[Just so you all know, Mello died in the last chapter. These are one-shots; there's really no continuity to them. Thanks for the reviews, btw.

In the weeks in which Mello had taken up residence in it, Matt's apartment had ceased to resemble a living space so much as a showcase of illegal technology available to those who knew where to find it. Every surface had some sort of sleek black-and-silver piece of equipment on it, contrasting the pizza boxes and candy wrappers that littered the floor and the mildew creeping down the walls. In the center of the coffee table was Mello's personal laptop, a device with which Matt was not permitted to tamper even under the most perilous of circumstances. This was Mello's link to the world, and he'd be damned if Matt was going to destroy it with Spyware acquired from some shady MMORPG.

Mello entered the apartment as he did every evening, throwing back his hood with a sigh as soon as he closed the door and tossing his sunglasses on the couch. Matt waved from a camera next to the window. "Yo."

Mello ignored him. He picked up a chocolate bar from the stack next to the TV, plopped down in a folding chair beside the coffee table, and opened his laptop. Matt rolled his eyes and went back to the camera.

A quick run of Mello's LiveJournal revealed no new comments, much to his disappointment, though there was a promising message on his MySpace from a Spanish gangster he'd been trying to contact for weeks. International news was the same as always – three new countries had declared for Kira, the one prime minister who'd said he wouldn't was dead, and the wild rumors about the SPK's escape from a mob of rabid Kira worshippers were finally dying down.

With a growl, Mello clicked savagely on his email. As if Kira hadn't been putting him in enough of a bad mood, Near had to go and pull off a miraculous escape right in front of Kira's face—

"You've got fail."

The chocolate fell from Mello's mouth and landed in an empty pizza box. Matt glanced up. "Huh?"

Mello refreshed the page.

"Welcome. You've got fail."

Matt could not repress a snort. He ducked a crumpled-up candy wrapper and leaned over to see the screen. "What the crap?"

Mello's hands were trembling. Every visible muscle was locked. "You did this."

"I never touch your laptop."

"It was you! I know it was you!" Matt suddenly found himself backed against the wall with cold metal against his temple and Mello's combat boot pressed rather painfully into his toes. "No one else is in the same room as this laptop for twelve hours every day! No one else could hack fricking AOL and change my mail message! I'm going to kill you!"

"Mello, calm down!"

"I don't fail! I don't know why the world is so convinced that I fail when I don't!"

"I swear it wasn't me!"

"Then who was it?"

"It was—it—well, I don't know, but it wasn't me!" Matt tried to inch away, but Mello trapped him with an out-flung arm. "It's a glitch or something! I swear I didn't touch your laptop! Check for fingerprints!"

Mello glared into Matt's eyes a moment longer, then slowly lowered the gun. "Okay," he said. "Fine. It's a glitch. A really, really stupid coincidence. That's it."

Matt relaxed marginally. "Yeah, that's right, Mello, it's just a—"

"You really expect me to believe that?"

Matt threw himself behind the couch an instant before Mello emptied a clip into the upholstery. The sound of bullets thudding into polyester was audible even over Mello's maniacal shouts, and Matt prayed that he wouldn't come around to the other side of the couch in search of a moving target.

A crash interrupted the shooting. The gunfire stopped. An instant later, Mello somersaulted over the back of the couch, followed by a rain of debris as every electronic device in the room exploded simultaneously.

There was a shocked, smoky silence.

When it became apparent that nothing in the near vicinity was likely to fall on them, Matt dared to raise his head, brushing bits of silicone out of his hair. The couch, miraculously, had survived the explosion. Mello sat beside him, rigid, staring straight ahead as though afraid to turn around and survey the damage.

"I shot the power outlet," he said hoarsely. "Everything was connected to that." Slowly, his head swiveled to face Matt, a look of utter hopelessness in his eyes. "Everything."

"Not everything," Matt said. "Your laptop was wireless. And I had my Xbox in the other outlet."

"Three million dollars," Mello whispered. "That's three million dollars gone."

"Well… yeah, that kinda sucks."

Slowly, Mello stood. He faced the wall a moment longer, steeling himself for what lay behind him, then took a deep breath and swiftly turned around.

The room was in ruins. The walls were streaked black, the television was melting in on itself, Matt's Xbox was now fused to the remains of the satellite radar, and a faint veil of smoke hung in the air. Mello stared around at the wreckage.

Matt stood and patted Mello's shoulder awkwardly. "Tough, man. But hey—look!" He pointed to the coffee table beside the window, where Mello's laptop sat, somehow untouched. "That survived, at least."

The laptop beeped twice. "You have—one—new fail," it said cheerfully.

Mello's eye twitched.

The sound of microchips splintering on pavement twenty floors down was music to his ears.