el cucuy

[june-maslow]

Members of the Grid group were around, some of whom June hadn’t spoken to in a while. Teamwork had never been her strong suit, and when she’d become the last person to still care, she’d handled things her way without asking too many questions. The hacker had only enlisted the help of the one person she seemed to be able to rely on without question and just continued to do her thing. Inevitably, those who gravitated back to the Grid every now and then would disagree with the way she ran things. So yeah, she’d not been on speaking terms with a few. Yet, she had to admit that it was nice to see them here, having a good time. It was so goddamn cheesy that it had been a wedding that brought the scattered members of the group back in one place.

“It was interesting, and sort of ridiculous,” June stated with a half smirk. Zara hadn’t gone full bridezilla during the wedding preparations, but specificity was indeed something that mattered in these sorts of events. Getting things right meant something. “Apparently I’m good at organizing,” she mused, because yes, she did have a sort of mind that could plan and execute, “which makes me a good bridesmaid. But I’m shit at communicating things tactfully,” she finished with a shrug, because what was new? “So maybe I wasn’t the best person to be in charge of dresses and flower arrangements. But hey, it got all done in time, following Zara’s wishes, so I might have found my secret calling”.

Jokes aside, June’s expression became softer than it usually was. Seeing Zara get married was like seeing a sister get married. The whole thing was a whole lot more meaningful than her brother’s wedding. Zara had chosen her to be someone who mattered in her life and June had chosen her in return. In a way, she had chosen Sebastian too, against all odds, despite all the ways in which the two of them pushed people away as far as they could. And here they were, standing by each other’s side, not only in the literal sense. “Are you having a good time?”

[elcucuy-reyes]

"Ah, you've always been good at organizing," Bas said with a short laugh. "Before you know it, other people in the group will ask you to help organize their weddings. Hey, maybe if the whole computer coding thing doesn't work out, you can be a bridesmaid for hire." He glanced down at the thought of someone else asking June to be their bridesmaid. That someone being May. She wasn't at the wedding today, saying she'd come down with something and didn't want to pass it on to any of his friends. He knew she probably felt awful, but he knew it wasn't because of a cold or whatever. They'd left things off on a sour note before he got ready for the wedding. Apparently Javier and Zara brought up a lot of things for May especially since she and Bas were planning on moving in together. But now she didn't seem so eager after their fight about marriage and the future.

As much as Sebastian loved May, he had begun to feel a distance between them. They both did. She was his first serious relationship and he hated the idea of ruining a good thing. They were the textbook example of a normal couple. Like Javier and Zara. They worked. They were attracted to each other. They were compatible. They knew how to enjoy time together and apart. But Sebastian was feeling a weight on his shoulders as they got closer to their move in date. He turned his head to look at June. Even though she had heels on, he was still taller than her and had to look down slightly. "Have you ever thought about whether you'd get married or not?" He didn't know why he asked June that. It wasn't like they had that kind of relationship...talking about marriage. He wasn't even sure about his own answer and whether he'd actually want to settle down and be legally tied to a person. But he was curious to know June's answer. Maybe it'd help him sort out his own dilemma with May.

Sebastian cleared his throat and took a sip of his drink. That was a weird question to bring up to June. He shouldn't have asked it but he couldn't take it back now. He gave her a smile to show her everything was okay. It was just curiosity. That was why he was asking. Friends asked that sort of thing. It was perfectly normal. Don't make it weird. "Yeah, I am enjoying myself. It's always nice to see two people in love and...yeah. What about you? Enjoying yourself? You clean up nice," he said, motioning towards her dress. And you made it weird. Good job. The music stopped and the DJ spoke with the microphone. "Alright, alright, everyone! Before we do the bouquet toss, let's get the maid of honor, the bridesmaids, and all the single ladies out on the dance floor with a handsome lad...or pretty lady, whichever you prefer. Let's get you warmed up so you can all fight each other for this lovely bouquet!"

Sebastian stared at the DJ and then back at June. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "I think that's your cue," he told her, nudging her forward.

