Enea Lore

Enea looked at the city beneath him from the window pane of the office building. Dredged in darkness and illuminated only by the haze of a sleepless hub far below, he pressed his fingertips to the cold glass and watched the miniscule cars on their designated paths. A portion of him pitied them, another pricked with envy. To be among the plethora of human beings who coast through on rhythmic schedules. Of waking, working and sleeping at night. Enea both longed for it and detested it. 

But he could not linger for long. He had a job. Trawling through the absent office long shut for the night, he existed in its bleak and shadowy corridors, careful not to flicker through the security cameras, hood pulled over his head. Enea crouched by the key panel of a door, staring back at its dormant black mirror. In his pocket he pulled free a fob and inspected the design. After a moment’s hesitation, Enea pressed the fob to the panel.

By comparison, the panel’s shrill, singular bleep felt deafening in the otherwise prolonged, humming silence. The door clicked and the lock abated. Enea pushed his way inside. The room permeated a smell of paperwork and the smell of strong perfume. He waited. Nothing came, barring the occasional thrum of vent circulation running on its own coded schedule. A lone computer upon a desk awaited Enea’s presence, and upon shutting the door was greeted with Enea’s careful fingers upon the keyboard.

A harbinger of information for sale. Breaking in remained the most difficult part, but computers grew easier no matter the model updates and the facade of safety companies liked to promote. Enea did not think spies existed in the real world, not until he happened upon one. A world separately run to his former life. No more did Enea live in a mere one dimension, a part of a system. A schedule. He lived beyond it. 

The computer knew no distinction between Enea and its typical master. Before Enea it flickered to life, and with the technique to bypass its security, Enea allowed the computer to load up document upon document of information. He cared nothing for the secrets in front of him. A random assortment of words and things to be forgotten. But to some, it remained information worth paying thousands for. Enea loaded the data onto a small card retrieved from his pocket. 

He cleaned the keyboard. Once finished, he took the card and erased any note of him being inside. Untouched, and kept as it was. A spectre in the office, flitting through the halls and evading the capture of merciless cameras that shone in the dim light with their cyclops eyes. Enea averted being seen, hood pulled over as it had on entry, and escaped into the streets. He bore a semblance of normalcy there, among the rambunctious others involved within their own lives, a distant sonder plagued Enea for a moment as he weaved through the cacophony of noise. To the ramshackle apartment he called home, to price and sell the stolen data.