Hello, friend. It's been awhile, hasn't it? The last time we spoke my morphine intake was higher than my usual 30mg and I was very alone. How do normal people deal with being that alone? You are one of my only solaces. Thank you for that. But you didn't treat me well, that's why we had to part for a while. I hope you are ready to start fresh. Because I have a secret.

I have a secret and you're the only one I can trust right now. I have been hacking again. I have been deep into people's secrets and I know things that I will not ever unlearn. I know I promised to not hack again but you also promised to look out for me when I started to slip. I slipped so far that I ended up throwing myself off the pier, convinced it was you who dared me.

I walked back into society and out of hospital 3 months ago and since then you have kept quiet but now you need to speak up. You got me into mess, help me get out again. I can catch you up. I have been living life in a naive bubble. I've been drinking Starbucks and I've been listening to Maroon 5. I even read the first Hunger Games book. I've been trying to sedate myself. But then I had an itch. An itch that couldn't be ignored. I needed to know.

Two weeks ago E Corp fired their Senior Vice President of Technology. Tyrell Wellick. I had tried to gain access to his accounts before. I had never succeeded. The rest of the company and the rest of it's employees were unbelievably easy to invade. Their personal information just sat there, waiting to be looked at. Except for Tyrell. He had something worth hiding.

I knew this. F-Society knew this. Though it's operations were currently on standby due to my illness and their actions were to a minimum, they were well aware that Tyrell was hiding something potentially catastrophic. That was the worst part, we all knew. We just couldn't prove anything.

Now I have something to prove. I have the evidence.

One week ago

I'm lying back in my chair, swirling around in the same spot. The TV is on but I'm not paying attention. Flipper is barking at me but I'm struggling to pay attention to that too. With F-Society at a standstill, it was decided to keep our contact to a minimum. It was better to have the entire operation at a holt. Flipper and Quwerty being my only company, it was easy to get lost in my thoughts and imagination.

My mind wonders off to what it used to be like to me. I had my eyes watching everyone I knew. Everyone I met, I made the choice to hack them, every time. I liked knowing more than everyone else in the room. I thrived on knowing the ins and outs of people's existence. Now I am lucky to know the surface of what keeps people moving on. I had to give myself a break.

Kristina, my therapist, said that I need to clear my mind, get some perspective. I think Kristina needs to take her own advice. After hacking her accounts, I found that she is linked to various dating sites, has online prescriptions to weight lose pills, hair and skin minerals and subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine and Entertainment Weekly. She has herself in a bubble of consumption. She needs to break out of it, get some perspective.

I had decided to take her advice, nonetheless. I may still be taking the occasional bit of Morphine but if I keep taking only 30mg, I won't get addicted. Like I even believe that lie anymore.

I am taking a break from hacking. I am learning to trust people. Darleen said that after my trip to the hospital, she couldn't risk me being a part in something so big like F-Society. So I'm cutting all ties with the hacking. For now.

My attention is pulled when I hear the TV's volume heighten. It's the sound of reporters firing questions, the sound of camera shutters and video recorders. But then I hear them use his name. Tyrell Wellick.

His name had been all over anything they could put it on the past week. Fired from Evil Corp. The news rattled me. It couldn't have been a simple redundancy. Something had happened here. I knew it. The rest of the world wanted to know what this meant for the future of E Corp, for the future of Tyrell and his expecting wife.

When I look at the TV screen, his eyes are staring back at me. There it is again. That feeling. I don't know what it is but it unsettles me. It's like a pulse that starts at my toes and ends up going through my spine to the top of my head. I can taste it in the back of my throat. He does something to me. He does something and I can't put a name to it.

Before I know it, I'm looking at his Facebook account. Without 'friending' him, I can see a couple of pictures, mainly with his wife. There are a couple without her. I want to see more. I always end up here after I see him dominating most media outlets. I end up on his Facebook or on his Twitter. I want to see inside. I want to hack my way into the deepest parts of his mind. I want to know what makes him tick, what makes him hot. That last thought terrifies me.

I had never had to meet Mr Wellick. He's been into the office where I work a handful of times. Usually, his commanding glare catches my eyes and we're locked in eye contact for a couple of minutes. We play a game. Who can break away first. When I look away first, my eyes dart back to him. He's usually smirking and running his hands through his hair. This man could bring society to its knees and I'm looking at him like he could save me from it. But he fascinates me.

I don't know how it happens or what makes me do it but without thinking, I'm running the software. I'm typing in the correct keys. I'm trying to gain access to the most intimate parts of Tyrell Wellick's life. I'm hacking him.

Before I can register it, before I can talk myself out of it. I'm in. I have access. I'm looking at private messages and emails, bank transactions and memos, plans for E Corp and plans for presentations. Files on his hard drive, on his home computer. I have it all.

Then I'm searching through it. There isn't time to breathe, there isn't time to think. I read the messages and the emails. I'm scanning for something, anything. This is all too casual. All I find is conversations between friends, dinner plans and insignificant talk. Where is it? I don't know what it is but there is something.

But then, as if waiting to be discovered, I see it. It is not what I was looking for. This is nothing like what I was looking for. My surroundings stop, my everything stops. Am I really looking at this? Is this real?

Sat in the midst of files saved to his hard drive, there it is. The file. The file named "E.A". When I open it, I know it's not a coincidence. E.A is me. I'm looking at pictures of myself. There is me leaving the food store, the book store, getting into a cab, getting off the bus. The last few months of my life are sitting in this file.

None of this was a coincidence. This was meant to be found, this was meant to be looked at. This was meant to be hacked. Did Tyrell really let me do this? None of his security had changed, no extra walls. I just managed to get through the one I usually get stuck at. The file has no extra encryptions, no extra protection, sitting there like any other file. Tyrell had purposefully let me hack him. Tyrell wanted me to know he was watching.

Was he watching me right now? That's when I move. I'm taking my equipment apart, I'm destroying it all. Snapping bits and melting others, collecting it all when it's eventually turned into nothing but a jigsaw puzzle of computer parts. I cannot stop pacing. How had I let myself do this? How had I been able to do this?

I recall over the events that had just happened. There would be a reason why tonight was the first time I had been able to intrude on Tyrell's life. There would be a reason why I had been able to do this. Tyrell is not a sloppy man, this is not a error. This is a plan.

I need air. I need coffee. Flipper needs a toilet break. I need to leave. My breathing is unsteady, my palms are clammy but I'm pulling my hoodie over me and making a break for it by slipping out the front door.

I never make it outside. My front door is open. I'm looking at a pair of newly polished Oxford shoes and the end of a pair of navy trousers. I knew it before I looked up, before I looked into his penetrating eyes. Tyrell Wellick was stood right infront of me. His lips start to move.

"Bonsoir, Elliot."