[itsallaboutbl]

black leather jacket 🥵

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

@elcucuy-reyes​

Well, holy shit, who would have thought that two people who used to hate each other’s guts would really end up together? Though June had to admit she’d been pleasantly surprised when Zara told her Javier had proposed little after their third anniversary. Perhaps the hacker would never truly see to eye with him, but at the very least she knew Javier was totally and irrevocably in love with her dear friend. That was enough. Zara deserved that happiness and that stability after all the shit she went through with her family, especially with her dad… In between the work June kept doing regarding The Grid and her job at Turing, she found some time to help Zara with some of the planning. Luckily neither the groom nor the bride wanted a big wedding, only a small ceremony with close friends and family. And here they were now. 

June watched with a smile as the couple exchanged their vows and Javier’s brother, Ricardo, officiated the ceremony. One of her best friends was a wife now. It was so odd to think about it, especially when she felt so far removed from anything related to that life. Marriage wasn’t even something she considered; she always drove people away, people always left. “This is so weird,” she said, glancing over at Sebastian, “Good weird. But still weird”. Fortunately, a few members of what remained of their little gang were invited, otherwise June’s anxious and taciturn self when it came to big social events would have probably left little after the ‘I do’.

Sebastian didn’t know Zara and Javier nearly as well as he knew June and he was quite frankly surprised that they invited him to their wedding. It took him a minute to process it when he received the invitation. The ceremony was only for close friends and family. It was an incredibly small wedding, probably fewer than fifty people to be honest. To be one of those fifty...well, Sebastian couldn’t believe it. He was considered a close friend. He hadn’t considered Zara and Javier or the rest of the gang as close friends, probably because he kept people at arm’s length, but maybe he could start considering them close friends. He had grown to love them in his own way. He even helped Javier with some wedding things, although that was not Bas’s area of expertise and the best he could really do was help decide on the signature cocktails that were being served. 

He sipped on his drink, the 'Til Daiquiri Do Us Part, and participated in his favorite wedding activity, people watching. For a second, it didn’t even register that June was talking to him. She’d been pretty busy that day and evening dealing with all sorts of wedding day shenanigans. He glanced over at Zara and Javier dancing, their arms entangled and their bodies close together. Certainly no room between them was left for Jesus. It was strange to see since Sebastian had only been to weddings for family members and this was the first time he was seeing friends get married and completely enter a new stage of life. “It is...weird. But yeah. Good weird.” His lips pulled back a little into a small smile. “How is it being a bridesmaid?”

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

Sebastian had never spoken about what happened between him and Kishan, what had made friend turn against friend. She was caught a little off guard that he was mentioning it now, but she just watched him and listened. Her appetite also waned suddenly and she ended up setting down her food too. “So you don’t think Kishan was actually involved?” she questioned, her voice low. His initial theory had revolved around their friend somehow surrendering the code for GAIA to use, whether it was willingly done or not was still up in the air. “You think GAIA took it from you?” June’s tone was soft but serious, asking him to be honest with her. She’d had his back before, and she would continue to do so, but she needed to know everything. She needed to know where they truly stood.

Fuck. Out of everything they had faced inside The Grid, the Geists had been the worst opponents they had faced. It was frightening to think how the code that shaped them could affect the real world if were released on such a grand scale. “Well, there has to be a loophole of some kind,” the mentioned. It was what they did, creators like them put hidden threats in their own work in case it was ever stolen or used against them. “If this is based on your code, there has to be a way to stop it, right? Please tell me you put something in there that could debilitate or override it if it was ever taken from you”. 

"So you don’t think Kishan was actually involved?” Sebastian’s stomach did a flip at the reminder that he was blaming a dead man once again for his problems. “You think GAIA took it from you?” June’s words echoed in his mind and Bas was silent for once for what felt like an eternity. In reality, maybe only a minute or two passed by. He was fairly certain Kishan did not give up the code. While the possibility was there, it was very slim. Bas was the one who actually wrote the code. He was the one with any real information. Kishan only had the pseudocode, which GAIA could potentially use, but why use the partial code when the original code was already in Sebastian’s head. “Yes.” GAIA took it from me. GAIA invaded my mind and stole it. I’m the weakest link. You should get rid of me. You should pull me off the project. Kick me out of the group. I caused the rift between you and your friends because I was selfish and didn’t want to take the blame yet again. Kishan was right. Kishan was better than me. Even from the grave he haunts me in this virtual reality. I wish I were the one that died and not him. You’d be better off with him. They were all words Sebastian wanted to say but couldn’t. They would have poured out like water breaking through a dam. He would have felt better if he said everything. Instead, all he could manage was a meek “yes.” One word, but his tone was telling. The shame, the guilt, the anger.

