Chapter 3 – Blatant Corruption

            That night, Alos had been having a friendly conversation with Mari over the net to pass the time. They talked about music and movies, general likes and dislikes, but it would always end up at them cracking jokes about their etiquette instructor. Talking to Mari helped keep his head on his shoulders. Talking to Mari over the course of the night helped him get to know her in a personal way, and in turn know himself better. Alos had never felt this way before about anything or anyone. He couldn't quite verbalize what it was, but he could feel the connection between himself and his lovely new companion.

            The next morning finally rolled around and Alos out of bed with it. He rubbed away the eye crust as he stumbled over to the washroom in his groggy, morning haze. His hair had frayed into a wild mess over the night and he brushed it as soon as he got into the washroom. The clumped tangles in his hair were a bit painful to pull out of place but with some teeth gritting they were taken care of.

            He showered off quickly, dispensing some casual clothes from the wardrobe and put them on. Being Thursday, he didn’t have any classes or social obligations, meaning it was a day off for him. No need to dress up for any fat terrible teachers today. In fact, after the mess from yesterday he was hoping he wouldn’t have to see Mr. Remmy again. At the same rate, he knew it was a foolish hope, since his parents somehow liked the guy.

            After getting out of the washroom, Alos headed downstairs for some breakfast. He went into his kitchen, and found a paper plate, wrapped with freshly baked lemon bars sitting on the counter. There was a note beside them which read “These were left for you on the doorstep Alos”. He picked up the plate of lemon bars, inspecting them to see if a note was left with them. Sure enough, inside the wrapping, there was a folded up yellow piece of paper. He tore off the wrapping and opened the note.

            “You didn’t mention who your family was. Don’t worry, it doesn’t affect the way I see you.”

            Immediately, Alos knew they had to be from Mari. Based off the way they were chatting last night, not only did it mimic her typing, she had mentioned some sort of surprise. While the thought of how she found out where he lived slipped into his mind, it was pushed out by the thought of his parents seeing the surveillance video of Mari walking up to the door and dropping them off. Whenever his parents even had the slightest hint of Alos being involved with a girl, he would never hear the end of it.

            The lemon bars did look good though... really good. Hungry, he snatched up one of the yellowy glazed bars, and took a big bite out of it. A cascade of tart and sweet fell over his tongue and into his throat. The zesty lemon taste was not only delicious, it was invigorating. Alos glanced down at the bar in utter amazement. This lemon bar wasn’t just good, it was the best he had ever had by far. It was, hands down, one of the best foods he had ever eaten.

            Alos bit in again, greeted now by the familiar taste of the lemony delicacy. A buttery aftertaste overtook his mouth with the swallowing of the bite. The flaky crust, the lemon zest, the buttery consistency, they were indeed culinary perfection.

            Alos scarfed down the rest of the lemon bar, reaching back and grabbing another while still chewing on the first. He headed back to his room, lemon bar in hand and turned on his computer, plopping down onto his chair and taking a bite out of his new lemon bar. His computer booted up quickly as he continued to munch on his tasty treat, and once it fully turned on, it popped up his messages window where he was last having a conversation with Mari. She was online.

            “Did you make these lemon bars?” Alos asked Mari via message.

            A few moments passed with no response. Alos sat waiting, eating his lemon bar, knowing she would reply if she was online. After a few more moments and bites, a message was sent back.

            “Yeah I did make them! Do you like them???”

            “Are you kidding!? These are by far the best lemon bars I have ever had.” Alos was biting into his lemon bar as he typed the message out. The delectable taste seemed to only reinforce his opinion.

            “They're my grandma’s recipe. I modified it a little, but the base is the same.” Mari replied. She sent an emoticon attached to the end of the message showing a little stick figure kicking the dirt with its arms behind its back, modest and blushing.

            Alos got a kick out of this and, chuckling at the emoticon, nearly chokied on his food. He had to search for an equally good emote to send back. After some brief browsing, Alos found the perfect one.

            “I am going to have to come steal you away to make me some more.” Alos messaged, attaching an emoticon of a little man in a mask poking his head out, and then looking around suspiciously, it wasn’t as good as hers but was still amusing.

            From down below in the house, Alos could hear his parents calling for him. He stood up and walked downstairs, where he found his parents dressed in formal attire. His mom was in a white and silver woman’s suit while his dad was in a matching men’s suit and holding a black briefcase.

            “Alos, we're leaving for a meeting,” his father said staring him straight in the eye, “we should be back this evening. If you get hungry before we get back, don’t wait for us.”

            “Bye, we’ll be back later.” Alos’ mom said redundantly.

