"We need a new computer."
Mister Smith hurriedly shoveled some more corn flakes into his mouth and ignored the milk dribbles running into his short beard. He'd managed to splatter some milk across the bottom of the page he was skimming as well, and simply nodded and hummed 'mmhmm' at the sound of his wife's voice.
"I was thinking something faster than what we had last – you know how Bethany likes playing those games on the thing."
"Mmhmm, that's an idea."
"Speaking of Bethany," Mrs. Smith continued, "I was thinking we invite the grandkids over this weekend. Bethany and Luke are much bigger now – if the school pictures are anything to go by."
"Mmhmm, bigger."
Mrs. Smith twisted the dishrag in her hands out in the sink. "I'm sure Michael would be glad to be free of them for a few hours. He and Laura can spend some quality time together."
"Mmhmm; quality time." Mister Smith flipped the page over and a stray corn flake attached itself to his tie.
"And we can take Eppie's kids as well – she's very busy with her restaurant you know. You never talk to your children anymore."
"Mmhmm, okay."

Mrs. Smith quietened and gazed out of the window behind the sink that overlooked the back of the garden. It'd been very rainy these last few weeks, so the grass looked almost comically green... and it was long; Mister Smith refused to hire a gardener because he claimed gardening was therapeutic and he'd rather do it himself. His job at the university did not allow him any time for therapy during finals week though, so the garden was overgrown and quite jungle-like.
"The tire swing needs tightening." She said.
"Mmhmm."
"I don't think you're listening to me."
"Mmm."
Mrs. Smith sighed dramatically and dropped the dishrag over the side of the sink. "I'm going to get upset at you for this later, when you aren't so busy."
"Mmhmm, alright."
"But we really do need a new computer."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Every parent seems to have that one embarrassing story about you that they like to tell absolute strangers of. Mine is the infamous 'dresser incident'. When I was about four or five, my older brother told me that grandma had hidden grandpa's body in her dresser, and that's why he didn't have a grave. Grandpa obviously had a grave but for an entire year I was convinced that gran had a trussed up body in her room – and I refused to go near it. Whenever she spoke to me, I would yell at her for 'telling lies at me', and I never explained to anyone why I hated her so much. It all culminated to the dresser incident a year later, when I tore apart her closet and found a box of old bones. While the adults were busy talking, I stole the box away and put it in my backpack to take home and confront grandma with later on.

Anyways, dad was putting away the clean laundry one day when he finds this shoebox filled with dog treats, and thinks 'oh, here's the dog treats I was looking for earlier.' I came home from school to see grandpa being fed to the dog, the dog proceeding to puke its guts out, and my grandma explaining loudly over the phone to her son that we need to get the mutt to the vet because her premium pot cookies are missing. It was one of those defining moments in your childhood memory where you can go back and pinpoint exactly where something in your personality or psyche changed. When you grew up just a little bit, or figured something out.

The moral of the story is that sometimes reality is a pot cookie, and even seemingly decent people can trick you.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

"Grandpa, I don't like squash."
Mister Smith sighed as his four-year-old grandson pulled his nose up at the cinnamon covered substance on his plate.
"I don't either, bud," Mister Smith said as diplomatically as possible. "But I get this really cool beard whenever I eat it."
Luke look skeptically at the dark grey, black, and white speckled beard that grew on his grandfather's face.
"Will mine be prettier?"
Mister Smith sighed for the umpteenth time and mentally chided himself for feeling inadequate at his grandson's choice of wording. What would a four-year-old even know about beards? Mrs. Smith liked his beard; she said it made him look intellectual. He had a 3.4 hotness rating on one of the professor rating websites – that was decent for a sixty two year old man. Luke knew shit all about beards – he probably couldn't even spell 'facial hair'.
"No Luke." Mister Smith said solemnly after much consideration. "This is the pinnacle of beard-dom. Now eat your squash."
"But I don't like it."
"I don't care."

