, Mel? What are you looking at?"

With her eyes still laser-locked on their target, Mel took three long strides backwards, reaching out to grab Charlie's shoulder and dragging him back with her.

"Cameras."

Now that he knew what to look for, Charlie was able to spot a small plastic webcam sitting on a window ledge on the second floor of a nearby apartment building. Copious amounts of black duct-tape formed a makeshift cradle that appeared to restrict all movement. The webcam was partially concealed beneath a sheet of deformed plastic that—as demonstrated by an impromptu downpour from a leaky rain-gutter high above—redirected rainfall away from the camera and its immediate field of view.

Charlie pivoted towards Mel but paused halfway, his brain registering the plurality of Mel's statement. He swung his head back and focused his eyes, searching for more concealed webcams in the general vicinity of the first.

Several metres to the right, a small rectangle of frosted glass rested ajar, another eyeball-shaped webcam saw wedged in the gap at an angle perpendicular to that of the first camera. The camera viewpoints converged on the space directly in front of the ground floor entrance, a single glass sliding-door that led into the apartment lobby.

Charlie took a moment to survey the adjacent buildings too, but came up empty. Cautiously, with half an eye still on the bathroom camera, Charlie turned to Mel and studied her face.

"You reckon that's Big Boss' doing, huh? His apartment, his cameras?"

Mel nodded almost imperceptibly, her pupils engaged in a furious game of Pong across the building's facade.

"It's a pretty crude setup. Probably threw it up in a rush after discovering we were on to him. Still, it looks like that door's the only way in, which screws any chance we had of surprising the bastard." She narrowed her eyes, her Pong match ending in a stalemate. Her pupils drifted back to centre.

Charlie deemed his fear of the camera developing autonomy to be irrational, and turned his full attention to Mel.

"Does that really matter though? I mean, he doesn't know what we look like, and we're not kitted out in police uniforms or anything. Even if he's cataloguing everybody who walks through those doors, what's he going to do? He couldn't afford to get spooked every time one of the other apartments gets a new visitor."

Mel grumbled an acknowledgement, but concern remained firmly engraved on her face. "Even so, it still ruins our chance at catching him with his pants around his ankles. If he's antsy enough to install his own surveillance, then there's no way he's going to open his door to two complete strangers."

"Mmm, true. And even without a suit you still look pretty fierce. Uhh, no offense."

The corner of Mel's mouth twitched into a subtle smile. Charlie grinned. He didn't feel the need to restrain his emotions around Mel anymore. Progress!

Charlie sighed and chewed at his lip, an unexpected patch of rough skin alerting him to the presence of a fresh callous. As he traced his tongue across the abrasive texture he was hit with an odd wave of nostalgia, a memory of split lips and chapsticks and university lecture halls, of logic and reasoning honed and thrust forth, each challenge conquered becoming bridge to the next.

The halcyon memories sparked more than just wistfulness. Ceasing his habitual chewing, Charlie switched to a more analytical approach and broke the problem down piecemeal, tackling each component separately just like he had back at uni.

Okay, problem one: the surveillance system. One entrance, and those cameras have it totally covered. Hmm... Maybe we can't avoid the cameras, but if we could keep his attention away from the security feed for just a minute or two... But then how do we distract him? And what the heck are we going to do once we're at his door?

"Gah!" Charlie grunted, clenching his jaw in frustration. "This really shouldn't be so difficult. We're trying to sneak into an apartment, not a bloody castle!"

He turned to Mel, hoping her assessment would be more favourable. She was looking over his shoulder again, tracing her eyes across the roof of the squat warehouse to the left of the apartment building. Charlie followed her gaze. The tiled warehouse roof slanted down, ending just below the second floor apartments, a metre of dead air separating cracked grey tiles from weathered red brick.

"Tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking..."

Charlie slowly twisted his head back, his mouth agape, his eyes aghast. Mel kept her own eyes studiously forward, avoiding Charlie's mortified expression.

"If I climb up that fire escape onto the roof of the warehouse, then jump across to that window ledge, I can edge around the corner and get to the window with the camera. It has to be open a crack if he's running a cable through, so I should be able to jimmy it up without too much trouble..."

A faint tremor of hesitation chewed through Mel's voice like termites through wood, crippling her firm facade. She simmered into silence, her jaw sliding back and forth like she was trying to grind down a particularly chewy piece of meat.

"What?! You've got to be frakkin' kidding me! You'll get yourself killed!"

With tremendous reluctance, Mel finally addressed Charlie's incredulity, her tone becoming defensive with just a touch of arrogance.

"I might not be quite the spring chicken you are Charlie, but I've got plenty of miles left till I hit the horizon." Mel placed her hands on her hips and let her eyes drift back to the rooftop. "I've had to monkey my way up drainpipes and trellis walls before, chasing down trespassers and the like. This isn't that different; it's just a little higher, that's all."

Mel's attempt at rationalisation seemed as much for her own benefit as it was for his, but that only hardened his resolve.

"Don't be ridiculous! You're the one who keeps reminding me that this isn't a movie, now it's my turn." Charlie stepped in front of Mel and mimicked her hands-on-hips stance. "Mel. This isn't a movie. You're not James Bond or Lara Croft. If you try and climb up there, you're just going to fall and break your neck."

Mel's eyes narrowed and her lip twitched, but she continued to stubbornly avoid Charlie's gaze. She turned away and strode towards the warehouse fire escape, casting her eyes over the buildings on the other side of the alley. Charlie spun and jogged after her, desperation raising his voice into the higher octaves.

"Mel! Please listen!"

With a shiver of déjà vu, Charlie realised he was in a role-reversed re-enactment of one of the many anxiety-fuelled episodes he had tortured his parents with years prior. Charlie recognised the fabricated logic and the stubborn tunnel-vision, the irrational adherence to self-imposed guidelines that turned each day into a ritual of endless obligations, a life fading grey as free will choked its last.

She thinks she needs to do this to stay true to herself, to prove to the world that she's strong enough to handle whatever it throws at her. She doesn't want to back down because she thinks it's a sign of weakness, a failure to live up to her own impossible standards. Dammit! How the heck do I convince her not to think like that when I still have trouble convincing myself?

A thorn-covered arrow suddenly nocked itself in Charlie's bow, a verbal barb capable of halting Mel's advance if Charlie was willing to suffer its sting.

Oh man, I hope she doesn't kill me for this...

Charlie caught up to Mel then loosed his venomous gibe, his tone harsh but low to keep safe from prying ears.

"Mel! What about your father? Isn't this kind of stubborn independence exactly what made him so miserable? Do you want to end up just like him?"

Mel froze mid-stride, her shoulders tensed.

Ten agonizingly long seconds trickled by.

Her shoulders dropped. She turned back to Charlie.

A look of bittersweet resignation cast shadows across her face, fear and resentment nowhere to be seen.

Charlie released a tremendous blood-cooling sigh.

Mel wandered back slowly, her eyes dancing around Charlie as if he were a basilisk poised to petrify. When she reached his side she spun 180 degrees and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, her grip at once both forceful and gentle.

"Two things, Charlie. Number one: don't you ever, ever, suggest that I'm as block-headed as my father again. I can't be held responsible for my actions if you do. Number two..." Mel paused and took a deep breath, stretching the silence taut so that her next words struck like a forge hammer on virgin steel.

"Thank you."

The two short words resonated with raw, unbridled emotion. Mel had expressed gratitude before, but this time Charlie felt he had done something to earn it. The praise called to life a weak smile on his face, and Mel's warning vanished into the ether. Mel returned Charlie's smile, her eyes betraying the effort it had taken to heed his advice.

After a fleeting five second respite, Mel broke their shared reverie and resumed her grave analysis of the apartment complex.

"Right, so we can't break in and we can't sneak in." Mel sighed despondently and gave Charlie an inquisitive look. "I sure hope you've got some bright ideas, because my well is bone dry."

Charlie concentrated and began subconsciously chewing his lip again, his mind desperately plumbing deep into his memory banks. He cycled through recollections of spy fiction—movies, books, and games, from George Smiley to James Bond, from Splinter Cell to Metal Gear Solid. For some absurd reason his mind called up the episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Lisa needed to rid Springfield of the deceptively sinister Funzos, and went door-to-door singing Christmas carols so that Homer could 'sneak' in and retrieve the evil toys in the background.

Stupid brain! This is not the time for Simpsons' references! Actually, wait a minute...

"Of course! Surprise isn't contingent on all parties remaining unseen, just one. If I go up there by myself and maintain a clear non-threatening demeanour, sure, he'll probably still be a little wary but I doubt he'll be diving for his panic room or swallowing his cyanide pill. I mean, look at me. I'm no Rambo. I'm pasty, flabby, and I'm carrying a laptop bag that looks like a NES controller. I'm a pair of prescription glasses away from being the very epitome of nerd culture."

Charlie expected at least a pinprick pang of self-pity to accompany his unfavourably frank assessment, but instead it was pride that marched defiantly behind his words, the seeds of self-worth blossoming with saccharine confidence.

Yeah Charlie, who cares what other people think, or how they categorise you. You love computers and tech but don't like sports and parties; so what? If it makes you happy and it doesn't hurt anyone else, what's the problem? And don't forget how crucial your knowledge has proven in tracking down Big Boss. Now listen close Charlie, because I'm about to lecture you:

If you weren't a gamer, you would never have drawn the link between Mike and the EA theft, nor would you have been able to fool him into meeting with you.

If you weren't a tech-head who opted to build his own server to host his uni projects, you wouldn't have had your geo-location site to pin down Big Boss' location.

And, to cap it all off, if you weren't so intimately familiar with the machinations of a self-destructive psyche, Mel would have gone and tried her crazy action-hero stunt and probably ended up a sprawling heap of shattered bones and ruptured organs!

He shook off the Rodriguez-esque horror image and found himself warmed by his own reasoning, an unstoppable smile spreading surreptitiously from cheek-to-cheek.

