“I know what you’re doing and you can’t do it,” Kishan said, focusing on Bas as he came into view. He pushed a few people to the side and made his way over to his friend.
Sebastian picked up his coffee mug and took a sip, making a face at the bitterness. “Yeah? And what exactly am I doing?” he asked in a flat tone. He’d spoken to Kishan about his plans earlier, but never went into full depth about it. Kishan didn’t know anything about what he was going to do exactly, so it was going to be interesting to see what Kishan would say.
“You’re going to start a fire sale,” Kishan whispered. He kept his voice low and his head on a swivel to keep an eye on the people around them. He would have spoken to Bas earlier but the guy moved quickly and Kishan had to do something about it now.
Sebastian added more creamer into his coffee, stirring it before tossing the little wooden stick in the trash and walking away. “A fire sale? Last time I checked, I wasn’t really into shopping,” he said with a laugh. He glanced back at Kishan, leaving him behind.
“Bas, I’m not going to let you do this,” Kishan said, catching up with him. He reached out, grabbing Sebastian’s arm to make him turn around and face him. “You cannot just tear down all the infrastructure in this country by yourself and then rebuild it.”
Sebastian scowled at his friend, shoving his hand away. “Of course I’m not going to do this by myself. I have other people working with me and I’d hoped that you’d be one of them,” he replied.
“If you do this, there’s no coming back from it,” Kishan said, speaking more slowly in hopes of the words getting through to Sebastian. “What if it all goes sideways? What if you can’t fix it?”
“And what happened to you being a self proclaimed anarchist, huh? What happened to you wanting to stick it to the man?” Sebastian asked, getting closer and closer to Kishan until they were toe to toe. “What happened to being partners?”
“Everything we did before didn’t hurt people,” Kishan explained. “This is something different. People are going to get hurt. Do you understand what you’re doing?”
“Do you understand what I’m doing?!” Sebastian asked. The anger burned like a fire in his eyes as he stared at someone he thought was his friend. His confidant. His partner in crime. “The system is broken, Kishan. It is broken. People are out there having to choose between food and shelter. They have to choose between working and their children while there are billionaires sitting up on their thrones complaining about whether they should have sparkling or still water. You and I both know this. Don’t you remember that you were specifically the one who explained to me how everything needed a redo?” He tilted his head to the side, wondering if any of that jogged Kishan’s memory. He stared at his friend in his crisp suit, for an interview no doubt.
“What you’re talking about is taking out transportation, utilities, finances...the government.” Before discovering Sebastian’s plan, Kishan didn’t have a problem with the idea of starting the country over. After being kicked out of his parents’ lives, he saw what the world was really like and he wanted to change it. The problem was the more he worked with Sebastian, the more he realized how radical and extreme the guy was. He still wanted to call Bas his friend, but he couldn’t let his friend destroy the world. “You gotta delete your algorithm,” Kishan said, trying one last time to get through to Sebastian. “You gotta shut this whole thing down and forget about it. We’ll find another way to change things.”
“You’re asking me to delete my work?” Sebastian was beginning to feel like this was more about Kishan saving his own skin now that he was obviously ready to move on to higher education and jobs. If Kishan got caught in a scheme like this, his life would be done fore. Of course, if they did it right, Bas and Kishan wouldn’t even be caught. “How would you like it if I came up to you and asked you to delete your work, huh?”
Kishan shook his head, finding it harder and harder to get through to him. “If my work hurt people and you told me to delete it because it was hurting people, yeah, I’d get rid of it.”
“You’re full of shit and you know it,” Sebastian spat. He clenched his jaw and then pointed a finger at Kishan. “You think I don’t notice this whole white collar get up? The crisp shirt. The new tie. The jacket? God. You’re going to be just like the rest of them.”
“Better than being a bottom feeder like you,” Kishan replied.
Sebastian opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Kishan’s words stung more than he wanted to admit. After a few tense moments passed, Sebastian finally spoke. “A bottom feeder? That’s what you think I am?”
“Shut it down or I will,” Kishan said in a low and threatening tone.
“Try it and you’ll regret it,” Sebastian replied, glaring at him.
Kishan backed up before walking away from the guy he once called a friend. Everything they did before this was small stuff. Harmless for the most part. What Sebastian wanted to do was such a step up from what they’d done. It didn’t matter if Sebastian made the best and most efficient self mutating algorithm to help carry out his plan. Kishan knew that what he was going to do was wrong. Then again...Maybe he never really knew Bas at all.
