Hey friends! Hope you're all staying warm out there. I humbly offer another chapter of this ridiculous AU for you all. We've only got a couple chapters left! Much love to Aer for betaing yet another chapter of this!
I want to mention that I really went off the walls with the hacking stuff this chapter. Is this how authentication works? Not really! Can you set up a shell to access someone's computer that easily? Unclear! But Maka can, probably. She's a smarter cookie than me. But hey... you're already here to read a color-themed FBI agent soulmate AU, so I hope you are already out here suspending all kinds of disbelief!
Thanks for being here - this chapter has been a wild ride to write! I hope you enjoy. :)
Maka sits on her couch, nestled between several pillows, laptop propped on her lap as she sips another mug of English breakfast. Kind of an ironic choice, since breakfast is many hours away, but she needs the caffeine, and this is what she's got.
She'd left EAT in the early evening, making the trek back home before her evening got too exciting. Liz and Patty weren't coming back, so Maka mentally prepares herself for a long, solitary evening.
Well, not entirely solitary. Blair is perched on the back of the couch, tail sweeping gently against Maka's arm as she continues to pore over the code base for Resonance. The sheer amount of code that she needs to work through still feels a bit overwhelming, but now that she's narrowed it down, she's looking for something specific. Something that will help her connect directly to her favorite stooge.
She reaches the section that she'd been skimming before she'd gotten up to make tea. Her mouth drops open more and more as she reads, a strange giddiness seeping into her grin.
It's here. And it is quite the exploit; even more massive than she'd originally thought. This explains how their computers must have connected by accident, that very first time. In a specific block of code, there's a section that seems to enable the user to bypass the authentication process. Her stooges must have somehow initiated this process when they'd connected to her computer that first time.
Maka leans forward and narrows her eyes at the screen, hands over her mouth. Because of the way this code is set up, if she can run that process again... it means it can go in reverse. It means that she can access the device of anyone using Resonance, as long as she has an administrator password.
Hands flying across the keys, she gets to work on recompiling the code, something that will take a few minutes. As the process runs, she waits, scribbling down potential passwords on the notepad beside her:
ILOVESUSHI? THEBEGINNING? HACKERS? NORIGHTANDWRONG?
When the recompiling finishes, her fingers itch. She pulls the program up again, stares at the password box, and types in her ideas, one after the other.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
She goes back into the code. There has to be another clue. The stooge wouldn't lead her this far and not give her the key.
After fifteen more minutes of digging, she stumbles on something else in - for lack of a better term - a really boring part of the code.
#IF YOU FIGURED IT OUT
return_code = ()
if return_code is not None:
print('RETURN CODE', return_code)
#DONTKILLHIMDONTKILLHIMDONTKILLHIMDONTKILLHIM
for output in .readlines():
print( ())
Don't… kill him?
That's so ominous. She doesn't understand what it means, but without really processing why, she opens back up the window and types it, in all caps, exactly as the stooge who screams would've done:
DONTKILLHIM
The window disappears, and in its place appears Resonance. The window looks quite similar to the one she's seen many times, with one notable exception. There is a list of contacts on the left-hand side, and just above the list is an automated welcome message:
Welcome back, Black*Star.
She narrows her eyes and says aloud: "What the hell is a Black Star?"
After a glance through the logs, it very quickly becomes clear: Black*Star is the stooge who screams, and she's gained access to his Resonance account, for some reason. On her notepad, she scribbles a message: Buy Black*Star a drink sometime.
She scrolls the list of contacts; it's shorter than she'd expect, not more than 30 people on it. The recruitment team must not be as robust as she'd thought.
That - she glances down at the clock on her laptop, which reads 8:30 p.m. - or most of them have gone home for the day, and it's only displaying the people who are currently online.
Stooge #3 will be on it. That's what she's banking on, anyway. If she knows anything about him at all (in addition to his shoe preferences and his sass), it's that he's a night owl. Nearly every test he's sent her has been at night.
