"Anya, get up. It's nearly time." A voice says stirring Lissa from her darkened sleep. She opens one eye and quickly closes it finding her head to be pounding. The headache is a mixture of lack of sleep, caffeine withdrawal and from all the Adderall she took the night before.
"Stop, Reap, stop." Lissa pleads, pushing away the hands that her nudging her shoulders. "I'm awake, go away." She sits up slowly in bed, but doesn't help her eyes till she hears footsteps retreat from the room and the lights go off. The darkness eases the force of her headache just a bit and she reaches onto the nightstand, grabbing a bottle of extra strength aspirin and a medication bottle of Adderall. The name on the bottle is Nikki Jenkins, an alias she had been using for months not to get Adderall with forged prescriptions rather than buying it off the street. "Adderall vacation after this." She mumbles to herself and looks down on the floor, grabbing a half drank bottle of Coca Cola.
Lissa had been in New York City for a little less than two weeks now, staying with a hacker she knew only as The Reaper, Reap for short. She had been staying in his small two bedroom apartment while finalizing the last of a major hack. Reap and a friend of his Velvet Night would be aiding her in the carrying out of her hack. After that she was thinking of heading out to Portland and helping a group of hackers with exposing secrets of a cult like church group that spent their days protesting at the funerals of soldiers and children. Finalizing the hack meant long nights fueled by caffeine and Adderall, a drug developed to help make you focus, and little sleep. It's taken a toll on her and now she wants something bit easier, a bit more relaxing. She dumps a small amount of aspirin and Adderall into the palm of one hand and quickly takes the pills down with a swig of the warm soda.
The streets of New York City are even more alive than usual in the afternoon sun. Outside of First Federal and National Bank's headquarters hundreds have come to protest the bank calling in mortgages all over the US leaving thousands homeless, most of them families. Older couples with greying hair to young adults to children are all shouting "FFNB Thieving From Our Families!". Picket signs with all sorts of messages litter the sea of people. Members of the army have come in from a nearby training base to assist the NYC Police Department in making sure the peaceful rally stays peaceful. So among the sea of people are officers in blue uniforms and soldiers in tan cameos.
Outlining the sea is a wave of news reporters and their camera men, capturing it all for broadcast later on in the day. It's the first thing Lissa sees as the taxi pulls up outside the rally.
"You sure you want to be here? Doesn't look too safe." The driver says to Lissa as he turns the meter off.
"Trust me, this is exactly where I want to be." Lissa tells him with a smile and then hands him a hundred dollar bill for the twenty-something dollar fare, "Keep looking out for the people like that though." She then exits the cab before he has a chance to say anything. She pulls the black raincoat she borrowed from Velvet Night's girlfriend, close to her. The oversized sunglasses hide most of her face from view, making her unrecognizable. Lissa makes her way through the crowd to the spot she wants, a large statue in memorial of the founder of First Federal and National Bank. It's closer to the building and a good distance from the police. "You guys ready?" She asks into the headset hooked over her ear and connected to the cellphone in her pocket.
"Ready." Velvet Night and Reaper answer. With them ready, she pulls out the earpiece, shoving it her coat pocket.
Lissa shuts her eyes, sucks in a breath and then climbs on top of the base of the statue. "Excuse everybody!" She shouts, she finds she has to shout it a few times before the whole crowd goes silent looking to her. The slightly wind blows her light brown hair with auburn streaks around her face. Lissa resists the urge to pull off the sunglasses, which would allow her to see better, "Everyone here has been a victim of the poor economy and the thieving bastards who decided to make a buck off it!" She shouts and it gets her cheers from the crowd, "They didn't foreclose on your home, they stole it! Families forced to the streets, young couples with ruined credit scores and elderly forced into nursing homes. It is not right! It is not fair!" She pauses letting the crowd cheer some more, "Well I am tired of seeing good people go through bad things. So today, my friends and I..." She then gestures to Velvet Night and Reaper who are standing on a nearby fountain, with their faces masked by bandanas. Lissa finds herself a little annoyed to see Velvet's girlfriend, a redheaded girl, standing next to him with a cat mask on. From the moment she met Velvet's girlfriend this morning, a wannabe hacker, she didn't want the girl involved at all. Lissa turns her focus away from the girl and back to the crowd, "Wanted to give a little back to you. On FFNB's dime of course." She then pulls a backpack loose from her back and begins dumping the contents out into the crowd.
There's panic from the crowd at first, not knowing what is coming out of the bag. But then they see it's paper – money. Bills of all demonization's float in the breeze until they are snatched up by hands made desperate for money by the bank.
With her bag empty, Lissa pulls out a tablet from the inside of her the raincoat, she finishes the last few lines of a code and then sends it through. "And if that's not enough, every FFNB ATM in a twenty-five block area is spitting out its contents right now! Enjoy!"
The crowd goes crazy as people take off running, hoping to find one of the ATM's. It's the perfect distraction for Lissa and the others to disappear into the crowd. For now the police are coming after them and the news crews try to get them on camera.
"Keep moving." Reaper says to Lissa when he finds her in the crowd.
Lissa nods and shrugs the raincoat free from her shoulders, tossing into an open sewer grate. Reaper does the same with his hoodie. Unlike the crowd they turn into an alleyway, laughing with big grins on their faces.
"So amazing." Reaper says to her, "You did it. Girl you are a rock star."
Lissa lets out a laugh and looks up at the sky, such an amazing day. Her happiness is knocked down a peg when Velvet Night and Kim come running to the ally.
"Cops." Velvet Night shouts to them.
"I told you that you shouldn't have brought her!" Lissa shouts to Velvet Night, "Every person ups the chances of being caught." She then starts running down the alleyway.