Sebastian avoided June’s eyes as she pressed further about the nature of his code. The person he trusted the most right now, he couldn’t even look at her fearing what her eyes might be telling him. She wouldn’t say it with words, but with one look, Bas would know and it would hurt worse than if she yelled at him or called him terrible names or told him to get out. “I was young and naive and cocky when I wrote that code,” Sebastian explained. “I didn’t put anything in it to shut it down. There’s no kill switch or anything like that. If you want to shut it down, we’ll have to figure out a way to put in a kill switch or a way to counteract it. Something.”

[alexshenry]

Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE (2023) dir. Matthew Lopez

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

“I think you might need to get a few more bonus points with him if you actually want to get in there,” the hacker stated back in a teasing way, her lips curving into a playful smile. “Just a few,” she added, sounding even more sarcastic. A little chuckle escaped her in the end before she glanced down at her food and took a bite. The two of them ate in silence for a moment. June couldn’t pinpoint when exactly she began to feel so at ease around Sebastian, either talking to him about things she didn’t trust someone else to talk about, or to exist in serene quietness without feeling uncomfortable— no need at all to either walk away or fill the air with empty words. All June knew was that it had been quite some time already.

The hacker looked up when he brought up the Geists. Those things were gone at least, beaten; they should be looking forward, keeping those horrible things in the past and thinking about passing the next levels. It didn’t puzzle her at all that he would bring up though… The group was still dealing with the fallout of Sebastian’s main theory about Kishan’s corrupted code and its link to the Geists. “I have,” June answered, looking at Reyes with a bit of a puzzled look. Where was he going with this? “Why?”.

Sebastian set his food down, pushing it away. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry anymore. Something about what he was about to tell June and what her reaction could be just made his stomach turn. He pursed his lips, looking away for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. He ran his hand down his face and turned back to June. “I created a program for a Fire Sale. That was what Kishan turned me in for,” he said. He’d never told June what it was exactly that he’d gotten in trouble for, just that Kishan was the one who betrayed him. “Kishan and I came up with the pseudocode when we were drunk and I don’t think he actually thought I’d write it, but I did.” When Bas was arrested, the code was taken away from him, presumably destroyed or taken into the government’s custody for them to sit on until they found a good use. Whether or not the code was no longer written down, Bas had a good memory and he had a good chance of being able to write the code down again. “I think GAIA got a hold of the code in my head or whatever...used them for the Geists. I recognized some parts of their code,” he said, remembering how he wrote certain functions in his code a specific way so he would know if his code was ever stolen. “It was modified for the Geists, but I think it was all a test for GAIA before it’s released into the world. GAIA will use it to completely rewrite the framework for society. All from my code.”

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

The hacker was silently grateful that he’d brought some food. She was just regaining her appetite and she hadn’t even bothered to cook something or even order some takeout. Even simple things like that took time to make their way to her mind after particularly harsh experiences at The Grid. She’d practically just been drinking tea, eating some old crackers here and there and the last apple she had in her apartment. Sleeping and checking out mentally to avoid thinking of the horrifying imagery the Geists showed her had taken precedence over anything else.

“Chicken’s fine,” she said as she watched Sebastian move about her kitchen with the same familiarity as if this place was his own. The current situation within the group didn’t really allow for him to show up at their new HQ. June’s meetings with Reyes usually took place here and only occasionally at his apartment. “Thanks,” the girl smiled subtly, reaching out for her plate. She was grateful that Reyes didn’t say anything about her appearance; the dark circles under her eyes, the bruise on her temple, or her general tired aspect. He knew how things were. She’d taken a beating by bizarre, virtual ghosts, and the damage they’d done translated into her actual body. The worst damage was mental, of course, that was the Geists’ target: breaking them down from within, not necessarily harming their avatars. Seeing Sebastian alive and well before her was a nice reminder that everything the Geists showed her was never real. “Damn, I needed this,” June said after a bite, glancing up from her plate to Reyes and taking note of his serious demeanor. “What’s up? I’m sure your priority was coming here to bring me some food out of the kindness of your heart, but what’s the second reason?”.

