"What… happened?" I asked incredulously.

Torres cocked an eyebrow and inclined her head towards the abandoned apartment complex. "You mean this isn't what your home usually looks like?" She asked.

We'd just gotten off the bus (paid for by my aunt, after much insistence from her end) and stepped out into the sidewalk before my old apartment and took in the awful scene. The building and parking lot were completely bare – windows blown out and boarded up, trash bags and garbage strewn here and there, scraggly grass poking hopefully through the cracks – it looked like a bomb went off.

"Where the hell are my all neighbors?" I wondered aloud, ignoring Torres. "Did SHIELD do this? Why would SHIELD do this?" I kicked away a loose chunk of asphalt as I walked up to one of the lower level windows.

Torres gave a huff of annoyance and stepped delicately around a toppled plastic patio chair to squint through the dirty glass with me. "This place is filthy." She muttered.

A thin layer of dust and grime clung to the windows and the vinyl siding of the apartment's walls – turning the original light tan coloring a darker brown. There were piles of garbage and broken bits of furniture at random intervals as well. The whole place gave off a strange dystopian vibe.

"This one was mine," I muttered, blowing away some of the dust from the windowpane. "Was I robbed…?" A cold weight settled in my gut the second those words left my mouth. "Oh fuck," I whispered.

"Where are you off to now?" Torres called after me as I sprinted down the open air corridor and around the side to the back doors.

They cannot have found it. They did not find it. They cannot have found it… I repeated the mantra over and over in my head to calm myself as I located my apartments backdoor. I was partially relieved to find that when jiggled the knob, the door did not swing open. Unfortunately that also meant I couldn't get inside. Torres stopped a few paces out and watched as I stalked back and forth while trying to come up with a plan.

"Left the stove on?" She asked after a tense minute passed.

"I need to get inside." I muttered.

"Kick the door down."

"It's made of metal and wood, Torres." I hissed angrily.

"Break the kno-"

"No!" I yelped a bit too loudly. Torres looked taken aback, and I rubbed awkwardly at the back of my neck. "I, uh, don't want to make it obvious I was here?" Wow. Good one. Not suspicious at all.

Torres looked unconvinced, but smiled wickedly and pulled out one of the two clips holding her hair back from her face.

I looked between her feral grin and the small clip and scowled. "That's bullshit. You can't open a locked door with a hairclip, just like you can't climb through air ducts. Hollywood horseshit; it doesn't hold up." I sniffed haughtily and looked away, but watched her out the corner of my eye as she knelt before the door.

I hoped she would prove me wrong. She did, too; the door gave a satisfying click a moment later. Torres stood and casually pushed it open.

I had no idea how to respond to this blatant defiance of what I thought was common knowledge, so I shut my mouth and passed meekly under Torres' gaze (I didn't look, but I bet you ten bucks she was smirking. Again.) I tried not to let on how grateful I was as well. I have a mask to keep up (its slowly slipping, honestly).

"Quite a place you've got." She said a moment later, passing me to look at some crooked photos hanging on the wall. It was some random things – a picture of me and a buddy posing next to my university's mascot, my dog I had when I was younger, my brother and his wife at their wedding, the old Windows desktop background, a fancy ham sandwich. I pretend I'm artistic.

What was not artistic was what looked like an actual scorch mark in the carpet on my stairs. Someone came in here with a flamethrower or something. I tuned everything out for a moment, and turned my attention to the back door. I pretended to fiddle with the lock while I waited for Torres to leave and ignore my clearly guilty behavior. Please, please still be here… I shook the handle a bit harder and felt it give way. After a couple of tense seconds I broke out into a cold sweat and abandoned stealth to instead twist the inner handle viciously out of its socket.

"What are you doing?"

"Fuck! Torres!" I spun around and snapped angrily at her, "go fucking… look in the lounge or something! You're always breathing down my neck like goddamn just go do something else!"

We glared at each other for a second before Torres turned silently and walked up the short flight of stairs into the area that served as my dining room and lounge. She was pissed, naturally; but I was far too terrified to care.

I took a steadying breath and drew up the courage to pry the doorknob further out and squeeze a couple fingers in through the hole. Nothing was there. Of course nothing was there. The envelope and USB I'd hidden inside were gone, and – oh, look at that – my limbs were freezing cold. I leaned back against the door and willed my panicking heart and mind to calm.

It wouldn't.
I can't.

