1 The World Beneath Eyes

Nolan was a software engineer who worked full-time at VR-KIT, a software development firm dedicated to cyber-security and anti-malware software development. Nolan had been working there for a while. He lived with his parents in Philadelphia, and his superiors were pretty flexible with him working this way. He was of average height and had a spotless face. Quite unusually, his looks often deceived others into thinking he was still a teenager. Nolan was part of a hacker group that infiltrated other companies for bounties.

The usual bounties ranged somewhere around 24-80 grands. But some rare bounties went up to millions. He had a few people on his team, Brook, his best friend from a very young age. They had started hacking together, and that is how they formed this group. Nolan was a supportive friend. Many people came to this group, and many went away, but Brook was a constant for him whom he loved the most.

He took his bag from his room, which was organized as no one would expect Nolan's room to be organized. For most of his life, he had been a chaotic and active person, but when adulthood came, he became more serious with life, and he didn't share about his feelings too much to people, one of the reasons people thought he was still like that.

He took his laptop, charger, power bank, some Arduino circuits, and some Raspberry Pi projects he had made. He put on his headphones and started walking out of the house.

He then walked straight behind a Barbeque Diner where he handed off cash to a thug. The thug signaled him, and he understood that he was good to go. Nolan also did some personal freelancing on the Dark Web. He asked the thug to place a Raspberry Pi in a particular McDonald's not far from where he used to live. A week later, the joint was closed as evidence was found that there was a lot of HCA in their meat, increasing the risk of cancer.

The manager was fired, and a backlash resulted in all McDonald's chains in Philly, resulting in a 15 percent drop in sales.

He soon reached his base of operations which was an abandoned garage behind a Repo. The door has a small sliding window. which can be opened from the inside. Like the ones, Nolan used to see in the prison break movies.

The window opened, and a girl from inside asked for a password. Nolan said "Really, we gonna do this". The girl simply said again "Password." Nolan says "E, T, A,2, dollar, charlie, timeout". The girl opened the door, she looked at him with an obvious smile, and asked "Was that so hard now?". Nolan hands her the falafel he had been carrying. He rushes inside the room, the room from the inside was a little too old, there were cracks everywhere looked like an abandoned building where they had set up just the day before. There were cobwebs on the nearest window from where they could see everything.

Carly who was still learning to hack was still in high school. She took a massive bite of the falafel and asked Nolan, "How much did you get?". Nolan replied, "5". 5 bitcoins could feed the entire crew for days. He took out his phone and showed it to Carly, who was astonished by the fact. She started cheering loudly as some of the food fell out of her mouth. Nolan closed her mouth as he sat down at a desk and took out his laptop to look at the security.

Carly pushed Louise aside and sat on his chair. She kept asking him about the hack, but he kept dodging the question. Saying it was "good" or either "easy". Brook finally looks away from her computer and Carly tells her that Nolan got 5 bitcoins for the hack. Brook looks proud and she raises her fist for a potential fist bump with Nolan but Nolan looks at his laptop and keeps typing.

Brook and Nolan have not been on speaking terms for the past few days as they had an argument about the same hack a couple of days ago.

Brook has been a high achiever for most of her childhood. She always scored more than him and got more attention from her peers, teachers, and other parents. While Nolan's dad thought of incompetent, irresponsible, and good for nothing. He always made him feel he was stupid and was lacking a lot.

That day he just got off a call from his workplace about budget cuts where his salary got decremented. He was already annoyed by that as his father kept blaming him for the fact his pay got decreased, being his fault and slack, and that he deserved it. He saw an encrypted mail, like the ones he gets from his dark web account, usually where he usually got his bounties. He saw Brook coming, and he told her about the hack.

She told her not to do it. He kept asking for the reason, but she said nothing regarding the reason, like she was dodging the question with all her will. But as he kept pushing, She snapped and told him that "He is not good enough". He didn't understand so he asked her to repeat what she said she repeated that he is not good enough. This led to a heated between them.