"Grandpa."
Mister Smith twisted in his chair to face his granddaughter. "Yes dear?" he asked, taking in her perplexed expression.
"Why wont the computer turn on?"
"Bethy didn't eat the squash," Luke whined from behind them.
"I'm afraid it's broken."
Bethany's face turned placid and she gave Mister Smith her best 'grandpa, really?' look. "I'll check it out for you." She said with finality, and walked back out of the dining room.
"Lord have mercy," he said tiredly, rubbing his eyes. Between the four-year-old in the chair and the twelve year old fiddling with the computer… wait, weren't there others in this house too?
"Bless this goddamn mess!" Luke shouted happily besides him, smacking the squash with his spoon.
"Luke!" Mister Smith chided – he was going to have a serious talk later on with his son about his choice of words around his kids. He'd caught Bethany saying 'damn buckets' earlier.
"Sorry grandpa."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Torres was looking for me. She had been for the entire afternoon and I'd done my best to avoid her – but it was becoming increasingly impossible. Not because she was catching up to me but because we were both about to be forced into our cells together for bedtime anyways. She probably thought the same as well, which could be why she stopped looking for me. But still I hid. It wasn't even a creative spot; I was behind the stack of mats in the gym. It was a nice place because the sun streamed in from the widows way up high, and it made me feel like a cat in sunlight. Because cats have no concept of incarceration and criminality and I was okay with that.

Speaking of criminality, I have officially come to terms with the fact that I did something horribly illegal and probably do deserve to be here. I remember that Stark industries suffered terribly when I leaked the documents because at least half of the stuff there were Mr. Starks prototypes. The other quarter were classified SHIELD reports probably endangered a couple lives, and the rest were technical documents that not even I understood. Engineering stuff. Looked heavy. To give myself some credit, I didn't hack out of spite or with the intention of doing any kind of harm. I was nosy and didn't think I'd fuck up. I didn't plan on doing anything with the stuff… okay maybe I'd sell some. But I didn't hack with a sales venture in mind – I was curious and SHIELD was just… there.

I'm an asshole. A nice asshole. But an asshole nonetheless. It's funny though, I watched a couple of prison documentaries when I was bored, and they always said that you come out worse than you go in. But all I've done is introspection and reached the conclusion that I'm not a very good citizen. Sure I've got my fanclub – back during those seven years when SHIELD searched for me there were tons of 'free hackie' rallies and people who voiced support for the hacker. For me. Naturally, I was flattered. But I don't think I did a good thing. If I had believed in what I'd done, I wouldn't have bothered throwing the papers to the wind and hiding. Or maybe I would have – who knows.

But I'm avoiding SHIELD. And I'm avoiding Torres. And I'm avoiding my punishment, and deep down I'm okay with someone else taking the fall for me so that I can go free. And I think that makes me an asshole. I'm just tired of all this… thisness.
A tennis ball suddenly flew above my head and bounced back from the wall opposite me – and into my lap.
"My bad." Someone called from behind me.
I turned and tossed the fuzzy neon ball back the guy making his way over to me. We didn't have racquets – they could be used as weapons – but people still used the balls to play catch and stuff. This small group was using two lunch trays pilfered from the cafeteria as makeshift tennis racquets. They wouldn't last until the morning – SHIELD cracked down hard on makeshift anythings, and there was no way in hell the cameras didn't see these clowns. Oh well. Fun while it lasts I guess.
"Cambell."
Fuck.

Torres abruptly vaulted over the stack of mats and dropped down beside me, then took a moment to stretch out her long legs in front of her. Where the hell did she come from? I nodded a terse greeting, and we stared as companionably as possible at the wall ahead of us for a while.
"You're avoiding me." Torres said, after a few moments.
"Yeah."
"Is it because of this morning?"
"It's because of a lot of things."
"Conscience getting heavy?"
I sighed at stared placidly at a brick in the wall. "Sure."
Torres drew her knees up, and fiddled with her cuticles. "I'm tired of this place too. I understand your need for space in this cramped environment."
Thank God I held in that sniffle. Honestly the amount of times I swing from wanting to strangle Torres to hugging her is insane.
"Thanks." I said stupidly instead. My voice cracked a little at the end, but we all ignored it. Torres raised her hand and for a second I thought she was asking for a high-five, but she ended up patting me awkwardly on the knee instead.
"I know I'm not very… approachable," she said, "but if it gets to be too much, you might find I'm slightly more personable than a brick wall."
I couldn't help but snort at her attempt at self-deprecating humor – as well as the absolute absurdity of the whole situation. But I appreciated it nonetheless, and gave her an equally awkward pat on the knee as well.
"Thanks chump," I muttered, trying to diffuse the tension in the air.
"Don't you ever touch me again."
I laughed and purposefully put a hand on her bony shoulder and pushed myself upright. "Wanna go play cards?"