Maka decides that it's time for a stakeout. May the last person remaining on Black*Star's contact list win.
She pours another mug of tea as the hour nears midnight, names disappearing one by one. When the list shortens to ten or so people, she starts paying more attention to the usernames of her potential candidates.
It's a bit odd that it's a list of usernames instead of real names, but she supposes it adds an extra layer of security. For this reason, she doesn't recognize any names, of course.
Within the list, however, there's one strange name that makes a blip on her mental radar: soul_eater.
Coincidental as it may be, seeing the word soul sends a jolt through her system that puts her ill at ease, makes her glance to the clock again. It's technically almost Friday, and she wonders when she'll be hearing from him.
1:00 a.m. comes and goes, the list has trickled down to three names, and soul_eater is one of them. For obvious reasons, she's drawn to that username in particular, and out of sheer curiosity, she decides to click on the name, and then on the little blue button that says Surveillance.
The screen pops up in a side window and she maximizes it, eyes widening. She's watching this person, and they're watching someone else. It's like she's in a surveillance inception.
Maka takes a moment to appreciate that other people share her hacking hours, and that this person, who is potentially her third stooge, is assigned to interact with such people. There's no way for her to actually tell if this is her stooge, yet, but it appears that they are indeed watching a hacker, and she knows that her stooge is working with a new recruit.
As if the universe is conspiring to help her, she watches as soul_eater minimizes the surveillance window and looks at their main Resonance page. In a strange, déjà vu sort of fashion, she watches as their mouse hovers over the name Black*Star and opens a message.
[[ its late as hell. why are you awake? ]]
She jumps as the chat box pops up on his screen, and then on hers, and she stares down at the message, wondering what she should do. She could just leave it alone, ignore him.
Or... she could find out some more information.
She hits the caps lock key and racks her brain. What would the stooge who screams say in this scenario? Something loud and borderline obnoxious, probably.
[[ JUST CHILLIN ]]
[[ ok. ]]
[[ and why do you have a surveillance tab open on me? ]]
She lets out a little gasp, hand tightening around her mug. Apparently he can see that he's being watched. Beneath the adrenaline, she catalogues how unfair that is; she'd never gotten to know such a thing.
Her heart is pounding; not only because she does not want to get caught in this scenario, but because when she tries to imagine that this is her stooge, she thinks that... it might be. His typing style is the same, isn't it?
She needs to know more, so she digs in her heels. [[ JUST BORED HAHAH. HOWS THE NEW RECRUIT? ]]
He responds right away. [[ fine. it's whatever. ]]
It is a new recruit. This emboldens her, and she tiptoes forward. [[ U ALWAYS END UP WITH THESE LATE NIGHT PEOPLE HUH? ]]
[[ i just have to follow their sleep schedules, you know that ]]
It feels like confirmation bias, but she can hear his sass leaking through the screen. She decides to take a big risk, and hopes it pays off.
[[ THIS HACKING SEEMS A LOT DIFFERENT FROM MAKA'S THOUGH ]]
She waits, hand hovering over the disconnect button in case she needs to run. It takes him about thirty seconds to respond - though it feels like an hour.
[[ yea, i guess so ]]
Bingo.
A huge smile stretches across her face, but it's so important for her to tread carefully. There's so much that she wants to know, but also… she just wants to talk to him.
[[ SHE'S COMING IN NEXT WEEK RIGHT? ]]
[[ idk. you'd know better than me. ]]
Is she detecting a hint of bitterness, there? It's hard to tell, but in a moment of what is probably pure insanity, she decides to use the words that the stooge who screams had used on her recently, just to see what happens.
[[ AWW. DO U MISS HER? ]]
Through his screen, she watches him type out a series of things: [[ youre the most insuffera- i hate you so m- the black-haired goddess is never going to find your- ]] before a long pause, where he finally types: [[ yea, probably. ]]
Her heart surges strangely as she rereads that message, until another one comes: [[ but i'll talk to her later today, at least. ]]
The laughter she'd been stifling dies in her throat.