            Alos’ father opened the door for his mother, and they both proceeded out. As they stepped outside, Alos walked up to the door to close it behind them. He saw Jreg walking beside his father out to the car. Their conversation was muffled, but Alos thought he heard Jreg say Mari’s name. They were probably referring to the lemon bars left earlier so he dismissed it and closed the door.

            Then it hit him, like a punch to the chest. The anxiousness suddenly grasped his attention with a cast iron grip. He quickly remembered that this was what he had been waiting for. It was time for him to act on his friend’s suggestion. It was time to get the information.

            Alos darted up the stairs and into his room. He threw himself into his chair and rolled over to his computer. There was a message returned from Mari which read, “I’d like that” attached with a blushing emoticon. Alos’ fingers drummed across his keyboard, constructing a message to send back.

            “Sorry but I have to go, I’ll be back later.”

            When the message had sent, Alos reached over and snatched the goggles off his desk, then with one swift motion, pulled them over his head while grabbing his Orb and powering up the Omninet. The standard animation displayed as the Omninet booted up. Alos leaned back in his chair trying to relax, but he had no such luck. His heart was hammering the inside of his chest and small beads of sweat began to collect along the ridge of his hair line. His eyes widened and his pupils dilated. Waves of epinephrine-induced excitement sent goosebumps tingling across his arms.

            When the Omninet came up, a message from Big Beastin' immediately displayed.

            “Haven’t seen you on since last night, where ya been?”

            “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity, which has finally come around. Meet me in the green district.”

            “What are you talking abou-

            …Oooohhhh I will be right there.”

            Alos moved 0rnj over to the transfer stream he expected Big Beastin' to come from. The data stream flowed from the green tower to the red tower through the air over a relatively far distance and was a quick, free way to get around. BOT’s would go to the tower and have their data be transmuted into the data stream which would flow to the next point and then re-materialize the BOT back to its original form with the only detriment being lag from the distance.

            A few minutes passed, with Alos stretching 0rnj’s limbs around until out of the data stream tower, Big Beastin' finally materialized. He practically flew out from the data stream, snapping his head left then right before spotting 0rnj. A smile stretched across his face as he glided over.

            “Alright bubby, so you actually decided to look in the cookie jar eh?” Big Beastin' chuckled as he said this. He reached up and grabbed 0rnj on the shoulder, looking at him straight in the facial sensor with his illusory eyes. “Seriously though, I am with you if you want to do this.”

            Alos’ tensed body relaxed a tad when he heard this, his heart however, still thumped away indefatigably.

            “Okay so, here is the general plan. I am going to go and find the security server, then set up a local connection to it.” The sweat on Alos’ hairline started to run down his face and around the rim of his goggles. “Once I’m in, I’ll open up a port and let you in.”

            “Why don’t you just connect wirelessly? It would be harder to trace you that way.”

            “I don’t know the security information, and wirelessly hacking it would require a lot of time to access the necessary packets.”

            “Yeah I suppose that’s true. So are you just going to send me the direct connection info once you’re in?” Big Beastin’s tone wavered as if he was unsure of the plan.

            “Exactly. I’ll throw it in a message and send it over to you.” Alos’ excited state started to come through in his voice and expression.

            “I’ll be waiting for it. Don’t take forever.”

            Alos disconnected from the Omninet, sliding his goggles up onto his head, pocketing his Orb and grabbing a short cord. As he walked out of his room, he pushed up his sleeves and unclasped the magnetic Velcro on his jacket. He made his way downstairs, through the kitchen, making sure to grab another lemon bar, then jogged into the hallway.

            Alos started to walk down to his parents’ room, but practically jumped out of his skin when he suddenly had the realization that cameras hung from every corner of the room. Trying to be unseen, he crept back into the kitchen where no cameras were, paranoia creeping in. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He needed to consider how he was going to get into his parents’ room without being noticed and he needed to do it fast.

            An idea lit up in his mind.

            Grabbing his Orb and sliding the goggles over his eyes, he powered up to the home interface screen in the small computer. There was connection graphic which he selected and then used to browse the local area using his Orb’s connection sensor. Almost immediately it found exactly what he was looking for; the house’s electrical system. Alos selected the system and uploaded 0rnj into it.

            When 0rnj had finished uploading into the house’s surprisingly unsecured electrical system, Alos moved him to the section he had located. The area was constructed with interlocking rows and columns of metal graphics. At every intersection a notch was carved out of the metal with a glowing sphere resting snug inside the notch. There were several different colors of glowing spheres, each representing a different amount of power flowing through the circuit breaker at any given moment. Alos was familiar with Omninetic circuitry, as he had done odd jobs on the net making the circuits for years, but this setup was a little out of the ordinary.