Mel stared at him quizzically.

He filed away his bolstered self-esteem for later appreciation and returned to his scheduled broadcasting.

"Uhh, sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, so I go up alone and knock on the door, then hold him there for a few minutes while you sneak up behind me. I was thinking I'd pretend to be collecting signatures for a petition to have Japan introduce its own internet restriction policy, its own SOPA. That should grab his attention—well, assuming his stance on freedom of information wasn't just another part of this whole cock-and-bull charade, I guess."

Mel stared unseeing, waist-deep in thought. "You think that'll work?"

"I think it's our best shot. You've probably noticed this before—even if only subconsciously—but most people can't resist correcting somebody when they think they're wrong. Heck, I have to stop myself doing it whenever I hear people on the tram blaming all the world's problems on Facebook or Youtube or videogames simply because they're platforms they don't understand. I'm hoping Big Boss won't be able to pass up the chance to prove his moral and intellectual superiority."

Mel frowned thoughtfully.

"Alright, but how am I going to know when I'm good to go, assuming your plan works?"

Charlie smiled. "That's easy." He slipped his phone out of his pocket and held it between thumb and forefinger. "I'll call you before I go up and leave my phone connected in my pocket, that way you can hear everything that's going on. I'll give you a signal when you're good to go. Uh...I'll clear my throat like this—" Charlie echoed a pattern of short bursts. "How's that?"

Mel nodded then pressed her lips together tight.

"Okay, okay, this could work. Let's just test the phones first; I want to make sure I can hear you loud and clear so I don't misinterpret your signal."

Charlie walked to the other end of the alley and began talking at conversation level. Once Mel was happy that she could extract Charlie's throat-clearing signal from amidst the background distortion, they set their plan in motion.

DUPLICITOUS WRECKS

Holy shit, I can't believe I'm doing this.

Charlie swallowed the nervous boulder in his throat and looked to his left. Mel had taken position in front of the closed corrugated door of the adjacent warehouse, out of sight of the apartments. She caught his eye and shot him a reassuring smile and a terse nod.

Charlie summoned up a timid smile and inhaled deeply, steeling himself and striding down the short path towards the apartment complex. As he drew close he could feel the unblinking eyes of the two cameras staring down at him, like laser spotlights burning away his clothes and leaving him naked. The hairs on his neck stood on end, and he fought to suppress a shiver lest it make his unseen observer suspicious.

He slipped through the sliding door and scanned the vacant lobby, searching for cameras or other means of surveillance.

Clean.

He expelled a shaky breath and let himself shiver, the feeling of being hunted washing away like dirt in a hot shower.

Gaining confidence, Charlie strode through the lobby towards the staircase recessed in the far wall. He gave the reception booth a casual glance as he walked past, a prepared excuse on the tip of his tongue should anyone emerge to question his presence. Fortunately, the booth held only a young Japanese male slumbering peacefully with his feet resting on the cluttered desk and his mouth dangling open, a globule of glistening saliva trickling down his lower lip.

Thank god for slackers.

Charlie reached the stairs and began his ascent. His target was the alley-facing corner apartment, judging from the locations of the webcam windows outside. When he arrived on the second floor landing—also blessedly bereft of traffic—he sighted down the short corridor and headed towards the last door on the right.

He swept his eyes over the dusty cream walls and ugly grey ceiling, searching for more eyeball cameras or motion sensors, or any other security measures a cagey cyber-villain might employ. The fluorescent tube lights dividing the ceiling were either dim or burnt out, but they afforded enough illumination to deem the corridor free of surveillance.

Before reaching the door to the final apartment, Charlie pulled a blue binder out of his laptop bag. He held it in front of him like a shield, trying hard to calm his nervous hands shaking the board like a tambourine. He took one last quivering breath and stepped up to the light-brown door, dull faux-gold lettering spelling out the room number just below the tiny eyehole. He lifted his arm and rapped sharply on the hollow wood, the hallway narrow enough that the echo carried all the way back to the stairwell.

"Umm, h-hello?"

Trembling fissures sullied Charlie's voice, and he instinctively started to clear his throat. His eyes bulged when he realised what he was doing and stopped abruptly, lubricating his throat with saliva instead. He considered whispering a clarification to Mel through the phone, but thought better of it.

Nuh-uh Charlie, Big Boss might be listening in. Just because you can't see any bugs out here doesn't mean there aren't any.

Dredging up every last skerrick of confidence, he knocked again, injecting false cheer into his voice and projecting it through the door. A faint buzzing sound could be heard inside, and he wanted to make sure his speech rose above it.

"Hello? I-I'm here as a foreign representative on behalf of the IGF-J, that's the Internet Governance Forum of Japan, and I was wondering if you could spare a few moments of your precious time to hear me out? W-we're gathering feedback from the community on a proposed internet regulatory commission: a body tasked with making the internet in Japan a safe and friendly environment that everyone can enjoy."

Charlie felt a little awkward talking to an unresponsive wooden door but he trucked on anyway, pushing his voice louder to combat the low buzzing emanating from the apartment.

"Uhh, I'm not sure if you're aware, but in the past few years America has been trying to achieve something similar through initiatives such as SOPA, CISPA, and PIPA, and though their goals were admirable, they were ultimately unsuccessful. But by combining the best parts of these and other international efforts, we believe we have constructed a bill that will benefit and protect everyone, allowing children and adults alike to feel safe and secure when exploring the wilds of the internet, as well as translating into the digital space the rights we enjoy every day in the real world."

Charlie drew a deep breath before delivering his final proclamation, enunciating each word clearly so that his hypocrisy could not be missed.

"It is our duty to ensure Japan remains at the forefront of technology, pushing the envelope of invention as well as the thinking surrounding it. The internet provides many wonderful opportunities, it's true, but it's currently at odds with regular society, absent many of the basic rights—such as those regarding intellectual property—we rely on to maintain peace and order in our day-to-day lives. Thus, we must update the legal framework to rectify this incongruity, lest we allow Japan to sink beneath the inexorable wave of progress."

Charlie unleashed a lengthy, soul-weary sigh. A sour, fuzzy taste lingered at the back of his throat. He had spun up the toxic speech with a little help from Google, cribbing bits and pieces from multiple activist websites, and had rehearsed it five times with Mel before he was confident he had it down pat. Lessons learned during his tenure in the high school debate team had proved invaluable, allowing him to temporarily suppress his personal biases and beliefs.

Ten seconds filled with nothing but that insistent buzzing noise passed. Charlie prepared to improvise another obnoxious tirade when he spotted a potentially fatal assumption in his plan.

Oh crap! What if Big Boss doesn't speak English? Sure, he sent those emails to Mike and chatted with him on Skype, but he could have used translator software for that. Dammit, how did I miss something that obvious?

Charlie admonished himself with an under-the-breath curse and struggled to think of a way he could alter his plan so it didn't hinge on a mutually understood language.

He came up blank.

Knowing now that his words might literally be meaningless white noise in Big Boss' ears, Charlie eschewed another round of discourse and waited only half a minute longer before turning to leave. He managed two steps before the low hum from the apartment abruptly spiked in volume, and he paused mid-stride to confirm he wasn't imagining it.

A brusque male voice exploded from behind him and he spun on his heels, a blistering arctic wind gusting down his spinal cord.

"Oi!"

A black-haired male in his mid- to late- twenties appeared in the narrow gap between doorframe and door. A condescending sneer consumed the visible portion of his face.

"I've got some feedback for you. How about you do your research before you start parading around such ignorant bullshit? You should probably start by reading up on international human rights; might I suggest the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? Here, let me save you the trouble." A brief pause filled with the sound of rustling paper. "Article 19 states 'everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any means and regardless of frontiers.'" Another pause, this time accompanied by louder crumpling as the paper was apparently discarded. "Now, do I need to explain how your wonderful regulated internet would completely violate this right, or are you smart enough to see that yourself?"

Charlie gaped, struck mute by the temerity of his foe's rebuttal.

The face disappeared and the door started to close.

"Uhh, w-wait!"

Charlie scrambled back to the door. His phone bounced around inside his pocket, providing a timely reminder of the purpose underpinning his politically charged rant.

He cleared his throat rhythmically.

Another surge of chilling nervousness shuddered down his spine and he focused on recapturing his opponent's interest before he retreated into his sanctuary.

"S-so you're saying that anybody—even little kids—should be free to visit sites with videos of torture, or murder, or rape? Or that any misguided individual with an internet connection should be able to access IED instruction manuals and recipes for biological agents?"

Charlie struggled to paste an appropriately impassioned tone over his utter lack of conviction. He drew on arguments from half-remembered news reports targeting the uneducated masses, arguments that he had scorned and rebuffed but was now forced to wield as his own.

The gap between door and frame narrowed to a crack the width of a strand of hair.

But it didn't close.

Charlie was struck by the sudden urge to rush forward and charge through the door himself, seizing the opportunity before it was lost.

The muscles in Charlie's legs tensed and coiled—

The infinitesimal sliver snapped out to a two-inch aperture.

"Do you realise how stupid you sound?" The single visible eye bore into Charlie with venomous incredulity. "Treating adults like little children to be coddled and 'protected'"—he spat the three syllables like each had personally wounded him—"is the absolute antithesis of social and technological evolution. You might be happy to sacrifice your freedoms for a semblance of so-called safety, but anyone with half a brain is smart enough to know where that will lead.

"Your wonderful 'regulated internet' would be a choke collar for communication and creativity, undermining the very reasons the internet exists!" He shook his head, his eye momentarily disappearing behind the wooden frame of the door. "How about you go read 1984 and then tell me how fantastic enabling a nanny-state would be. Dickhead."

Once again the door began to close, but this time Charlie lunged forward and wedged his shoe between the frame and the door.

A shout of surprise erupted from the darkness within.