Louise looks at his phone, and he walks to his computer. He had finally found the flag he was looking for, meanwhile, Swat cars started surrounding the repo from all sides. An officer enters the Repo from the front door shows him his badge and signals him to shut up. The FBI forces start to enter the Repo from the front. Consequently, a handful of FBI soldiers secure the perimeter. The entire force works in unison, five soldiers held a ram to the door.

On the same count, the bust open a door, and 7 officers rammed the back door to force them directly into the hideout. Louise ran for it and took his phone into his hand. Carly fell on her face while trying to run, and Nolan burned all the servers. and Brook lit all the paper there was. Nolan and Brook forced there way out as there was a huge explosion from within that at the same time set the repo on fire. In the action, they start to look for Louise and Carly but before they could go in 4 officers come from behind the and pin both of them down. They handcuff them. and then yell out "You're under arrest for unethical use of computers..." Soon their voice faded out as the fire grew. Nolan looked at Louise who got his hands uncuffed. Nolan and Brook both were thrown inside a truck with their faces covered. A crowd gathered to see that event. People started coming out of their houses and cars started to stop at the scene of the fire.

As men came outside the building with a body of a young girl whose right arm and leg were burned. Her leg suffered the most as now it had to be amputated.

The truck was far from here as it soon stopped under a bridge. As they were panicking, Nolan kept looking at his phone. And soon enough, Nolan started a terminal and ran an exploit on his phone. Even though he didn't have wifi, the tool was sufficient to relay the network by connecting to other remote devices.

Just when Nolan decided to start writing some malicious script, the door opened and there was a man outside. He was looking much older than their fathers but was relatively young to be over 60. He had a black briefcase, a pair of glasses, and a pen on his shirt wrapped around with black tape.

Soon Guards stepped out of the truck and the man said "At ease," he gets inside, and they closed the door but didn't lock it. He uncuffs both of them and tells them "Not the best kind of arrest they had made, young Carly's leg has to be get rid of, Your own friend Louise outing you, must be pretty hard for both of you," Brook was scared but it was a little too obvious for Nolan as he saw cops uncuffing him when they were pinned down. Brook looks at Nolan and then he looks at Alfred "Why aren't you taking us to hold?". "I was hoping when you would ask me that question," said Alfred. "My name is Mr Alfred at least what you should be calling me. I have a way you guys not get arrested and spend 10 years of your life in prison." Brook asks "You mean the FBI right?". Alfred ignores the question and looks at Nolan "I have followed your work, your recent Mcdonald's Job I think was a hit. So I am here with a similar request, a similar offer. I need you to mix into a group of individuals collect some information and get that back to me. any questions?" asks Alfred.

Nolan has no clue what to say. He asks him to repeat what he said. He then tells them that there is no easy way to say this. "look without dropping any more shit let me make something clear for you. You see all those guys outside, they don't give a shit if I pull out my gun and drop you both dead inside. They follow orders. then he points to the door. "They are here because white men like me allow them to be out there." He tells him the plan carefully. "There is a particular gang that needs our attention. They sell weed, cocaine, heroin, and god knows how many different kinds of stuff. I need you to blend with these people and draw out some specific information I will provide you. You in or you out?" Nolan sits back while he tries to process this chain of events while Brook with a trembling voice says "Can we get some time to think about it?" Alfred first refused but then Nolan asked that they needed to take care of a few things first. After they do that, they will be ready with their final decisions.

Alfred acknowledges their request and gives them 10 days to reply. Then uncuffs them.

Some days go by.

Brook called. Nolan, who was sitting in front of his laptop, picked it up. They exchange their hellos. "Nolan asks her how she was?". "Pretty confused," replied Brook. He says the offer is great but she doesn't listen. They talk for hours, and then she decides that she will take the jail time because she was afraid to get caught or killed.

A few more days went by and Alan called. Alan was Brook's brother, he was a part of group too, but he left to pursue his career in cybersecurity. "Hey, Sup bro," asked Alan in a happy. Nolan replied likewise. they catch up for a while on what has changed and how it has changed.