Sebastian snorted and smirked at her. “I’m practically Mother Theresa,” he said. “Obviously I did it to get bonus points with the big guy in the sky.” He took a bite of his food and then set the plate down on the coffee table. June had begun to know him too well and sometimes he resented that he let himself get close enough to have someone again who was able to read him. A part of him feared it would end the same way it did with Kishan. “The code,” he said, “for the Geists....” He clenched his jaw and looked away for a second. What was the best way to tell her? Was he bad for hiding it? Even though a lot of it was his code, he had no idea how to stop them. Plus, he was pretty sure that GAIA was able to take the code to be able to adapt it to whatever it wanted to use it for. “Have you ever heard of a Fire Sale?” 

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

@elcucuy-reyes​

It had been an absolute, literal nightmare to pass that goddamn level… June was sure she’d be haunted by what the Geists tormented her with for a while, but progress had been made and that was all the hacker wanted to think about. She’d been so tired that day and basically slipped out of Jonas’ apartment without a word. June slept all weekend and called in sick on Monday. It was a better excuse to say she was sick than to say she was recovering from the physical and mental toll of fighting fucked up ghost-like programs inside a virtual reality.

She was on her couch, only half-paying attention to some stupid video on her phone when the buzzer rang. It had become a sort of unspoken rule between herself and Reyes, to check up on each other -without formally admitting that’s what they were doing- whenever they had a rough go at The Grid. The hacker let him in and by the time he reached her floor June had already opened the door, left it ajar for him, and was back on the couch.

"You’re certainly a sight for sore eyes,” Sebastian said, watching as June moved back to her couch. He stepped inside, setting down a box of food from the Japanese restaurant down the block. He’d already been to June’s apartment enough times to know where all the plates and silverware were. It was a familiar routine by now. Bas was laying low in the friend group since tensions were still high, so no one ever really knew that he and June were still hanging around each other. If they did know, they didn’t talk about it to their faces. 

Unfortunately, because of the tensions with the group, Sebastian couldn’t do too much to help June. The best way to keep things somewhat civil between the two sides was to keep Sebastian away from the Grid for now. It seemed to work out since Kishan’s program didn’t spill any beans about the Geists coming from Bas’s old code. Bas himself kept quiet about the code too, but now that June and some other members of the group were able to get through the level, he figured this would be the best time to come clean. Sebastian finished plating the food for June and handed it off to her. He had a little bit of food on a plate for himself and he sat down in the chair across from her. “They were all out of pork, so I just stuck with chicken for you this time. Seemed like a safe bet.”

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

“His whole consciousness is in there! Of course he’s alive if that part of him still exists,” June heard Elena argue back as her mind began to drift and she was welcomed back into the familiarity of The Grid. She had continued to step into Level 41, stubbornly going in to face off against the Geists. She never stuck around long enough to lose two lives, and each time those eerie beings pulled something from her mind regarding a certain someone and used it against her… Funnily enough, that tactic was becoming old, as June grew more and more aware of the differences between the real Sebastian and the one the Geists used to torment her in the Delta sector.

She woke up in a much less hostile space than the icy tundras of Level 41, appearing in the space that she supposed was home to Kishan and Sera. “Jonas, make sure to monitor him when he pops up in your screen,” she said into her comm device. Little after, Sebastian’s avatar materialized by her side and the hacker gave him a little nod, as if they were on a mission together to figure out this whole situation regarding Kishan’s corrupted code and the algorithm he used for Geists. “Try not to go for the jugular,” she said with a pointed look, sensing that Reyes could be a timebomb ready to explode before his former friend at any given time. “We’ll figure this out together, okay?”.

