Page 2 of Anarchy Missing

CHAPTER TWO - CASE

“Are you listening?”

I’m not, not really. Thomas and Linc are pacing as I stare out the window. Lincoln is pissed off about some hack job with the banks. Thomas is trying his best to be indifferent to Linc’s anger—an angry Lincoln is a lot more dangerous than it used to be now that he’s changed—and I’m trying my best to listen to the two conversations going on outside my head as well as the one going on inside.

The city is talking to me.

But it’s like… it’s like I don’t understand the language. Not completely. It’s like Spanish. Something I learned but forgot. I recognize some of it. Like when you can pick out the word for shoes, or pants, or the color blue because those are the only sounds you remember.

“Case,” Thomas says sharply. He’s standing right behind me. His heat bothers me and I want—very desperately—to turn around and push him back. Make him step away so the coolness I carved into my arm this morning will last a little longer.

“What?” I snap back instead.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I turn to face him, letting my conversation with Cathedral City fall away into nothing but indistinguishable murmurs. “I’m thinking, dammit.”

“Well, you better be coming up with an idea,” Lincoln says. “Because shit just got real.”

A heavy sigh escapes my mouth before I can stop it. I don’t even know what they were talking about. I give the city one last glance over my shoulder and then leave it behind. Those conversations belong to the night. Or the early dawn, like this morning. Something to hide, for sure. “Tell me again what happened? I’m not following.” I say it calmly. Almost indifferent.

Lincoln tilts his head at me. Almost confusion. Or like he’s considering something. Wondering what my problem is, maybe.

Who cares?

The problem is, Lincoln, the city is talking to me and I can’t understand what it’s saying.

“The problem is that every bank in the city was hacked this morning, Case.” Thomas isn’t as curious about my behavior. It’s hard to make him care about much these days.

I just stare at him, wondering how a bank hack fits into my life.

“My program,” Lincoln says, raising his voice. “They hacked my fucking program.”

“Oh,” I say, understanding now.

“Oh?” Linc snarls as he walks up to me. “Oh? That’s all you have to say is, ‘Oh?’”

“What do you want me to say?” I ask, pushing past him, making sure I bump his shoulder so he knows I don’t want to be fucked with at the moment. And then I take a seat on the couch. I can still see the city from the couch. It’s a gray day. Blue, almost. The clouds above the mountains that ring the city are threatening more snow, but the temperature is mild at the moment, so it will come down as rain instead.

“I want you to say your end is fine, Case,” Lincoln growls. “You know, the same way Thomas just said his end is fine. That we’re on track, this is a coincidence, and I shouldn’t worry too much about the fact that someone just hacked into my motherfucking program!”

He yells that last part pretty loud. And when I look up at him, there are veins sticking out from his neck.

“Lincoln,” Sheila says from off to my left. “Calm down before you explode.” She’s inside SkyEye systems right now. Came with Linc on the helicopter.

I’m the one who will explode if I don’t figure out what the goddamned city is saying.

“Sheila,” Linc says, “we need to know where this hack came from. We need to know the full consequences—”

“We know,” Sheila says, cutting him off. “They stole seventy-five million dollars.”

I glance over at Thomas. “Your money?” I ask him, suddenly a little more interested in the conversation.

Thomas laughs. “I don’t keep my fucking money in the bank. But I bet you lost some, dumbass that you are.”

I get out my phone and pull up my banking app, check the balances of all my accounts. “Nope,” I say, shoving the phone back into my suit coat. “Mine’s all still there.”

“It is?” Sheila asks. “Are you sure?”