Chapter 3: Trouble
Every night for a week, Kaidan had snuck out of the house when he thought everyone was asleep. But Anna had heard him every night and watched him walk towards town from her window. So that night, Anna had waited until her father was asleep, then got up and dressed in dark pants and a dark hoodie. Anna wouldn't let him sneak out another night without knowing what he was up to. And his answers to her prodding were too evasive. If she didn't know any better, she would say that he was in trouble. So she slid out through the back door and followed Kaidan, jumping behind trees when he looked back at the house. On they went until Kaidan got on a bus. Fortunately, she slid into a seat at the front of the bus and pulled her hood over her head while Kaidan sat in the back. The stop Kaidan got off at was popular, so Anna easily got off without raising his suspicion. On and on Kaidan went, with Anna only just keeping up until they reached an old warehouse. Stopping, Kaidan cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a bird call, which was answered by another teenager stepping out of the shadows.
"'bout time you got here," the new face snapped. Anna couldn't get a good look at him, dressed in all black, almost blending into the night.
"I have to slip away from my family and catch a bus to keep from arousing suspicion. Buses run late, Champ."
"Just be glad you weren't any later. Slick has the schedule worked out. I need both of you to keep us all off the grid tonight," Champ stated.
"All of us? No, I'm just gonna be in the warehouse with Slick, working on keeping the grid how we want it. No field work. I told you that when I signed up for this." Kaidan was firmly shaking his head, but Champ only chuckled.
"You owe me. Now, get ready to head out with us, Oil." He rumpled Kaidan's hair as he all but dragged Kaidan into the warehouse. So Kaidan is wrapped up with a bad crew. Oil and Slick. They're probably the two tech experts. Champ is probably in charge. It sounds like he has something over Kaidan. Hmm. It will be interesting to get him out of there. Waltzing in is probably the second worst idea, behind getting them caught. Shepard cut her musing short as a small group slid out of the warehouse, Kaidan looking back at the warehouse before turning forward. Anna could see a hard glint in his eyes that she had never seen before.
Anna wasn't sure where they were heading or if they were even coming back, so she continued to sneak after them. She followed the group until they reached a skycar lot for one of the local drug companies. From there, they crossed a fence, and Anna knew that she had no way of following them. So with no other option, she resigned herself to sit and wait, hoping that they wouldn't get caught.
Roughly an hour passed before she caught sight of a group running towards the fence. One fiddled with the fence again, and the group passed through unharmed. But everyone was carrying boxes, whose contents Anna couldn't even guess. She followed the group back by a different route to the warehouse, where the boxes were placed, and Anna could hear several voices laughing. Anna didn't have to wait much longer before Kaidan walked out with Champ and a woman.
"Well well well, Oil. You're quite a natural at this," the woman purred as she stroked Kaidan's shoulder. Something about her touch and the overly feminized voice made Anna's hackles rise. There was no way Kaidan would enjoy something like that. "You really should go out with us more." Kaidan shrugged off the touch, and Anna felt a sense of vindication.
"I've told you before, Rose. I don't do field work," he insisted.
"No, you didn't do field work. Now you do," Champ stated as he slid between the pair, thumping Kaidan on the back with one hand and sliding his other hand onto Rose's hip. "Get onto the game tomorrow, and I'll let you know when the next raid is." Kaidan pressed his lips together into a thin line, obviously unhappy. "Or would prefer that others found out about your late night activities?" Kaidan walked away from the pair as they continued to laugh. Anna followed him until he was almost out of the alley and out of earshot of the warehouse.
"So, when's the bus home arrive?" She asked casually as she threw her hood back, quietly furious at him. He spun around, biotics lighting his body up in the dark.
"Anna?!" He hissed, quickly moving forward and grabbing her arm tighter than she would have liked. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I tried asking you the same thing, but you wouldn't give me a straight answer. I had to find out for myself," she hissed back.
"How much do you know?" She could hear a sliver of something like fear and more like belligerence in his voice now.
"I know about Rose, Champ, and Slick. I know that you also took boxes that don't belong to you. What was in them, anyway?" Kaidan sighed and shook his head.
"Hell if I know. Champ didn't say, and I didn't want to know. Look, we need to head to the bus. I don't want to risk anyone catching you out of bed." He marched them both to the bus stop and caught the bus back home. But once they got inside the grounds, Anna stopped them and ducked under a tree.
