The silence in the apartment following Tisha's revelation felt heavy, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, muffled bass from Cipher's apartment next door. She sat on the floor, staring at the pink spine of the book that used to be a treatise on quantum entanglement.
Dante stood over her, dripping water onto her rug, wearing a t-shirt that joked about dead cats. He looked concerned. He looked handsome. He looked like a problem she didn't have the bandwidth to solve.
"Tisha," he said softly, reaching out a hand. "You look stressed. Why don't I help you release some of that tension…"
"Don't," Tisha interrupted, scrambling to her feet. She clutched the romance novel like a shield. "Do not finish that sentence. If you do, I swear I will scream."
Dante paused. "I intended to say that I give excellent massages."
"Out. Out. OUT!" Tisha snapped, shoving the book back onto the shelf, though she turned it spine-in so she wouldn't have to see the glittery font. "I just found out that my reality appears to be undergoing a rewrite. And I need you and your," she gestured to all of him. "All of that to go and let me process it. Alone."
She pointed to the door. "Out."
Dante blinked. He looked at the single bed in the corner. He looked back at her with a gaze that usually melted resolve. "It is late, cara. And you're in danger. Surely we can share—"
"No," Tisha cut him off. "I know that trope. It's the 'There Was Only One Bed' scenario. I refuse to participate. We have three apartments on this floor. You have a perfectly good floor to sleep on in Luca's unit."
"Luca's unit smells of stale pizza and gunpowder," Dante argued, crossing his arms. The Schrödinger's Cat shirt stretched tight across his chest, a visual argument he clearly knew how to wield.
"Then go to Cipher's," Tisha countered. "I hear the server hum is very soothing. Just go. Please."
Her voice cracked on the last word. She hated it. She wanted to sound authoritative, like the commander in her (now ruined) sci-fi novel. Instead, she just sounded tired.
Dante's expression softened. He stepped closer, invading her personal space again, smelling of lavender soap and something that was distinctly him. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Very well," he said, barely above a whisper. "I'll make sure you sleep securely. No one gets in or out without my knowledge."
He turned and walked to the door, grabbing the rest of his wet clothes. He paused at the threshold and looked at the stack of books that had been toppled on the floor. He walked back over and picked up a book she hadn't even seen before. It was titled A Don's Desire.
"How unexpected, cara. A little bedtime reading?" a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. "I'll take this and let you dream of the real thing."
"I plan to dream of peer-reviewed articles on quantum mechanics," Tisha muttered as she pushed him out to the door, slammed the door behind him, and threw the deadbolt.
She leaned her forehead against the cool wood. "Okay. They're gone. Just me and the cat." Miuty meowed from the bed, looking unimpressed by her hospitality skills. Tisha trudged to the bed and face-planted into the pillows. She didn't bother changing out of the midnight blue dress. She fell asleep trying to calculate the probability of her life ever returning to normal.
Clack. Clack. Clack-clack-clack.
The sound penetrated Tisha's sleep like a woodpecker on a tin roof. It was rhythmic, mechanical, and incredibly annoying.
Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack.
Tisha groaned, burying her face deeper into the pillow. "Miuty, stop scratching the furniture. I trimmed your claws last week."
Clack-clack-clack.
"I'm serious. I will replace your wet food with dry kibble."
"Your cat isn't doing it," a voice said. "Also, your firewall is adorable. It's like a picket fence made of cheese."
Tisha's eyes snapped open.
She sat up. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Sitting at her small pre-fab desk, drinking from her favorite mug, was Cipher.
He wore the same hoodie as the night before, but he had added a pair of orange-tinted gaming glasses. He had pushed her laptop aside and set up a chaotic array of three tablets and a mechanical keyboard that glowed with RGB lighting.
Tisha stared at him. She looked at the door. The deadbolt remained engaged.
"How..." Tisha croaked, her voice thick with sleep. "How are you in my apartment?"
Cipher spun around in her desk chair. "If someone like Luca could manage it, it's no sweat for me," he responded offhandedly. "You know, you really should update your firmware on that dinosaur, neighbor." Cipher was using his chin to gesture toward her computer. "I sent a patch but you ignored the notification."
"I ignored it because I thought it was spam," Tisha rubbed her temples. "Get out of my chair."
"Can't," Cipher turned back to the screens. "I'm in the zone. I'm tracing the source of the raid. Also, I'm trying to find out who edited your book files. That's some nasty malware."
"How did you…?" She scrambled out of bed, tripping over the hem of her gown. She marched to the desk and looked over his shoulder, makeup from the night before smudged on her face with dark mascara around her eyes, making her look like gothic cosplay.
The screens were a mess of scrolling green text, rotating 3D cubes, and what appeared to be a map of the city overlaid with some 8-bit sprites that seemed to have no real purpose.
"What is this?" Tisha asked, pointing at the center screen. "Why are there skulls floating over the Financial District?"
"That's the encryption layer," Cipher explained, his fingers flying across the keys. "I'm brute-forcing the Pentagon's back door to cross-reference the police chatter. Their firewall is a Hydra. Cut off one head, two more appear."
Tisha squinted at the code. She leaned closer.
"Stop," she said.
Cipher kept typing. "I'm almost in. I just need to bypass the mainframe using a GUI interface..."
Tisha reached out and unplugged his keyboard. The RGB lights died. The scrolling green text froze.
"Hey!" Cipher yelped, spinning around. "I was hacking!"
"You were typing gibberish," Tisha corrected, crossing her arms. "I see what you are doing. You are running a batch script to ping local servers. That isn't 'hacking the Pentagon.' That is checking for network latency."
She pointed at the screen with the floating skulls. "And that? That is a screensaver. A 'Hydra' is a mythological creature, not a cybersecurity term. You are dealing with a standard SQL injection vulnerability. If you want to bypass a proxy, you use the command line terminal, not 3D graphics."