Charlie's reaction had been instinctual rather than considered, and he was suddenly left wondering what the hell to do next. The voice behind the door offered a helpful suggestion.

"Get your fucking hoof out of my door before I call the cops!"

Charlie opted to ignore the advice.

He twisted his foot further into the gap and contemplated the only real option available.

Alright Charlie, I guess it's now or never. Time to find out what you're really made of—

The thunder of galloping footsteps boomed from his right. He turned and saw Mel tearing down the corridor towards him, her eyes ablaze, her nostrils flared, her arms and legs pumping furiously.

Rather than slowing down as she drew closer, Mel swung out to the opposite wall and curved her trajectory perpendicular to the door.

She twisted her head and lowered her shoulder.

Charlie pivoted on his jammed foot, pressing the rest of his body flat against the adjacent wall.

The last second before Mel collided with the door seemed to stretch for an eternity, but when she finally made contact, time exploded like a frag grenade.

The door submitted to the demands of Mel's shoulder, flying inward and releasing Charlie's foot from its role as ersatz doorstop. He yanked his leg away just as the door decided to rebel, halting its inward swing with a shudder as a hitherto unseen chain snapped taut.

Mel gasped in surprise as her vector was abruptly reversed. She rebounded towards the opposite wall, her arms thrown forward in an ungainly rendition of Thriller as she struggled to remain upright.

Her flailing ceased when she crashed back-first into the wall. Air burst out of her lungs and she slid roughly down to the floor. The back of her jacket collected dust from the wall and left a broad streak disturbance in its wake, a patch of clean cream wall brighter than the rest.

The musical clatter of chain links directed Charlie's attention back to the trembling wooden door. He could hear a faint whimpering coming from inside, and with a surge of initiative—and the slightly irrational desire to take revenge on the door for causing Mel harm—Charlie leapt forward and slid his hand through the gap, fumbling for the chain release he knew had to be there. With clumsy fingers he managed to slide the chain off its runner, freeing the door to swing inwards unimpeded.

Inside the apartment, a groaning figure scooted backwards across the floorboards. He used his legs like oars in a marsh, pushing slowly off the carpet while his arms lay limp across his chest.

His eyes met Charlie's.

With a grunt he rolled over onto all fours and started crawling towards a brown leather couch. He reached for a swollen backpack nestled between the cushions and dragged it along behind him as he scurried further into the apartment.

Charlie hesitated. Even with his foe hamstrung by injury, the notion of charging in alone seemed reckless. Better to play it safe.

Charlie turned back to Mel. She lay slumped awkwardly on the floor, massaging her shoulder. He bounded over and helped her to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily for a few seconds then sighted on the apartment door.

She launched inside.

A split-second later, Charlie surged in after her.

Sinister shadows danced across the apartment walls. The air smelled stale.

A flash of movement disappeared down a side passage. Mel shot off after it, barrelling past couch and coffee table, past bookshelf and bar fridge. Charlie catapulted after her, arriving at the corner in time to see Mel leaning out an open window, her hands planted on the window sill and her and shoulders thrust outside.

"Wha—?" Charlie gasped.

Mel spun around and levered herself out the window.

Charlie dashed down the hall and stuck his own head out into the chill morning breeze, blinking away the disorientating shift from gloom to natural light.

Below him lay the tiled rooftop of the next-door warehouse—the one Mel had planned to climb before Charlie had convinced her otherwise. Mel scrambled across it like a monkey, her fingers brushing the tiles and her centre of gravity low, heading towards the rear of the building where the rooftop gave way to a large square plaza. Down below, workers bustled in and out of an open warehouse, each carrying plastic crates filled with leafy green foliage. A flatbed truck idled underneath the retracted roller-door.

Mel carefully lowered herself over the edge of the rooftop, the top of her head still visible after her hands had fallen away. Seconds later she vanished entirely, presumably heading closer to ground level to continue her pursuit.

Tracing a path back to his own position, Charlie saw how Mel had made it across to the other rooftop so easily. Someone—Big Boss—had laid a large plank of wood between the tiny ledge below the window and the warehouse roof opposite. It seemed Big Boss had been expecting visitors.

Charlie gaped at the wooden bridge and the two-storey drop on either side.

Are you serious? No. No! Remember how much trouble you had on that treetop obstacle course back on year 7 camp? And that was with a safety harness!

His arms began to quake. Phantom straps dug into his skin with the memory of abyssal free-fall. He shuddered violently.

C'mon Charlie, how much use would you be anyway? Mel's the athlete, not you; stick to what you're good at.

Reasoning he was the Q to Mel's James Bond, Charlie eagerly tucked his head back inside and returned to the main room of the apartment.

On his way down the passage he stole a brief glance into the shadows of a small bedroom, glimpsing armies of action figures waging war against the backdrops of movie and anime posters.

Wow. Impressive collection. Too bad their owner's an absolute prick.

SNAKES AND LADDERS

Charlie bounded out of the corridor and swept his eyes over the apartment.

Cardboard boxes spilled Styrofoam popcorn across a matted rug. Burnt DVDs carpeted every table, every shelf. A tall workbench stretched along one wall, its surface littered with half-naked gadgetry and an assortment of tools commonly employed in the (dis)assembly of computer hardware.

What intrigued Charlie the most, though, lay in the far corner of the room.

A sleek black desk held three large LCDs connected in a multi-screen arrangement, a luxurious leather recliner resting on its castors off to the side. A menacing red glow emanated from the custom PC case sitting next to the monitors, all sharp lines, wing vents, and see-through panels. Another PC case glowed with a neutral blue from below the desk. A strobing router was attached with some form of adhesive to the inside leg of the desk, well hidden were it not for the flashing pattern of green light that bathed the floor below.

Charlie jogged over to the desk, and the monitor displays resolved from fuzz to focus. Two of the screens bore traditional Windows desktops—replete with a bountiful field of pixelated shortcut icons—while the other offered a 2x2 grid of camera feeds, each affixed with a location moniker.

With a tilt of his brow, Charlie dropped into the doughy embrace of the computer chair and rolled it closer to the desk. Of the two feeds not covering the entrance, one was marked 'Door' and presented a partial view of a doorframe and blank wall. Charlie threw a glance over his shoulder and spotted the small webcam taped to the inside of the apartment door.

The last feed offered a birds-eye perspective on the plaza behind the apartment. Mel was visible jogging away from a set of metal mesh stairs connected to the adjacent warehouse. Her destination appeared to be the bustling throng of workers Charlie had spotted earlier.

Mel's jog slowed to a canter as she entered the crowd. She swung her head wildly back and forth like a lost child looking for their mother.

An erratic blur disrupted the rhythmic flow of the warehouse workers.

Big Boss.

Charlie grabbed the wireless mouse and keyboard and began searching for the camera controls, clicking through endless menus in the program managing the feeds. After a few dead-ends he managed to maximise the plaza view to full-screen and activate a weak 2x zoom mode.

The increase in detail came just in time. He spotted Big Boss slip between a stack of empty planter boxes and head towards the idling truck.

Mel zigzagged through the crowd, her frantic movement like a radar pulse pinging from object to object. Her path brought her closer and closer to her target, but the sea of boxes and bodies kept him hidden from her sight.

Big Boss crept towards the flatbed truck, its trailer a jungle of potted foliage and bagged fertiliser. After casting a furtive glance left-to-right, he flung his bag through the wall of bamboo shoots and into the high trailer. Launching off an upturned plastic crate, he promptly followed.

The dense greenery provided plenty of cover from ground level observation, but the thin canopy did not impede Charlie's aerial surveillance. Big Boss stood out like a black stain against the canvas of greens and browns.

When Mel emerged from the parade of perturbed workers, she passed right by the truck, oblivious to its stowaway.

Charlie yelled at the screen in frustration as Mel moved away from the truck, sticking her head into the open warehouse and scanning its verdant depths. He narrowed his eyes and stared at Big Boss, waiting for him to make his move and praying Mel would turn around in time to see it.

Big Boss dropped onto his stomach and wiggled in between a row of bamboo stalks and a pile of white fertiliser bags. He pressed his head up against the camouflaging stalks and stared towards Mel.

Crap! Move you bastard! There's no way Mel's going to find him in there. And if that truck leaves...

Charlie slammed his first onto the desk with a wet slap and glared volcanically at the monitor.

No. You're not going to beat us, you mongrel! There has to be some way I can alert Mel...

A flush of cold panic cascaded down his back.

He knew what he had to do.

C'mon Charlie, it's only a metre or so; you could probably jump it if you wanted to. But don't. You'll fall. And die. Just climb across nice and steady, then get to the edge of the roof and yell loud enough to get Mel's attention. Easy.

Charlie gritted his teeth, squeezed shut his eyes, and swallowed the iceberg in his throat.

He planted his hands on the armrests of the chair and started to heave himself up. His phone slipped out of his pocket and onto the seat, its screen a luminescent star against the universe of smooth black leather. Charlie bent down and scooped it up.

The display showed Mel's phone number, the call duration continuing its steady ascent oblivious to the astronomical cost of international roaming.

Holy crap! The phone call's still going!

Charlie lifted the phone to his ear to check that the connection was still active on both ends.

Rustling fabric. Murmuring voices.

Relief washed over him like a dip in a desert oasis.

Oh thank God! Now all I need to do is make enough noise to get Mel's attention...

***

Filling his lungs to the point of rupturing, Charlie held his phone to his lips and squealed. The outburst lasted barely two seconds before exploding into a fit of hacking coughs, the strain too much for his cold vocal cords. He pounded his fist on his sternum and cleared his throat, then tried again, this time opting for a more masculine yell rather than a high-pitched scream.

He kept his eyes trained on the video feed as he bellowed, visualising sound-waves pulsing out from the jacket pocket where he guessed Mel's phone would be. Mel gave no indication of hearing his desperate shouts and abandoned her survey of the warehouse interior, threading her way back through the stream of puzzled crate-carriers.

