When Ryan was thirteen, she started pushing the limits, trying things to see their outcomes. To the rest of the world, such actions were considered crimes. But to her, they were nothing more than harmless experiments.
Said experiments traditionally never had any positive outcome for any involved – including the culprit – but she didn't care; the lessons she learned were invaluable, and she was too clever to get caught by those who chased her; it had become too easy for her to hide herself, to take upon herself the identity of a ghost. Her digital footprints were never found, no signs or clues that would trace back to a living person capable of such elaborate cyber-crimes. Never would an officer suspect a child as young as she to accomplish such profound tasks, and embracing this disappearing act was how she had lived the majority of her teenage years (until the unfortunate events that led her to being caught at the cusp of her 18th year).
These experimental feats were invaluable to her; she learned how to wire money without a trace, taking small amounts from multiple accounts under the guise of 'fees'; she learned how to weaken firewalls by attacking codes of separate programs; how to create fake identities, complete with identification numbers and traceable histories that never actually happened. And, while scamming hundreds of dollars from people on a small-scale online poker site, she learned you could convince people of falsehoods with the right words, the right false-facts, the perfect lies.
Perhaps it was in those days of curiosity-driven experimentation that she first learned of humanity's cruelty, while closely questioning her own.
Perhaps it was when she was in government servitude, given the order to develop a program that would track and monitor search queries, able to manipulate and categorize the answers that were received by each, smart enough to classify threats and dangerous search patterns autonomously, with only the smallest margin of error. She had never allowed herself to imagine what the government was to use her technology for, for she knew by this time that it would never be an answer she liked, nor one she could contest. Everything she had thus far done while in their captivity had been something considered unjust, corrupt, or immoral by the general public, but all lead to keeping the peace and safety of those who threw such accusations around. They would denounce it with the little knowledge they possessed of its intention, but if they knew the events the system had prematurely ended, they would be praising it endlessly, instead.
Maybe it was before that ever happened, before she had been held as a criminal under federal law. Maybe the knowledge came years ago, when she was fourteen, calming after knocking out the boy who relentlessly bullied her younger brother and receiving the harsh reprimand of her parents. Though she had done the right thing in her eyes, it was an awful route to take in the opinions of others. Yet those who judged did not know: the boy had been a menace, with a wild rage he so often directed on the weak and young in an attempt to exercise the control he thought he had, never being challenged before by the small. He had deserved the stitches for his actions; she did not deserve the sermon for hers.
Either way, she grew to know of the reality of the world, that there were no 'good people' or good acts, just directionless people with different levels of self-righteous ideals, all with different levels of self-preservation. People would do what they thought correct and just regardless of whether it actually was, executing these acts because they believed it to be helpful and humane to themselves or others. But sometimes it was not, sometimes it was what others considered evil, sometimes it involved matters that most preferred to avoid.
This reasoning in her mind was only further solidified when she went to the government, and witnessed testimonials – and events – firsthand.
On those days where she would be kept in a little room, forced to do the codes she had previously done thousands of times before to check their Pentagon security, she would converse with her guard. Sometimes it would be Joe – whose name was not even Joe, she found later on, but rather Nicholas, though she was not in the habit of using that name – and other times it would be a nameless person with little to say, but just as many medals on his chest.
One time, she recalls, there had been a man she won't ever be able to forget.
He said his name was George, and he was part of the Secret Service. He was at least fifty, well-versed in the ways of war and the bible, though he never seemed to preach and hardly showed his holy side, despite having a few holes put in him by enemy guns.
You're raised never to harm a person. The law tells you murder is a sin, and so does the bible. But when you join the army, they tell you the opposite. You're trained to kill, and it's all alright in the eyes of the Lord if you do.
She remembers him saying that, and it was what finalized her idea of human morality. She was 20 at the time, still young but no longer impressionable; she had seen too much in her then-two-year service to be blinded to the truth. She had pretended not to care when he spoke of his experiences in war and morality, but she loved the topic; people were so twisted, so Godless, and she loved learning what they would do to protect their ideals of right and wrong, just how unconsciously corrupt they really were. So she lit a cigarette, allowed the gray haze she exhaled to fill the room as he explained on.
