The Bosch Problem (And All The Trouble They Went Through To Cause It)

Chapter 1

Christian Decker had always been what you could call a child genius. Of course, he wasn't much of a child any more at his 17 years of age. But, by the time most kids are still in 6th grade, he had graduated high school under a fake name, learned to speak seven languages fluently and figured out how to hack diverse bank accounts and send the money to his own private one in Switzerland. The latter was committed out of boredom rather than necessity; everyone knew the Deckers were outrageously rich.

As one would expect, his parents didn't know about their offspring's criminal record. They were aware, however, of his great potential and the different uses he could give it. They also knew he knew too, and that sooner or later he'd get involved in business a child shouldn't even know about. That's why Amanda Harrison-Decker refused to let him attend classes suitable for his intellectual capability, and forced him instead to stay in the same year as others who were the same age as him but had very inferior mental skills. She wanted Christian to have a normal, happy childhood, so she tried to stop him from exercising that brilliant brain of his in hopes that he would get used to act like his fellow classmates and grow out of his desire for knowledge and power.

Needless to say, that plan's efficiency was questionable despite having successfully frustrated Christian to no end. It didn't really stop him from doing anything, it just took a lot longer than he would have liked to get what he wanted.

He couldn't do much about that, but what he could do was not making it worse by hacking into the teachers' network at school simply because it had better Wi-Fi. That's how he spent his free time, sitting in the school library, stealing internet connections so he could bypass a bank's security system halfway accross the globe. It was actually quite depressing.

Olivia Twain was incredibly, utterly ordinary. Well, she wasn't, but she placed a great effort in appearing so. Stand out just enough to win, but a bit more than that and you're doomed. That was her motto. Despite this, she did enjoy the attention her outrageous actions often received, and rejoiced in the controversy she seemed to cause wherever she went. The only thing she cared to protect was her identity. Her doings were asociated with either her face or her name, but not both. Never both. She made sure of that.

What was most surprising about her actions is that they didn't actually have a purpose. She could be the kind of person to do whatever it takes to get what they want, to satisfy their ambition. But Olivia Twain didn't do things in order to get what she wanted, you see, because Olivia Twain had no ambition whatsoever. You can't plan ahead for something if you don't know what that something is in the first place. And when you do, it's usually too late - you can only improvise. And that's what she did, Olivia, she was driven by impulse and immediate desires and the one thing she needed to survive: to avoid boredom.

This had caused her to develop a complete disregard for social norms, moral codes and even the law. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and nothing could ever stop her because she was brilliant and she was bored and being bored made her want to kill herself.

So there she was, an incredibly, utterly ordinary girl with an extraordinary mind, an even more impressive lack of ambition and a tendency to engage in criminal activity, satisfying the demand for caffeine her body had been making all morning and looking for just the right person to help her on her next big scam.

Christian had seen her enter the library, but he didn't actually pay attention until she dropped her bag on the floor next to his desk and sat down accross from him.

She was pretty in a non-conventional kind of way - she had a tiny scar on her left eyebrow and a strong nose, the kind that looks horrendous on most girls but interesting on her otherwise delicate face, and her plump lips were naturally red. He could tell because he had just seen her finishing what he assumed to be her morning coffe and discarding a pastel yellow papercup with no traces of lipstick.

"I have a proposition you might wanna listen to"

When she leaned over the desk to half-whisper that single sentence, Christian noticed her smell. It was as if she had brought the rainy streets with her into the library, an invisible cloud carrying the scent of Outside. He was also able to detect a faint touch of something sweet and exotic, like vanilla or coconut or both, and some cigarette smoke thrown into the mix. It was exactly what one would imagine Olivia Twain would smell like.

And being the charming gentleman he was, without any visible change to his bored expression, Christian answered:

"I doubt it"

"That's cute, you underestimating me like that"

The words were sharp and moody like her appearance, but the way in which she said them made him look up from the screen of his laptop. Her thoughtful expression had a certain smugness to it, as if she was certain that she could prove him wrong.

So that's exactly what he asked her to do, and she grinned like a mischievous child upon hearing his request.