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Fury stared at the single sheet document in front of him, and steepled his fingers in thought. He was accustomed to following his gut feeling or intuition in tense situations like these, but now he felt nothing. He glowered at the bright red name at the top of the page that Natasha had handed him a few days prior. They knew next to nothing about Cambell because their information was erased from the government systems – birth record, addresses, schools, doctor and dental records had all been wiped eight years ago during the original attack. They weren't the only one with wiped records though; nearly every inmate here had tampered records or records that'd been outright deleted like Cambell's had. It'd been mass mayhem – half of the US had their records wiped during that attack. Fury sometimes wondered if the hacker, or hackers, knew just how big of a shitstorm they'd caused.

He sighed tiredly and ran a hand down his face. I'm going to kill whoever did this.
There was a quick knock on the door before it suddenly swung open. "Mein führer…y. Mein Fury," Tony said as a greeting while letting himself into the room.
"You're supposed to wait for me to say 'come in' after you knock."
"Got you some good news," Tony said, ignoring the jab and dropping a thick manila folder in front of the director.
"Someone confessed?" The director asked, hopefully.
"Nah - we might have maybe a little bit located the computer that the most recent attack came from."
"Shit," Fury said under his breath, suddenly alert. "This is it?" He asked, flipping through the first few pages in the folder.
"No," Tony said, "that's my new contract and demands for a pay raise given the amount of resources I'm spending on you guys."
Fury looked between Stark and the folder before handing it back to him. "What'd you find?"
Tony pouted and took back his file. "Does 'Norwell, Massachusets' mean anything to you?"
"No."
"Well that's where it came from."
"Specifically…?"
"East Norwell?"
Fury groaned and rubbed his good eye with the heel of his palm.
"Well," he said, "that's better than before. I'll get some agents in that area."

"Banner says eastern Norwell is mostly residential and… shopping center-y." Tony said. "So it could've originated from someone's home. Or work."
"Even better." Fury said, standing up from his chair. "It's a lead. Good job."
"Yeah but what about my…" Tony shook the thick folder.
Fury stared at it before shrugging dismissively. "Give it to financing."
"Financing told me to find a ledge and jump off it."
"Then get to it."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Cambell didn't seem to have any tells, they were a decent poker player – Loki'd give them that.
"How're your cards?" He asked conversationally.
"How're yours?"
Loki scoffed and added a straw and a bottle cap to the pot. "That's your best?" he asked. "Parroting my words back to me?"
"Yeah, but I know your cards are shit so I think I'm alright."
Loki smiled at his bunkmate and looked back down at his cards. They weren't bad at all. Either Cambell was overconfident in their ability to read tells, or were just pulling nonsense out of thin air. What a wonderfully confused person. Either way the betting rounds were over, and when both he and Cambell threw down their hands, Cambell did hold the stronger hand.