Soon as you join the army, you're taught that people aren't equal, that our enemies are worth less than normal people so it's not considered a sin if you end their life. There's different cases, you know, on when to kill.
A few more puffs, she remembered, then she put out the first cigarette and lit another. Smoking was always something she did to think, and he was causing her to do that a lot with his words, the topic they spoke of being far more addicting then the nicotine.
But you do it anyways, shoot them. It's no longer a matter of what's good, because you're doing what is considered moral, what you gotta do to stay alive. On the battlefield, who cares who's right or wrong, right? It's kill or be killed, there isn't time to think about them or the family you're tearing them away from. It's just about you, and the family that you got at home, and them, the terrorists threatening to bomb them. It's... savage. Everything the Lord stands for is invalid in war.
She put out her second cigarette then, looked over her computer at him, no one and nothing else in that empty room but they and the mechanical machine she called her only friend. She remembers that look in his eyes, that thousand-mile stare she had seen a thousand times on the other vets who had guarded her. She remembers the flash of pity she saw on his face, as she recalls saying: "There ain't nothing good or evil in life, just circumstances."
He gave a sort of defeated sigh then, like he hadn't wanted to have her confirm a similar thought in his head.
You've grown up too fast.
…
It took her exactly 17 hours and 34 minutes to break into his system. It was a grueling task, and she had no sleep throughout it. The firewalls, encryption, and overall protection proved difficult. If she were a normal hacker (or a normal person, for that matter) with little form of determination and pride, she would have given up well into the seventh hour; it had seemed the strongest at that point, when all the cards had been played and the money off the table in L's victory. If it wasn't for the constant need to prove herself, to just get in, she would have given up already, too.
But she knew how the game went, she had played it too well and too often. You'd reach a point where you thought you were losing, but you'd type a different code, and suddenly the battle was evened. Then another code, and another, and progressively you were headlong to completion, to access. Sometimes, the duration of each stage was elongated, but it was always how it went. Or, at least, for her.
When she had gained the entry, though, it was as if she were at a loss.
It was different, now. Ryan never had the need to think beyond, "get in". That had always been her goal when she was younger, never thinking of what else she needed or should do once said goal was met, because there was always another task afterwards to follow. It had always been laid out for her, the ways to proceed. The government had been specific and unwavering on exactly what needed to be done; they already had an agenda set up to follow, and as such, so did she. With a self-depreciating smile, she realizes she is more like the computers themselves than she realizes; without the next code or command to follow, both she and the machine come to a screeching halt.
What was it she was wanting out of this rebellious act? For a while she just stared at her computer screen with full access to the detective's deepest files. She saw as they were labeled: Closed cases, Previous cases, Potential cases, Kira case.
Kira case, yes. That's what had started everything, that one case with that flamboyant show of aggression from L. L, that man she was interested in, the one she wanted to meet if only just to confirm her beliefs that he was a Godless being, a man without a hope of heaven, without remorse. For the moment, that was her next task – Meet him.
And in order to do that, she had to get his attention.
...
She had given herself two days to prepare for the grand event.
Her contingency plans were set up and sleeping for the time being. By doing this prep, she realized what she was giving up, what she was risking, and what she was losing. By doing this, one of two things could immediately happen: either he would meet her and listen to her, or he would kill her at the first chance. The options did not worry her, nor did it scare her by any means – death had been something she had seen often in the four years she served the President, and had been something she had frequently dabbled with in the few short months after her final release. Death, and the irreversibility of it, was almost welcoming, though she would never outwardly say it.
It was not that she felt suicidal, but neither would she flinch from an inevitable death. She was minutely aware of her responsibilities to her family, their financial support and the crushing heartbreak her passing would cause them, but even this was not enough to dissuade her from her course of action. Two days had been long enough to ensure that, should anything happen to her, they were properly taken care of, and courses of action taken to prevent their agony for as long as possible. Two days had been all she had allowed herself to prepare for a death she was almost anticipating to happen.
It was a meeting she was almost sure he wouldn't come to, at least not himself.