She sits there for a long minute, trying to decide how to approach this. Why would he be talking to her if he's got this new recruit? Isn't that Black*Star's job now? She supposes that he'd never explicitly said that her stooge had been permanently transferred. But he'd just said that Black*Star would know better-
That comment doesn't make sense to her, but she doesn't feel like she can ask him to elaborate, so she lets it lie, content to simply watch him some more. Hopefully he'll give something else away.
In the span of another hour, nothing else of note really happens. The only remotely interesting thing is when the stooge pulls up a song on Spotify.
It's a Bastille song - one called Two Evils. There's a flicker somewhere in her subconscious, and her eyes land back on that username.
Soul eater.
She pushes the thought away from the screen and into the shadows that lurk on the sides of her laptop. Plenty of people listen to Bastille.
Even so, she's curious about what the song is about. Pulling up the song on her phone, she lets it play into the darkness of her living room.
It's haunting. Stooge #3 is going through something, she thinks, before she really starts to listen to the lyrics:
Here I am, hiding in plain sight,
If you're not careful you will lose her
Her intuition is singing, and she can't figure out why.
Soul knows that it's strange, but much like at the bar, it's actually kind of nice having Black*Star sitting here with him. It is kind of rare for Black*Star to log in from home, but it's not the first time that his boss has randomly used their surveillance software on him, so whatever.
While he continues to survey, he pulls out his phone, turning it over in his hands. He'd thought about texting Maka when midnight had passed, but he'd decided to leave it until the morning.
As a distraction, he decides to pull up Spotify on his computer; he should give Black*Star a chance to listen to some good music for a change. He knows that this song is angsty as hell, but it mirrors his thought process over the last couple of days, so he's willing to endure some mockery from Black*Star if it helps him think this through.
Once the song is on, he pulls his phone out again, the lyrics pulling at something in his gut. He opens his texts, looks at his messages with Maka. Black*Star's words from the night before echo through his mind: you really could just tell her.
A notification from Resonance cuts through the music. [[ ARE U OKAY ]]
He rolls his eyes at the message, expecting this. [[ yea, why ]]
[[ THIS SONG IS SO DEPRESSING ]]
Black*Star has never appreciated good music. Soul sets his phone down, fully prepared to type out a retort, but once his hands hit the keys, he finds himself typing something else:
[[ just hope i'm making the right choice ]]
Black*Star is quiet for a minute, until: [[ IF UR STILL THINKING ABOUT IT ]]
[[ U MIGHT WANNA THINK ABOUT WHY ITS STILL ON UR MIND ]]
Soul lets out a massive sigh, leaning back in his chair and staring at the panels in the ceiling.
For the second time in two days, he thinks something horrifying: Black*Star is right. That little something that's been gnawing at his gut moves up into his chest, nagging and raw.
If you're not careful you will lose her.
As it nears 2:00 a.m., Kilik seems to tire of his evening hacking activities, because Soul's surveillance screen goes black. With nothing left to observe, he decides to call it a night, actually looking forward to the late night drive to clear his head. He pulls up the message with Black*Star again, even though it's been silent for a while.
[[ ok well, im out. cya tomorrow ]]
The response is nearly instantaneous. [[ OK BYE! ]]
He turns off his screen and slides his chair back, edging his way out of the office and down to his bike, squinting against the orange-yellow hues of the streetlights on the road as he drives.
On the ride home, he thinks of every scenario that could happen if he did say something.
As soon as the stooge leaves his computer, Maka gets to work. Now that she's pinpointed his computer through their Resonance connection, she's pretty sure she can get onto his actual computer.
She boils more water for tea, glancing at the clock. If she wants to find more information on him at all, she knows it'll be on his actual machine. If she can find something by 5 a.m., she decides, she'll call it a success.