I'll say this one more time; I'm a fantastic hacker and coder, but a shit criminal. I'm not cut out for this level of stress and danger. I don't do fear very well.

But that might also have something to do with the fact that I am, actually, very, very guilty. I wonder if SHIELD knows.

I hung my head and climbed up my scorch marked stairs to join Torres. She was seated with her back towards me at my dining table. I was about to say something to her, but was distracted by the state of my home. I gazed wide-eyed around my living room, and dazedly wiped some dust off from the wall besides me. It left clean streaks. It was as bad inside as it was outside; my home honestly looked like it had been turned upside-down… I don't think there was a single piece of furniture settled in its correct position. I walked slowly over to my roommate and righted the chair besides her, then settled in it. The back had been snapped off.

"Torres," I began. I avoided looking at her and instead stared across the room at the hallway that leads to my room. "I had hidden some pretty bad stuff in a little hole in my door. It's gone."

Torres said nothing.

"I think SHIELD might have it. And I'm worried because I don't think they'd actually let me out if they did… which means they must've let me out for a reason."

I felt her gaze land heavy on me, but I refused to meet it. "Are you saying that if they had whatever object was hidden, you would be convicted?"

Don't say you did it, don't say you did it. "I'm saying I don't think they'd find me innocent enough to let go."

"So you did break SHIELD?"

"I never said that."

Torres huffed and leaned onto the table with an elbow. "But this object would lead them to belie-know that you probably did?"

I did look over to her now. Why the fuck are you so interested in my confession? "I'm saying that SHIELD might think it's suspicious." I said evenly in my best 'drop it' tone.

Torres looked – Angry? Frustrated? – But she let the conversation go, and I muttered a 'sorry' as I got up to scrounge around the rest of my apartment. Guess I'm moving in with my parents again. As much as I had missed them both, I still hadn't come up with a way to smoothly tell them I'd been fucking arrested for ALLEGEDLY breaking into SHIELD. I didn't really want to go over to their house until I had my mind in order, and I kinda feel like I need my own space to do that.

After making my way around the rubble in a halfhearted attempt at finding some evidence as to what had gone on, I gave up. With an exhausted sigh, I dropped down onto one of the couch cushions that was lying haphazardly on the floor and put my head in my hands.

"M' gonna be perfectly honest with you," I mumbled at the ground, "I dunno what I'm s'posed to do next."

There was a moment of silence, a shuffle of papers and debris, and Torres settled across from me.

"Also," I said in afterthought, "where's your family? What's your plan, huh? Where you gonna stay?"

Torres picked up the crumpled magazine that lay besides her foot and flicked idly through it. "I don't have any family." She said plainly. "And I don't want to talk about it."

Weird. None whatsoever? Still, I felt bad for her – it must suck being alone like that. Or maybe they were actually really shitty and she got herself out? Or maybe she's an orphan. Or she's lying. "Well… uh…" I scratched awkwardly at the back of my neck again and squinted at the floor. "I'm sure my parents will let you… us… stay with them for a bit... until we get some money for a new place. If you want, anyways. You don't have to stay."

"I'd actually really appreciate that." Torres looked over to me and gave one of her rare smiles.

I sighed and slapped at the ankle that she was nudging me with good naturedly. "How did we get into this?" I asked.

"I don't know about you, but I stole a few ID's."

"Strange. That's what I did too."

"Liar."

I laughed and leaned back on the cushion. "I dunno how they found me, actually. I mean, I have some guesses, but…"

"Many small things."

"That's probably it."

"Except for whatever was hidden in the door."

"My back door," I said gleefully, giving her a look.

She gazed blankly back at me.

"Get it?" I asked. "Backdoor? Back door?"

She didn't get it.

"Don't you know what a backdoor is?"

"Of course I do." She muttered, looking back down to the magazine.

"I feel like you don't."

She made a dismissive humming noise, and I was too tired to care about her and her nonexistent sense of humor.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

After my brief existential crisis, I made my way slowly though my apartment and started throwing things into my backpack and the suitcase I'd stashed in my hallway closet. The closets door was actually in my kitchen. I'm not entirely sure how it got there.

Every room was wrecked. Whoever did this was really looking hard for something. My mirrors and pictures had been torn down (to look for safes, I realized later on), my bed had been overturned and torn to shreds, literally everything that was ever in a drawer was now on the floor, and every single paper seemed to have been read (including my trash paper – it'd been uncrumpled and everything). I'm wondering if SHIELD really was the one to take my USB though, because they were so violent here – but the doorknob didn't show signs of force; it'd been replaced again. Weird.