Bas hadn’t gone into the Grid as often lately. The last couple times he went in he realized that the code of from the Geists came from his old code for his fire sale program and the time after that was when he told Kishan. Now, here he was back in the Grid again with June, the gears in his mind spinning to try and figure out how to cover his own tracks. Sebastian had figured out how to make this group of friends and he wasn’t about to lose them. For the most part, most of them had accepted him despite his past crimes. 

Sebastian materialized next to June inside the digital space that Kishan and Sera lived in. He clenched his jaw at June’s remark. “No promises,” he muttered through gritted teeth. Last time he saw Kishan, it was just meant to be a civil conversation. He went to Kishan to try and make amends and help the rest of the team out, but then Kishan went ahead and threw it all back in his face, reminding him how much he hated the guy. “Yeah. I’m sure we will,” he said. “I still think we should just delete him. Be done with this and be done with having ghosts haunting us. The sooner we can be done with this issue the faster we can get to getting rid of the Geists. We’ve been stuck on Level 41 for months.”

[welldressedllama]

DontchaWanta?

[kishan-ahuja]

You chose the wrong side.

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

June pressed her lips into a tight line, and she ran a hand through her hair, beginning to feel worried about the situation. She knew that The Grid continued to evolve, they all knew it, but it never crossed her mind that Kishan might end up affected by the inner changes of the virtual reality. “But we can’t just delete Kishan like that, he’s alive in there,” Elena interjected. The hacked looked at her nodded subtly because she had thought a similar thing. “If Kishan has been affected by G.A.I.A. we need to figure out how to clean his code,” she suggested instead. If the AI had used a virus of some sort of get to Kishan, there were ways to revert that. There had to be. Deleting him was just too… permanent. “And if the Geists are his algorithm, once he’s clean he can help us revert it”. She let out a breath and then glanced at Jonas. “I’m going in. Check Kishan’s code carefully. Whatever G.A.I.A. might have done to him, we’ll find it there”. She met Sebastian’s eyes later, “You should monitor Kishan’s code too, see if anything odd catches your attention. You two worked together, you might be able to recognize if anything doesn’t look like his work,” she added, since Kishan’s code had been written by Kishan himself. Without another word she moved towards the chairs that Jonas had arranged as their new setup for when any of them linked to the virtual reality. She rolled up the sleeve of her sweater and placed the needle in play to go under. It took mere seconds for June to become unconscious and have her mind transported to the digital world.

"He’s not alive,” Sebastian corrected. “He’s part of a machine now. He’s just ones and zeroes. There’s nothing that’s ‘alive’ about him.” The thought of Kishan being alive and trapped in a machine while his original self was dead and six feet in the ground was haunting. He was surprised to see June agree with Elena. June had always kept people at arm’s length. This was proof that that wasn’t always the case. “So, we clean it and keep him in there and just hope it doesn’t happen again?” Sebastian raised his eyebrows at her. “Look. It doesn’t hurt for everyone to move on. It’s been two years. We can’t keep his ghost around here like he’s a jacket you throw into the closet and bring out every now and then.” They didn’t have the same relationship with Kishan like he did. They wouldn’t understand. He didn’t even think that June understood. 

“Wait-” Before Sebastian could stop her, she’d gone into the Grid. If she talked to Kishan in there, she’d find out the truth quickly. He watched as other members of their group moved towards the chairs to go in as well. He clenched his jaw and looked at Jonas as he set everything up. Sebastian walked over to the chairs, sitting down and placing the needle in his arm.

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

A part of June just wanted to reach out and touch him, and tell him ‘Talk to me’. But it didn’t feel appropriate to do that here, not with an audience, not when they couldn’t let their barriers down and just be honest or vulnerable with each other. The hacker had no idea what Sebastian wanted to say, and it never crossed her mind that it might be what he actually told them. “What?” she asked in a low tone. Kishan was gone and she had already dealt with the grief of losing a friend, but he wasn’t entirely gone. Ending that part of what remained of him inside The Grid felt like killing the last essence of him. “No, but Kishan- He’s not an agent system like G.A.I.A. he couldn’t have written code from within…” she trailed off, glancing around the room to see the expressions of the others after Reyes delivered those news. If Zara and Bailey were here, June knew they would be resolutely against it. Shadia too, most likely. Perhaps even Javier. But the hacker tried to think rationally. “Why do you think that’s the case?”.

