Wammy days chapter 11

Plotting, hacking, and snacks

The opening bit is not written from anyone's point of view…then it switches to Mello's….sorry for the possible confusion.

It was the in early hours of the day, before the sun had begun to rise, that two shadow figures met in front of the playroom. The rest of the Orphanage was sleeping; children all snuggled in their beds, completely lost in their dream worlds. The small whispers of the shadowy pair could barely be heard over the draft that whistled its way through the hallway.
"We have to act soon; I'm running out of time, L's next visit is in two months…we need to be ready to move by then. We have to…" The low, female voice was cut off by a finger to her lips.
"Kassidy, it's alright. We'll be ready for L when he gets here. We have the plan all laid out, we just have to test those two to see if they're up for the task." This second voice was deeper, almost raspy, and most certainly male. His figure drew hers close in an embrace. "I promise, it will be alright, you have a strategy to test them, and they will do just fine. Now, you need to sleep. I'll walk you back to your room."

She nodded, and the pair slowly retreated down the moonlit hall, their shadows stretching into the light, the soft click of heels on concrete fading into the night as they disappeared into black.

Hacking and Snacks

I awoke that morning to the bright face of Matt.
"Good morning sleepy head!" He said tousling my hair as I sleepily rubbed at my eyes.
"Were you watching me sleep?" I eyed him suspiciously and he broke out in a giggle.
"Mello, Mello, Mello…the minute you open your eyes your entire being becomes such a hypocrisy! You look so nice and calm when you're sleeping, but upon waking up you can't even trouble yourself with a common greeting!" He sighed "I'm hurt Mells, I really am." He got up and sat on his bed, looking wretchedly dejected and pitiful, and the goggles hanging from his neck didn't help.

"Ugh!" I exclaimed, pulling myself out of bed. I strode across the room to stand before him. "Good morning Matt." I responded, those damn puppy eyes would always, always, ALWAYS, get the better of me damn-it. The worst thing about that was that he knew it now. It had been a while since the disaster during midterms, and I'd been dedicated to making it up to him, even though he didn't think there was anything that I needed to make up for. However, during this experience he realized that if he took off his goggles, looked me in the eye and pouted ever so slightly, he could get just about anything from me. Recently he'd been using it often in order to get me to greet him, mostly with good mornings and good nights. He smiled real big in response then picked up one of his games, "Want to go to breakfast with me?" He asked as the gentle hum of Zelda filled the space around us.
"Depends, what's on the menu?"
"Eggs, Hash, Toast, the usual ya know?"
"Gross…cant' they have chocolate eggs or something…Why couldn't it be a pancake day, I like pancake days." Just thinking about chocolate was making my mouth water.
"Mells, that's gross…you really need to do something about this fetish of yours. You're gonna get real fat one of these days, and I'm going to laugh." His face was still pressed against his game, fingers lightly clicking against buttons.
"Yeah, and playing all those video games is definitely better…at least the chocolate isn't melting all my brain cells."
He pouted a bit at that comment, but decided not to fight it. He could tell that I wasn't in the best of moods I guess. I rubbed his head, messing his hair up.
"It's true, but I'm gonna go take a shower alright? Afterwards we can go down and get food, so make sure that the game is off when I get back!"
He nodded lightly in response, but I could see the small smile that had cracked across his lips.

Breakfast, as expected, was scrambled eggs, burnt toast, and undercooked hash browns. Needless to say, I avoided the hot food like hell, and instead settled with a bowl of coco puffs. Our usual table was unnaturally empty. Since Matt's arrival I had grown more used to the loud company of Kinn, and the small, not nearly as loud company, of Paradox and B during meals…though B didn't frequent the cafeteria often, opting instead to eat Jam and overly sweetened coffee in his room alone. However, where there was a Kinn there was often a little white haired Dox toddling behind. The pair was nearly inseparable, and when not in each other's company they seemed to have an uncanny way of knowing precisely where the other was (unless Dox was purposefully hiding from Kinn, and was so well hidden that I think she herself sometimes didn't know where she was.) The large, round, empty table was beginning to make me feel small. However, before I could suggest that we move to a smaller table, Matt voiced my previous wonderings.

"Where in the world is Kinn and Dox? They don't usually miss food time, well at least Kinn doesn't…Dox just follows her. I hope they aren't up to something. I can't stand it when they plot things without us." The last bit of his sentence was said in a joking matter, but it was exactly what I was afraid of. He picked at his food a bit.

"I'd actually prefer that they left me out of their evil plotting." I responded, mouth half full of chocolate puffs. Matt grimaced at the lovely display of chewed food. "Still, I get the most terrible chills thinking that I don't know what they're up to. Just because they don't include me in the discussions doesn't mean I'm not part of the plan." I turned to Matt who was still picking at his food.

"True, we could always find B. He always knows where Kinn is. Or clip, since she's Kinn's informant." The red head suggested casually.