Cipher stared at her. His mouth hung slightly open. The orange glasses slid down his nose.
"You..." he whispered. "You know code?"
"I research," Tisha sighed, grabbing her mug back from him. It was empty. "I needed to understand digital forensics for a plot point involving a crypto-heist. Real hacking is boring, Cipher. It's mostly reading logs and guessing passwords like 'Password123'."
Cipher looked at her with wide eyes. A blush crept up his neck, turning his pale skin a blotchy pink.
[Affection Meter: Cipher]
[Status: Glitch Detected]
[Note: She speaks the language of the machine.]
"User_Zero," Cipher breathed. "You saw through my interface. No one ever looks at the code. They just look at the flash."
"Because the flash is distracting," Tisha muttered, walking to the kitchenette to find more coffee. "Now, please pack up your circus. I need caffeine."
"Wait," Cipher scrambled to gather his tablets. "Teach me. Show me the command line thing. I can upgrade your rig. I can install a liquid cooling system for your toaster!"
"My toaster does not require liquid cooling," Tisha said, opening the cupboard.
Empty.
She blinked. She had bought a bag of premium Arabica beans two days ago.
"Where is my coffee?" she asked the room.
The front door clicked. It swung open.
Lorenzo walked in, holding a clipboard in one hand and her bag of coffee beans in the other. He wore his suit trousers and a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked refreshed, efficient, and deeply judgmental.
Sure… come right in…
"Good morning," Lorenzo said, placing the beans on the counter. "We need to discuss your caloric expenditures. This coffee? It costs twenty dollars a pound. Do you realize we could fund a small munitions drop for the price of your morning brew?"
Tisha stared at him. "Did you... audit my pantry?"
"I audited the entire floor," Lorenzo replied, checking a box on his clipboard. "Luca has three boxes of pizza and a six-pack of beer. Cipher has energy drinks and spicy chips. You have premium coffee and... what is this?" He held up a can of wet cat food. "Salmon pâté? For an animal? Tisha, this is fiscally irresponsible."
"It's for the cat," Tisha grabbed the can. "And you don't get a vote on my grocery budget. Where is Dante?"
"I am here," a voice boomed from the hallway.
Dante strode in. He had abandoned the sweatpants and was back in his dress trousers (which must have dried overnight) and his dress shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He held Tisha's toaster in his hands like it was a holy relic.
"This device," Dante announced, placing it on the counter next to Lorenzo. "It is defective."
"It's a toaster," Tisha said. "It toasts bread."
"I inserted the bread," Dante explained, gesturing with frustration. "I waited. It ejected the bread. The bread was warm, but not... charred. I demand fire."
"You have it on setting two," Tisha pointed to the dial. "That is for light browning. If you want fire, you need a flamethrower. Please step away from the appliances." Tisha balled up her hands and stomped on the floor. "WAIT. Why am I explaining how to use a toaster? And what are you all in here again?!"
Kael loomed in the doorway behind Dante. He wore his tactical turtleneck and held a carton of eggs he must have sourced from Luca's fridge. "Protein," Kael grunted. "The asset needs protein."
Tisha looked around her apartment. Cipher was reassembling his hacking station on her dining table. Lorenzo was calculating the cost-per-cup of her coffee. Dante was glaring at her toaster. Kael was inspecting her eggs for structural weaknesses.
And Miuty was sitting on top of the refrigerator, judging them all.
"This," Tisha whispered to herself, "is a nightmare. The square footage per person is well below the recommended threshold for psychological well-being."
She clapped her hands. "Okay! Listen up!"
The room went silent. Four pairs of eyes (and one pair of cat eyes) turned to her. "We cannot stay here," Tisha announced. "We are five adults in a studio apartment. The oxygen levels are dropping, and" she grabbed the coffee from Lorenzo's hands, "you are judging my beverages. We need to leave."
"We can't," Dante said, leaning against the counter and accidentally turning on the blender with his hip.
Whirrrrrr.
He jumped, drawing a concealed knife from his waistband.
Tisha reached over and turned off the blender. "Put the knife away. Why can't we leave?"
"Nero is watching the streets," Kael rumbled. "Sniper teams. We need cover."
"We need disguises," Lorenzo corrected. "But we have no budget for costumes. And we cannot go out looking like..." He gestured to Dante's half-naked chest and Kael's tactical gear. "...this."
Tisha looked at them.
Dante: The Romance Novel Cover Model.
Lorenzo: The Corporate Auditor.
Kael: The Mercenary.
Cipher: The Cyber-Punk.
Luca: Smart enough to be somewhere else.
"You stick out like sore thumbs," Tisha agreed. "If we walk out there, Nero will spot you in three seconds. You possess an aesthetic that screams 'Main Character Energy'."
Tisha groaned internally. Am I starting to accept this absurdity as reality?
"Is that bad?" Cipher asked.
"In a stealth mission? Yes," Tisha sighed. "We need to lower your visual profile. We need to make you look... boring. Mundane. Civilian."
She looked at her closet. Then she looked at the pile of laundry Luca had left in the hallway.
"Okay," Tisha nodded, a plan forming. "It's time for a makeover. And since Lorenzo vetoed the budget, we are going to have to get creative. Cipher, 'hack' the weather channel. I need to know if it's going to rain."
"On it," Cipher typed furiously. "Why?"
"Because," Tisha grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk drawer. "We are going to engage in some aggressive upcycling. If I can't fix the plot, I can at least fix your wardrobes."
A harsh and angry tapping came from the ceiling. In unison, they all said, "Sorry, Mrs. Higgins."
[Chapter 9 Complete]
[Current Status: The Harem is Hungry.]
[Objective: Operation Beige.]