Charlie paused to catch his breath, despondency staging its comeback tour with the realisation he may have to brave the rooftop crossing after all. With his voice starting to sound like that of a 70-year old chain smoker, Charlie trumpeted his claxon one last time, simultaneously attempting to channel his thoughts through The Force—Leia, Leia!—and beam them directly to Mel's head.

Mel paused mid-stride, one foot briefly suspended inches above the ground like she had just spied a steaming pile of dog droppings.

She lowered her foot slowly and cocked her head to the side. Her hands patted down her jacket for an excruciatingly long time before finally pulling out her phone.

Charlie ceased his uproar and sighed in relief, bringing his phone back to his ear and waiting for Mel to do the same.

"Uhh, Charlie? No chance you—"

Charlie broke in, his tone frantic and excited. "He's in the truck! In the back, with all the plants and stuff! He's just lying there watching you!"

Silence greeted Charlie's hoarse proclamation—no sounds of breathing, no background noise—and he stole a glance at his phone's screen, fearing the call had been dropped at the most crucial moment.

The speaker blared into life. He fumbled, and nearly dropped the phone completely.

"Okay. Have you got eyes on him right now?"

Charlie slapped the phone back to his ear. "Yeah, I'm looking through one of his surveillance cameras. I can see most of the— Oh shit! The truck's moving!"

With professional calm Mel tilted her head to itch her nose with her shoulder, stealing a glance behind her.

The truck slowly reversed out of the warehouse.

"Fuck."

Her head started to drift back then paused, something capturing her attention beyond the scope of the camera feed. She pursed her lips and nodded once.

"Alright. Scream again if it looks like he's going to jump off."

Before Charlie had a chance to reply, Mel thrust her phone back into her jacket pocket and trotted forward, heading towards the edge of the camera's vision and away from the moving truck.

"Mel, what the hell are you doing? The truck's behind you!"

Mel continued her steady jog onwards and beyond the boundaries of the webcam's limited range.

"What the eff..." Charlie muttered, baffled by Mel's odd behaviour.

Turning his attention back to the truck, Charlie watched glumly as it completed its reversing swing and shifted into drive, trundling forward through the clot of workers who flowed like water out of its path. Keeping one eye locked on the mobile-jungle, Charlie used the other to assess the shrinking distance between the truck and the periphery of the screen. Just like Mel, the truck would soon pass beyond the camera's cone of vision and leave him completely in the dark.

No! Mel needs me to stay on him in case he jumps ship. What do I do?

With a wince of sub-zero dread, Charlie found his answer.

The warehouse roof. The 'bridge'. You know what you need to do Charlie.

He shed the last of his resistance with a shoulder-slumping sigh and hurried back to the open window, moving fast to give the harrowing fear less time to percolate. Once again he planted his hands on the window sill and looked out, staring down at the miserably thin plank of wood that bisected the two-storey urban canyon.

Racing to outpace his horror-strung brain, he heaved himself through the window legs-first, his feet settling on the narrow bridge with all the rigidity of fridge-cold jelly. He tried to turn around, but his hands refused to release their death-grip.

Clamping his teeth down like a vice he forced himself to let go, swivelling around and immediately dropping to his hands and knees.

Oh god, oh god, oh god!

Fighting the self-destructive urge to look down, he kept his eyes fixed on the slanting tiles in front of him and inched his way across the naked wood.

Though scarcely more than a metre across, the crawl seemed to stretch for miles.

Eons passed, and when he finally conquered the trembling bridge and felt the firm and unyielding ceramic under his palms, he was convinced that he had failed the simple task Mel had asked of him.

Something hard dug into his right palm. He looked down. Black plastic peeked out between white-knuckled fingers, his phone slowly being choked to death by his steel trap fist. Releasing it from its torture, he stared in confusion at the call duration still ticking away on screen, unwilling to believe that the Grand Canyon crossing had lasted just a mere half-minute.

Charlie lifted his head from the cold ceramic and set his sights on the distant plaza. He scrambled low across the rough and filth-caked tiles, his breathing coming hard and fast, fallout from his perilous crossing keeping his chest filled with the beat of a thousand drums. His head snapped up and down as he speed-crawled across the roof, dividing time between maintaining his balance and searching the approaching plaza for the truck. He stirred up a throaty roar deep in his chest, ready to bellow if Big Boss had moved while he was AFK.

With just a metre of rooftop to spare, Charlie skidded to a halt. The truck had slid into view, heading towards a now-visible alleyway that connected the plaza to a nearby street. Being nearly as wide as the alley itself the truck took its approach slowly, adjusting its course with minute twitches of its front wheels. The plodding pace gave Charlie time to get a good look with his own eyes into the potted forest it carried on its back.

Big Boss lay nestled like a snake in long grass, though he had rolled onto his back and propped his head up against a hemp bag of manure. His eyes were closed and his cheeks were flushed red, his limbs spread-eagled in utter exhaustion.

The truck rumbled onward, drawing closer to the mouth of the alley.

Dammit! Where the heck is Mel?

***

Second floor. Fifth door on the left.

Mel hammered on the hollow wood. A bowed and wrinkled Japanese woman opened the door. Flashing her mock police badge, she spat out the first Japanese phrase that came to mind—Where is your toilet?—and leapt into the apartment. The old woman summoned a trembling smile, her wide eyes flickering with confusion.

Mel squeezed past her. The open balcony window beckoned.

***

Charlie estimated he had about ten seconds before the alley swallowed the four-wheeled forest whole.

No! You can't let him get away, not after everything we've been through to track him down. C'mon Charlie, get your arse into gear and chase that truck!

With jelly-limbed reluctance Charlie peered over the edge of the roof. His hands scrabbled for purchase as vertigo knotted his stomach and clenched his bowels.

After a second of disorientation he looked down again. A thin rectangular vent a metre below looked just large enough to serve as a foothold.

Why the hell did Big Boss have to be a goddamn ninja? Why couldn't he have just been a typical lazy nerd like the rest of us?

Charlie retreated from the edge and took one final look at the flatbed truck. Its nose squeezed between the alley walls, the driver carefully balancing the inches of leeway to either side. The wing mirrors collapsed back, and the leaves of an unfortunate shrub displaced by Big Boss' new position brushed against the rough brick of the alley wall.

Big Boss no longer lay relaxed and inert; he had risen to a defensive crouch and stared warily at Charlie's rooftop vantage.

The truck picked up speed. The alley walls encroached on Charlie's vision.

Big Boss glanced sideways and smirked. He shucked his defensive pose and offered Charlie a mock salute with just his middle finger extended.

As he dropped his arm, a shadow clad him in darkness. He snapped his head up.

A shape-shifting silhouette emerged from a second-storey window, morphing form a crouched gargoyle into a pouncing tiger. It descended on him like the shadow of death and sent him sprawling to the floor of the truck bed.

His flailing arms struck bamboo stalks and tipped over planter boxes, spilling grit, soil, and other foul-smelling filth over his clothes and bare skin. He spat out a cloud of the stuff and tried to pick himself up, but a foot came down hard on his back, twisting and grinding him like a spent cigarette.

"Surprise motherfucker."

***

"What the fuck..." Charlie breathed, his mouth dangling open like a dead fish and his eyes fixed unblinking on the idling truck.

Mel's predatory leap had rocked the suspension and overturned a significant number of the plant pots, causing the driver to slam on the brakes—an unnecessarily overzealous manoeuvre given the speed he was travelling. With the alley too narrow to open his door, the driver put the truck into reverse and trundled back to the plaza.

Mel seemed unperturbed by the sudden change of direction. She pulled out her phone and turned towards Charlie, a sly, victorious grin radiating from her face. He followed suit autonomously and lifted his phone to his ear.

"Thanks for the distraction. We make quite a good team," Mel said, the smile audible in her voice.

"I... What... That was insane!"

Mel's smile blossomed into a grin, and she looked down at the squirming mass beneath her foot.

"Face down in a pile of manure. Seems appropriate for a scum-sucking sack of shit like him, doesn't it?"

Charlie sniggered, pent-up tension flaking off him like the fall of autumn leaves. Acquiescing to the demands of his liquidised legs, he carefully laid back on the rough tiles, staring glassy-eyed at the formless clouds in the sky and breathing in the sweet scent of success. With his phone still pressed to his ear he uttered one last exhausted observation before terminating the exorbitantly expensive call.

"Mel, I owe you an apology. You are James Bond."

ACES AND EIGHTS

Charlie waited at the door to Big Boss' apartment for Mel to return with her trophy. The icy fingertips of Mistress Fear still played across the nape of his neck and over his gooseflesh arms. Crossing back over the chasm to the apartment had been even worse the second time around; without the sword of responsibility jabbing him in the back, it had taken him three times as long to crawl over. And he had foolishly looked down.

He did not have to wait long. She pounded up the stairs with Big Boss stumbling along in front of her, despondence on his face and plastic ties around his hands. Grime stained his clothes and clung to his bare skin, the whole thing giving the appearance of a prisoner who had been caught trying to tunnel his way out of jail.

Mel's eyes remained surgically attached to Big Boss all the way down the corridor and into the apartment. They retrieved a chair from the kitchen and secured his wrists and ankles to it with more plastic ties.

Without lifting their eyes from their surprisingly cooperative captive, Charlie and Mel retreated out of earshot.

Charlie splayed his hands. "You're going to have to explain to me just what the hell went down back there. First you're running in the completely opposite direction from where I told you Big Boss was hiding, then all of a sudden you're performing an aerial takedown like you're flamin' Batman!" He shot Mel a look of incredulous admiration before dutifully turning his gaze back to Big Boss.

"I'll fill you in later. Let me just say that I may have pushed the limits of Japanese hospitality a little too far."

Charlie bit back his curiosity and nodded.

"So, did he reveal anything of note on the way over? Any hint at his Machiavellian plan?"