Her message was vague, but straight to the point. It would take no effort to understand it's meaning, it's threat, especially if he was as smart as the media claimed the detective was.
So she sat, in her usual spot in metropolitan Tokyo, at the same coffee spot she frequented every day. Today, she carried with her a book instead of her usual laptop, careful to avoid too much resemblance to the image she imagined L would be searching for. Not to make herself too inconspicuous, though, she made sure to order her regular vanilla latte, and treated herself to one of their pastries. Realizing after she took her fist bite that this could be her last meal, she almost regretted picking the lemon loaf over some of the more fattening, sugar-filled items.
Enjoying the somewhat disappointing dessert, she sighed.
Now all she had to do was wait.
...
She had been about forty minutes into reading her novel when it finally happened.
The message she had left on L's computer had only a few details: A time, a place, and a drink, though the threat was clearly felt in her words. The drink she listed was finally ordered, after only 40 minutes of waiting, to a person she did not expect at all.
The representative (for this could not be L himself, could it?!) was tall, and stood with superior posture. He had the appearance of youth, but fine lines near his eyes and mouth showed his age at being mid 30s, perhaps older if she were judging by the awful scowl lines on his forehead. His hair was dark and well-kept, his attire as tidy as his hair. He wore a typical business work suit, almost identical to the many other office workers here during their lunch hour, the order he placed with the barista the only hint given that he was not what he seemed to be.
"May I get a large, light whip, triple espresso shot skinny vanilla latte, please?" his baritone voice politely asked, and at this time she made a large effort to avoid looking at him entirely, pretending to be engrossed in her reading. She must make no notice of him due to the order itself, not yet.
Ryan sat parallel to the pick up counter, acutely aware of his presence a few feet away from herself as he waited, but making no out of place motion to draw his attention to her. Instead, she took a sip of her latte, flipped the page of her novel and continued to read as if nothing had happened. He stood, examining the area without haste or urgency, drawing no unwanted attention to himself, either. It seemed they had both played this game before, both aware of the rules and the need for confidentiality.
But Ryan was never one to play by the rules.
As soon as the mystery man received his drink, he was approached by a girl who was not she, but who, as well, was there to meet that same man, with the same drink order.
"Excuse me, but I think you're who I'm here to meet, from the computer," the young woman timidly admitted, avoiding her large brown eyes from his narrowing grey ones. Ryan had given the scene a quick glance when the girl approached, as seemed normal from a regular customer in a busy cafe with people in close proximity to one another. She noticed the girl's extreme happiness at her luck of a beautiful companion, and the extreme confusion of the man himself. It took everything in her to suppress her giggle, as this was such a serious turning point for the task at hand and she must keep her cool; she had reason to remain cautious, even if the beautiful man truly was L.
Ryan continued to ignore them, continuing in her book but remaining aware of their presence, even as they moved to sit down at a table across the room. It did not matter that she couldn't hear the conversation itself – she wasn't interested in the words so much as the actions he made. This would determine how it played out, if she met him or not. She had given herself two days to orchestrate the event, because although she was eager to meet L, she certainly was not going to be reckless, not just yet.
Looking over the brim of her book, she could examine the two people without looking like she was staring. She watched as the lady spoke animatedly to a man who did not slack in his stiff posture, on guard and keeping it up despite the friendly tone of his companion's voice.
For a few minutes the woman's excited chatter droned on, but Ryan imagined it must have felt like hours to the man. And just like that, Ryan knew it was not L. It could not be the man himself; it was a sit-in, a middle-man. This type of meeting was not what she wanted – if she were to meet him, it would be him and no one else, despite his hesitations of danger. It was no great surprise that this first meeting was a dud, as she had expected a certain amount of distrust. She knew these nervous feelings well, but – she reasoned – she didn't have Kira to fear around every corner, who seemed able to kill without a physical force. She did not take offence to this slight; in fact, she was glad of it; if he had been so stupid as to show his actual face in this type of establishment, with so many unknowns, she might not have wanted to work with him after all.
So finishing her latte, she stood from her seat, threw out the cup, and casually abandoned the man to his unfortunately talkative fate.