AN: strange how Michael knew about that storage facility and how to access it. Makes you wonder don't it?

Step 3: victory party

After taking a fairly dangerous amount of painkillers and sleeping through the journey back, Michael was awoken by one of the flight attendants informing him that the plane had landed. He quickly got up and thanked the lady before bolting out of the plane and getting his luggage.

What should have been a quick task lasted a lot longer than anticipated thanks to an arguing couple that stood by the baggage claim and were making such a racket that it was impossible for him to get his bag. Finally Michael did retrieve his bag and quickly got into a cab that took him right home.

After getting out of the vehicle, he felt a cold wind brush past the back of his neck, causing him to shiver a little. It was only now he noticed that it was late at night which meant that he would need to be quiet. He greeted the security guard, took his elevator and headed to his floor. Once there he got out, unlocked the door to his room and went inside.

Taking care not to wake Barry, he slowly tiptoed his way into the hall but stopped when the main screen of his computer came on.

"Hey Michael", said Monika in a sultry voice "Did you just get in? I wanted to surprise you with something nice".

"W-W-W-W-what are you wearing Monika?" asked Michael in a slightly high pitched voice, pointing to the choice of attire the A.I chose to use this time.

Among all the choices of clothes that she used to greet him after returning from work (from the one piece swimsuit to the Princess Leia outfit), this was head and shoulders above the rest.

Sitting on what was possibly a desk, was Monika wearing on only a white shirt with a pair of knee high black socks. If that wasn't enough, the shirt's top three buttons were open, revealing her well developed chest and the black bra that held them in place.

"Well", she said in a flirtatious tone as she gazed at Michael who remained completely silent "What do you think?"

Michael opened his mouth once again to form a response but words failed him. In fact all manner of logic, thought or anything else failed to materialize as his brain was doing the PC equivalent of a system restart.

The final cherry on the awkward cake came when the door to his right opened, revealing a very sleepy Barry dressed in a sleeveless shirt with a pair of striped shorts.

"Hey buddy", he said between yawns "You should have told me that you were getting in today, I could have taken the car and come picked you up."

It was only after Michael's continued silence did Barry blink a couple of time and realize that the youth was struggling for words. Without thinking too long, he turned to the reason for Michael's stunned silence and exclaimed a little upon seeing Monika's alluring attire.

"What?" she said looking away "I ran out of ideas"

"You know you could have just greeted him normally right?" suggested Barry

"There's no fun in that", she said and the hacker responded with an eye roll.

He now turned his attention back to Michael and snapped his fingers a couple of times by his face in order to get a reaction.

"Dude come on, say something", said Barry "You're scaring me here".

The only answer that Michael could give was from a high pitched sigh followed by him immediately fainting, much to the shock of the two occupants.

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"Dude I had the weirdest dream", said Michael slowly opening his eyes and seeing Barry sitting beside him.

"What was it?" asked Barry handing him a glass of water while silently dreading the answer.

"I got back home and Monika was dressed in this really… um really revealing choice of clothing".

"That wasn't a dream", he said flatly.

"It wasn't?"

"She was dressed like that".

Michael looked aside, his eyes opening wide as the memories came back to him. This prompted Barry to slap the youth on the back of the head.

"Ow", shouted Michael about to ask why he did that then immediately understood which was why he said "Thank you".

"Aww you're such an innocent soul aren't you", said Barry with mock pity in his voice.

"Hey let's be clear, I know what all the bad words and what they mean, I watched porn but don't for obvious reasons and once I found out what a virgin was, I got rid of my status half an hour afterwards".

"Then why'd you faint?" he asked taking out all the steam from his earlier rant

"Because", he said twiddling his thumbs "It's different when it's with someone you love".

"That aside", said Monika with her hands on the hips "Please explain to me why you have two bullet holes in your body".

"Well because I got shot", he replied calmly causing Monika to turn to Barry who slapped him on the back of the head.

"Why?" shouted Michael

"She told me that you're prone to giving out idiotic answers so this was her way of dealing with it", he replied.

"Michael you shouldn't have done something like that if it was so risky", said Monika "Something terrible could have happened to you".

"Well nothing did and it is important we celebrate what we did here", countered Michael

"That's right", said Barry in an effort to alleviate the tension in the room "That's right, we hacked the internet; that's monumental, that's superb. Oh man I can't believe that the three of us pulled off something so impossible."

"Well that's because you had a certain someone helping you", interjected Monika as she proudly stuck her chest out.

"How far is the upload?" asked Michael

"About 75 percent complete".

"Good, once that's done I'll need you to mask your signal and identity online, spread yourself out over as much of the digital landscape as possible so that it'd be next to impossible to find you".

"Hey, hey man come on now's not the time to think about that stuff", said Barry slapping Michael on the back "Now we should party and have lots of fun".