Mel shook her head. "Nah, I was waiting till we got back to start the interrogation. We need it all recorded, and you're going to have to explain all the technical mumbo-jumbo to me."

Charlie grinned. "That I can do. Just don't ask me to climb over any more rooftops. Seriously, you couldn't get me to do that again if you paid me."

Mel clapped her hand on Charlie's shoulder and they strode back to their captive. While still out of Big Boss' line of sight, Charlie slipped out his phone and activated the voice recorder, motioning for Mel to do the same with hers.

"So, 'Big Boss'." Mel spat the words. "You've led us on quite the chase, and I'm not just talking about your little rooftop stunt. I think it's time you used that mouth of yours for more than kissing dirt."

Mel loomed over Big Boss with her arms folded across her chest. Charlie complemented her by assuming the good cop groove, surprised at his own eagerness. Not only did he want to uncover the purpose behind Big Boss' machinations, but it felt good to see him squirm too.

God knows he deserved it.

"B-big B-boss? W-what are you talking about? M-my name's David Kessel. I th-think you've got the wrong guy..."

"Pfft," Charlie baulked, rolling his eyes. "It's a bit late to play the innocent card buddy. You're right though; now that we've seen you covered in shit it seems like a bit of a joke to call you Big Boss. Ooh, I know, how about we call you Snake?"

Charlie grinned smugly. David groaned and shook his head.

Mel looked perplexed, but she went along with it anyway.

"Alright then 'Snake', like I said, it's time for you to fess up. You can drop the façade; we've seen your servers, and your former minions have fingered you as the mastermind behind this whole conspiracy. It turns out being stabbed in the back wasn't something they'd signed up for. Perhaps you left it out of their contracts? Anyway, if you want someone to hear your side of this story, now's your chance. I can't imagine the CIA, FBI, or DOD are going to be quite as willing to listen once the numbers come back on that little stunt you pulled in Seattle."

David narrowed his eyes and his upper lip trembled, but he remained silent.

Charlie was unable to do the same.

"C'mon buddy! The server farm, the confidential records, the data processing scripts; what's it all for?"

Mel flicked Charlie a look of mild disappointment. It took Charlie a second to realise his error, mentally cursing and slipping Mel an apologetic smile out of the corner of his mouth.

Still David remained mute, his jaw padlocked and his lips knitted tight. The only concession to his stony veneer was the merest twitch of his eyes towards his computer desk in the corner of the room. Charlie noticed, and shook his head firmly.

"Not a chance, buddy. You're not getting anywhere near that computer—or any computer—for a long time."

David fixed him with a spiteful glare, but it didn't last. His shoulders sagged and the tension drained from his muscles like water through a sieve.

"Fine. You win. I'll talk." David shuffled in his chair, clearly not enjoying being a flesh-and-blood shawl for hard plastic. "Just don't start mouthing off about fucking internet regulation again. I don't know how much more brain-dead hypocrisy I can handle."

Charlie sniggered humourlessly. "Yeah, well, you're lucky there. That was just a play to get you riled up. I'm actually all for keeping the internet free from all those ridiculous regulations, though I wouldn't say I'm quite as 'passionate' about the whole thing as you are."

David sneered and pressed his lips into a tight line, studying Charlie's face with guarded interest.

Charlie wondered what it took to lure someone who seemed so intelligent and, well, normal, to spearhead a global criminal conspiracy, not to mention deceiving the very people he had enlisted to help him.

"C'mon then. Spill it," Mel snapped.

"Alright then, but how much do you know already? There's no point in me repeating things you've already figured out."

Mel snorted derisively. "Oh no, we're not falling for that one buddy. Start from the beginning and leave nothing out. This story's more than interesting enough for an encore performance."

David sank back in his seat, fidgeting again.

"You want it from the start? Fine then.

"Three years ago my mom and I took a vacation to China. It was our first trip since dad died a couple of years earlier, and we'd had to move out of the house into a shitty apartment in Chicago and scrounge hard to find the money. Still, mom was dead set on seeing the Great Wall, and we both needed a break from routine.

"After we visited Beijing and walked the Great Wall, mom got fed up with all the noisy tourists and decided we should hire a driver to take us around some of the rural villages, 'experience the real culture', she said." David's eye twitched and he winced perceptibly.

"On the fourth day of our unguided tour, we arrived at this small town located about halfway up a huge mountain. Some of the buildings were carved right into the rock itself, these massive caves with paper lanterns strung up like cheap-ass Christmas lights. We stopped there for lunch while the driver went to fill up at a gas station on the other side of the mountain. The locals were nice enough; they even prepared a meal for us after we'd been shown the sights. But they were fucking useless when mom went into anaphylactic shock after eating some of the fruit they served. We found out the hard way that mom was allergic to lychee, and her eyes and throat swelled up like a B-grade horror movie and it was just...arggh, goddammit!"

David closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest, rocking the plastic chair from side to side.

Charlie turned to Mel and shot her a look of pure confusion. Not only did David's story seem completely unrelated to their line of questioning, but his show of apparently genuine emotion corrupted the image of a self-serving manipulative bastard that Charlie had conjured in his mind. It just didn't seem possible that the villain responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of hardware and data theft, as well as the murder of an innocent human being—even if it had not been intentional—could be the very same person that was now trying to conceal his anguish from his two inquisitors.

Mel's focus held steadfast against the outpouring of emotion. She cleared her throat loudly and David lifted his head, his dirt-coated cheeks now striped with lines of moisture.

"We've all had to deal with awful shit in our lives, kid. How about you skip ahead to the part where you decided that warranted establishing a criminal organisation and taking it out on entirely innocent bystanders?"

David returned Mel's piercing stare without blinking.

"You wanted it from the beginning, 'leaving nothing out', remember?" His tone was scathing, backed by an impressive amount of confidence.

Mel's eyes shadowed over and the corner of her mouth twitched, but she gritted her teeth and held her indignation in check. When her voice came out it was like poisoned honey. "What say you speed things up a little then? While I'm sure it's absolutely riveting, your life story is not what we came here for."

David maintained his smug self-assurance for just a second more before sagging back, his arrogance crumbling into reluctant capitulation.

"Fine, I'll speed things up. But there's a good reason for explaining what happened to mom; it shows you just how fucked up internet censorship is."

Mel retained her stone-faced focus but ceded David a curt nod. Charlie watched silently from the sidelines.

"I'd never shared mom's obsession in Chinese culture, so I only knew a dozen or so phrases in Mandarin. Mum had assumed the role of translator whenever we dealt with non-English speaking natives, because she spoke four dialects fluently, and could fudge her way through most of the others.

"When mom started choking I yelled at them to go get a doctor, even pointing to the word in my Chinese dictionary, but they just kept jabbering and throwing their arms around. I think one of the men attempted CPR, but it didn't do shit. I gave up trying to understand what they were screaming and pulled out my phone, first calling our driver, then when he didn't answer I tried googling for the local equivalent of 911."

David's melancholy morphed into rage, his eyes swelling into furious fireballs and his lips curling to expose grinding teeth.

"Fucking communism! What kind of stone-age Neanderthals let their government block search engines from their goddamn internet? And Youtube! And Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia; anything that could possibly allow their people even the slightest freedom of expression!

"And thanks to that backwards-thinking bullshit, I was as fucking useless as a one-eyed game hunter! I couldn't contact emergency services, couldn't search Youtube or Wikipedia for instructions on what the hell you're supposed to do when someone starts swelling up like that, couldn't do anything!"

David shook with white-hot fury, his breath shooting hard and fast from his nose.

Gradually the trembling ceased, his rage deflating into time-dulled misery.

"I held her hand while her breathing got slower and slower, her throat swelling to the point where almost no oxygen could reach her lungs, her eyes dropping with the effort of staying open. Do you know what it's like to look into the eyes of someone you love as their life bleeds away? It's fucking soul-crushing, like some part of you is dying along with them. Her eyes were screaming, begging for help, like one of those nightmares where you're trapped and cornered and your mouth just gives up completely."

David stopped and drew a long, fractured breath, his body quivering once again, but not from anger.

"I tried to resuscitate her after she passed out, but it was useless. By the time an air ambulance arrived she'd been dead for over an hour. Our driver had already returned, and he explained to me that the Chinese emergency services are just as assed-up as the rest of the country. They only have normal ground ambulances in Beijing and Hong Kong, so everyone else has to rely on the ridiculously inadequate air ambulance service. He said it was better to just call International SOS, as the local service usually deferred to them anyway, but by then it was too little, too fucking late.

"The chopper took mom and me back to Beijing, and I had to spend the rest of the trip dealing with the travel insurance claim and making arrangements to have mom flown back to America. Kind of a shitty vacation, all in all."

A dour mood descended upon the apartment, storm clouds of silence surrounding each of the three occupants. At first Charlie felt sympathy for David, shuddering at the thought of losing one of his own parents in such horrific circumstances. His compassion rapidly dwindled, however, as he considered the disconnect between David's words and his actions.

"Wait, so you're saying this whole thing's been one massive revenge scheme? Then why the hell are you involving Australia and America and all the other countries? It's the Chinese government that screwed you over!"

David shook his head and sneered. "You don't get it dude! It wasn't revenge. China's authoritarian chokehold is abhorrent, sure, but there's shit all anyone can do about it. Their people have been treated as subservient automatons for generations, and that's not going to change anytime soon.

"No, it wasn't until the good ol' U.S. of A. bent me over and had their way that I realised the shores of 'civilised society' weren't so pristine either.

"My grief councillor suggested I write down my thoughts and feelings as a therapeutic exercise to help cope with mom's death, so I decided to create a blog and share what happened along with my personal opinions of the Chinese government. If I remember correctly, I think I said something like 'it was a horrendous betrayal of human rights more suited to a slaughterhouse than a country'.