Loki sniffed dismissively. "So you win. You were wrong though, my cards weren't bad at all."
"They were shit," Cambell said as they shuffled the cards back and forth. "Shit compared to mine anyways. Shitiness is an arbitrary thing, you know."
Loki frowned at the hands that carefully pulled the cards back and forth before wedging the two halves together. "How were you so sure then?"
"I stacked the deck."
"You what."
"I stacked the deck while your back was turned."
Loki leaned back against the wardrobe he was propped up against and took in his cellmate. "I never turned my back on you." He said, mentally going over the steps from when Cambell pulled the cards out from under their mattress, to when they simply sat cross-legged on the floor and started shuffling.
"I stacked it after our last game already."
Loki snorted and accepted his cards – this time the deck was definitely shuffled. "So am I to assume that we can cheat whenever we please?"
"You mean you haven't been cheating?" Cambell asked, dealing the cards between the two of them. "I've got half a royal flush up my sleeve."
"Truly?"
Cambell held the deck in the opposite hand as they pulled one arm into the shirts sleeve and shook the fabric. Loki watched as an ace, king, and jack fluttered out.
"You're incorrigible."
"Small words, Torres," Cambell chided their bunkmate while putting the three cards back into the deck.
"I'm going to cheat you out of your winnings."
Cambell laughed. "Oh man, for a second I thought you were going to say you weren't gonna play with me anymore."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

"I think I've got a plan." Natasha said, once the director, all of the avengers, and the handful of agents were settled.
Fury tapped the table with his pen and crunched a few numbers on the page in front of him. "For what? We're juggling a couple operations right now."
"For Cambell. And this Norwell place, possibly."
"Let's hear it." The director said, twirling his pen between his fingers on one hand.
"We're obviously not going to get anything other than forced confessions in this place." Natasha said, raising an eyebrow and looking about the room. "I say we shock them."
Tony slammed a fist on the table and pulled out a barcode shock bracelet similar to the one Loki had on. "That's what I've been saying this whole time." He said gleefully.
"Not like that," Natasha said, expression placid despite the fact that a few other Avengers were scowling in Stark's general direction. "I think we should let them go. Just Cambell... and a couple undercovers already in the facility so it doesn't look like we're singling them out. We can watch them, and see what happens from there."

Fury tapped the pen he held into the palm of his other hand. "And if nothing happens?" he asked. "Cambell could slip back into their old routine and we'll never know if they're guilty or not."
"And if they suddenly pop up in Eastern Norwell?" Natasha asked.
"That proves nothing; they could be two unrelated entities."
"And if we give them a golden opportunity or reason to attack us again?"
"The press will call that a setup when we take them to court."
"You can lead a horse to water, but it'll be their choice to drink." Natasha said. Fury, for some reason, somehow knew she'd say something like that.
"Stark can put up defenses ahead of time because he'll know that we could be attacked." She continued.
"This is an awful plan." Tony remarked.
"I agree." Bruce said, idly flicking through the – now two whole pages – of Cambell's file. "There's always the probability that Cambell could still circumnavigate our defenses. It would be unwise to underestimate their abilities; especially given the amount of damage they did in the past… assuming it was them."
"Um," Tony said, squinting at the doctor facing him, "excuse me, but Jarvis is un-circumnavigatable."

Bruce ignored the stink eye from across the table and scratched the back of his neck. "Besides, what do we do with Loki? He's been tailing Cambell for over a month now."
Fury leaned back in his chair and examined the ceiling. "Leave him here."
"Cambell is fond of Torres," Natasha said, "or as fond of a cellmate as you can possibly get."
"I'm surprised they haven't shanked yet." Tony aid mulishly, still upset that Bruce would doubt Jarvis.
Clint made a noise that sounded like a combined snort and a disapproving 'Stark'. "It'd be difficult making sure they both don't bring down the entirety of the United St- screw that, world – around them, but Loki could easily maneuver Cambell around." Clint said.
"Or we could bring in agent Malott to actually do her job as Torres." Fury said to the ceiling.
"We could set Thor up as close as possible; multiple agents, the whole shebang."
"We don't even know if Cambell will head out to Norwell."
"Or we could get Malott to do her damn job." Fury explained patiently to the hairline crack next to one of the ceiling lights.

