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Chapter 3: Work

Desmond

He woke up on the Tuesday after Labor Day to a rather unusual smell. It was that of bacon. Hickory-smoked bacon was being fried in pizza grease, and the very smell of it was making his mouth water.

He got off his futon, and slipped on his robe. Tying it up, he stepped into the kitchen.

There, standing at the stove, was Tom. He currently had a pack of frozen bacon on the counter, half of it gone, with a plate full of bacon strips on a plate.

"Good morning" Tom greeted "did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah" Desmond sighed "What's with the bacon?"

"It's to celebrate" Tom explained "I have just finished the beta of Adobe Premiere 2.0"

"What's that?" Desmond asked, taking a strip of bacon and biting into it.

"It's a non-linear video editing system" he replied "It's designed to be able to make some professional-looking videos. You'd really like the program I have to develop next"

"What would that be?" Desmond asked "A program to download digital copies of music?"

"Even better" Tom answered "Adobe Photoshop 2.0"

"What's that?" Desmond asked, unfamiliar with the names.

"Adobe Photoshop is a full-featured image editing program" Tom explained "A lot of people use it to make book covers, album art, movie posters, magazines, in addition to photo retouching"

"Sounds interesting" Desmond replied, tucking into the bacon "I personally think that a good album cover would be drawn though. No offense to computers, but that's how some of the best album art has been made"

"You should be able to upload an outline copy" Tom went on to explain "And color it in through Photoshop. You could even make a vector of it through its sister program Adobe Illustrator"

"Interesting" Desmond commented "You'll have to teach them to me some time." He looked at the clock: 7:30 AM.

"I have to get ready for work" he replied "The store opens at 9."

"Which record store do you work at?" Tom asked.

"I work at Diamond Street Records" Desmond explained "It's actually not very far from here. In fact…" he pulled out a map from a drawer "I could actually walk from here to there now."

"You couldn't from your last house?" Tom asked.

"I could" he replied "I'd be extremely late though."

"Well" Tom replied "I'll still be here. Some people from Adobe are coming to check out the beta of the software"

"Alright" Desmond replied "Do you want me to stay out?"

"I was hoping you could run down to the liquor store for me actually" Tom explained "We're hoping to celebrate with a bottle of champagne."

"Alright" Desmond replied "When do you need it by?"

"About six, so that it'll be chilled by seven"

"Got it" He replied "I'll go take a shower and get ready if you don't mind."

"Hang on" Tom exclaimed "Let me wash the pan first. The apartment's plumbing doesn't work too well when two people use the water at once."

"Alright" Desmond sighed.

Tom was about to put the pan in the sink and run water when he stopped.

"I think I'll let you shower first" Tom explained "Just let me know when you're done."

"Alright" Desmond sighed "I'll let you know"

xxXxxxXxx

When he was done, he gave a shout to Tom, and stepped out of the bathroom and into his room. Going through his dresser, he got dressed, putting on the usual denim jeans, the Boston '77 tour T-Shirt, and his Diamond Street Records vest. He slipped on his nametag lanyard, and exited the room.

He saw Tom washing the frying pan as he made his way into the kitchen. The amazing thing was the fact that the apartment's water wasn't that good.

Then again, thinking about his last living arrangement, this one won out by a long shot. The fact that he didn't have his sister taking two-hour long showers sure beat having no other water on.

He picked up his Discman and Headphones from the table, grabbed his travel case of CDs, the small one that he could keep attached to a belt loop, and walked out the door. He checked his pockets, realizing something important.

He'd forgotten his wallet and keys.

He tried the door, which seemed to be locked.

"Tom" he replied in a slightly raised voice, knocking on the door.

Tom/Neo

He heard Desmond knock on the door and call his name.

He looked, and there in the bowl, were Des' wallet and keys.

He turned off the water from the sink, and walked over to the door, scooping up the wallet and keys in his left hand, and opening the door with the right.

Desmond

He smiled when he saw Tom open the door, with his wallet and keys in hand.

"Thanks man" the record store employee replied "You are a life saver"

"Hopefully you won't forget them again though" Tom sighed "It's a good thing that I was here."

"I've got to get to work" Desmond replied "I'll be back around lunch time though."

"Alright" Tom replied "Just knock before you enter."

"Will do" Desmond replied.

With that, he left, making his way down the stairs and into the lobby, before heading down the street, walking to work.