"It was just supposed to be a way to blow off steam; like I said, China's been at the mercy of one form of stranglehold government or another for centuries—you'd be better off nuking it from orbit and starting fresh than trying to change what's already there. It offered me a chance to vent, and it turned out that I was hardly alone in suffering the wrath of internet regulation.

"My blog attracted a parade of impassioned commenters who submitted their own harrowing tales of loss, injury, and death. Together we expressed our disdain for the political systems that had allowed such senseless tragedies to occur, and eventually our discourse became trafficked enough that Comcast—my host—took an interest. They sent me this formally-worded email stating how in light of their current efforts to expand their Chinese networks, my blog was too controversial for them to continue hosting. They weren't quite so transparent, mind you, but the meaning was clear. Of course, I just moved the blog to a different host, but it didn't change the fact that they had challenged my right to freedom of expression, silencing my voice just because they didn't agree with what I had to say."

David took a moment to catch his breath. To his right, Mel watched him intently, her eyes trained like searchlights, the hard lines of her face revealing little compassion for his tale. To his left, Charlie stared thoughtfully at the ground, chewing his lip as he struggled with the seemingly disparate personas of Big Boss and David.

David pressed on. "Because of their ridiculously one-sided TOS, Comcast was legally allowed to cancel any of their services at any time, for reasons they didn't even need to disclose. With no legal recourse available, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I began flooding the Comcast network with white noise, spamming their help desk, making phony repair requests for random account numbers; nothing too extreme because I wasn't sure how far I wanted to take it.

"But then along came SOPA, and I realised the problem was a whole lot bigger than one ISP and one controversial blog. Seeing America legitimately consider imposing limitations on what people could post on the internet opened my eyes to the precarious path 'civilised' society was treading, is treading: a single misstep away from following China into the pit of government-sanctioned oppression.

"With the wool removed from my eyes, there was no mother-trucking way I was going to sit on my ass and let the red bleed all over the white-and-blue. America is supposed to be a free and democratic society, not some dystopian nanny-state!"

"And SOPA is only the first stride towards an America stripped of sentience, neutered of free will, reduced to mindless drones serving the government puppet-masters. Sure, SOPA and its ilk are only concerned with copyrighted material, but if they get passed, how long until those restrictions are expanded to include 'malicious' content, like those backyard bomb Instructables you mentioned before? And that's 'malicious' content as judged by the government, of course. Inflammatory political cartoons? Scathing opinion pieces on government policies? How long until they're classified as 'malicious' on the basis of inciting mass panic or social anarchy? And don't forget the companies that the government delegates to support and enforce these restrictions; what if they have their own agendas? Who watches the watchmen?"

David swung his head from Charlie to Mel and back again, his eyes glass windows to a blazing inferno. "Once the first domino falls, the rest will inevitably follow." He twisted his mouth into something between a sneer and a sad smile, then shook his head slowly.

Just like his fiery response to Charlie's mock petition, David's speech had a passion and poignancy that left Charlie reeling. Slack-jawed and silent, he turned to see Mel's reaction.

She wore a ruffled expression, visibly perturbed. She started to open her mouth but David beat her to the punch.

"And it's not just the internet either. The TSA treats people like slabs of goddamn radioactive meat! Cops are performing 'random' searches of people walking down the street, forcing them to unlock their phones and their laptops all because the colour of their skin labels them as criminals and terrorists. The government wants to know every single thing you do, twenty-four fucking hours a day! The world's spiralling towards an Orwellian future, accepting totalitarianism under the guise of security. All these schemes—the TSA, SOPA, random street searches—they're all marketed as making the world a safer place to live. But at what cost? They sacrifice our freedoms to protect us from dangers that they insist are 'clear and present'. How is that a fair trade? Expression dies, creativity dies, and all because the government believes we're too stupid to look after ourselves.

"Just look at what happened with the Nazi book-burning campaign during WWII, or the banning of 'harmful' books from libraries in the 19th century. Censoring content 'for the good of the people' has never achieved anything other than anarchy and rebellion. The only ones who stand to benefit are those that make, and enforce, those laws."

David suspended his animated diatribe while he refilled his starving lungs. The sudden absence of sound brought Charlie's focus back from the show-reel that had been playing inside his head, a personal visualisation complimenting David's narration. Mention of the TSA had resurfaced memories of Charlie's harrowing passage through Sea-Tac, rough hands and barked commands, and he found David's prophesied world of gregarious censorship and ubiquitous surveillance far too easy to imagine.

Without realising it, Charlie's hands had formed loose fists and a scowl had consumed his face, the flames of indignation stirring in his chest. David's speech resonated sonorously with Charlie's own beliefs.

Charlie breathed deeply and let his muscles relax, dousing the fire inside. He reminded himself that the man sitting before him was a criminal, an engineer of chaos, a villain.

"I'll admit, your pretty speech makes some damn good points, but none of them explain why you've been stealing servers and stockpiling private dossiers. How does any of that help fight censorship? If anything, it's just going to lead to even stricter regulations being imposed!"

David's eyes flicked again to the computer in the corner, lingering for a few seconds before snapping back. Charlie frowned, and started to turn towards the desk—

"I'm building a coercion index!"

Charlie halted mid-turn and swung his head back towards David, his eyes wide and attentive.

"Politicians, judges, cops, media personalities, financial backers; anyone with the ability to influence the government's decision-making. If I can control them, I can save America—and the rest of the world—from falling into total dystopian ruination."

"I was right!" A rush of pride swept over Charlie, crushed swiftly under an onslaught of further questions. "So, wait, if all you wanted was the data, why didn't you just rip out the hard drives instead of stealing entire servers? Those things weigh a tonne. And why did you target mBition? Nobody there had ties to the government, I'm sure of it."

David twisted a sly smile, a hint of condescension entering his voice. "No, the data on those servers is just the icing on the cake. The real juicy stuff, well..." David smirked and nodded his head towards Charlie. "How careful are you with what you say in a phone call? In a text message? Are you strict enough to never reveal personal information in an email, or on Facebook? Most people aren't. If you collected just a few months of one person's unfiltered correspondence, you'd have leverage over not just them, but everyone they contacted too."

"You're bugging people?" Charlie exclaimed, his shrill tone ringing with disbelief. "B-but how? Oh shit! Our app! That's why you attacked mBition!"

David's cocky smirk grew even wider. "Clandestine call recording. I tell you, the code for those compression algorithms is damn impressive. And it makes for quite an effective bug when you combine it with a keylogger and a network packet sniffer. Roll all that into the back-end of an addictive match-3 puzzle game and you've got yourself one comprehensive piece of spyware. Virtually undetectable too, unless you're a real hardcore security nut."

Charlie stared agape at David's smug grin. Mel wore an expression of frustrated ignorance. She cocked her head in Charlie's direction but he delayed her inquiry with a motion of his hand. Before he could answer her questions, he needed to deal with his own.

A network of infected phones, each logging every communication, every private activity, completely unbeknownst to its owner. It sounds like the plot to a bloody dystopian sci-fi novel!

Charlie scrutinised David's face, searching his arrogant veneer for signs of untruth.

He's got to be exaggerating, right? Somebody would have to notice the bug running in the background, right? No dammit, that's why he chose our app. Low power consumption, low memory footprint, and that Dropbox integration had an option for sending backups to the cloud automatically whenever a WiFi connection was present.

A shiver trickled down Charlie's spine as his thoughts turned to his own phone and the apps he had recently downloaded.

Wait a minute. Has he actually set all this up, or is he just postulating? Heck, even if he has, the app can't have been live for very long, not if it uses the mBition code. And anyway, what does it matter? We've caught the bastard, so it can't do him any good, can it? But then why is he acting so damn smarmy?

Charlie suddenly felt a lot less sure of the situation.

"So all those servers, they were intended to process the data coming back from the phones, weren't they? Converting the voice calls to text, mapping positional data, searching for links between the separate records. You even had it set up to pull the videos and the photos from the phone, didn't you? That's why you've been stealing so many servers. Distributed computing. You needed a server farm to handle the expense of processing video."

David just smiled.

"And you kept all this from your supposed comrades, didn't you? You told them it was all about getting back at the companies that had shown support for internet regulation, proponents of SOPA and the like."

David muttered dismissively. "A few of them know more than the others, but yeah, it was safer to keep them in the dark."

"Safer for you, maybe."

David snorted but didn't reply.

***

A contemplative silence stretched for nearly a minute before Mel snapped it in twain, sighing and dropping her folded arms. She turned to Charlie, a warm smile cocked and loaded.

"C'mon Charlie, don't let this idiot get under your skin. He's all tied up and his plan is shot; he's just sore because we outsmarted him, thanks to you."

Charlie smiled grimly. "Mmm. I don't know..." His eyes drifted to the computer desk in the corner of the room. Something clicked in the back of his mind. "Keep an eye on him. I want to check something out..."

Mel nodded, her expression passively curious. Charlie stepped past her and powered towards the desk. He was two steps away when another outburst from David stopped him in his tracks, his stomach dropping like a lead weight.

"You're too late!" Sing-song arrogance oozed from David's cry. "I activated a dead man's timer before I answered the door. The spyware apps are live, and by now the offshore servers will be booted up and receiving data. Delivering my 'confession' bought the transfer enough time for a full data migration, and as soon as those chart boosters finish their work, I'll have the number one slot in all the app stores. There'll be hundreds of thousands of infected nodes pushing live data up for processing."

Charlie's eyes bucked bronco and he pivoted on his heels, staring aghast at David's self-satisfied smirk.

"It doesn't matter what you do to me or my gear; the end game has already begun."

Charlie's composure cracked.

Anger blazed in his chest. Up his throat. Out his mou—

Mel launched herself at David, her hands slamming down on the back of the chair to either side of his head.

"What the fuck did you do?" Mel bellowed. She shook the chair and stared daggers into David's eyes.

David's smile barely faltered. "What, did I talk too fast? Or were my words just too big for you to understand?"