"I ran the entirety of Massachusetts through the system – there's over four hundred family's that share a last name with Cambell."
"We have no idea which last name is Cambell's real last name. How many did they steal? Thirty six?"
"Thirty eight."
"That's not really that many."
"They've stolen over five hundred, but they have multiple accounts under these thirty eight names."
"Well shit."
"I'd say we let Loki out with Cambell, and just keep a damn good eye on them. Didn't Thor say something about a magic thingy from something-heim that'll root Loki to one realm or… plane of… reali… thing?"
"Or we could get Malott – who can't teleport and do magic shit – to do her goddamn job." Fury said loudly.
The table settled down after Fury's outburst, and they all looked expectantly up to where the director sat at the head of the table.
"It's your call, boss."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

"Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist-"
The entirety of the Smith family present groaned out loud.
"Hear me out-!"
"Michael," Mister Smith said, taking the break in dinner to shovel more mashed potatoes onto his plate. "Be quiet."
"Dad, seriously, people don't just disap-"
"Michael…" Mrs. Smith warned in her 'don't fuck with me' mom voice.
"ALIENS, GUYS. Jeez."
Mrs. Smith slammed her napkin down next to her plate with enough force to jolt the table and make a couple of glasses spill their contents. "I said enough," she hissed.
Bethany and Luke had their forks halfway to their mouths, and glanced nervously between their father and grandmother.
"Is this cuz of-" Luke began.
"No dear, eat your peas."

Bethany, though only twelve years old, was old enough to know damn well when people were avoiding certain subjects. Daddy had explained to her once that some people deal with problems differently – after mommy had torn down all the wallpaper in the family room in a fit of rage because the interior decorating man had made it the wrong color. Dad wanted to keep it and live with it. Mommy wanted it how she'd imagined it. Daddy wanted to talk through problems to try to figure them out. Granny wanted to avoid talking about things that made her sad. Luke didn't care either way, so he'd blurt out whatever came to his mind – which was why Bethany clamped her hand over his mouth when she heard him stage whisper 'maybe-'

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

"Torres."
I glanced up from the cards in my hand to see one of the prison guards with a clipboard standing in the doorway. Shit, there goes me winning this rummy round.
Torres twisted to look behind her, and I saw her hand - five queens and two jokers. Little shit.
"You're wanted for questioning."
A whispered "Ohmygod" came out under my breath before I could stop it, and I swear my heart followed up my throat next. Torres looked equally stunned.
"What for?" She asked defensively, slowly rising to her feet.
"Come with me." The guard said, pulling out some handcuffs from his back pocket. Two more guards materialized out of thin air behind him, and stepped into the cell.
"What the fuck." Torres and I hissed in unison.

They grabbed her roughly by the upper arms and pulled her wrists behind her back before slipping the handcuffs into place.
"What the hell?" she snapped angrily, twisting in their grasp.
Again, like back during the first week of elimination, I had the urge to run up to the guards and just shove and run. Just like last time, though, I found myself with my back against the wall instead, and watching wide eyed as the guards dragged an absolutely furious inmate down the hall and through a door.
Torres was shrieking and screaming obscenities, and it wasn't until the door down the hall thudded with finality that I realized I was hyperventilating. And shaking. And absolutely fucking mad as hell.
"Torres?" I muttered, still trying to get a grip on what was going on.
Was she in trouble? Or… getting blamed for my crime? I was okay with someone else taking the fall but why the hell did fate pick Torres?

"Cambell?" Another guard came though, flanked by two more. "Please come quietly," he said in a voice that I'd probably use on a spooked animal.

It worked. They clipped my arms behind my back and the only resistance I put up as they led me through the heavy door at the end of the hall was a sigh. God, I'm pathetic – what the fuck am I going back here for? They know, don't they? … elimination week? No. They definitely know. I'm fucked. So fucked. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-
We paused on the threshahold to an area that could best be described as the reception room for the doctors – nasty disinfectant smell and everything. There was even a secretary with long red talons that made terrifying 'tick tick' sounds as they stabbed the keyboard.
"Cambell." The main guard behind me informed the secretary.
"Have a seat," Secretary said, fingers never ceasing their attack. "The director will be ready in a few minutes."
"Director?" I asked in a small voice as I was pushed and pulled into a plastic chair against the wall. Oh God.

AN: Okay, this is probably the halfway point of the story, so, everyone, thank you for putting up with the slow updates and unreliable narrator and general this storyness - you guys are the best XD