A voice in the back of his mind told him he should backtrack and explain everything, but his self preservation said to keep spinning the web of lies. Sebastian had to get rid of the ghost that kept following him around. He looked down at June with sympathetic eyes. “I don’t know how it happened, but we already know the Grid is changing and evolving all the time. Maybe he programed himself to have this ability. Or when we all got new abilities, he got one.” Sebastian set his eyes on everyone else in the room. He knew they were all close to Kishan so he had to really sell it to get them to pull the trigger and delete Kishan’s program. “I know that’s the case. Kishan and I used to work together years ago. I was looking over the code for the Geists and recognized it as Kishan’s code. Some of it was changed to make the Geists, but it was his algorithm.” Kishan wasn’t there anymore to defend himself. He could just hear his voice though scolding him for what he was doing. Nice. Blame it on the dead guy, Kishan would have said. Sebastian just had to hope that if they went in that he could keep Kishan quiet.

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

She’d gotten a text from Sebastian early in the day. It was very cryptic but she could immediately tell something was wrong. She feared he was continuing to spiral down but then the only hit she got from him was that it had to be related to The Grid because he asked to meet the group at Jonas’ place- their new HQ after their old building at Turing was demolished. She wasn’t the first to get there. Elena was already there. She looked at Jonas, but his shrug indicated that Reyes hadn’t yet spoken about the issue. “What happened, Sebastian?” she asked, stepping closer to him.

Sebastian pressed his lips together into a thin line. He knew what he needed to say. He practiced in the mirror how to tell them that it was his fault. Why was it so hard to say those words now in front of them? Everything he’d practiced had flown out the window. His mind went blank as June asked him what happened. He turned to face her, hating himself for what he did. His eyes scanned the room as Jack came in to join Elena’s side. The only thing that could make this even worse would be if Shadia joined in too, but lucky for him, she was in LA. Before Sebastian could stop, all the words tumbled from his mouth. “We need to delete Kishan’s program. I think GAIA corrupted him and he wrote the program for the Geists.” And he could’t take any of it back. 

[elcucuy-reyes]

“We’ve got a huge problem,” was all Sebastian could say when someone from their group came into the room. He glanced up at them before looking back down at the paper in front of him with scribbles everywhere. He clenched his jaw, unsure of how to explain to them their next big challenge when it came to the Grid. This time, the problem was directly caused by him. He’d just started getting used to having friends and partners again, but now he was about to lose them all.

[elcucuy-reyes]

Sebastian stared at the computer screen, trying to process everything. He scrolled up and down, reading over the code to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. He was risking a lot by sitting at this computer and working on code, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It felt familiar. Jonas was kind enough to let him in to go over the code in private and didn’t ask too many questions. The more he looked at it, the more he realized why the Geists were so hard to get rid of. 

“The code is yours?!” Kishan growled. He gave Sebastian a rough shove to the chest. All of his old feelings and opinions of his ex best friend resurfaced and he remembered why they never spoke anymore. 

Sebastian stumbled back but didn’t shove Kishan in return like he would have otherwise. “No. I mean yes. I-Not exactly.”

“It’s the firesale code, isn’t it?” Kishan asked. His helmet on his avatar was on so Sebastian couldn’t see his face, but he knew he was pissed. 

Sebastian pursed his lips together, remaining silent. 

“How did GAIA get it?” Kishan couldn’t understand how it could have happened if Sebastian wasn’t allowed to be on computers. GAIA must have accessed saved versions of Sebastian’s consciousness or something. 

“I don’t know! You’re the one who lives here now! Why don’t you know?!” Sebastian shouted back. Then he remembered all the times he’d blacked out. He thought it was from lack of sleep or drinking too much, but maybe it wasn’t just that. Maybe GAIA had somehow taken control of him and made him write the code for the Geists. 

Whatever it was, the code was modified to be harder to change. It was what made the Geists so hard to get rid of. They were constantly evolving to attack the gang when they went into the Grid. Sebastian suspected the Geists weren’t just for tormenting them, but also as a test run for something bigger. Just a few more modifications and GAIA could run a full blown firesale and completely delete the country’s infrastructure. 

