Syndicates //

iv

Niall and I talked over the fried rice he had made. Another 04 came down, Louis, but Niall took me out to the back patio to talk alone. Louis seemed to understand and was a little busy himself.

I talked about my experience being kidnapped, and he even revealed a little about how he came into play. What surprised me is that he had no idea that all this time I was Cipher. He admitted that if he had known that Cipher was a girl, he would've chosen a different way of getting the info from me other than basically holding me hostage- which was his idea. In his typical charismatic way, he teased about taking me out to dinner to make up for it. In my typical loner way, I teased that I would never agree to that.

He finished my tour of the estate, specifically covering all the amenities that there were. There was the stables for recreational horseback riding, the Aquaplex which was the pool area, and the Banquet Garden where all of the major parties and gathering were.

The 04 House has its own private gym from the rest of the syndicate. Niall specifically renovated it to include training courses for his free-running and parkour.

It's definitely enough to keep me busy for the next month.

We ended with a game of ping pong in the house's recreational room. Eventually, I met Liam, whom Harry mentioned earlier. He offered to train me in some basic martial arts and self defense before disappearing to the gym to train.

In the middle of the match, Harry returned. It had been almost two and a half hours since he left. He came back with the tie loosened around his neck and his outfit overall more relaxed, which he was adjusting as he came through the front door (I saw on the surveillance monitors).

"I am done for the day," Harry announces. "I'm up for anything you guys want to do."

"Liam is downstairs in the gym," Niall says. "What's new though?" That makes Harry chuckle. I guess that seems to be Liam's safe haven.

"And Louis probably hasn't come downstairs at all, huh?" Harry asks.

"No, I actually met him. Briefly," I add. "Filled me in on what he does. He seems pretty happy that I'm here so he doesn't have to hack anymore."

Harry says, "You are his savior. He hates hacking, but hardware and even coding is totally his thing." He yelled for Louis, hoping that his voice would carry through the house to call him down to join all of us.

Louis made his entrance, floating into the room and placing a phone right in front of me, "Here's your phone."

"This isn't my phone," I slide the random phone back to him. "This isn't even the Blackberry that Harry made me use."

"It's your phone now. Brand new iPhone, just with some Cobalt modifications. Don't worry, he doesn't save any of your data- swear. It's just got a little more... oomph than any regular iPhone. Jailbroken at an entirely new level."

I take the phone back and inspect it. You could hardly tell he's done anything to it, "Well thanks! I was due for an upgrade anyway."

"Just don't break that one like Niall does."

"This is only my third phone this year," Niall objects with an eye roll.

"Y'know, I would almost give you a pass considering all the free-running you do. But most freerunners usually leave their phone in their backpacks and not their back pocket," Louis defends. "And I replaced the shell with titanium."

"Alright boys," Liam intervenes the two bickering, "and Cipher. We have some team bonding needed to be done. It's your call. What do you feel like doing?"

"Leaving the estate," I mutter. As they process my mumble of words, I correct myself, "Game night. I saw you guys have Monopoly and a Switch."

"I won't say no to that," Harry shrugs. "I'll get a pizza ordered and see if we can have the bartender come in." This is actually pretty nice. We live large without the weight of your name being displayed everywhere. I could get used to this. All the boys seem cool, but I just have to see how we'll handle under pressure.

"I call the thimble," Niall racing to the living room.