"He is right", added Monika "You two should drink, have fun and who knows… I might get some decent blackmail footage of Michael in the process".

"She's kidding", said Barry knowing full well the girl wasn't.

"Alright then Barry could you do me a favour and get us some things to drink? I want to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow".

"Can do brother, can do", he replied with a salute and bounded out the door, ready to carry out his duty.

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Barry was extremely content with the two bags of alcohol he obtained from the 24/7 supermarket. He paid the guy a little extra for being open so late but that wasn't much of a problem. Considering how obviously loaded Michael was he had plenty of money to burn.

He rounded a corner, nearing the apartment when suddenly the window of Michael's hall was shattered by a large explosion.

Barry suddenly stopped and stared at the flames that engulfed his new home along with the one person that was inside.

Just then he saw the lobby door open and out darted Michael, turning around for a moment to fire a few rounds to whatever was behind him before ducking beneath a car.

Barry wanted to say something but stopped when he saw a team of six people come out of the lobby armed with assault rifles and pistols. Their sights trained on the car Michael was hiding behind, one signalled the others who nodded and fanned out in an effort to box their target in.

Barry's mind was going haywire right now, nothing was making a lick of sense as he watched Michael move out of cover for a moment to fire a few rounds before hiding behind it again.

The two on his left and rightmost flank were close enough and darted towards him but Michael got onto the back of the car and leapt off. He landed on the ground but was immediately tackled by one of his armed pursuers who slammed his head against the cold tar road while the others aimed at his head.

In that moment, Michael saw Barry and immediately shook his head, silently communicating to the hacker not to retaliate but instead to run. Understanding this, Barry nodded and took a few steps back before coming to an alley. He turned once more to see them putting handcuffs on Michael before tossing him into the back of a van. Barry headed into the alley before anyone saw him and slid against the wall, clutching his head.

In a matter of seconds it was over, whatever they had planned, whatever Michael wanted to do, it was all gone. Barry wondered what he was going to do now, he couldn't go back to his job because he resigned and there's always the chance that someone might come after him.

Did that mean he'd have to be on the run forever?

Suddenly he yelped when the phone in his pocket vibrated. He took it out and saw it was a message from an unknown number that immediately identified itself as Monika.

As much as he was relieved to know that she was ok, he wondered whether or not he could actually believe her. This caused him to ask the question "What colour is Michael's underwear?"

She paused for a second before replying that he wore on something black.

It occurred to him that besides his name, he knew nothing much about Michael. Normally he would do a background check on anyone he comes into contact with but Michael did not seem like the type of person that warranted such a check.

Sure he had a troubled past but in this day and age everyone does. In fact its now strange to see children growing up in a stable and safe environment and turn into well rounded adults. Michael may have a few screws in his head loose but he was a trustworthy person.

"I swear if this ends up with me being waterboarded, I'm going to do some serious haunting", he muttered to himself before fully committing to the belief that the person he was messaging was Monika. He looked at his phone again.

"Take a bus to the following address", was the message. He went out of the opposite side of the alley and waited for a bus. Once that was done he got off at the location and left the bottles he was carrying with him to some homeless people. They would make better use of it than he would.

He found himself standing at a storage facility and received a message telling him to go to the twenty third shed and that the key was under a false rock. He opened the shed and found a laptop seated on a table.

Noticing that that was the only thing in the shed worried him a great deal but at this point, he was too far down the rabbit hole to go back. He came forward, pressed the power button and watched the screen light up followed by a video automatically playing.

"If you're seeing this", said Michael seated on the sofa in his room "Then it means that our actions have caught the attention of a higher power and have kidnapped both Monika and myself."

"Before you think the obvious let me say right now Barry that this in no way means that what we've planned is gone", he added "Right now I am being transported to some underground or off site interrogation room where they'll most probably start asking me about Monika. Now this is no way means that you're to come in guns blazing and try to rescue me."

"I've planted a GPS tracker into my blood stream which will continue to transmit my location till we reach the location. After that you'll only have ten or fifteen minutes to narrow down my location before they forcibly remove it from me."

"Once you have the location, head to the city or town nearest there and stay in a motel. Monika should have wired enough cash for you to last a month but don't do anything to attract too much attention".

"When I get out of there I'll contact so you don't lose your phone either".

The video stopped followed by the screen starting to glitch before it went completely black. Barry took a moment to let everything sink in. As much as he had plenty of chances to turn back and forget all of this ever happening to him, he knew he wouldn't do it.

Call it loyalty, friendship or pure stupidity Barry understood that he had a role to play in something revolutionary and no government spooks were going to get in the way of that.

With that belief firm in his mind, he got a taxi, headed to the airport and booked a flight to the last known location that Michael's GPS transmitted before being turned off.

As he watched the plane ascend, all he could do now was hope this all pans out like Michael predicted.