As anticipated, the connection is easy to access, thanks to her shiny new administrator privileges. Maka attempts to set up a shell in the network, which will give her free rein over everything in his machine. It should work-
And it does. Everything connects so quickly, it's like their computers are right beside each other.
Once she's in, the very first thing she tries to do is access his camera. There's no camera connected, and that likely means no microphone, either.
As she searches through the rest of the desktop files, it very quickly becomes evident that the absence of camera and audio were a bit of an omen. It's hard to find anything that deals with her stooge; there's a backlog of recruitment files a mile deep, but all of those files are about other people, not about him.
After exhausting her search of his program files, she putters around until she finds her way to his browser. There's no history, obviously - she wouldn't expect there to be - and nothing in his downloads, either. The only thing that catches her eye is one lone page that has been bookmarked, probably very recently.
ruby slippers form thing, it says.
She cocks her head to the side curiously and clicks, eyes scanning the page. It seems to be an approval form of some kind - an access request between departments.
Is her stooge trying to get access to the ruby slippers? Those ruby slippers?
She knows that the FBI had the other pair - she'd told… someone… as much, a couple of weeks ago. But what would the recruitment department want with a pair of ruby slippers?
Maka's mind flashes back to the Smithsonian, to staring at the slippers through the glass. That strange intuitive feeling reemerges, like there's a stone sitting in her stomach.
An idea pops into her mind, and she decides that she will follow through with it, if only to put herself at ease. She pulls up the stooge's Spotify again, clicking on his Recently Played.
Lots of Bastille, she notes. They're super popular, right? It makes sense. No reason to be alarmed by that. There's also what looks like some jazz thrown in there, some rock, some metal-
And in the very bottom corner, at the end of the list, sticking out like a crazy-eyed, curly-haired sore thumb:
Weird Al.
Maka blinks, inhaling through her nose. Exhales as she closes Spotify and pulls out her phone.
Okay. She will entertain this train of thought for one more moment, if only so that she can banish it away permanently. Because the whole thing is ridiculous, it isn't possible.
She pulls up her texts with Soul, and covers the name at the top with her thumb, trying to imagine that she's talking to Stooge #3 instead.
With each scroll of her other thumb, the stone in her stomach begins to sink as the realizations hit her one by one: Same typing style. Same use of the word "she" when he's pushing her buttons. Same banter, same sass. Same general, humorous disdain.
Maka lifts her thumb, looks at the name again, and decides that she should sleep. She'll revisit this in the morning when she's thinking straight, and when all of these coincidences will start to look like coincidences again.
She tosses and turns for the rest of the night.
Soul wakes the next morning to 10 a.m. sun, but all of his agonizing from the night before weighs heavily on his brain. His anxiety over this whole thing is through the roof, and it follows him on his ride to work like a shadow.
If you're still thinking about it, maybe you should think about why that is.
He's getting really sick of Black*Star being right.
"Welcome back!" Black*Star says enthusiastically from his chair as soon as Soul appears behind him. Soul just ignores him, taking his bag off and settling into his chair.
"I'm kinda surprised that you beat me here," Soul eventually says, turning his screen back on.
Black*Star is in the middle of a furious typing spree, so Soul isn't even fully sure that he's heard him.
"Why?" Black*Star says, after far too long.
Soul waits for an extended silence before speaking again. "Because of how late you were up last night?"
A windfall of more typing. "Huh?"
"Because we were talking last night? Until like two?" Soul says, annoyed.
There is another long pause on Black*Star's end, and Soul's about to abandon all hopes at having an actual conversation until: "Oooooooohhhhhh. Right. Yeah. I totally did that. Talked to you. That sure is a thing that I did."
Soul rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Talk to me when you're not distracted."
Kilik's not awake yet, it seems, so he sends off a few email replies regarding a few other potential recruits. Summer is ending, and with it seems to be coming a fresh crop of people to observe, something he's infinitely thankful for, given his current work performance as of late. Once he's finished with that task, unfortunately, he has lots of time to continue to stew.
