This is my Nanowrimo project. Pray for me.
If an apartment is wrecked on the sixteenth floor, and none of the neighbours claim to have heard it, did it really get wrecked at all? I forced my eyes open and squinted at my bedroom again, unchanged from before I'd closed them thirty seconds ago. Yes, I had to admit. Even if the neighbours all said they heard nothing, everything I own has very emphatically been trashed.
I picked my way through the carnage of the bedroom, keeping my gaze fixed on my now shattered desk, and certainly not looking at the shelf I'd kept family photos and roughly every irreplaceable memento I owned on. As I crept over the spilled and torn up laundry piled over fallen lamps and books, something like a mantra started to repeat itself in my head.
Just not the tower. Just not the tower. If the monitors were wrecked, fine, that was some cash down the drain, but I had friends in computer shops so it wouldn't be too bad. Another money sink I didn't need from this whole… event, but not the worst of it. My computer tower though, that was irreplaceable. Ironically, just that thought made me more confident. Alexy had to know it was irreplaceable, he wouldn't have his goons smash up my main way of paying him back, right? Even a mob boss had that much familiarity with technology.
After all, he knew that the tower was the very reason I'd taken a loan from him in the first place.
I nearly lost my footing on the remains of my computer chair before I got to my desk, the circuit board spilling out of the head of the chair reminded me that the stupid thing had speakers by the headrest that I'd never actually bothered to use. Ugh, how much of the price tag had been justified by that? Too much, probably. Stupid thing had been comfy as hell to sit on though.
A glint of… something reflective at the edge of my vision forced me to stop delaying the inevitable, and I turned to face my computer tower, no longer hidden from me by the desk's silhouette.
I'm a pretty quick thinker, it's a skill in my line of work, but looking at my computer tower then, I felt like I was thinking through molasses. It sat exactly where I'd left it, in all of its extra-large glory, which for a split second filled me with joy. And then I noticed that the glint that had drawn my eye was from a clear liquid that had pooled in a divot on the top of the tower.
Then the smell hit me. It was so out of place, I wasn't sure how it didn't leave the whole room reeking. Alcohol, and not wine or the sweetened, flavoured drijpa I'd sometimes buy myself a case of when I wanted to get drunk. Damn Alexy and his jokes, he'd had his goons pour a bottle of high end, probably 100 proof or some shit, drijpa into my god damn computer tower worth several tens of thousands of miron that I was working on paying him back for .
I was a credit to my own sense of composure in that moment, my mind might have been somewhere around a thirteen on the 1-10 panic scale, but I didn't cry! My nose didn't start running as I curled up into a ball, I didn't lose several hours of time rocking back and forth on the floor of my apartment amid the ruins of everything I owned, I didn't even crawl into the kitchen to try and get myself some water, dragging random trash from my room behind, before realizing that they'd smashed the whole kitchen up too- including the faucet. No, I didn't do any of that when I saw what they'd done to my computer.
But I did do all of that pretty much to a T when I turned around and saw that they'd painstakingly torn up every individual photograph I'd kept on my 'important personal belongings' shelf. They'd ripped up all of the cards from old friends and family I hadn't talked to in forever. They'd smashed the pocketwatch my grandpa had given me, gears and springs left scattered around my bedframe. The cute little toy magic wand made from a tree branch in our backyard my dad had carved for me when he was into whittling wood for a bit when I was a kid had been chunked into three pieces, one of which had been stuck through my university diploma.
After the initial horror and curling up on the floor, I ended up mostly just laying there in a state of vague, bewildered shock. There's sending a message, and there's sending a fucking message. Alexy had clearly ordered his knuckleheads to go for the latter. Like, was this not incredibly over the top? I hadn't had the opportunity to interact with many mob bosses besides good ol' Alexy, but specifically targeting clearly irreplaceable shit- even computer aside- was that not a bit much?
What kind of message was this meant to send, anyway? I wondered as I slowly recovered my faculties. Clearly, like any ransacking of your living space, it's meant to scare you, an invasion of a place you consider 'yours.' Just because I was aware of the psychology around that definitely didn't make it any less terrifying. But even that aside, I'd missed, what, three payments on the loan? A drop in the bucket at the scale his mob tosses money around at, all it would mean was more interest for me to eventually pay off. It could be a respect thing? Maybe failing to pay three times in a row got me sent to the shitlist out of some stupid gangster honour tripe. If that's the case, the guy really should've just put that into the contract.
Most of all, why the fuck would he tell them to specifically target my computer tower? I groaned and rolled myself up off the floor of the kitchen, rubbing at some of the tear-crustiness that had formed in my eyes. He had to know that the computer not only is my primary source of income, but very specifically has numerous very irreplaceable files on it. Not only would having to fix my apartment take, you know, weeks and thousands and thousands of miron, but my income would plummet significantly as I'm constrained to worse hardware. So why the fuck would he have them target it?