" Nah, I'd rather not be caught conversing with toddlers, even if they are genius toddlers." I began, "and B wouldn't be likely to tell us even if he knew. We'll just have to wait until she comes asking for payment." I shoved another spoonful of, now soggy, cereal into my mouth. Matt chuckled.

"Guess so! Since we aren't going to be preoccupied with plotting to take over the world with Kinn, how'd you like to hang out in the lounge! You aren't banned any more, soooooo." He looked at me expectantly with those large, goggle hidden eyes.

"You look ridiculous wearing those inside," I commented, trying to avoid the question.

"Don't care. You gave 'em to me, so you shouldn't call them names. But, you should come hang out! You haven't done anything with me lately, you're always too busy studying your brains out." He pouted, crossing his arms.

"I have to study."

"You don't have to do anything. You want to study, but you should take a break every once and a while, and hang out with your friends."

I sighed, he was right, I hadn't been spending much time with him. After that whole midterm mess I was determined to never, ever fall in ranking. I might end up hurting someone else I cared about.

"Good morning" Came a soft, but sudden, interruption. "Mello, have you seen Kinn around? She wasn't in the room when I left this morning, and I am concerned that she may have found some new plaything to torture."

It was Dox, her white blonde hair curling messily around her face. She blinked her eyes sleepily at me as she sat down at the table.

"Of course, she has many other playthings besides you, but she's taken a particular liking to Mello, so I assumed that, if she was going to be anywhere, it would be bothering you." She looked down at her bowl of cheerios with dismay. I shook my head, "Haven't seen her. Actually, we were wondering where she had gone off to too. She doesn't miss breakfast often."

"I was concerned about that as well. She's run out of snacks due to Roger reducing her stash exponentially after we rescued Matt. You know how she is when the Wasabi Peas run out."

Matt raised an eyebrow, and I sighed.

"I know she likes snacks but…" Matt started, Dox interrupting before he could continue.

"You know how Mello is more than slightly addicted to chocolate?" She asked, and Matt nodded vigorously in response, "Imagine Mello going through withdrawal, but, add to it a complete lack of self-control. When Mello goes through Withdrawal, all he does is complain and whine until someone gets tired of it and gets him more chocolate."

Matt nodded in understanding. On more than one occasion had he been put in the postion of loyal dog, and been sent to the kitchens to steal chocolate bars for me.

"Hey!" I remarked, trying to stand up for myself, they both looked at me harshly. "Fine, fine, I whine…but Kinn's worse."

"Indeed, when Kinn runs out of snacks, she gets violent. She will attack just about anyone to get her teeth in something. One day she ran out, and to protect the other students, Roger locked her in her room. When someone went into check on her they found that she had shredded the bedding, broken the bedposts, and was gnawing on her own, bloody arm."

Matt shivered. "Why in the world?"

"We don't know, but Roger thinks it's some sort of condition from her childhood."

"And yet that old fart still takes away her snacks, even though she turns into a rabid zombie without them."

"Zombie?" someone growled behind me, making my skin crawl. "Is that really what you all think of me?"

Dox perked up, she stood up and raced over to the infuriated Kinn. "Ahhh, I was worried that you had eaten someone, or maybe gotten into the cleaning cupboard again! I don't like it when you have to go to the hospital. I means the room is empty." The small girl exclaimed as she took hold of Kinn's arm. Kinn smiled sweetly at her, patting her head as she responded.

"B gave me some of his jam, so it's okay…However," She looked at me, her glare ripping into my skin, "Thanks to a certain someone, I am indeed currently snack-less, and I fully expect this someone to rectify the situation."

I shivered. Her tone of voice was dark and dripped with malice. It was a tone of voice that I had only heard one time before. It had been a few years ago, the year Dox came to the orphanage. Dox had attracted Kinn's attention right away when she had come, and no one really understood why. But, with Kinn being one of the few girls without a roommate it was only natural that Roger had insisted, much like he had with Matt and I, that Dox move in with her. However, Kinn didn't mind, which was odd. She wasn't a terribly social person, and most everyone was too afraid of her to want to interact with her. But, when she had gone to collect a favor from Pole, an older classmate at the time, something went wrong. Pole had decided that she'd had enough of Kinn's manipulating, and had noticed the color-blind girls affection for Dox. So, she had taken to beating up Dox after class, threatening Kinn with the harm of her precious roommate. The one time I had heard that tone of voice, was when Kinn was standing over Pole with a butcher knife in her hand. She'd broken the older girls arm and fingers before threatening her with the knife. Her words still rung in my ears: "If you dare touch this girl again, I will personally dig out your eyeballs, and make you eat them."

"Um, what exactly does this uh," I cleared my throat, "someone, need to do to rectify the situation?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from wavering. Matt looked surprised, and I realized that he hadn't been around long enough to see the more violent sides of Kinn.

"You need to do two things. One, you need to give me all of your chocolate. And Two, you need to get me more snacks."

Well, I thought, isn't that super specific.

"How in the world am I supposed to get you more snacks?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Hack into rogers computer and find the monthly order for food. It should have arrived yesterday. It'll be due in the next week, so make sure you're done by then."