Seven strolled into the convenience store and nodded a greeting to the clerk. He had been working this stupid case all week, and he had run out of PhD Pepper. The agency had paired him with another hacker, codename M&M, and he was good, but this was tough even for them. He needed sugar to refuel his brain, and he needed to stretch his stiff legs, so he had walked here. As he walked to the soft drink aisle, he heard the door open and a loud voice with an American accent rang through the store, speaking clear English.
"Come on, Matt, Stop complaining. A few minutes away from your precious computer won't kill you, and I am out of chocolate. Remember what happened the last time I went without chocolate? I almost ate you, and not in a sexy way. You dragged me all the way to Korea, I think I get to drag you a few blocks down the street."
"Ugh, fine, get whatever you want. I'm getting some more Red Bull. I'm going to need it the way things are going. I really want some cigarettes, but I can't smoke in the hotel." another American accent, but this voice was softer, and the speech was fogged with exhaustion.
Seven turned his attention to the rows of bottles in front of him, looking for the largest quantity of PhD Pepper that he could get. He heard another person approach, but he didn't look up. The other person sidled up next to him and eyed the shelves of energy drinks, clearly not comprehending the Korean labels. Another set of footsteps approached, these ones loud and clunky.
"All right, I found the dark chocolate, and I think this is the brand I like. I can't read Korean for shit, but-" The voice stopped and Seven looked up.
The loud voice belonged to a medium-height man in his early twenties with jaw-length blond hair. He was wearing black clothing and accessories to rival most pop idols. The expression on his face was one of disbelief that slowly melted into a grin like a cheshire cat. He was looking from Seven to something on his other side. Seven turned to see what was so amusing.
Standing on his other side was another medium-height man in his twenties, presumably the one who had come in with the blond. He had messy red hair and wore a striped shirt with baggy jeans. There was something familiar about this guy. A little too familiar.
"Matt, when were you going to tell me you had cloned yourself?" The blond said without the slightest hint of tact.
"Shut up, Mels, what are you talking about?" the redhead, Matt, replied.
"Look at this guy, you two could be twins! You sure your bitch of a mom didn't ship another kid off to Korea?" the blond, Mels? weird name, said. Seven's fist clenched at the mention of lost twins. He put on a smile and tried to relax. This guy was just playing around, he knew nothing of Seven's past.
"I guess we do look kind of alike," Seven said, thankfully his English was pretty good, "What a weird coincidence."
"I'm calling genetic engineering. They want to make a whole team of Matts. I wouldn't complain, but I'm not sure there is a server on the planet that can handle the bandwidth required." Mels quipped.
"Oh, you work with computers too? I mostly play online games." Seven said. He used games as a cover for his hacking.
"Yeah, so do I" Mat fiddled with the orange-lensed goggles he wore. "The name's Matt, and this is my partner, Mello."
"A pleasure to meet you, My name's Luciel." it would be weird to give out his screen name in person like this.
"Huh, like the angel. The one that fell, even. That's unique." Mello said. Seven noticed the rosary hanging from his neck. Mello was either Catholic or his family was.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Seven was trying to be casual. He picked up a case of PhD Pepper, "It was nice meeting you, but I have to go." he walked past Matt and made his way to the counter. He heard Mello snickering behind him.
"C'mon Matt, you gotta admit it's funny. If it's any consolation, I think you're hotter." A kissing sound, followed by a chuckle from Matt.
Seven walked back to his veritable fortress of a house and sat down at his massive computer, a fresh PhD Pepper in hand. He looked for amy messages from hs partner. He hadn't responded for nearly an hour, the other hacker was probably getting worried. When the chat box opened, he saw that M&M had just logged in. What a coincidence, they took a break at the same time. A message appeared:
M&M: Sorry I disappeared so suddenly. I got dragged outside on an errand, but I should be back for a while now. I hate going outside.
707: lol yeah I get that. I actually went on a snack run myself. Can't code without the sweet nectar of life, PhD Pepper.
M&M: Now you sound like my partner. He has a bit of a chocolate habit.
707: PhD Pepper is better. Everyone knows it. Now let's finish this up. I think we're getting close to cracking it.
Seven absently sipped the PhD Pepper as he stared at the strings of code. He thought about the guys from the convenience store. The one called Mello was buying a lot of chocolate, and the one called Matt looked as tired as Seven felt. Could M&M stand for….nah, there was no way. Seven had seen some pretty strange coincidences, but that was too much. He was just some gamer guy like the thousands of others on this planet. This one just happened to look like Seven.