My safe had its door sawn off. I can't even remember what I kept in there. Passports and stuff. Paperwork, maybe. Some money. I need money.

"Torres!" I yelled from my room. "I need to go to the bank! You think SHIELD seized our money?"

"Why didn't you check the bank sooner?" she asked a moment later from the doorway.

"Why didn't you check sooner?" I muttered. "I bank with a credit union, and as far as I know they only exist in my hometown. And we can't use ATMs, remember? I gotta go inside."

Torres said nothing. I don't think she actually knows what she's doing, which is weird, because she oozes control somehow.

"I mean, I'm fairly certain that you have to take someone to court before you take their money, but I'm starting to think SHIELD can do whatever it wants."

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

SHIELD had not, in fact, stolen my money (that was under my real name, anyways. Those fake names were gone). They did, however, steal my apartment. I went to the post office that was across from the bank and asked for my mail once I'd drawn enough to get a bus to my parents (as well as food). The owners of my apartment complex had apparently sold the place to someone else, who promptly evicted everyone (and sent me a letter saying that everything left in the apartment after 30 days will be forfeit) and then sold the entire thing to some business called 'Bricks Unlimited'. Yellowpages told me that Bricks Unlimited was owned by someone named Bob N. Weave. Shady. As. Fuck. Name. It all seems like something SHIELD would do.

And all for my little ol' apartment?

I feel pride and rage.

Also I technically just trespassed. And stole.

Fuck.

"Tor, let's stop by your bank next."

There was a pause in the shuffling next to me. "I don't have one," she said, looking disinterestedly over a cartoon illustrated map of Massachusetts that she'd plucked from a stand in the post office.

I stared hard at her. I mean, I understand trying to make sure you don't leave a trace of your existence, but-

"All of my money was under false names. Everything's been seized."

"Ah. That makes sense. Sucks, though…" What bullshit.

"I'll repay you."

I sighed internally. "Don't worry about it; unless you start getting ridiculous." I'm such a nice person.

"I will repay you."

I smiled. "Alright, fine. Thanks."

With that, we finally turned heel and headed deeper downtown. I remember that there was a bus station somewhere in the heart of the city. We'd have to walk, but at least this place wasn't so big that it'd take forever to traverse. Almost home.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

"So what can you tell me, based on the latest development?"

Fury looked down the table at the group assembled before him. Natasha, a few psychologists and psychiatrists, criminal profilers, two handfuls of people from several technological backgrounds, various military personnel, and a few defense intelligence officers that flew in (begrudgingly) from the pentagon that morning all stared back at him with various degrees of curiosity. Fury wondered what Tony Starks excuse for not showing up to this meeting would be. Last time it was 'bees'. Fury was half convinced the man pulled his excuses out of a 'Cards Against Humanity' pack.

"Which development?" an intelligence officer asked. "The one where you think you discovered the real culprit, or the one where you let that same culprit go?"

Fury kept his sigh to himself, opting instead to lean further onto the table and glare daggers at the man. "Yes."

"An interesting one," one of the psychologists piped up. "What made you come to those decisions?"

"A number of things. We're also going off the hopes that Loki can somehow convince Cambell to recreate the virus and attack us again."

"What?"

"Right, that makes sense. Let them go and force them to hack us again. Brilliant, Fury, truly brilliant."

The chair squeaked as Nick Fury leaned back and appraised the intelligence officer that looked ready to jump out his seat.

"This is absolutely insane! You're acting completely out of bounds of the law – if the virus even gets slightly out of hand- you're, you're…" his hands flailed in the general direction of the window, "putting the entire population at risk! They could force a generator meltdown, erupt dams, government sectors could be shut down! Power grid failures! Classified information compromis- how is this a good idea? Not to mention you have an unstable god at the helm of an already unbalanced ship."

Fury patiently waited out the uproar before continuing.

"I have to agree." Said an elderly man to the officers left. "This is incredibly reckless. Not to mention that you failed to consult with any government sector before going ahead with this plan."

Fury waited.

"Even if you go ahead with this… 'controlled explosion' of yours, you cannot promise that there won't be collateral damage."

"There's already enough evidence to arrest Cambell as well as many others and put them away for life."

"This witch-hunt of yours, Fury, is becoming tiresome."