He snorted sardonically. "Let me try again, then. Right now thousands of people will be downloading the hottest new free game in the App Store. Each phone becomes another unwitting node in the network, another set of eyes and ears into the insipid minutiae of daily life. But it won't take long for the servers to form diamonds out of all that carbon, precious gems of information I can use for leverage to give Big Brother the middle finger."

David breathed a satisfied sigh. "And it's all in motion now. Years of work, finally come to fruition. A little earlier than I had planned, true, but that doesn't matter. Soon I'll hold all the cards, and there's sweet fuck-all you two can do about it."

Charlie's heart thumped like an angry baboon, his body temperature oscillating between frigid fear and boiling rage.

"Bullshit! You're bluffing!" he shouted, his voice quivering with doubt. "What does it matter anyway? We've caught you; you'll go to jail and the servers will be tracked down and nuked."

Charlie backed towards the computer desk.

David's smirk remained, even with Mel's face but an inch from his. "Going to have to point something out to you there, buddy. One, no-one is going to find those servers, least not for a good long while. They're spread around the world for a reason, protected by foreign-state immunity so they can't be shut down.

"And two, you might have caught me, but I'm sure as shit not going to jail. Before my case even reaches the courts, the servers will have amassed enough data for the first-stage dump, sending copies of all those juicy records to media outlets worldwide. Shit will explode, and even if the police aren't smart enough to negotiate with me, there'll be plenty of powerful people with dirty laundry who will be more than willing to.

"It'll be the single biggest story in the history of the internet. People will finally see how worthless their freedom-bought security really is."

Charlie tore his eyes away from David and turned to the hemisphere of computer monitors. He ignored the screen that held the camera feed, focusing instead on the cluttered desktop with its myriad pixelated icons.

Man, how does he find anything in all this mess?

Charlie grabbed the mouse and clicked with furious determination, pulling up the system logs and scrolling through their contents.

What the heck? No spike in network traffic, and not a single mention of SQL either? That doesn't make sense...

Charlie paged down until he reached the time of his injection attack, two days earlier.

Still nothing? That can't be right.

Charlie frowned and opened up the list of installed programs.

Plenty of games, but no SQL Server.

He turned his quizzical expression on David, receiving a frosty sneer in response.

"Don't you fuck anything up on that. It's worth a lot more than you are."

Charlie swallowed his retort and turned back to the computer.

A flicker of light caught his eye, illuminating a squat black box tucked away under the desk.

Charlie you moron! This is his gaming rig, not his server!

Unplugging the surveillance monitor from the PC, Charlie bent down and cast his eyes over the server case. A pulsing green glow emanated from the nearby router, but the server's own lights remained dark.

Dormant.

Oh shit, wasn't this thing on before?

Charlie thrust out his jaw and his heart fluttered in panic.

No, no. He can't have outsmarted us!

He jammed the cables into the back of the server and hit the power button, waiting instinctively for the mechanical beeps of the POST before backing out from under the desk and collapsing into the leather computer chair. Remembering David's lofty claims about the bug app, Charlie pulled out his phone and started to navigate to the app store.

A notification emblazoned on the lock screen distracted him: an email from Mike, received only ten minutes earlier.

SORRY!!!1! <mike.the.star.69@hotmail.com>

Sent: Sun 11:29 PM PDT

To: charlie@skilliontrix.com.au

gotta say sorry charlie! phil was getting impatiant and he triggerd the purge while I was out of teh room! hope u already got big boss and forgot to send the signal coz hes gonna be srsly pissed when he sees what we did!!!1!

i can tell you now cos it doesnt matter if somebodies listening. big boss was using phil to put cameras around the city to track enemies in the info war he said. Probably a lie though. Anywayz phil modded one of the transmitters to connect direcktly to the computer and he sent a trojan worm to big bosses server that would wait for our signal before nuking everything.

phil said we had to wait for the worm to propogate(?) from the central server to the rest of the farm so we could make sure all the data was wiped. but now hes sent the signal so all the servers will be dead soon!!1!

so like I said I hope you caught big boss cos when he finds out we tricked him hes gonna be piissed!!11!

A wary smile crept across Charlie's face.

He lifted his eyes from his phone and grabbed the edge of the server monitor, swivelling it so the screen was hidden from David's view. The Windows Server logo disappeared and the system automatically logged in.

An enormous grin blossomed on Charlie's face. Relief coursed through his tense muscles and he chuckled, shaking his head incredulously.

Oh, that's genius!

A custom-made wallpaper covered the blank desktop: an upturned cardboard box with the polygonal model of the character Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid crouching next to it.

Bold white letters below spelled out the words Caught Naked, Snake.

With a smile from ear to ear, Charlie glanced over at David. Tiny cracks formed across his pompous veneer.

Hey Charlie, maybe you should check the server logs before you get too carried away?

Setting his phone down next to the keyboard, he grabbed the mouse and loaded up the logs. A sea of red error messages filled the screen, mostly start-up services complaining about missing files and permission errors associated with the mass data purge. Subsequent messages revealed those errors had been bypassed by shutting down the controlling processes.

Wow, this Phillip guy put together one nasty worm. Lucky he's on our side, right?

***

With the network logs reporting no spike in traffic prior to the wipe, it seemed that the worm had pre-empted the execution of David's backup plan. Just to be sure, Charlie picked up his phone and tapped into the Google Play store.

He swiped over to the chart listing the most popular free games and scanned for any that matched David's description. At first glance nearly all of them did, but digging deeper revealed only the usual free-to-play tripe, bloated with micro-transactions designed to con customers into ponying up cash instead of actually playing the game.

"Hey 'Snake', what's the name of this app of yours?"

David huffed, but his expression lacked its former self-assurance. "Super Gem Hunter. I-it might not have reached the top slot yet..." Concern bled through cracks in his voice.

Charlie typed the name into the search box.

It returned a word-for-word match.

Holding his breath and gaping intently, he tapped through to the app page and skimmed over the details. The app had been submitted over two months prior, well before the mBition hard drives were stolen.

Aha! He was bluffing! Unless...

Charlie expanded the app description and checked the date of the latest update, noting it too had occurred before the fateful attack on his former workplace.

Not in the top charts, less than a thousand downloads, and too old to include any of our recording and compression algorithms. Game over, Big Boss.

Charlie felt the tension and anxiety drain from his body. David's elaborate insurance scheme had failed, his machinations thwarted by overconfidence and an expectation of blind obedience from his followers.

And he sounded so sure of himself too. Mike was right; when he finds out what they did, he's going to be pissed!

"Hey Snake, one last question." Before I finally wipe that smug smile off your face. "Why did you keep your real goal a secret from your supposed allies? They shared your beliefs. Or were you afraid they'd object to your unscrupulous methods?" Charlie shook his head disapprovingly, a smile cresting his lips. "If I had to pick your biggest mistake, that would be it. Lying to your own people was never going to end well."

Even with his composure slipping, David managed to look insulted. "Only a foolish general trusts his grunts with the strategies of war. The roles they play require unavoidable exposure, too many chances for capture and coercion, and I can't risk a battle of this importance on the competency of the rank-and-file. Loose lips are far too common these days, as your presence here proves."

"And that's why you were collecting information on them too? Insurance, in case they wanted out?"

"Like I said, a leader cannot expect his troops to see the bigger picture from their battlefield perspective. Besides, it's irrelevant; in over twelve months only one idiot has proven too stupid to understand what's at stake here."

"Only one, ey? Say, Snake, do you happen to remember a 'Phillip', by any chance?"

David shed his indignation for a frown. "Who?"

"The guy you had installing cameras around Seattle. Also, apparently you tried to order him to"—Charlie shuddered—"'silence' that one voice of rebellion. I'm happy to say he was 'too stupid' to follow that order."

David's jaw hit the floor and his confidence crumbled into ash. A blend of frustration, anger, and fear contorted his features into a vortex of confusion.

Alright Charlie, I think it's time to dust this guy.

***

Charlie delivered Mike's tale of mutiny with immeasurable satisfaction, extrapolating from the emails where necessary. He concluded the story with a dramatic flourish of the server monitor, revealing the desktop wallpaper in all its pun-tastic glory.

David did not seem to find the joke quite as funny as Charlie had.

He sank back against his chair, his resistance crumbling like the dirt caking his face.

Charlie sighed, satisfied but exhausted. The stress of a week wrapped in danger and excitement bled away, replaced by the dulcet embrace of heart-warming pride.

You did it Charlie! You stopped an honest-to-god megalomaniac from spreading anarchy and ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people. You're a freakin' hero! Okay, maybe that's pushing it a little bit, but still!

In the silence that followed Charlie's killing blow—the news had stunned Mel too—David started twitching furtively and flicking his eyes around the apartment, a cornered rat desperately searching for a hole to crawl into. He strained against his bonds, achieving no more success than he had during his earlier attempts.

"Hey, hey, Charlie, right? C'mon dude, you know how fucked up things will get if we lose the internet, lose the freedom to express ourselves without eyes over our shoulders. We're on the same side here! We-we could work together, save the world from becoming a dystopian puppet show. C'mon Charlie, we could be history-book heroes!"

Charlie paused and tilted his head thoughtfully.

"You know what, you're right. Letting an external authority dictate what we can and can't say is unacceptable." He paused again, stretching the silence. "Which is why manipulating society through blackmail and extortion is every bit as evil as the future you're trying to prevent. Sorry buddy, but I don't truck with hypocrites." He turned to Mel, smiling slyly and raising an eyebrow. "Time to call in the big guns?"

Mel returned his smile and nodded, patting her jacket pocket. "I think we've got everything we need."

David twisted violently against his restraints, rocking the chair back and forth like a see-saw. It tilted precariously onto its rear legs, balanced for a heartbeat, then toppled over with a heavy thump.

Mel and Charlie exchanged amused grins.