You really could just tell her.
He pulls out his phone again, and decides that halfway through Friday is an acceptable time to say something, at least.
[[ hey. ]]
The vibration of Maka's phone on the table awakens her. When her eyes pull open, it feels like they're coated in sand. It's almost like she didn't sleep at all, head pounding as she sits up and blinks at Blair, who is watching protectively from the doorway.
It takes her a minute to remember exactly why she is so tired, but all it takes is a glance at her phone, screen still alight, to bring the events of the previous night back into her brain. It also seems like a few hours of rest has not tempered her suspicions, based on the way her stomach drops at the sight of Soul's name.
She's glad to see a message from him, all things considered. But those coincidences weigh on her brain, impossible to forget.
He would have told her, right?
Right?
but i'll talk to her later today, at least.
She pulls up her messages. [[ Hey. ]] is all she sends. She'll put the ball in his court.
With a heavy sigh, she tosses her hair up into a messy bun, messing with her bangs until they fall into place. Suddenly, sitting in an empty house feels like torture. She decides to head back to EAT. Maybe Liz and Patty will be there, and she can bounce her suspicions off of them.
And even if they aren't, she thinks - at least being in the office will put her in the mood for a hunt.
Soul's phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out to read Maka's message. Just 'hey', huh?
Well, he can't blame her for that. It's up to him to take the lead on this one. Before he can respond, however, another text comes through from Liz.
[[ lunch? downstairs? ]]
He appreciates that Liz wants to get lunch in the actual cafeteria for the building. They'll be able to talk a bit more freely there. The food is shit, but he really wants to know what the hell is going on with them.
Once he enters the cafeteria, both Liz and Patty are there. They obtain some mediocre pasta with an entirely unappetizing cream sauce, plus a cup of coffee for Soul, and settle into a table at the corner of the room.
"So, why are you two here again?" he says, glancing between the two of them. Only Liz glares back, as Patty is preoccupied with something on her phone - likely a game - that is alternating between loud, gun-like sounds and sparkly, happy cheering. "Why do you work here now?"
"So here's the deal," Liz says. "When I got dragged into the office because of your little slip-up," - Soul grimaces a little - "Kid wanted to chat some more about how I knew you. Asked me about where my uh… expertise was focused."
"Why do you keep calling him that?" Soul says suddenly, because it's the second time in two days that she's done that.
Liz pauses, genuinely surprised. "What?"
"Kid," Soul explains. The name sounds especially strange to his ears when he's the one saying it.
Apparently the simple act of repeating Liz's words back to her is not an adequate explanation, because she's still squinting at him in confusion.
"Most people call him The Kid," he says with a little shrug.
"Oh." Liz looks up, as if remembering something. "That is how he introduced himself, actually. As soon as I brought Patty in with me, she started calling him Kid. She said The Kid was too long."
To Liz's right, Patty shoots a thumbs up to confirm this, eyes still glued to her phone. Soul's not sure what changing one syllable in a two-syllable name is going to do, but it certainly does change something.
"I don't hate it," Soul says. "It kinda... humanizes him."
"Oh, come on," Liz says, rolling her eyes. "He's not a robot. He's been like, really great, actually. Pat and I have just been coming in to see him, and he's been taking us through paperwork and stuff."
Soul is starting to realize just how unfair he's been to a person who's basically done nothing but try to understand him. There's a sinking feeling in his gut as he realizes that observation applies to more than one person in his life.
"No," Soul says. "You're right. It's just pretty cool that you've managed to like, click with him so fast. He's kind of a closed book."
"Hmm," Liz says, levelling him with a smirk. "I dunno. I guess I have a gift for befriending closed books."
He catches her meaning, and it makes him scowl. "Whatever."
"Anyway," Liz continues without further comment, which Soul recognizes as a peace offering. "I told him about our business, he said we seemed like a good fit. Said he could pull a few strings, and he offered me a job literally the same day. I told him I wouldn't take anything without Patty, and here we both are. We're working pretty closely with him, actually. Apparently he's like, pretty high up in the animal welfare division. Kind of a lucky break, huh?"
