The Hunt

The second they set him loose, Archimedes types out a message to Rhea. We need to talk, it says, and he spends a long time looking at the little words on his screen, staring at him like an accusation, and deletes them all. Rhea has already heard, surely, and anyway… Archie isn’t ready for it, yet. She’s going to be heartbroken and furious—not unlike Archie is, right now—and he needs more to show for it before he can face her.

It feels like his fault. It feels like there has to be something Archie could have done differently. Could have hacked the anarchist back, discovered the truth of the messages earlier on. Could have realized what was happening sooner and acted to protect Adonis. Could have been just fucking good enough that Adonis would trust him with the truth. Something. But it’s too late, now, and they’ve carted Adonis off to who-knows-where, and Archimedes is… lost, maybe. Responsible, definitely. 

“Should have just let them think it was me,” he mutters at the screen, where he still has Rhea’s contact pulled up. “Should have…”

The truth is: he doesn’t know what he should have done. What he did, the decision he finally committed to, was more than bad enough. He was put in a position where he was forced to choose between the government of Iyzmiska and his best fucking friend, and he chose the government like a good little pup. He handed in Adonis’s name like everybody else. He could have done something different. This is his fault.

Suddenly, being in the clear air of this district of Praque makes his skin crawl. He puts his PDA away, shoves his hands in his pockets, and hurries down the street. He gives dark glares to anyone he passes until they start to return them—down in dingier parts of the city, poorer and run-down enough that the people here don’t offer or expect polite smiles. Here, Archie can breathe just a bit better. His heart is still twisted up in his chest, and all he can think about is Adonis.

His earnest eyes. His anxious questioning. His terror when the suspicions started to turn on him, and the way he had promised that it wasn’t him. Archimedes would like to think he knows Adonis, the friend he has spent his entire life with. He wants to believe that Adonis would tell the truth. But the evidence shows that, at the least, Adonis lied by omission; if he can do that, what else was he keeping from Archie? What else didn’t he trust Archie with? 

His PDA blips at him, and with a frustrated growl, Archie pulls it back out. The message is a simple string of text, but the letters themselves dance and flicker like the device itself is malfunctioning trying to display it. Archie squints at the words before him as they slowly resolve themselves into a pattern:

We Are Already Among You.

Archie snorts. The hacker had said something similar earlier. Many of the other suspects, then-exonerated, had taken it as a meaningless threat. Just more words meant to make them scared. Archimedes isn’t convinced; while he doesn’t know what sort of technology could be capable of such a feat as mind control—and he knows plenty about technology—his gut says to believe it. He doesn’t think these anarchists would make such a wild claim if they couldn’t back it up—if they didn’t intend to back it up. Potentially soon.

He frowns at the message itself, its scrambled text. The good thing to do, in such a situation, would be to report this to AIDM and move on with his life. Archimedes has been under more than enough scrutiny from law enforcement for the rest of his life, and if he ever even sees the inside of an interrogation chamber again he will absolutely lose it. But he doesn’t report it. On a whim, he writes back: is this a threat?

He would almost like it to be a threat. Some small part of him wants this anarchist to wrest away control of his body and make the decisions of the next few days for him. Get rid of the guilt and the anger and the feeling that he wasn’t good enough to turn this mess into gold. Get rid of all of it. Tear it down. 

The next message comes almost immediately. It says: Find Us. And something about it spurs Archimedes into action.

He returns to his home, an apartment high above the rest of the city, packed with the tech he needs to effectively do his job. A heavy-duty computer, a fancy monitor, and a collection of jammers and homemade bits which help to anonymize him as he works. He sits at his desk, plugs his PDA in, and gets to work. It isn’t just about finding where this signal is coming from: it’s about finding the person who decided Adonis was worth nothing but a petty scapegoat and making them do something else about it.

The time passes like light through the window. Archie’s home has a stunning view of Praque—he pays good ziskas for it—and especially at night, the city gleams. It would almost convince you that it’s worth it, all the surveillance, the constant threat of arrest over the tiniest of crimes. Archie believed it, for awhile. Thought that the money was worth staying in Praque, because at least he loves the view. Thought that Adonis was insane for spending all his time out in the wastes, where it’s hostile and dangerous and dirty.

Archimedes knows better now. It doesn’t matter how smart he plays the game: the government of Iyzmiska will find a way to get rid of him the second he’s inconvenient. And if that’s how life is going to work, then why does Archie toe the line? Why does he spend so much of his time setting himself up like this, the petty troublemaker who will side with the government when it really matters? 

He got Adonis locked up with that attitude. It has to end.

It’s difficult. It’s almost hopeless, except that Archimedes is the best hacker in the city and he knows how to use Iyzmiska’s resources to track people down at least as well as Izymiska does. He narrows the location down to one city district, and then to one block. With another three hours’ concentration, he manages to narrow it down to one building. He watches the map with cold eyes, already planning what he has to say. 

His PDA pings again. A new message from the scrambled text, which feels like a challenge.

We’re Waiting :)

He’s halfway across the room already, pulling on his jacket and a hat to cover his ears. It’s late, but he can’t wait a second longer. He has to see what this is. He has to know if he can use it. These people put Adonis in jail; they must have a means to get him out. Archimedes will force it out of them if he has to.

On the way, he types out a message to Rhea. I have a plan. Come find me.