The Hacker and The Heroes

Avoidance and Self Preservation

ONE MISSED CALL FROM UNKNOWN - JANUARY 13TH, 3:58 PM
    MISSED CALL FROM UNKNOWN - JANUARY 16TH, 2:13 PM
    MISSED CALL        JAN 17TH, 5:17 PM
    MISSED CALL       
    MISSED-

    Nadia knew who the caller was. Despite the fact it said "Unknown"  there was currently only one person who would call again, and again, and again. She had promised Tony results and never delivered on said promise, leading to an annoying, arrogant man attempting to hack into her system. She can imagine the billionaire was not use to being ignored, but she was going to drag out the inevitable for as long as possible. Sure, she had accepted the facts and the accuracy of her program, but she was long from accepting him.
    It had been a week and a half since she and Tony had met, and so far she had done an excellent job in ignoring him. She even went so far as to call in sick to work to make sure he couldn't drop in on her there. Maybe she was a coward. She knew it was only a matter of time before he found out the address of her apartment. Of course she had been diligent in hiding its location, but Tony was a genius in his own right, so it was only a matter of time before he found her.
    Currently she was sat cross-legged on the floor with books and pages of notes splayed out before her. In her hands she gently cradled a mug of hot chocolate and its wisps of steam were gently floating upwards to caress her face. The New York air was brisk in January, and this year was certainly no exception. Nadia found that even with a heater, fuzzy socks, and a blanket, the cold still managed to seep through the old brickwork of her building and chill her to the bone.
Nadia's apartment was modest and lavish all at once. It was technically one large space, but since it had such high ceilings Nadia had multiple levels made of scaffolding and ironwork installed. Windows stretched the full length of the front wall and they covered a portion of the ceiling as well, which belayed an inspiration much akin to an indoor greenhouse- both in shape and natural lighting. There was a fireplace nestled on one of the sidewalls and the wall opposite was covered in a multitude of bookcases which housed hundreds, if not thousands, of novels on science, technology and human psychology. If one looked closely they would also see books on the possibilities of telepathy, thought control, and mind experiments coated in dust and shoved off onto a bottom rack. The center of the room was dominated by a brown leather couch and two matching armchairs. All in all, it oozed the aesthetic of a intellectual's library- think Niles' apartment in the TV show "Frasier," or the great room in the boarding house of "The Vampire Diaries." Of to the side there was a small kitchen and a door which lead to the bathroom.
Above the great room, there were two separate metal platforms. The smaller one that resided in the corner above the bookshelves and nearest the windows housed her desk and computers. There was a sliding door carefully disguised nearby that lead into a room housing all of the backup data and equipment. This space was small and minimal and yet it was one of the most important ones to Nadia. She would often spend hours propped up in her desk chair coding while chugging coffee. It was here that N.U.C.L.E.U.S was birthed. On the opposite side of the room there was a slightly larger platform that housed her bed and closet. This was less interesting and yet, for some reason, humans had to sleep, so it was equally as important.
    At the moment, the owner of said space was reading an essay on Thermonuclear Dynamics when a knock on the door startled her from her reverie. Nadia glanced at the clock that sat near the roaring fire and saw "11:11 PM" flashing back at her. Setting her Cocoa to the side, she gracefully rose and strode to the door. In her heart she knew who it was, and she was took a deep breath as she flattened her palm to the door's surface. Then, all at once, she had pulled the door open and her eyes met two brown ones that made her think about the swirling depths of the hot chocolate she had just left behind.
"Hello, Tony."

A/N: Well, I am back kiddos. This chapter was more of a foundational one so that you could picture the space in your own mind. Posted above I did create a "Moodboard," but it doesn't look exactly like any of those pictures. It is mainly there to give you a sense of the space and the colors. The windows are like the ones in the top picture and the scaffolding is much like what is pictured in the middle image. Sorry for the weird formatting of the phone section if you are reading this on mobile. There is an Easter egg in here that you might have caught onto that eludes to a part of Nadia's personality that has not yet been discussed. The next chapter will give you the drama you crave. Our babies are about to go through it <3
Love you all,
A