Close to the main opening of the alleyway, the buzz of life and lights that make of Times Square can be heard. But also standing there are two soldiers in tan cameos. Walkie talkies clipped to their waists squelch out orders to be on the lookout for two males one Caucasian, one African American and two females both Caucasian. One of the soldiers pulls the radio free and begins asking for descriptions of clothing.
Before Lissa can gesture for them to turn and run back down the alley to another opening, Kim lets out a loud sneeze. This causes the solider not on the radio to turn and look at them. "Stop right there!" He orders.
Velvet Night makes a run for the distracted solider and pulls the soldier's gun free. He knocks the soldier into a wall, making sure his head hits hard the soldier falls to the ground unconscious. He fires a few shots up into the air, which causes screams to be let out in Times Square and people begin running. Velvet turns his attention to the soldier with the drawn gun, "No time to be a hero, put the gun down." He demands.
"Vee." Kim says, tears rolling down her cheeks, "Don't."
"On your knees!" Velvet Night demands and the soldier complies. Velvet lowers the weapon and puffs out his chest a bit, "See babe, ain't nobody able to touch this." He laughs.
"Don't do that again." Kim says rushing to him.
With them distracted, nobody sees the soldier reach for his gun and fire a shot at Velvet Night before it's too late. The hacker falls to the ground, blood seeping from an upper stomach wound. Kim lets out a scream of pure terror and Lissa feels the muscles in her body go stiff with fear. The soldier raises the gun on Reaper. Before he can pull the trigger, Lissa charges at him and stomps a foot down on his wrist.
The soldier cries out in agony and drops the gun, which she grabs. She grips it tight in her shaky hands then pistol whips him unconscious. Lissa drops the gun out of reach, not wanting to hold such a terrible thing in her hands any longer. She begins pulling the coat off the unconscious soldier along with his hat. "Take these," She orders Reaper, tossing them to him, "They'll think you're just some soldier helping a poor scared girl."
"What about you? What about him?" He asks gesturing to Velvet Night, who is now dead with Kim hanging off him crying.
"He did this to himself; he never should have brought her. She's not like us; she's not one of us." Lissa says as she helps Reaper get the coat on, "Leave him, but get here out of here. Run and don't stop. They'll be shutting down all transit, so get on something as soon as you change your appearance."
"Okay." Reaper says, adjusting the cap on his head and then grabs Kim. Pity washes of his face as he looks down at his dead friend. He takes a second to be sad and then takes off running, dragging Kim with him.
Lissa goes over to the soldier Velvet Night had knocked unconscious. She checks his pulse, relieved to find one, and rolls him onto his back so he can breathe better. "Hey wake up. You okay?" She asks him, giving his cheeks a few taps. The soldier jerks awake and grabs ahold of her throat. There's fear and rage in his eyes, she can only imagine it's a side effect from the terrible things he's seen in battle. His grip loosens when he sees her but he doesn't fully let go.
"They say you hacked First National and Federal Bank stole a ton of money." The soldier says to her, "That true?"
"And gave it back to the people it belonged to." Lissa finishes, "Yes."
He lets go of her throat and sits up against the wall of a building. He grabs the walkie talkie he dropped when Velvet Night attacked him. "Take this, it'll help you know where they are." He tells her.
"You aren't turning me in?" Lissa asks him shocked.
"FFNB took my parent's home." He explains and that's all the answer she needs.
"Here" She tells him and reaches into the pocket of the black sleeveless vest she's wearing, pulling out a wad of cash she had planned to throw if another distraction was needed. "I don't like having red in my ledger."
"Now go." He tells her.
Lissa looks down at his breast pocket and finds a last name printed here. TIMMONS. "Stay safe Timmons." She then takes the walkie talkie and runs into the still dispersing crowd of scared people. She pulls her cellphone out from the other pocket of the vest and dials a familiar number, "Derek? It's Lissa. I need your help now. I messed up, someone's dead."
Just under hour later the whole area involved in the very public hack is shut down by the police while investigation is underway. Sitting on the back bumper of an ambulance is Billy Timmons, who is being checked out by a paramedic, while making an effort to hide the bulge of cash tucked in the waistband of his boxers. Andy Bronx watches over the shoulder of a NYC Crime Scene Investigator as they run the finger prints found on the grip of his gun.
"I'm telling you, she was about 5'3", light brown hair with red in it, average build. Pale." Andy says to the investigator. He didn't take well to being knocked out by a girl and now is set on finding her, like it will clear her name.
A slender Chinese woman in a well press black business suit strolls up the blocked off alley way, a gold FBI badge hanging around her neck. Her black hair hangs in a neat bob just below her chin. She pulls off her aviator sunglasses and looks around the area. She could care less about the two soldiers being interviewed, the police looking throw trash or the corner leading away a body. Instead her eyes narrow in on the CSI. "Excuse me, Agent Sue Nang, FBI." She says to the CSI and then looks at the gear in the back of the truck. "What did you find here?" She asks.
The CSI looks the woman's badge over and then her in general. The woman's look screams Fed and the CSI doesn't bother to question it. The laptop beeps with a result. "Full finger print from when one of the suspects, Suspect A, grabbed one of the army kids guns. Alyssa Howard. Her prints are in the system from being in foster care." The CSI explains.
"Good work." Sue Nang says and then walks away. Not giving a second glance to anyone or anything else in the alleyway, she's got what she came for. When she's back on the streets not shut down, she pulls out her phone. "Church? It's Maggie, the girls name is Alyssa Howard. They ran her prints before I could intercept."
One hack, one extra person, one split second decision, one complication. However you add it up, it came down to one hack that made Alyssa Hollis, formerly known as Alyssa Howard, one of the top hackers wanted by the FBI.