            Alos moved 0rnj to one of the spheres which was glowing red. Red indicated high voltage, and was used to deliver high amounts of electricity to necessary parts of the house. In this case the part of the house was the data server that the cameras used to store what they recorded. Next to the red sphere was a light blue sphere which indicated low/mid voltage. In order to help him remember Alos created a measuring system of the different voltage patterns of each different sphere color, which would rate one through five each number relative to the amount of voltage it represented. The blue sphere he rated a two, while the red was a five.

            The blue sphere provided power to a particular section of the house, and if he had to guess it looked to be the living room. He knew the cameras in the living room were irrelevant to him getting into his parent’s room, but he figured they could be used as misdirection. 0rnj switched the blue sphere and the red sphere, and the result was exactly as expected. The cameras in the living room shorted out, causing them to shut off, while the cameras in the hallway now lacked enough power to store their recordings, rendering them useless. Alos disconnected 0rnj when he was done and smirked with the satisfaction of his Omninetic expertise.

            Alos slid the goggles back up onto his forehead and once again pocketed his Orb. He proceeded down the hall towards his parents’ room where the cameras now sat motionless upon the walls. As he drew closer to his parents’ room, his heart started pounding impossibly hard. It felt as though an internal war between his organs was taking place, and his heart wasn’t winning. He reached out and turned the handle to his parents’ room, beads of sweat collecting in his palms and dripping down onto the floor. Alos opened the door to the room, he walked in heading straight for the corner where a small cutout in the floor could be seen. Alos had never really been in his parents’ room before, but based on the way the floor was cut out and retracted, he knew that the server vault was down there. Once at the corner of the room, he began looking around for a way to get the vault to come up. It was clearly retracted into the ground, but knowing that was pointless if he couldn’t get it out.

            The room was pretty standard. There was a bed in the middle, a wardrobe dispenser across from it, a large screen hanging on the wall, and a computer on each side of the bed. Alos walked over to the computer on his dad’s side of the bed and felt under the desk for a button. Sure enough, underneath was a small, spongy, rubber button. After pressing it, the cut out in the corner of the room rose up out of the floor exposing a large metallic cube about two foot large. Along the front were several ports, as well as a screen that displayed a keypad, a finger scanner, and a holographic hand scanner.

            Alos avoided going near the front of the box and instead, walked around to the side. He removed his Orb from his pocket along with the cord he had grabbed earlier and connected one side of the cord to a near microscopic slot on his Orb, then reaching around from the side being sure to avoid the hand scanner, he plugged the other side of the cord into one of the ports. The Orb popped up a display of numbers and letters on its screen shell streaming from left to right, before displaying the message “CONNECTED.”

            The goggles around Alos’ head were once again pulled down over his eyes as he uploaded 0rnj into his parents vault. The area 0rnj was uploaded into resembled a small shop with shelves, doors, and even a clerk’s desk. Several stands lined the walls away from the rest of the room, each having a different label sitting above it. One read Committee Data, another read Bill Requests and the last read Undisclosed. Alos knew the first two were for his parents’ political campaign, but the third’s contents were unknown to him.

            On the wall above the stands, listed as if they were a menu, were port numbers and security listings. Five out of six of the listings were darkened out, with the last being lit up. The illuminated numbers were representative of the active port with the darkened listings being the inactive ports. Alos pulled up his messenger and wrote Big Beastin' a quick message containing the port info, security settings, and IP address. Soon after, Big Beastin' uploaded into the server.

            “Uhh... this is an interesting set up.” Big Beastin' said, looking around the shop-like area they were in. He pointed up at the menu of ports, “Why would they have their connection details on display?”

            “Beats me. All I know is they are there, so I used them.” Alos replied.

            “Where do you want to start? I mean it looks like there is a lot of data here; going through all of it could take weeks.”

            “Well the Bill Requests and Committee Data sections contain data related to their campaign. I’m pretty sure the Undisclosed section will be our best bet.” Alos walked 0rnj over to the Undisclosed shelf, waving his arms as if presenting it.

            “If you say so. The whole Undisclosed label makes it seem a little too obvious though.” Big Beastin' arched a virtual eyebrow in skepticism as he said this.

            Alos moved 0rnj over to the side of the shelf, reached up, and grabbed one of the small packages on the top rack. He brought it down, and then opening his stomach region, inserted the package inside. After a brief moment, 0rnj spit the package out and then placed it back on the shelf.

            “Just a bunch of passwords.” Alos said as 0rnj retracted his arm from the top shelf. Alos extended 0rnj’s arm up to the top rack again, grabbing the next package in the row. He retracted his arm and brought it back to his stomach repeating the process. After spitting the package out, Alos muttered, “Still passwords.”

