Connected

The Meeting Part 2

The man got up first and approached me with his hand outstretched. "Y/N, what an absolute delight." He kissed my hand. "My name is Philip, and this dazzling human..." He motioned to the woman behind him who had stood up. "Is Rena."

She bowed slightly. "I've heard quite a bit about you." Her speech was slow and I picked up just the faintest hint of an accent, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out from where.

I bowed back. "I'm flattered. But I do have to apologize." I straightened back up looking in between both of them. "I have never heard about either of you."

Philip smiled and Rena began giggling before speaking. "I would think that was a good thing."

Philip motioned for the couch across from them and Lee Know and I both sat down across from them. Lee Know leaned back instantly into the couch, trying to relax as much as possible.

"If you would have heard of us, that would mean you were in serious danger, or of great importance to us." Rena smiled.

I saw Lee Know's Adam's apple bob out of the corner of my eye. His hands were clasped together tightly in his lap. He was clearly not as relaxed as he wanted everyone to think.

"I'm hoping it's the latter then." I smiled at both of them.

Philip sat back, "Of course. Why else would we reach out? The trick you pulled a few days ago was brilliant." He patted his jacket pocket. "What made you think of it?" He only seemed partially interested as he looked for something in his pockets.

"Oh, um, well..." I fidgeted a bit. "It wasn't really supposed to work in the beginning. It was just an experiment that I played with several years ago. The idea was equality for social classes throughout the world." I motioned to Lee Know. "I honestly didn't even know that it was my code, until this morning."

He seemed to find what he had been looking for and pulled a lighter out of his pants pocket. He then grabbed a pack of cigarettes off of the table in between us and flicked the lighter open. He lit the cigarette, took a long drag then let out the smoke to the side.

Rena just rolled her eyes, "Must you do that?"

Philip smiled and took another drag. "Of course."

Rena made a noise to show her disgust before turning back to me. "My apologies. Being rude is one of Philip's skills."

Philip choked on an inhale and began coughing. He put out his cigarette and coughed a few more times before he seemed to have caught his breath. He folded his arms across his chest, "Better?"

Rena smiled, "Much."

Finally, her attention turned back to me. "I praise your patience. It's something that I have very little of. Waiting several years to release the bug must have been a struggle."

I shrugged, "I didn't realize it worked. I didn't really plan for all of this to happen." I waved at everything around me, hoping they would catch my drift.

She picked a piece of fuzz off her pants, "Let me get right to the point, Y/N." She leaned forward completely ignoring the point I had just tried to make. "We would like for you to alter the coding."

"How so? It already paused time on the internet, all over the world. What more do you want it to do?"

Rena smiled and her eyes sparkled. That was when I realized that Philip wasn't the one I needed to be careful around. But rather his partner, Rena, was the one behind all of this. I gulped in realization.

"I want to be able to tell the internet what time it is. Or rather, a particular site, what the time is."

"Why would you want to do that? Pausing the time gives everyone access to everything."