The Glitch In Our Stars

Chapter 6: The Ghost in the Machine

The sliding glass doors of the Apex Center were only twenty feet away. Aria could almost taste the humid night air and the sweet, sweet scent of digital anonymity. Julian tucked the pulsing blue drive into his hoodie pocket, his chest heaving.

"We actually did it," Aria whispered, her adrenaline spiking. "We’re going to delete it. We’re going to be normal again."

"Not so fast, Madam President."

The voice didn't come from a person—it came from every speaker in the hallway simultaneously. The giant LED advertising boards that had been flashing luxury watch ads suddenly flickered and turned a sickly, bruised purple.

A figure stepped out from behind a holographic display of a self-driving car. He was wearing a sharp, tailored blazer that cost more than Julian’s car, and his hair was slicked back with enough gel to withstand a hurricane.

"Leo Vance?" Aria gasped, her blood turning to ice.

"Technically, it’s Leo King now. I dropped the surname after you blocked my application to the National Honor Society last year," Leo said, tapping a sleek, obsidian-colored smartphone. "You called my 'entrepreneurial ventures'—which were clearly just high-stakes poker bots—a 'stain on the school’s integrity.' Remember that, Aria?"

"You were stealing lunch money from freshmen via crypto-scams, Leo! That was a punishment you deserved" Aria snapped.

"I prefer the term 'early-onset venture capitalism,'" Leo smirked. He held up his phone. A red progress bar was loading. "I’ve been tracking Julian’s signature since you jumped on that Jazz bus. Did you really think you were the only ones who knew about the metadata on that drive? That data is worth a fortune to the tabloid sites. A 'perfect' student’s mental collapse? That’s viral gold." He said smirking and laughing as Aria's fave turns red in anger.

With a flick of his thumb, the lights in the hallway turned off. The only glow came from the blue drive in Julian’s pocket and the red "Transferring..." bar on Leo’s screen.

"He’s remote-wiping the drive before we can delete the source!" Julian yelled, diving for his tablet. "Aria, he’s got a signal jammer. I can’t counter-hack him if I can’t get a stable IP!"

"Then don't use the internet," Aria said, her eyes narrowing. "Leo always was a coward when things got physical." She said smirking at her brothers idiocy. She knows him to well, to know how much he is capable of doing.