Soul's starting to get the impression that The Kid has his hands in a lot of pots. "Yeah… that is lucky. Good for you guys."
"Thanks," Liz says. "Anyway." She gives him a pointed look. "I'm excited for all of us to be working together soon."
Again, he catches her meaning, and suddenly his phone is burning a hole through his pocket.
"You thought any more about what we talked about?" she says. He wants to sink into this ugly linoleum floor and vanish.
"Yeah," he admits. "A lot, actually."
"And?"
He deflates, choosing to sink into his chair as much as his dignity will allow. "Look, I've been thinking about it so much. But it's not that simple. How am I supposed to just tell her? 'Hey Maka, sorry it was my job to spy on you and I literally couldn't tell you for weeks. Sorry that I know how much you hate sushi, even though you've never told me. Sorry we're supposed to be soulmates and I've had to hide all of this shit from you."
He moves his nearly-empty cup of coffee to the side in order to properly plunk his head onto the table. Liz's silence in front of him is deafening.
"Man," she finally says. "Hearing you finally admit that you're spying on people for money should be so satisfying for me, but honestly, this is just too pitiful."
"I'm glad that's what you got out of that," Soul says, voice muffled against the table. "I pour my heart out to you and this is the treatment I-"
Ugh. Fuck. He keeps finding the parallels in everything. He's really been treating her like garbage this whole time.
"There it is," Liz confirms. "Listen. I've tried to be nice about this, but let me spell this out for you real slow, buckaroo."
Soul doesn't move his head, because honestly, Liz is terrifying when she gets like this.
"Maka is going to find out. Because you did your job correctly, she is going to be recruited into the FBI, where she will inevitably seek you out. She's, like, a world-class hacker, and she's been obsessed with her three stooges from day one. The fact that she has not already managed to suss you out is actually a fucking miracle. Are you hearing this? Your days are numbered. You can not hide from her forever. The only way you'd be able to avoid her is if you quit your job, and keeping your job is the reason you haven't already told her all of this. You're at a crossroads, here. Do you care about her?"
There is a long pause after this, and he opens his eyes against the table. The next time Liz speaks, her voice is more gentle than it's been for the rest of the conversation. "Hey, dumbass. That question was not rhetorical."
He lifts his head listlessly. "Yes, I care about her," he grumbles.
"I know you do." Liz says. "And as you have already so astutely observed, she cares about you. It is not too late to potentially fix this. I know that this sucks. And she might still decide that she hates you either way. But right now, you're choosing between the lesser of two evils. So pick the right one."
While he just stares at her, processing all of this, Liz surveys him. "Here's the deal," she finally says, eyes flashing a little. "I'm gonna put a metaphorical gun in your back. If you don't tell her this weekend, I will. I'm not letting her go into next week blind."
At this, she glances at the clock on the wall, and then back at Soul. "Alright. We gotta get back, so I guess I'm just gonna drop that on you and leave. C'mon Patty."
She tugs at Patty's wrist and they both leave him sitting at the table, alone with his thoughts once again.
Honestly, it's the best pep talk anyone has given him - not only because it matches up so well with the Bastille song that's been on his mind. It solidifies his decision.
He pulls out his phone again. He's not going to tell her via text, but he will tell her.
[[ i'd really like to see you this weekend. can we meet somewhere? ]]
His phone lights up immediately, and he breathes in sharply, only to exhale just as quickly when he sees that it's just Black*Star.
[[ YOOO COME BACK ]]
[[ IM BORED ]]
Soul rolls his eyes, and gets up to toss out his trash.
When he gets back, Black*Star waves at him very enthusiastically, and Soul stops, leaning against the side of his cubicle.
"What did you want?"
"Oh, nothin' specific," Black*Star says, spinning around. "I just didn't wanna be on my own!"