            Big Beastin' surveyed the room, stopping at the shelf 0rnj was at. He looked at the top rack, then the one below it, then the one below that, then finally the one at the bottom.

            “Hey I think each rack is a different group type of data. The top is probably all passwords.”

            Alos stopped 0rnj from picking up the next package, and put it back. 0rnj’s arm instead moved to the next lower rack on the shelf, picking up a slightly larger package. He brought it down and inserted it into himself as he did before.

            “I think you’re right,” Alos said as 0rnj spit out the package, “this package is a map.”

            “A map of what?” Asked Big Beastin'.

            “I don’t know. It isn’t anything I recognize.” Alos subconsciously scratched his head causing 0rnj to do the same. “It kind of looks like the schematics to a giant building.”

            “Try the next row, that one is probably all maps.”

            0rnj went to the next rack and grabbed the first package in the row. After processing the data through his stomach, he spit out the package.

            “Now I think we're getting somewhere.” Alos said passing the package over to Big Beastin' who began searching through it. “This looks like a transfer of Divimatian currency to my parents.”

            “It looks like a company transferred the money into a campaign fund", Big Beastin agreed. "There's a note at the bottom if you look closely.”

            “What’s it say?” Alos inquired, arching his brow in curiousity.

            “Jriton Corp is glad that we could come to an agreement that benefits both parties. We look forward to working with you again in the future, Mr. Maien.”

            “A lot of lobbyists support them, though it is kind of weird for a weapon manufacturer and mercenary corporation to be funding them.” Alos said, shrugging both his and 0rnj’s shoulders.

            "Wait, Mr. Maien? As in Senator Maien?? He's your dad?"

            Alos shook his head, inadvertently causing 0rnj to do the same.

            "Look that's not important right now, let's focus on this okay?"

            0rnj finished processing the next data package, then spit it out. “This looks like another money transfer.” Alos said passing the package to Big Beastin'.

            After a short search, Big Beastin' said, “It's definitely another money transfer into your parents campaign account. It’s from none other than Dimun Medical.”

            “So the world’s biggest corporations support my parents? That is just fantastic. It’s great to know that the military-industrial complex has them in their pockets.” Alos shook his head. "No wonder they flipped when they found out about our hacking spree."

            “Try grabbing a package from the bottom row...” Big Beastin' hesitated, “…Unless you think we’ve seen enough.”

            “No I want to know the extent of my parents’ involvement with all of this. That shady guy has to be connected to this.” Anger rumbled through Alos’ words. His brow furrowed intently as he reached down to the bottom row, plucked a package and without even scanning tossed it over to his friend.

            Big Beastin' scanned the package, and then froze.

            “0rnj you're going to want to hear this.”

            “What is it?”

            Big Beastin' cleared his throat, and then began to read in a slow wary voice.

            “We have held up our end of the bargain until now and we expect YOU to do the same. Your son is a growing pain in our collective ass and the longer you continue to delay his de-nerving the more damage he will do to your public image and our wallets. His little friend shouldn’t be a problem, we will take care of her before she can become a problem, but we need you to bring Alos in to be de-nerved immediately. He doesn’t have to be put down, he just needs to be disabled from using the Omninet. We CAN NOT afford to have anymore little hacking scandals done to our corporate friends, is that clear? The augmentation clinic I attached to this message is what I recommend, they are good and will keep the brain damage to a minimum, but in all honesty I don’t give a damn where you go, just get it done.

            -Sen. George Tarien”           

            Alos' stomach turned nearly upside down, his worst nightmares had just come true.

            “They are going to turn me into a vegetable, or even worse, kill me! Oh my god we need to fucking bail, NOW!”

            Big Beastin' got the message. Without hesitation, he disconnected from the vault server, disappearing from the room. In a spastic panic of motion, Alos followed right behind disconnecting the instant he could. As soon as he disconnected, Alos ripped the cord out of the vault, and sprinted out of the room. As if he was being chased by a blood thirsty monster, Alos flew up the stairs and sprang into his room, frantically snatching his backpack from his closet and packing it with every necessary item he could think of. A change of clothes, his plasma knife, and the base to his Orb were all shoved into the backpack. Having no time to waste, he reached into his wardrobe dispenser and yanked out a hooded burgundy sweatshirt, which he pulled on. With a panicked swing, he threw his backpack onto his back, clipped it into place and ran out of his room.

            Each explosive contraction of his heart pumped powerful adrenaline through his veins until the world around him had been put into a frame by frame focus of slow motion. His twitching fingers yanked his hood over his head and as he slammed the front door behind him, he knew there was no turning back.

            Ever.