Hacker (CENTURIES series: Book #5) (VERY SLOW UPDATES)

8

•To avoid any confusion, this takes place shortly before the start of Agent and shows the details behind how and why they chose to contact AISE. •

~ 3 months later ~

"Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces passing me by and skurdeleedurrrdeeeleee-duuuuur."

I stopped at a red light with the rest of the pedestrian crowd and got a side-stare from a mother with her child. I shot a smile back at her and continued humming along to the music in my ears as I waited for the light to finally turn green and let me pass.

Just as the light switched, the music in my ears halted to a stop. My ringtone started playing instead, and with a quick switch, I took the call. "What's up, hot stuff?"

"Yeah, no. You can't pull that off either."

Smurf's voice made me smile as I walked across the busy road and turned a sharp left towards the subway.

The last few months had been great between us. Really great. We had agreed to take things slow and just see where things were going, but then stuff had happened and we had been forced to make a decision; either stay together or move to New York together when the situation had demanded it. A lot of shit went down after 'A' had revealed his identity, but it had all been for the better. The job he had offered me back before everything happened was still valid, and so I had taken it. Sadly, though, it meant changes – one of them being relocating to New York.

But surprisingly, Smurf had chosen me and now here we were, living in Harlem together. We had gotten a cute little place together, Smurf was working for a small software development firm, Elana had started her special private schooling, and so far, things were going pretty damn amazeballs, to put it in Valley-girl.

"Well, then it's back to Smurf. What's up?" I asked, grinning when I could almost picture her roll of the eyes.

"I'm just calling to remind you that we have that conference call in half an hour. Oh, and buy some more toilet paper on the way home. And milk!"

"I haven't forgotten, and will do," I said, hiking up in my shoulder bag. "I'll be at work in fifteen minutes, so I'll set up the secure line there. I'll be ready in time."

"Alright... God, I'm so nervous, I don't know why."

My smile faded a little and there was a good reason why.

While the past few months had been the best of my life, they had also been the worst. After everything had happened with Eli, freeing him and taking down the C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S program, the world had felt like bliss... for about five seconds.

It was a couple of weeks later, I got the cribbley-crawling sensation on my back as I was walking home from my tech job that I was being watched. At first I thought I was paranoid, but then after a night out with Eli... he had told me he had been feeling watched as well.

Soon thereafter, it became pure paranoia leaving the house, until the point where I didn't feel comfortable letting Smurf go to work without an escort or Elana go to the park with her nanny for several hours of the day. I started to feel like the freedom we thought we had won wasn't so free after all. They might've let Eli go, but now they were watching us.

All of us.

And that's when me, Zoe and the big boss had decided to upgrade.

"Don't worry," I said, hearing Smurf take a deep breath into the phone. "Everything's gonna work out. Don't forget who's on our side."