Kind of like last night, Soul thinks, so that makes sense. "Everything going okay with..."
He wants to ask about Maka, and based on the stupid look on his boss's face, Black*Star knows it.
"Yessss, she's doin' great!" he says, shooting Soul a thumbs up. "We'll definitely be asking her to come in next week."
There it is again. Next week. He'll have to tell her by then. It is the right thing to do, though. Black*Star and Liz have both made him understand that.
"Hey," Soul says. "Thanks for the advice, last night. It really helped."
Black*Star looks at him curiously. "What, uh... what did I say again?"
Soul stops leaning on the wall, groaning a little at having to congratulate Black*Star about his own advice. He turns the corner and walks back into his cubicle. "Just the thing about… if I was still thinking about it, I should probably think about why."
Through the wall, Black*Star lets out a long chuckle. "That's what I said, huh? Well, you are welcome. About time you listened to someone."
Time. Soul glances at the clock on his computer. "Shit, that reminds me. I gotta submit this before five today."
If he's going to tell her, he thinks, he'd better have something else to back up his apology.
He pulls up that access request for the ruby slippers, and starts to fill it out.
The EAT office is so quiet that every tap of Maka's keys echoes around the room.
She needs to be a lot more careful today, now that she's using a shell. It had been different when she was using the surveillance software, pretending to be Black*Star. At this point, if he sees her so much as move the mouse, he'll know that someone's able to manipulate his machine. She can't have that.
There hadn't been any activity on his computer since noon, so she had been able to poke around the system a bit more. He had logged out of his email - an irritatingly smart decision - and she can't seem to find any sort of password manager that she can crack into to get access. He must be one of those people that memorizes them, like she does. Inconvenient.
Again, her search ends up being essentially fruitless. There's a lot more she could be doing - the idea of trying to access the database again has been bumping around her brain - but something in her intuition is telling her to stay put. To just wait.
After about forty-five minutes, she decides to stop poking around, making sure to put the computer in the same state it had been left in - all windows closed, mouse hovering in the top right corner of the screen.
In the meantime, her thoughts continue to swirl. For the millionth time this week, she wishes Liz and Patty were here to help her break things down.
Her phone vibrates against the table, and she tenses as she reads :
[[ i'd really like to see you this weekend. can we meet somewhere? ]]
With absolutely no idea of how to respond to that, she flips the phone over, jumping when it buzzes again after two minutes - just another notification of the original message.
She glances at the clock. Eleven hours left to hear from her stooge.
Unless, she thinks, with another glance at her overturned phone - unless she's already heard from him.
In the next few minutes his mouse begins to move again, pulling up the surveillance tab and leaving it open. She finds herself hoping he'll open something else - email, Spotify, anything - but he seems content to simply watch, and so that is what she also does.
Her mind finds its way back to that very first night at the bar. The first time she'd seen color. The whole experience had been so shocking for her that she hadn't really taken the time to consider Soul's reaction at all.
She tries to remember what he was like, that night. She remembers him averting his eyes. He'd seemed standoffish, quiet. Vexed, even.
But he hadn't exactly seemed surprised.
She tries to pull back the reins on that train of thought. She's being unfair, isn't she? That was probably just him processing. She'd responded to all of it by aggressively paying his tab, and that's not exactly a normal reaction.
But... the way he talks to her. All of the discoveries from last night - the similarities in the messaging styles, his music-
"Crap!" she says aloud, realizing something. "I should have looked for-"
The playlist. He'd made a Spotify playlist for that day on the lawn, and she remembers at least a couple songs on it. Even if she didn't know the name of it, she could have-
As it turns out, she doesn't need to do so, because at that moment, her stooge returns to his Bookmarks, and pulls up the Request page.
It happens so quickly. The first section is titled Agent Making Request, and she watches, ears ringing, as the stooge types:
Last name: E-v-a-n-s, First name: S-o-l-o-m-
Maka slams the laptop shut.