"Kaidan, you have to get out of this. You know that this could easily go bad. Someone else in that group could make a mistake that gets you caught. The Alliance would kill to get their hands on someone as good as you!" She insisted. How dumb was he to think he could continue to get away with it?
"You think I don't know that? You think I don't want out? I do! But I can't!" She finally realized the look in his eyes. He was scared.
"So tell me how it started. Maybe we can sort it out along the way," she pleaded. Kaidan gave her a hard look before nodding.
"After Brain Camp, I was messed up. Guess I still am," he chuckled ruefully. "I started playing this MMO, and you know how they're all code-based. I figured out a way to cheat part of the game. It wasn't anything big, but it was a fun little laugh for me. After I pulled that stunt a few times, I started intentionally trying to cheat difficult parts of the game. That got me noticed by a band of players, calling themselves the Headless Horsemen. They invited me to join their guild, saying that I was like them.
"I started talking to them in chat, and as a group, we were able to pull off major system hacks. Sometimes we did it for kicks, and sometimes it was to make a point. Anyway, I let a line about my hometown slip, and some of the guys, including the group leader, said that they lived around there too. We arranged to meet, and they were an ok group to hang around. They knew I was a biotic, and they didn't hate me, which was rare for civilians. So I arranged to meet with them some more, even letting them come over. Sometimes everyone couldn't make it, but Champ was always there.
"I kept meeting with them because I liked them. Eventually, Champ asked about the scar," he pointed to his lip. "And I told him enough about Brain Camp for him to connect the dots." He held up a hand as she went to ask the inevitable question about what happened. "Another time, please." Anna sighed in frustration, but let that subject drop. "Then one time, I show up to the diner when this girl stumbles out of an alley, torn shirt, crying, going on about how some gang beat her up and stole her purse. Champ met me outside while I was trying to comfort her and said she was his girlfriend, so we went after them." Anna gave a half-hearted grin, guessing where the story would go.
"Let me guess, that was Rose?" Kaidan ruefully nodded.
"Yup. And I fell hook, line, and sinker for their setup. We chased them to the warehouse; I hacked and used my omni-tool while Champ started pounding on them. We actually hacked our way into the gang's vault. And sitting in it was none other than Rose, smiling and clapping. I didn't understand until Champ thumped me on the back and welcomed me in. At that point, I didn't have much of a choice. If I turned them down, they all would have turned on me. I couldn't have taken all of them. Plus they had a turf advantage. So I agreed to work from the warehouse with Slick while everyone else went out to do the job. Our jobs allowed us to be remote. Slick sometimes went with them to make sure any on-site jobs got done easier, but I made it clear that I didn't do field work. At first, they didn't ask for me to do stuff very often. But they've been making me come down more and more. Now they're making me do field work." He sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. "And I don't know how to get out."
"It's actually pretty simple. You walk out-"
"They won't let me." He interrupted. She gave him a stern look before settling her hands onto her hips.
"You didn't let me finish. As I was saying, you walk out with something good enough to force their hand. What's something that would ruin them?" Kaidan thought for a moment before his eyes lit up.
"There's a box in the vault. It's a list of contacts and jobs they've done. I saw Champ updating it once. He does that after every outing."
"Then we find a way to get a copy of it, and threaten to go to the police with it if they don't let you out." Suddenly, Kaidan shook his head.
"The door to the vault has two code parts. I wrote one and Slick wrote the other. Neither of us has a clue what the other wrote. I'd have to break it on the spot, and someone would notice."
"What if you got Slick to help you? He didn't seem happy about doing it either." Kaidan pondered Anna's latest idea.
"That might work. Let me look him –" Kaidan was interrupted by his omni-tool pinging. Kaidan gave her a silent warning and opened it. "Slick."
"Oil," Slick responded. "That's some real bullshit Champ is pulling on us. He's been tripling the number of times we raid. And the schedule is getting insane. I don't know how he expects us to keep the guild together once school hits."
"Me either. I know that soon enough, I won't have time for what he asks of us."
"Makes you want to leave the guild?" Kaidan stiffened a little, obviously wary. "Oil, you and I are in the same boat. If it weren't for the sweet loot I get for my characters, I'd've already bounced to the next guild. But he's the only one that gets this kind of loot."