Tom/Neo

With that, he shut the door, and sighed. It sure would be nice to have some alone time. He'd wanted to mess around with Citibank for a while now. It was always grounding to be able to hack, and with a roommate constantly away, it would be some well needed alone time.

He remembered the day he'd started hacking. It was back during college, when the school intranet began being run through all of the campus. As an accident, he'd gotten in to a professor's account rather than his. Already in the gradebook, he noticed the professor had given him an "F" on a software program he'd made as a project.

Professor Rosenblatt had always been unpopular, and people thought the software he'd made as a project was good and deserved an "A".

With a simple three clicks of a mouse, he'd turned the grade to a "B", hoping to be modest and not too ambitious.

When he closed the window and logged off the professor's account, he felt a high unlike any other. There was literally no sensation to compare with it, and before he knew it, he'd broken into every account on the campus intranet.

The alias "Neo" came after he'd graduated, when his PC had received an Internet connection, and he'd started breaking into some rather high profile accounts.

Currently, he'd been having some slight difficulty with Citibank. The account management passwords had been changed over the weekend.

This would take a while.

Desmond

At the record store, he sighed as he walked through the door. The place still had shelves full of just music, with a back wall displaying several varieties of Walkman, Discman, Headphones, and various posters of album covers and artists.

He smiled at Joan, his second cousin, who always ran the cash register. She was tall, thin, and always had her brown hair in a ponytail. In addition, she was smacking on gum and listening to some jazz on her Walkman, usually playing from a mix-tape.

Desmond put his headphones on, slipped Fleetwood Mac Rumours into his Discman, and started to walk around.

It wasn't long until a customer came in. She looked to be about in her fifties, yet the cane she walked with seemed to make Desmond think otherwise.

He put his headphones on around his neck, where he could still hear the music, yet be able to pay attention to her.

"Welcome to Diamond Street Records" he greeted "Is there any way I can help you ma'am?"

"Would you happen to have any Elvis tapes," she asked "I was planning on going to The Grand Canyon with my husband, and I was hoping we could listen to Elvis in our car, seeing as it has one of those Tape Players in the dash board."

"Sure" he replied. He'd gotten this type of customer all of the time, this was nothing new. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you where all of the Elvis tapes are"

He led her to the middle section of the store, and into the aisle labeled Classics

It was only a couple of steps before he showed her to where they kept all of the Elvis albums.

"They're all along this shelf" he explained, motioning to the three columns of Elvis Presley albums. "Just let me know when you're ready and I'll ring everything up for you"

"Thank you so much young man" she replied "I can't wait to play these on the trip."

"In fact" he replied "We've got a special sale going on. If you buy five cassette tapes, we'll throw in a poster for half off, and if you buy seven, it's an extra twenty-five percent off."

"Really?" she asked "I'll be sure to see what you've got. Hopefully you have some nice Elvis Posters."

"I guarantee you we've got quite the variety in the posters we offer." He replied "We carry posters on practically everything."

There was a chime at the door. Looking out of his peripheral vision, he could see a group of students and a teacher walk in.

It then hit him. Baker Street High School's music appreciation class was coming here for a field trip. He knew that this was a ton of customers he couldn't pass up. He checked his watch: 9:30.

This was going to be a busy day.

xxXxxXxx

When 12:00 finally rolled around, he couldn't be happier. He'd made over 70 sales, totaling over 120 combined tapes, CDs, Vinyl LPs and EPs.

He was glad when his lunch break came. He was so happy that he could head back to the apartment and grab lunch. Hopefully Tom left some bacon for him.

Taking the left to cross Jefferson Street, walking down under the Adams Street Bridge, crossing Jersey Boulevard, and finally, heading on to Remington Drive, he made his way into the building, up the stairs, and to his apartment.

He knocked on the door, announcing "I'm here," unlocked the door, and proceeded to enter.

Inside, he saw an incredible sight, one that he was unsure he could believe. It was just that incredible.

There, across the monitor, at Tom's Computer, was the spread of the many files that made up the accounts at Citibank. Looking ahead, it appeared that a program was scrambling everything.

This was clearly a monitor sight that belonged to a hacker. In the chair at the desk, was Tom, clearly and casually checking everything.

"What's going on?" Desmond asked "Why is a program scrambling account info for Citibank?"

Uh-Oh, looks like Tom or "Neo" has been found out. What do you think will happen next? Click the large button below to tell me what is running through your mind…