Heroes of New York

TEN - HACK

Chapter Ten

~Percy Jackson~

I took a different path out of the base than the way I'd come in, this time coming out through a maintenance door on the other side of the city, near the Met.

I didn't look at the building, it just brought up memories of some other museum trips I'd been on, none of which had ended well.

I stepped closer to the street and whistled, hailing a taxi. I had to head back to Stark Tower before it got too late - I had promised I'd be back before dinner. I paid the cabbie as I got out a few blocks from the Tower and walked the rest of the way.

Once inside the tower, I walked through the still-bustling lobby to the stairwell, heading up to the common floor. When I finally got to the floor, it was empty, though I could tell people had been there recently. The dishwasher was running, and the foam darts had been cleared out of the room. There was a note on the fridge, addressed to me, explaining that they had already eaten, but there were leftovers if I wanted them.

I opened the fridge to find a container of Chinese food waiting for me. I shrugged and grabbed it, along with the pair of wooden chopsticks on the counter and headed to my new room - clearly everyone else had come and gone, and besides, I had work to do.

I entered my room and set up my laptop, which had been in my duffle bag, at the desk. It still felt weird being able to use tech like this. I had used Annabeth's old flip phone a few times, but it was nothing compared to the high-tech devices available now. Speaking of...

"Hey, JARVIS?" I asked the ceiling, leaning back in my (super comfortable) desk chair and spinning around.

"Yes, sir?"

"I know you're just some kind of omni-present AI dude, but I figure you have the ability to make a judgement call, right?"

There was a pause.

"On some subjects. May I ask your intentions with this line of inquiry?" Man, if he wasn't an AI, I'd assume he was some kind of Athena brainchild.

"I'm about to input some code into your system. It's not malicious, but there is a hidden signal emitting from the tech in the building that is both unnecessary and dangerous to me. I won't activate the code until you approve it, but if you find it acceptable, I'd like to ask you to put it into every piece of tech that might end up being in my regular use. Sound good?"

The lights hummed.

"One would assume you'd also like to keep this secret from the other residents?"

I nodded, who knows what would happen if Stark found out I'd gotten through his firewalls.

"I suppose your terms would be agreeable, however," the lights cut out abruptly and JARVIS' voice sounded right next to me, "if you even think of harming the people in this building, you'll be a seizing mess on the floor before you even know where the electricity is coming from."

"Sounds good to me," I replied, and the lights turned back on. "Nice intimidation technique, by the way. Very effective. Could use some ominous glowing and sparking, though. Nine outta ten."

There was a rumbling in the vents, a sound I could only equate to purring. Cool.

☤ ☤ ☤ ☤

The good news: J (we're buds now, I can call him that) approved of the codes and apparently put them everywhere, 'just in case', so now I can use whatever tech I want and not get immediately murdered!

The bad news: Nick Fury was trying to call me. As cool as the dude was with his whole 'mysterious director-pirate-spy', I hated talking to him - it always meant I had to do something that made me miss school, get kidnapped or almost die horribly.

The worse news: I was out of food. Fury seemed to think this was a less-than-pressing issue when I picked up his call.

"Jackson, please spare me the brain damage." Which, wow, rude.

I sighed, "Fine, what do you want? I'm in the middle of a cool hacking montage."

"So you've broken into Stark's systems then? Took you long enough."

"Hey, man. I've been here a total of like 5 hours, cut me some slack. It's faster than when I hacked into SHIELD's databases."

"Don't let Stark hear you say that, he prides himself on his security."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Nicky. What did you call me for?"

"Status update," he said. Ugh, I hated these.

"Uhh, all good on the front, target is where he's supposed to be and as snug as a bug in a rug. Why is that a saying anyway? Who thinks of these phrases?"

"That's all I needed, Jackson." Fury interrupted. "We want you to keep an extra eye out for... your kind of thing."

"Aye, aye, captain." I mock saluted and spun around in my desk chair. The call ended.

"Bye pirate-man. Yes, I'll be careful, love you too." I muttered to myself, tossing the phone on the desk.

The heater in my room shuddered.

"Yeah, laugh at me all you want, J. I'm still the corporeal one." I grumbled.

The shuddering got louder. I looked at the time - 12:52. I groaned and walked over to bed, faceplanting right in the middle. I wriggled until I was under the blankets and closed my eyes.

As I slipped into sleep, I saw the lights dim slowly, until they were out, leaving on a nightlight in the corner (for which I was super grateful).

"Thanks, J," I said through the pillows, and I swear the room got a little warmer. 

I'm screaming. 

You can't hear it, because I've actually reached a pitch so high that you can't hear it. 

I don't know what this chapter is. It's not edited, I didn't reread it. I wrote the whole thing in one sitting. Who knows what this is. 

I'm so so so so sorry for the weird schedule (or lack thereof) and I hope it'll get more regular in the future but honestly school is wack af rn. I have so many assignments, I have student council, GSA, uni applications, and work and social life and my friends wanna play D&D (which is big fun btw y'all should play) - and I know I've said all this before, but I feel real bad for my bad time management. I'm procrastinating on an assignment thats due tonight to do this.

Anyway, please enjoy - I love it when y'all leave comments wherever just generally about stuff you've noticed, it makes my cold heart warm a few degrees. 

Let me know about any mistakes and ideas if y'all have 'em.

See you next time, darlings  

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