Hacking the Sun [Old Version]

Chapter 11 Pets for Memes

A/N: Changed from Chapter 10 to chapter 11 on 03/09/18

Serene and pristine stars adorned a noir sky. 

One Azarean guard stood oblivious to the beauty above, upright, astute, and stiff in scanning the blackness of the night. Back and forth, he purposefully walked along the roads of suburbia. Down the sidewalk, between the luminescent lamps, and down the midnight greens, he continued until he realized there was nothing out of the ordinary. As a result, his attention relaxed until he dared to surrender to peace. He looked at the moon.

Jessica could tell he wanted to remove his helmet and behold unadulterated space, to contemplate life as it may have survived on his home planet. Then she touched and shocked the hell out of him through the voltage in her glove, so toppled his motor functions and made him shake like a fish out of water. His face became intimately acquainted with the ground as the seizure continued. Eventually, he would stop moving altogether, devolving into gentle breaths as the tumultuous jerk of his body settled into a sleep's calm.

"And that's how you make men quake in their boots," said Jessica. "Hehehe."

"You know what?" started Valerie, caressing her forehead in shame. "It's literally too late to be cracking one-liners." 

"Stop misusing the word literally."

"I'm not dealing with kids, right now!" exclaimed Shannon. "I'm just not. Get your shit together before I lose mine." She turned to Valerie. "Now Val, where is this place?"

"I'll know it when I see it. Come on," she said, waving them along.

They found scarcely a contour in the dark realm of suburbia, except for the typical late night liquor store that had come to define humanity's nocturnal habits. The indoor bulbs of a 711 solicited their thirst in passing. Their midnight run had invited sweat, sore legs, and dry tongues.

"Why don't you hack one of those cameras, Jess?" Shannon panted. "That way we don't have to die of thirst before we die of conspiracy, know what I mean?"

"McFly!" Jessica jumped on her board to alleviate the spent energy of her legs. "Pfft! Who's tired? For a girl who knows karate, you need to work more on your cardio."

"Oh, hahaha, it's mixed martial arts. Need a lesson? Let me borrow the board."

Instead of a reply, Jessica met Shannon with a stone face and an L sign on her forehead. Before either could throw another sassy remark, Valerie turned North on the street, giving Shannon the vain hope of a break at the store, but they proceeded at a relentless pace.

Tablet in hand, Jessica used her technical skills to remotely erase any trace of their excursion, via the capture of recorded snippets. She fed a single-second thumbnail back into every cross-walk camera. As she did so, Valerie scanned the streets for law enforcement. Together, they skimmed security patrols, alien or otherwise. However, Valerie was the first to note a group of strangers approaching down the sidewalk.

"Are we on a collision course?" exclaimed Jessica.

"Yes, a bunch of wannabes," Valerie snarled. "Cyber-junkies by the looks of it."

"That doesn't mean we have to stop, does it?" said Shannon. 

"We don't want to look super suspicious." Valerie's gait shifted from a jog to a slow and loose walk, which Jessica and Shannon quickly mimicked. 

Jessica flipped her board into her arm. "Are those a bunch of dudes?"

Valerie eye-rolled. "Yep."

"If it's anything like last time, just tell them you have an STD."

"They're not gonna believe that."