She stares forward but sees nothing, her whole body buzzing with adrenaline. Everything she'd considered, everything she'd been afraid of. It was true. Soul was her stooge. They were the same person, and he'd tricked her. Played her for a fool. A million thoughts like these run through her mind, but one is louder than the others:
Soul lied.
Without really processing what she's doing, Maka yanks open the door to the office, eyes swimming with angry tears. She needs to find something to hit, immediately.
Before she makes it to the outside door, it opens with a jingle, and she almost runs headfirst into a very surprised Liz and Patty.
After a moment of shocked silence, she grabs both of their wrists and drags them outside. She can't be in that room anymore, and she needs answers.
Because if she asks Liz something outright, she'll tell her. Right?
"Liz…" Maka says, without preamble. She has to know now. "I need to ask you something else about that story you told me. About New York."
Liz looks at her curiously. "Yeah. Fire away."
"You said that-" It's hard to force the name out, but she does. "You said that Soul was in the neighborhood, the night that he helped you. Why was he in the neighborhood?"
At this, Liz's face turns into the kind of surprise that is almost amused, eyes glinting a little. Instead of answering, she says, "...What did you find out?"
Maka says nothing, still fighting back tears. Did everyone know except for her? What the hell is going on?
"C'mon," Patty says, reaching for Maka's hand. "Let's go find you somethin' to punch."
It's the first time she's ever been to Liz and Patty's apartment. It's in a quaint, almost boring complex, with ample greenery around the building itself, and gray-white paint peeling on the outside stairs. Inside, things are equally simple - though she chooses not to ask about the collection of throwing knives in the spare room, which is where, incidentally, a punching bag also hangs from the ceiling.
She's not sure how wise it is to have both of those things in the same room, but she's not about to complain about anyone's interior decor when she's got something to smack.
She's calmed down, a little. As much as can be expected, anyway. Most of her initial rage has been punched out, but those feelings of anger and betrayal are still there, simmering beneath the surface.
At least she fully understands that password, now. Don't kill him, Black*Star had warned her. Don't kill him when you find out who he really is.
Absolutely no promises there.
"So, what're you gonna do?" Patty says. The three of them sit on the sectional in the living room, sipping at glasses of water. Both of them had already apologized for not telling her, which Maka had waved off. It wasn't their job to tell her, she'd said, as another wave of anger rippled through her.
"Honestly? I just want to show up at his house and scream."
It's all more complicated than she's giving him credit for, she knows. There are other factors at play that she hasn't thought about yet - confidentiality rules with his job, for one - but she just isn't willing to consider any nuance right now. It's too much.
"I mean," Liz says, after a moment's hesitation. "You could totally do that. Or... you could have some fun first."
Maka looks up at Liz. There's a conspiratorial expression there, something wicked dancing behind her eyes.
"...What do you have in mind?" Maka says.
"All I'm sayin' is, he doesn't know that you know. And that might be kind of fun."
"How much does he think I know, though?" Maka asks.
"I dunno," Liz says with a little shrug. "But like, today, for example. He said it's driving him crazy that he knows you hate sushi, even though you've never told him."
Had she really never told him that? Well, if he thinks that she didn't... that gives her an idea.
Maka surveys Liz and Patty, heart thumping, and she lets a plan fully catch fire in her mind. She looks at her phone on the table, and grabs her laptop from her bag, opening it back up.
The phone number she needs is easy to find, since she knows the name of the owner.
Maka picks up her phone, and finally responds to the text Soul had sent her earlier in the day:
[[ Sure. Come to my place tomorrow night? ]] She doesn't wait for an answer - she has the feeling he'll be inclined to agree.
Instead, she glances at her laptop again, types a string of numbers into her phone and presses call. It rings twice and a familiar voice answers.
"Megami Sushi, how can I help you?"
She glances between Liz and Patty, a grin finally spreading onto her face.
"Hi there," Maka says. "I'd like to place a pickup order for tomorrow night."
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