Kishan turned around to face Sebastian. “This is why I wanted you to delete that code. And you didn’t. Now here we are. You shouldn’t even be here. Why did you even get involved? Were you bored? Were you looking for your next thrill?”

Sebastian clenched his jaw and stared at Kishan through his own helmet. “You were the one who wanted me here. You were the one who left your fucking research with Tara to give to me. Some version of you out in the real world. You’re not even real in here. You’re just a program. Ones and zeroes.”

“I thought that maybe you’d changed. Maybe you’d use your skills for good and actually helping others instead of wasting your time on petty heists and hacking into email accounts. I guess I was wrong,” Kishan replied. 

“You are so full of shit, Kishan,” Sebastian said. “You were a part of it too. You wanted to be in it with me. And once you got back into society and got your fancy job offers and school scholarships and whatever, you changed. You lost sight of what it was really like to be an anarchist and a hacktivist. You became just like the rest of them.”

Kishan remained silent for a few minutes. It reminded him of one of their last conversations together when Kishan first confronted Sebastian and told him to get rid of his firesale program. Kishan let out a deep breath. “You have to fix this. And after you do, don’t come back.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. You don’t own the Grid and you don’t own me.”

“What I’m really saying is stop being a part of the group,” Kishan told him. “They’re better off without a dirtbag like you.”

[elcucuy-reyes]

june-maslow​:

June fished a shiitake mushroom from her soup container with her chopsticks, glancing up to look at Sebastian. He didn’t sound as excited as one might have expected when speaking of his little brother coming to live and study here. He was hermetic as one could be when it came to speaking about his family. All June really knew was that they didn’t get along, but the root of it all was unknown to her. The root didn’t matter as much as its effects, though, that much she could say based on her own strained relationship with her family. “And coming here without her permission is out of the question, I suppose?” she half-stated, half-asked. It was hard for a teenage boy to afford moving to a new city and cover his tuition, even with a scholarship and student loans. She could imagine that Diego might need his parents’ blessing in order to attend university anywhere. The hacker took another bite of her food, catching some noodles and tofu in her soup. “Come on, I’d make a genius badass out of him,” she smirked a little, “Besides, there’s worse people than me out there. I’d just prepare him for the worst people to expect”.

“Now, you just gave me some ammunition there, Reyes,” the hacker said with a chuckle as he admitted his dislike for the rabbit food sort of thing. But frankly, she didn’t think she’d mess with him like that. Not anymore, at least. It was infinitely better to enjoy a meal together that they enjoy than trying to annoy him like that.

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders and pushed some of the food around. He searched for the words before speaking. “You could say that,” he said. She was a tough and demanding woman for sure. She was the leader of the family, even though their father was as equally tough and demanding. “If you met her, you would understand,” he added. Most people, especially his old girlfriends and one boyfriend, realized what he meant when he said she was difficult but only once they met her. “I don’t know though. He still has his heart set on UNC, but he just keeps this idea of coming here in the front of his mind. He doesn’t know what he wants to do. Maybe he’ll go there for a year and transfer. I don’t know. It’s up to him, although I advised him not to come to school with me. I’m sure it wouldn’t help his esteem to have his older, smarter, and hotter brother here in the same school wit him,” Bas joked. “I’m pretty sure my mother is tougher on him and the rest of us than you’d ever be on him.”

“Haha, very funny, Princess,” Sebastian said, making a face at her. “Don’t try it. Don’t even entertain the idea.” He took a bite of his food and smiled at her. It was one of the more pleasant meals he had that month. While he loved May and always enjoyed being with her, he didn’t always feel like she understood him and if she ever found out his darker secrets, she’d never understand him. She didn’t seem to get him in the way that June did. But then again, he always figured that May would still accept him just as she had when he told her about the circumstances of his probation and ankle monitor. He wasn’t sure how much he could keep from May now that the Grid was beginning to affect his life on a more daily basis. It seemed that it was going to come down to choosing to give up the Grid to be with May or to say goodbye to May to continue working on the Grid with June.