I turned the thought over back and forth in my head as I slowly made my way through the tiny living room/foyer of my apartment- and then froze. An envelope. On the suspiciously untouched sofa. I must have overlooked it in my initial panic at seeing the door lock broken. I inched over to it, and carefully picked it up. On one side, my name in flower cursive. The side with the flap was sealed with an ornate wax stamp marked with a letter A . The absolutely pretentious prick.
I broke the seal, making sure to tear it in half and toss it on the ground. Where I stomped on each half for good measure, earning an angry shout from the unit below me. Fuck you Alexy, and fuck you, unit below me. So much for no one hearing what happened in here.
A deep breath to steel myself, and I opened the letter.
Dearest Lana,-
Fuckfaciest Alexy.
- I've heard through the grapevine that you've recently been the victim of an unfortunate bit of home vandalism, my deepest condolences-
Oh, well, I've recently heard through the grapevine that fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
- and in light of this, I will of course be willing to extend the deadline on your loan repayments, even despite the previous three missed payments. However, as your lender, I find myself rather worried at the freelance nature of the work that you do, particularly if any of your equipment has been damaged in the home vandalism.-
Little bit on the nose there, Alexy.
- As such, I am once again extending an offer of long term, direct employment for my business, until such time as your debt to me is repaid. The terms are the same as the previous two offers, which I'm sure you'll agree is most generous of me. If you do not manage to find another source of long term employment, and do not wish to accept my offer, then I'm afraid we will have to have a mediation over the terms of our contract. You should avoid that.-
I didn't bother reading any more, and tossed the letter to the floor while I flopped down onto the sofa. That was it then. He'd gotten tired of playing softball with me, and wanted to use the debt to force me to work for him. I took a handful of deep breaths. This made things easier, in a way. That last bit, about finding another 'long-term' job? Almost certainly bullshit. I could get a job at any number of the tech giants around here, incredibly easily, in all likelihood. But I'd be willing to bet he's also got fingers in all of them, and could and would make my resume go missing, poison the well against me in the hiring room, and anything else to make him my only 'option.'
Fuck that, I decided instantly, filled with righteous indignation, I'm not playing his fucking game. He might have made me feel unsafe in my own home, he might have had his goons destroy everything but the clothes on my back and what's in my pockets, but there's one thing he could never take away from me!
My absolute willingness to cut and run when situations got too absurd. Decision made, I pulled my Tuyu out, to send a text to the most unhinged person I knew.
Yo, Abi, check it. I sent her a message with a picture of my wrecked bedroom attached.
Damn. Wild party?
Nah, mobsters, happened some time before sundown. Sundown was our codeword to indicate the burner phone about to text her work phone was actually me.
I rifled through my hoodie's oversized pockets for my latest burner, some 6th-party knockoff of a knockoff of a three generation old Tuyu phone from one of the cities across the flats. I fumbled with the slide-out keyboard and quickly typed in my password.
Yeah so Alexy got tired of waiting I guess, he's pushing his employment offer with an added benefits package of not murdering me like he murdered my poor, sweet, innocent computer. And everything else I own.
Absolute fucking bastard. We gonna ruin him?
I laughed out loud. Abi rocked. Half a penpal, half a colleague, one hundred percent in my corner all the time. We'd met originally on some private chat room in the community, before the government had nationalized the Perlosian internet, originally we were just exchanging tips, but we got along well enough that it'd become by far the closest friendship I actually maintained all the way to adulthood. That all said though, we didn't stand a chance at harming Alexy's 'business' in any meaningful way, if only because the majority of his work was analog.
Nah, no means to fuck him up. You had a job for me that you said involved travel a while back, that happen already?
HOLY SHIT REALLY!?!?!
I smirked. She'd pestered me about it for weeks before I made it emphatically clear I wasn't interested in traveling. It was kinda shitty of me to go back on that now, but if she was this excited I couldn't feel too bad.
Yeah, it's kind of spur of the moment but I think I need to get out of town. For good. Where's the job? Over the flats I guess?
Uuuuuuugh I don't think I can say? I have to check with the others, sorry. We already called it off cause you weren't in but if you are I bet we can get everyone back together. Gonna go do that now stay safe love you bye!!!
I snorted, then frowned. A whole job called off because of me? I figured it was just an easy payday, or at most an excuse for us to finally meet up or something, since Abi would be along herself anyway, and she's no slouch. Well, whatever, it's a ticket out that will leave me with some extra cash besides my own rainy day fund, most of which is probably gonna have to go to a laptop or something.
Lol sure. You stay safe too.
The burner was halfway into my pocket when it buzzed again.
Thx! Will you be on this burner long?
Yeah. Cash is tight right now, obviously, I'll be sticking with this.
Cool cool cool I'll send your ticket to this if I can get everyone together okay now ttyl bye!!!
I rolled my eyes and pocketed the burner, and set out to find a hotel for the night. Ideally, one nearby a computer store, and far, far away from Alexy's headquarters. Being the most skilled hacker on the continent kinda fucking sucks, some days.
