In this day of technology everything is digital. You got the bit-coins, social media information, accounts to banks, personal files, essentially everything is going digital. But when everything goes digital that leaves a lot of power in the men and women that breeze past firewalls to access the restricted information for their own personal use. These people are simply known as hackers, and they control so much behind the scenes in every city.

Deep inside the unsavory part of New New York, is a small diner that’s quite indistinguishable from the rest. Inside is a small crowd of people, most of them will never speak to each other and will never know what led the other occupants to coming here. But there are two occupants in this diner that are here not just to eat though, they are here on “business”. These two occupants are simply known as Pony and Corey.

Pony sat in his booth examining the holo-menu, wondering what piece of greased up garbage this place called food was being served. After examining the menu once or twice he looked up and said, “Corey, why did you decide this should be the meeting place with Mirror? Because I’m pretty sure that bloke over there keeps looking at me like I’m going to be his meal if that old robo-waitress doesn’t deliver hos food soon. And frankly, I don’t want to be some guy’s meal.”
Corey sighed and said, “Well Pony, this is the most incognito place to have this meeting I could think of on such short notice.”


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“I mean I get that, but did we have to come somewhere so… oh what’s the word…”

“Trashy?”

“That’s the word I’m looking for,” Pony went back to examining his menu.

Corey sighed then said, “Look I know this isn’t exactly a five star restaurant, but--“

Pony cut him off. “It’s not even half a star. Just look at this, fried bat. Who serves fried bat?”

“Well you know what they say, bats are the chicken of the caves.”

“Corey, no one says that. Where did you hear that? You have to be more gullible than that receptionist we fooled thinking we were janitorial staff.”

“Lighten up Pony, I was just quoting some old movie I found on some old holotape. I thought it was hilarious.”

“Well I’m just surprised Mesa hasn’t closed this place down.”

“Well knowing how they work, they’re probably too busy harassing people for money. To think they’re supposed to be the people that protect us. Ha!”

Pony looked outside sighing to himself, “Ok, seriously. Where is Mirror? Doesn’t he realize even hackers have places to be?” Pony sighed and looked at his watch then back to his menu. “Well this one sounds slightly tolerable. Oh wait, its just fried bat. Is all they serve here just fried bat? Because I’m getting that vibe.”

Shortly after this, the doors to the diner slid open for a new patron. Corey and Pony both turnt to see whom the new guest to the diner was. Standing there was a man in
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quite a fancy suit, a rare site in this part of New New York. He had a briefcase at his side, sunglasses covering his eyes, and a massive Afro on his head. Mirror really didn’t understand the meaning of the word inconspicuous.

Corey waved at Mirror to show him they were already there. As Mirror strolled over to the table Corey scooted over to make room for Mirror to sit in the booth.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a time, then Mirror broke the silence at the table, “Sorry for being late boys, something came up last minute I needed to address.”

“Oh it’s quite alright, we were just looking at what to order. I think Pony was thinking about getting some fried bat.”

“Oooo, you know what they say Pony, bats are the chicken of the caves.”

“See Pony, he gets it,” Corey said with a grin on his face.

“Ok fine. Whatever. So Mirror, what do you need from us?”

“Ah yes, the job. Understand I come to you two because I’ve heard you two are some of the more reliable hackers in the business.”

“We are,” both Pony and Corey said almost simultaneously.

“Oh that was creepy,” Mirror shuddered.” Well, I suppose you’d want some details so here they are. For the past couple of months my rival in the insurance industry, Hadvar Insurance, has been pulling some interesting things lately. Lately they keep beating me to the punch with several potential clients, so I suspect they’re up to something. I find this interesting because they’re known for using ruthless tactics to get their way. I believe they have put a spy into my company and are committing corporate

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espionage. However I can’t prove anything without any hard evidence against them in a court of law. So I think you can see my dilemma here.”

“So what do you need us to do?” Asked Corey.

“It’s quite simple really, I need you to somehow access their mainframe and check their files and see where they’re getting their information from as far as the clients they’ve been going for recently. If my suspicions are correct it should lead back to my company and the source of the leak of information.”

“Ok,” said Pony, ”sounds easy enough. So what’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”

“Well here’s the hard part boys. The server they keep their files on is on a closed system.”

“Ok so we need to access it manually, can’t do it remotely. That’s a game changer, looks like this gonna be a fun challenge,” said Corey. “Any idea where the main server is located?”

“I do actually, but before I can tell you, I’ll assume this means you’ll take the job?”

Corey and Pony looked at each other and just nodded at each other. They spoke in almost perfect synchronization, “We’re in.”

“Creepy, but good to hear you’re both in. Alright, I’m hungry, shall we get some brunch now?”
“Yeah, that sounds pretty good right about now,” said Pony, “but what to get?”
Corey got a smirk across his face, and went, “Waitress, we’re ready to order!”
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The robotic waitress rolled up on the track and went, “What will it be today hon?”
“Three orders of fried bat would be perfect,” replied Corey.
At this Pony punched Corey very hard in the jaw, because as we all know, bats are not the chicken of the caves.