"What if the GM's found out how he was getting the loot?" Kaidan hesitantly asked.
"You're serious? You want to tell the GM's? You'd get all of us in a shit-load of trouble!" Slick's voice became almost fearful.
"No. But we both know part of the stuff Champ exploits to get the crazy-awesome loot. If we take that info and threaten to go to the GM's, he'd have to let us out of the guild."Anna saw Slick bob his head for a few moments.
"Yeah, but we don't see him do any of that stuff unless he's in a raid." Anna suddenly thought of an idea and wouldn't let Kaidan keep her silent.
"What if you had someone hack his computer during a raid? He wouldn't see it with all the text rolling on his screen. I could be in and out with the information I needed." Slick's eyebrow popped up in response to Anna's sudden interjection. She tried to step into Slick's view screen, but Kaidan shot her a dirty look and kept her out of view.
"I like what she's saying. Don't tell me you were holding out on us before-hand, Oil, 'cause she sounds like a pretty little thing." Kaidan glared at the screen before speaking.
"It's settled then. We'll wait until the next raid, and Shadow," he looked at Anna, "will hack the vault while Champ and the others are gone. You got anything that can help her hide? I don't want to take a chance of Rose finding her." Kaidan resolved things, and Slick grinned from the interface.
"As a matter of fact, I do. They don't call me Slick for nothin'. Got something that might help. Drop by our normal hang-out tomorrow, and I'll see what I can get you. Oh, and make sure you bring Shadow. I wanna meet her." And with that, Slick signed off.
"Why do you talk in code?" Anna asked.
"In case anyone might overhear, including my parents. But Champ started it, mostly because he's paranoid," Kaidan added. "Do you think you can hack the vault during a job? If you can't, I can find a way to."
"I can," Anna insisted, leaning in. "Let's wait for a few hours, then head to this drop-off spot. We'll grab whatever it is Slick left us and take some time there and tonight to figure out what it does. Then we wait for the next job and let me hack the vault. After the job, you both confront him with the evidence and walk away." Together, the pair snuck back into the house and went to bed.
They waited until the next day before Kaidan offered to take Annalisa by the diner as a chance to get out of the house. Everyone agreed and let them borrow the hoverbike. Once they arrived at the diner, they saw Slick waiting for them.
"So she is as pretty as she sounds," Slick commented as Anna climbed off the bike.
"And you'll keep your mouth shut, or you get a mouth full of biotics, Slick." Kaidan threatened, stepping in front of Anna.
"Cool it Oil; I'm just admirin' your ability to bring a nice thing 'round these parts." Slick held his hands out, a toothpick still in his mouth.
"So what do you have for me?" Anna asked, moving from behind Kaidan. Slick jerked his head in response and they slipped into an alley, heading away from the warehouse to an abandoned building.
"Alliance prototype cloakin' device. I've got connections to people who work there." He shifted under their stern stares. "Look, if you don't want it, say so." At their silence, he nodded. "That's what I thought. Now it's still a prototype; won't work if you move quick. But if you're like molasses, ain't nobody gonna find you." He showed her how to work the cloaking device. Anna began practicing, moving slowly and understanding the different kinks to the prototype. After a few minutes, she turned to Slick under the cloak, testing to see if sound would set it off.
"How did Champ start all this anyway?" Anna asked Slick, curious as to how someone could have gathered a gang of people this good at stealing. The cloak didn't fritz at her voice, but the pair could clearly hear her.
"Champ was a street kid who got lucky. He's adopted. But for a few years, he was on the streets fending for his own life. He saw the worst of things and survived. I was one of the first ones he found as a fellow street kid. Also the first he found a home for. So at first, Champ stuck with me and we would lift medical supplies and spare food shipments for starving kids. We kept a small group from resorting to gangs. But then he started getting power-hungry. Once the kids were gone, all of them rescued off the streets, he started breaking into places because he could. Rose came around then. I really think she's been the bad influence. She's been the one picking the targets lately, and she does these things for kicks." Anna partly felt bad for Champ. His earlier works seemed to be for a good reason, but now it seemed that Rose ran things her way, manipulating Champ into whatever she wanted.
"Well, let's see if we can put a stop to Rose's plans," Anna stated as she decloaked. The others nodded, and Anna hoped she could help them get away from the bad squad.