Sometimes when you look at the world, the world doesn't look back at you.
.
.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. I fucked up. I fucked up.
Evan stood, shoving the chair back as he stared hard at the screen. He tore the USB from the computer and tucked it into his pocket. He reached for a metal baseball bat sitting beside his desk, gripping the handle, and without hesitating, he smashed his computer over and over again until it was nothing but a broken screen with the keys dragged from its sockets of the keyboard. He stumbled backwards in the dark room, almost falling over his chair before grabbing a duffel bag from his closet and shoving clothes inside.
He grabbed his phone on the table in the kitchen and dialed a number. He put it on speaker before heading over to the cupboard where he took out a drill and tore apart his console.
He stopped when he heard a sound and looked back over to his phone.
"Lui?" he called.
"Yeah?"
Evan dropped the drill and walked over to his phone. He picked it up with a shaky hand, and reached for his bag, zipping it up.
"I fucked up, I fucked up, fuck sakes." He slipped his shoes on and walked out the front door, making sure to lock it before heading to the staircase.
"What do you mean you fucked up?" Lui asked, yawning.
"You know that guy...Mark...Mercer...I think that's his name—"
"Yeah, that's his name."
"I hacked into his thing and...it scanned me."
"It scanned you?"
Evan gritted his teeth as he stepped from the staircase and walked to the back alley. "Yes. I got scanned...okay...I didn't know that was going to happen and fuck...why didn't you tell me that was going to happen?"
"I didn't know it would," Lui said, "I thought maybe you would have been careful."
Evan stopped by the garbage bin. "I was careful. Destroyed my whole fucking computer, and now some asshole fixer will show up and fuck me over."
"You're already fucked over...you should get rid of your phone."
Evan sucked in a breath, nodding to himself. "Yeah...I-I am going to do that. Fuck. Fuck!"
"Okay, come over, we'll deal with it when you get here."
"Yeah. Okay. See you soon." He hung up and dropped his phone on the ground, then he proceeded to stomp on it a few times before walking off down the street.
It was six in the morning, he was working all night, hoping he wouldn't get caught through the extensive firewalls. He had to find the guy anyway through his many acquaintances, he knew how people were when they wanted to hide their trails, and now look where it brought him, to a place where he didn't want to be in.
It happened so quick, in a blink of an eye, the message flagged him and he knew what was happening. The calm came first, washing over him before he started to move, shaking hands, thoughts running through his head, then the sounds went quiet.
It was the first time this happened.
What the fuck did Lui get him into?
Shit.
Evan walked down the alley and took a left. The streets were dead and soon it'll be full with people going to work or even school. His days like normalcy faded out a long time ago, not like he ever wanted to go back to it.
This was his life when things took a turn and Lui gave him a decent enough job to pick himself back up.
Since then, he'd done things for Lui, helped him out when he needed too. And this was meant to be an easy job. Unlikely now that it hit a wall.
He was anonymous.
A trail leading to nothing.
That was all he was.
No past and certainly no future.
No one was meant to know who he was and what he was capable of.
No one.
What a magnificent lie he told himself so he could close his eyes at night with no paranoia juking him out.
Fuck sakes.
What the hell was he doing?
Evan walked down another street, headed through an alley, continued onward with nothing else on his mind. He didn't let paranoia hound him, it would be a waste of time, and a waste of energy.
He needed a plan.
He needed to speak with Lui and find out what the hell is going on.
In ten minutes, he came to an apartment building that didn't look interesting. Brick red building with an old fashioned door, black iron wrought fences on the sides where a parking lot sat, and the door had a buzzer on the side that didn't look like it was replaced in decades.
He pressed a button and waited.
After a minute of waiting and excessively pressing the button, Lui's voice came from the comm, "If this is Reagan, can you get the fuck out of here!"
Evan scowled, placing his finger on the buzzer. "It's me, you asshole, open up."
"Right, right...sorry."
The door clicked and Evan pushed it open. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked down the hallway that was stuffy and smelled like something stale. He knocked on a door and heard the rustling sounds of a bag filled with bottles before the door was yanked open.
Lui stood on the other side, a crooked smile on his lips, he wore a simple white shirt with a stain, and ripped washed out jeans, no socks covered his feet.
"Hey, come in."
"You really need a girlfriend or someone to clean your apartment," Evan said, closing the door and stepping over the garbage bag, a few discarded clothes, a broken glass that had a dry bloody footmark, an old banana peel. "This is disgusting."
"Yeah, yeah, get over here," Lui said, sitting down on his couch that was relatively cleaned off where his laptop sat on the coffee table. A slurpee sat beside it, half full of cream soda and pepsi.
Evan sat down beside him. The screen consisted of a camera system on one tab, another on a few open sites, one was illegal, the other was a chatroom, and an online game that was put on pause.
"Are you going to tell me who this Mark Mercer is that you got me in shit with?" Evan asked, nudging Lui in the side.
Lui hummed, taking off the illegal tab. "Yeah. He's from an old group called Messenger Assault, all people fled several years ago, and he stayed a bit with Dead Eye, and last I heard from him by a reliable source of mine, he wants to revive MA. But who knows, the guy was crazy as it is."
Evan never heard of any of the groups before.
"And you wanted me to hack him?"
"For information," Lui said, shrugging, "I didn't think he would scan you, he was never the paranoid type."
"Guess he is," Evan said, leaning back against the couch, arms crossed. "Now what? What do I expect from this?"
"Scared?"
"I've never been scanned before, so yeah, maybe I'm a little worried in who this Mark Mercer is that is so damn important for you to let me hack him. You should've told me this was going to happen."
"Like I said," Lui pulled up another tab, this had a chat room in it, he signed in and there were already people on it, no faces, simple names and numbers, barely any coherent words, and as Lui typed, his own code was implemented into the text, "I didn't know this was going to happen. Mark hasn't been hit in a long time, so I didn't expect the hit. Now that it has, we be careful about who we associate with."
"Yeah," Evan said, nodding his head, "where do I go exactly?"
"I think you should go see Brock," Lui suggested.
"And do what?"
"Hold out, you destroyed your computer, your phone, and you got the information I asked for, right?" he asked.
Evan nodded, he took out the USB from his pocket and passed it to Lui. He placed it down beside his drink and picked up his phone that sat beside him.
"I'll get a hold of him and he'll meet you down the block."
"And what will you do?"
Lui shrugged. "I'll clean up your mess."
Evan rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Lui."
"No problem."
Evan got up from the couch and stepped over the mess to the front door. He didn't look back as he left, and the hall was empty with his thoughts. He didn't even know what was on the USB that Lui wanted, but he seemed calm about it, maybe things weren't going to shit, maybe everything will be okay.
He didn't know, it was just a thought, something to make him feel better about this situation.
He just had to lay low for awhile until Lui can tell him that he can come out of hiding. He didn't know when that'll be, but it's all he can do for now.
Notes: I wrote a similar story like this on Fictionpress a long time ago. I finished it with two connecting stories, and a third about to be written, but I was purging my work and all three were deleted. Since I like the concept of these stories, I'll write them again, but this time, this story will have all three stories combined into it. :)
Evan is a little naive about the world he lives in, mostly because he rarely speaks to other people, and doesn't want to be identified, but because of the situation he is placed in, he'll have to do that.
I hope you enjoy.
Reviews are appreciated. No flames or bashing please, they will be deleted. x)