"I suggest you pick Cambell up and simply charge them with what we already know. All of them, in fact – everyone that's still left in the penitentiary as well."

There was a lull in the conversation, and Fury took the moment to speak.

"You're all correct," he agreed. "Except for you doctor." He said, looking over to the psychiatrist who spoke last. "I can't promise Cambell won't break anything else, but you can be damned sure we're working around the clock to make sure that when they do get into our system, the virus will act as we tell it to."

"What's even the purpose of this forced concession? Why let them go at all?"

"If Cambell did it once, they can do it again," Fury explained. "And when they catch them, they won't be able to play innocent. SHIELD and the Avengers have not lost a battle yet, and we're not gonna give Cambell the satisfaction of thinking they got away."

"It sounds to me like you might be doing this to protect your image, and the image of your organization." A psychologist piped up. "Perhaps even at the expense of others."

"You're damn right. This thing has been hounding us for years – 'the one that got away'. I can't stand it. I want them humiliated, and I want this to come to an end. Permanently." Fury's gaze swept the room. "This is a courtesy call to let you all know what I am doing… also to ask for your input."

"Now he asks…" Someone muttered.

Fury made a show of flipping open the dossier in front of him, and the rest of the table took his que and followed suit.

"This is everything we know about Cambell – family, medical history – notice the lack of anything substantial before eight years ago; as well as employment history, general observations from Loki, and some psychiatric notes courtesy of Doctor Leighman who is…" Fury glanced up and around the table. "Not here."

"How did Dr. Leighman arrive at these results? I don't remember you mentioning any formal testing…?"

"These are all purely observational. I had the doctor focus on Cambell when we began suspecting them to be the hacker."

"Narcissism? ISTP? Prone to violence? These are rather grand conjectures."

"Didn't say they were good observations," Fury muttered. He was partially convinced Leighman was just writing things down for the accolades and the chance to say 'I analyzed the greatest cybercriminal'. "That's why I've brought you all in. We need fresh eyes watching this criminal now that they're out in the open. We've got agents and ears in most places, but like you've said, we can't be everywhere and we can't account for everything."

"I think," one of the psychologists muttered, "the problem you're having is that you're trying too hard to pigeonhole Cambell. Maybe they're nothing at all besides clever and cautious. You forcing them into a category limits your ability to see the bigger picture."

"Which is?"

"They might just be lucky, and you've been giving them too much credit."

"And then we underestimate them when we give them too little credit." Fury couldn't help the edge that crept into his voice.

One of the profilers flipped a page over loudly and cleared his throat to interject. "I've found that it's usually the simplest answer that's the correct one. I understand that most of the information you've gathered about Cambell's personality so far comes from their time inside the prison, and speculations. If they're to be out, let's watch them in the real world before coming to a consensus. I have to agree though…" he said with a nod to the psychologist on his right. "Either you're missing some vital information, or Cambell's fate swings wildly between 'very lucky' and 'very unlucky'."

"And what would this 'vital information' look like?" Fury asked.

"How is it that Cambell's almost always in the right place at the right time? Agent Jennifer Malott's food poisoning lead to Loki being placed directly in Cambell's cell. Cambell was also the last person to be rounded up during the first testing phase – what were they doing? There were instances when they were hiding in camera blindspots for minutes at a time – how did they know where those blindspots were, and what were they doing? Nothing of note was found in their home. Loki mentioned a radio - how did Cambell manage to get a hold of it, and who gave it to them? Five other people were arrested from the same apartment block that Cambell stayed in – but neither Cambell nor that group of five acknowledged one another while incarcerated. Why not? Surely they knew their own neighbors. There are things that Cambell seems to be aware of, but is purposefully avoiding even looking at or acknowledging – maybe even lying to themselves about it. They're the unreliable narrator to their own life."

"Or they're very lucky and unlucky." An officer said.

"Or we're missing something." Fury countered.

"The penultimate trait of narcissists and megalomaniacs is that they both have no qualms about manipulating the truth to get people to see things their way. The last one is that they always lie. To themselves. To you." The profiler closed his dossier and tapped the pen back into its clip on the side. "Sometimes, they even manage to delude themselves into false beliefs – then it's really hard to spot their lies, because they so honestly believe them to be true."

"So what are they going for, ultimately?" Fury asked.

"Power. Sympathy. Respect. Any number of things."

"What're the chances of getting one megalomaniac to convince another to potentially get themselves into trouble again?"