Stroking her chin, Mel stared distantly at the floor. "I wish I could find the detective who dismissed my statement after the Comcast attack. I'd love to see the look on his face when he discovers the chance he passed up. A conspiracy like this would have made his career."

David suddenly stopped his spasmodic struggling and began laughing hysterically. "Y-you've got no proof! All the data is gone, those dickheads wiped my slate clean! You've got nothing!" The cocky sneer returned to his face, albeit marred by a lunacy fringe.

Mel stepped forward. She loomed over David and flashed her teeth deviously, sliding her phone out of her jacket pocket.

"If you'd wanted to feign innocence, you probably should have kept your mouth shut. You of all people should know how easy it is to record stuff these days. Even I can manage the voice recorder on this thing."

David's eyes bulged. "Wha—? Bu—? No!" The final glimmer of mad hope in his eyes blinked out, his face slowly melting into a pool of sodden despair.

Mel left David to his misery and joined Charlie over by the computer. She sat down on the edge of the desk and handed her phone to Charlie.

"It's probably best if you take care of that. I don't want to accidentally delete it or something."

Charlie took the phone, emailed it to himself, then passed the phone back to Mel.

"So, uhh, who do we actually call to handle this? You know, given he's technically an international criminal and all." He chuckled sheepishly. "I guess this is where having a Unified Earth Government would come in handy."

"Well, we should probably call the American Embassy first, considering the vast majority of criminal activity occurred on American soil. They'll probably send some local police to hold the fort until they get permission to extradite him."

"Okay. What about us?" A sliver of nervousness entered Charlie's voice. "They're not going to hold us for days and make us testify in court, are they?"

Mel laughed, tired but still strong. "They'll probably want us to make statements, but once they've heard his confession I doubt they'll need us to stick around." She squeezed Charlie's shoulder affectionately. "Now, I remember you saying you'd always dreamed of going to Japan. I think after we're done here, it might be time for some sightseeing. Oh, but first we'll have to get something to eat. You like sushi, right?"

Charlie smiled. Who could say no to sushi?
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!

Despite Mel's optimism, both she and Charlie suffered through two hours of intensive questioning before they were finally released. They were advised not to leave the country for at least three days, in case further investigation into their involvement was required.

They spent the time exploring many of the wonders of Japan Charlie had long fantasised about: Akihabara, the district in Tokyo regarded as electronics nirvana, where shopping malls and market stalls glowed with pulsing neon light, and bleeding-edge technology provided a new surprise with every step; Shinjuku, the skyscraper district, where colossal towers blossoming with primary colours—so unlike the stark greys of metropolitan Melbourne—became vibrant cliff walls in a sprawling canyon of steel and concrete.

They consumed copious amounts of delicious Japanese cuisine amidst all the urban exploration, with Charlie swearing he'd be more than happy to subsist on nothing but sushi, Bento, and ramen for the rest of his life.

Though crowded streets and bustling boulevards were an unavoidable hallmark of inner-city Japan, Charlie managed to keep his anxiety in check with strict focus and steady breathing. When things seemed most grim Mel was always by his side, her indomitable presence a reassuring tonic for his troubled mind.

When their probation period expired, Mel and Charlie flew back to Seattle, curious to see what kind of impact the capture of David Kessel—aka Big Boss—had made in America. Japanese news outlets had remained vague, reporting only that an American criminal had been apprehended and plans for extradition were underway.

Coverage in America provided a layman's summary of David's plans, and placed a heavy emphasis on 'the proficiency of the multiple law enforcement agencies involved in neutralising such a portentous threat'. Charlie and Mel were absorbed into 'specialist third-parties', their roles minimised to that of mere advisors. The particulars of the compromised data were notably omitted, with the police assuring the public that all records had been erased before any damage could be done.

According to the reports, David had surrendered the locations of his stolen servers, and police forces from around the globe had cooperated to recover and return the machines to their rightful owners—after verifying that each had been wiped by the same worm that had nuked David's home server.

Lesser charges had been laid against the other members of VIXIN: burglary and trespassing for the most part, with a single freely confessed murder from a young Australian male with a heavy conscience.

Though not mentioned in coverage to the general public, Charlie later discovered that Mike and his fellow turncoats had received lenient house-arrest sentences for their crimes—contingent on regular behavioural check-ups—thanks to the roles they played in David's capture and the purging of the stolen confidential data.

Charlie exchanged a few encrypted emails with Mike, each regaling the other with uncensored accounts of their fantastical exploits, but contact petered out after a few weeks. Their personalities and paths differed too much to engender a natural friendship.

Hanging out with Mel, on the other hand, fast became a permanent addition to Charlie's weekly schedule. After spending a few days in Macon to visit her parent's graves, Mel returned with a powerful desire to pursue once more her ambition of becoming a detective. Charlie promised to assist her in any way he could.

To facilitate his fulfilment of that promise, Mel decided to apply for a position with the Victorian Police, Melbourne branch.

They shared a flight back to Australia, where Mel crashed in Charlie's apartment while she obtained her Australian citizenship and looked for a place of her own. After finding a unit just a few blocks down from Charlie, she applied for and breezed through the cadet academy—her years of security experience accelerated her progress—and was accepted into the Victorian Police force. Mel was finally on her way to fulfilling her childhood dream.

Though the demands of police work consumed nearly every waking hour, Mel always found time on the weekends to join Charlie at the Queen Victoria Market, where they would each procure a week's worth of farm fresh produce before indulging in a hearty café breakfast.

Mel's training provided a limitless supply of fascinating anecdotes, delivered with an unbridled passion that Charlie honestly didn't think her capable of.

With computer literacy fast becoming one of the most essential tools of a detective's repertoire, the onus fell on Charlie to dispel whatever curse Mel suffered that made every device she touched go haywire. Charlie proved an adept and patient teacher, and before long Mel had expanded her capabilities from simple text processing and web browsing to confidently firing off keyboard shortcuts and multi-tasking between emails, IM, and even the occasional casual videogame.

Despite publicly diminishing his role in tracking down and capturing the 'information terrorist' David Kessel, the FBI did acknowledge Charlie's considerable technical and problem-solving skills by offering him a position as security analyst in their Cyber Division. The decentralised nature of the job allowed Charlie to accept the position while still returning home to Australia, working from the comfort of his apartment as he probed web applications and network infrastructure with XSS attacks, Smurf attacks, identity spoofing, and many other, less conventional tactics. His role required him to keep up-to-date with the latest hacks and data leaks, and many droll hours were spent filtering through anonymous forum posts in search of legitimate hackers amidst the legion of hot-air pretenders.

***

Meanwhile, the shockwave effect from David's barely defused blackmail bomb was rippling across the world, the incident providing many governments with the perfect excuse to instate security policies they had been proposing for years. Contrary to David's intentions, nations began tightening the leash on their citizen's internet access and consequent privacy. Laws were amended to give the police faster and more comprehensive access to ISP data, and ISPs themselves were required to monitor and block traffic to an increasing number of websites falling under the category of 'malicious'.

Delegated bodies were established to trawl the web for this malicious material, and as the leash drew tighter, formerly dominant pillars of the internet community—Google, YouTube, Reddit, and many others—began to feel the squeeze, flaking under the pressure of regulations and responsibilities that ran counter to their mission statements.

Popularity of social media began to wane, with more and more reports of seemingly innocuous comments on Facebook and Twitter leading to full blown 'Crime Prevention Investigations' that left the suspects frightened and confused, convinced that they were nefarious criminals even when they had done nothing wrong.

David himself was sentenced to twenty years in a U.S. federal prison, serving seventeen before being released on probation. He returned to a world depressingly similar to the one he had predicted, where freedom of expression was a luxury restricted to the inside of a signal-insulated booth.

Though his values and ideals had not changed, two decades of forced obeisance had stripped David of his rebellious nature. He gave himself instead to cynicism and spite, professing to anyone who would listen how much better things were 'in the old days'. Most people dismissed him as a fool and time-warped anarchist, citing the widely accepted fact that a restricted and policed internet was essential for a safe and orderly society.

But occasionally his rants would attract the perked ears of a curious child, fascinated by the notion that there once existed a means of unmonitored communication and uninhibited expression; a lawless land where creativity could blossom unconfined, where isolated instances of regulation served only to drive people to greener pastures.

The wide-eyed naivety that greeted his stories always left a bitter taste in the back of David's throat, a reminder that his best days were relegated to yellowing pages in a history book. Knowing that reality had vindicated his actions did little to quell the concern that haunted both his waking and dreamtime hours: that he would be forever adrift in this greyscale future, the vibrant colours of his past fading through the fractured lens of nostalgia. In fighting to prevent his oppressive vision from taking seed, he had succeeded only in hastening his prophesied dystopia, and now he was too old and too beaten to ever fight again. The future was a dark place, cool and expressionless, sterile, ever-watchful. Fate had a wicked sense of irony.

###

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would be a far more garrulous and far less coherent affair without the ineffable editing assistance of Zachary Bonnelli, author of Insomnium and Voyage: Embarkation, two wonderful sci-fi adventures I wholeheartedly recommend reading. His advice helped to focus the story and steer it around the quicksand pits of over-indulgent exposition. Beyond that, Zachary is simply a kind and genuine friend, one who I am very glad to have met.

I would also like to thank James Fodor, who provided his own invaluable perspective during the writing process.

I cannot possibly neglect Dave Swan, for he managed once again to pluck an image straight out of my head and bring it to life on the cover.

Lastly, I must express my deepest gratitude to you, the reader. Thank you for giving your precious time to digesting a slice of the crazy cake baking in my head. If you have enjoyed this book in any way at all, I would love to hear from you. My contact details are available in the section below.

CONTACT

Blog: <http://loquasia.blogspot.com.au/>

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/sezonguitar>

Facebook: <http://facebook.com/macka1080>

Smashwords: http://smashwords.com/profile/view/MattSayer