Alan said he had heard about this FBI person Alfred from his sister. Nolan said that "You don't have to worry about that. I'm doing it." But Alan refused and said, "listen, if they look deep enough, they might find me or others who were a part of this. I'm doing this for all of us. Thank you, guys, didn't out me. Now it's my time to repay you guys."

After 10 days

Nolan and Alan sit with Alfred in his office to discuss new terms; while Alfred agrees, Nolan feels that something is off with him. But he ignores the feeling.

Alan and Nolan got to packing and taking care of necessary equipment from their homes. Brook enters Alan's room. "You didn't have to do this." Alan looks down and says "I need to, for us and all the other people who started this." She asked him does he know how they were caught and then she tells him that it was one of them who ratted them out.

Alan said "It doesn't matter because the people I worked with were loyal through and through it was not for a single second that some one knew our IP or identity. We were untrackable."

They left at Sunrise as an FBI van came to their door to pick them up.

When they arrived in LA, it was a different world altogether. Alan saw nothing that would distract him, knowing he could lose his life here. They moved to a safe house in a different neighborhood from where the gangs used to operate. They met field agent Carson he tells them he also had a similar background when he first came to the FBI and it was very recently that he had became a field agent.

They sat in a truck as they approached an alley. The truck stopped and Nolan could feel it. Carson opens up his laptop to show the facial IDs of the people he was about to talk about but the photos were old and low-pixelated, they were comprehensible but from far.

Then he started talking discussing the assignment "There are four gangs here, The Irish, The Chinese, The Natives, and The rival Natives. You will be infiltrating the natives, there is Phil he is the right hand of this ganglord if he recruits you you're in, the fastest way to get in.". Maurice says "Indeed".

Then Maurice continues, "There is a shipment taking place right now, I need you guys to hijack that shipment and make it look like an amateur job, make yourself public, use a cafe's network that's public enough. Surround yourself with around a lot of people and wait patiently whoever is going to find you will be pissed for sure. Cause this is an expensive shipment." They don't what was the shipment about. Nolan is scared of what is happening. He opened the door and went out for a walk. He looked at a cafe nearby. Wanted to get some coffee and was also feeling hungry, He came back and looked inside the truck. He asked for his bag along with Alan. He started to leave as Carson grabed him. He told him to come back alive, they need him. He said yes and went inside the Cafe with Alan.

The cafe was crowded as usual, Alan kept looking at the window while Nolan kept typing on the terminal. When Nolan was done he ordered two lattes. Then the wait started. A few hours later, the news came "an illegal shipment carrying 7 "Masseratis" have been apprehended by the federal government".

While they waited Alan asked Nolan about the time they were doing the "Russian Tesla" job and how close they were to being caught by the FBI. Nolan remembered and said "We forgot to mask our network and the Tesla's were almost at our repo." They remembered they got lucky that day. Alan asked the him What happened between him and his sister they used to be best friends almost insepeperable. Nolan said nothing and diverted the subject by saying that they have something else to worry about now. Nolan said if this Phil guy is important he has to do something something about this shipment.

After a few hours a black man with a beard style that looked exactly like a rapper they knew about came in to the cafe and in minutes lights go out. A door is opened on the other side of the joint where the man both Nolan and Alan and drops them. As he closes the door. Nolan sees that they were in an alley while Alan was looking at the man only due to his fear.

"Something, tells me you little pieces of shits need to up?". The man pointed a gun at both of them Nolan asked what he was talking about. "You know damn well, what talking about, the cars. That shipment was worth 10 million dollars" He takes a pause as He looked at them now with a calm expression "You know I thought this gotta be some experts trying to bring us down, but you guys are nothing just, worthless crap trying to be wannabes" He threw his hand in the air when talking, "I can't kill you now.". Nolan understands who he is but still ask his name to be sure. "Who are you again?" . "I'm a motherfucking Nazi who will stick this gun in your ass and fire it through your brain." Answered Phil. "He says it's not important and then picks both of them up." And then signals them using his Guns to get inside the car.

As they look back there is a car and waiting for them at the end of the Alley. A door opens and then Phill pushes them "Move it."