"Slim to none. They'd be giving up power if they allowed themselves to be manipulated."

"Cambell can't 'allow' it if they don't know it's happening."

"True. And Cambell has been very accommodating towards Loki so far. Or, Torres."

"Loki'll have to make it seem like its Cambell's idea, then." Fury mused.

"And you have to make sure you're not manipulated from afar."

Fury gave a derisive snort.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

The sun was starting to set as we made our way further downtown to find some transportation to my parents. The bus station didn't have any busses going out that way until tomorrow afternoon, but if we waited four hours, we could take a train… then a cab… then another cab…

"This is getting expensive."

"Grand theft auto is starting to seem like a viable-"

"Shut up Tor, they're watching us." I couldn't help the paranoid eye shift I made as I looked over my shoulder to some sleepy-looking patrons huddled on the train stations plastic benches.

Torres snorted and went back to inspecting her nails. A quiet 'this place is filthy,' drifted by a moment later.

"You think everything is filthy."

"Sorry, what was that?" She asked.

I sighed tiredly and motioned at the TV that listed the train times. "Stop being annoying and help me find a train to Plymouth."

"And when we get to Plymouth?"

"Cab to Norwell."

"But this train heads straight to Norwell," Torres said, motioning to one of the rows at the bottom of the screen.

"Yeah, tomorrow afternoon. I want to leave now."

"Hm."

"Let's just… ugh." I frowned at the screen and thought hard about what to do next. "Maybe we just take the bus, and call from a payphone in the station for my parents to pick us up. Might not be the best idea to just rock up on the doorstep…"

Torres shrugged and wandered off towards an open bench along the wall. She's so fucking useless. I, instead, approached the way-too-happy ticketmaster and got us on the bus to Plymouth. I can't wait for this to be over.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Loki watched as Cambell walked over to the payphone at the end of the long hall, then inserted some coins and picked up the phone. Intense curiosity settled over him as he watched them shift uncomfortably from foot to foot before speaking in hushed whispers. They'd been upset ever since they'd visited their old home – mostly, it seems, because SHIELD had taken some incriminating evidence. An odd development, considering Fury never mentioned anything of the sort. Perhaps it had been stolen. Either way, Cambell was skulking around much in the same manner that Loki himself remembered doing as a child when he was sure there was no way he could weasel himself out of a situation.

It had barely even been four days, and Cambell was already falling apart. It was, quite frankly, disappointing. He expected more from them. Still, this was better than being locked up – on Earth or in Asgard – and it did provide him with some entertainment. Speaking of entertainment…

Loki turned over the watch that Cambell had given him earlier when they'd broken into a few other apartments in the block. 'No one's gonna know,' they'd insisted. Loki wondered why Cambell chose those five suites in particular; they must've held some importance. He was sure Cambell was looking for something, but he didn't want to let on just how close he was keeping an eye on them. Therefore, it seemed counterintuitive to ask if they needed help searching. Campbell's demeanor, however, had not changed from suite to suite, so Loki was unsure if the item (or items) had been found.

But it was a clever watch. Asgard had, of course, developed much more advanced technologies, but the watch was so ancient that it seemed almost innovative.

Loki settled back in his seat and tapped through the watch's screen, trying to become accustomed to the various amenities that it offered. He was curious about its purpose, besides telling time. He almost wanted to ask how to use it, but Cambell seemed to be under the impression that he – or rather Torres – should know how it functions. A test, maybe? Cambell was becoming wary if that were so.

Loki glanced back up to find Cambell still at the phone, this time writing something on a scrap of paper. What are you up to now? Loki wondered. A question he was starting to ask more frequently, and one that was becoming increasingly difficult to have answered the more and more Cambell withdrew. He was going to have to try a different approach. Cambell had been forced to rely on him (Torres, damnit) in prison, but now they were out and Cambell seemed eager – no matter how many fake smiles they gave – to get rid of him. The last thing Loki needs is for his target to ditch him.

Loki tapped the watch off and stared at its blank face contemplatively. He had to find a way to get Cambell to rely on him again, trust him, before it was too late. He was also slowly running out of options. He decided, in the end, to utilize some of the resources that Fury had afforded him. With a causal flick of his (Torres') hair, he met the gaze of one of the undercover agents that sat across the room. With a tilt of his head, Loki discreetly motioned towards where Cambell stood, and then made a small gesture as if he was writing something small on his knee. The agent understood, and rose a moment later.

Loki loved having henchmen.