A stranger, Behind A Screen
1163 Words
Some watch the world for the wait. I watch it to determine where I will change it.
The whine of the servers was ever-present, a dull thrum throughout the floor. Most wouldn't even hear it. I did. I heard everything.
Two large screens glowed before me, casting the apartment in a cold, blue light. To the left: market trends, the highs and lows of food businesses around the city. To the right: video feed from her tiny east-side café.
I leaned back in my chair, hands locked behind my chin, watching the grainy camera angle. She was moving across the kitchen now, hands moving fast, economical, the way that a person moves when they have done it a thousand times but still love it.
Isla Rivera. Twenty-eight. A cook. Business owner , barely , of Marquez Café. Overhead debt hanging over her head like an ax waiting to drop. No investors. No parachute.
She didn't know me. Or that I'd been following her for weeks.
Unlike those who come with evil plans. I didn't need anything from her, not money, nor attention, nor thanks. What I needed was… harder to express.
I wanted to know whether a person like her could inhabit mine.
A window flashed up in the bottom corner of the screen: INVITATION SENT.
I took a deep breath. The first step was complete.
From here, it would be up to her. She could throw the envelope away, ignoring the pull of curiosity. Or she could open it, read the golden-embossed words, and take the first step into something she couldn’t walk back from.
"She’s going to open it," a voice said behind me.
I didn’t turn. "You’re certain?"
My ops lead, Alex, edged into my peripheral vision, his image faint on the screen. "She's not the type to leave things hanging. You selected her for a reason, Ethan."
I didn't reply.
Because in reality, I didn't simply select her. I selected her out of dozens. Chefs with more experience, more credentials, more social profiles.
But none of them had that look.
The look I saw the first time I entered her café. That raw, uncontrolled ambition. The kind you can't be taught, only attempted.
I minimized the café feed and opened another window, a chain of files, each marked with a date and time stamp. Surveillance. Logs. Pasts footage of her working, laughing, arguing with the man who used to own the café.
I knocked on one at random. The clip started with Isla at the counter, balancing three plates in one hand while she pulled coffee out of the other. Offscreen, somebody shouted an order and she just barely flicked an eyelid.
No wasted motion. No hesitation.
She was like me, all those years ago.
Before the boardrooms, before the reporters, before the walls I'd had to put up around everything I had ever loved.
"Sir," Alex snapped back to reality, answering me. "We need to get the competition roster wrapped up. The other judges need their picks wrapped up by Friday."
"They'll receive my answer on Thursday."
"What is it?"
I sat watching the screen, Isla having settled into a table, the envelope beside her elbow, still unopened.
"Depending on whether she opens it."
It took hours before it did.
I wasn't stuck to the screen all day, I had business to attend to. Calls with offshore partners. Reviewing a proposal for software expansion in Berlin. Signing off on security patches for the network that kept all that I did under wraps.
But when I returned to the stream, the café was empty except for her.
She was leaning against the counter, cradling the envelope in one hand. Her expression was impassive, a mix of caution and curiosity. She stroked a finger over the flap and hesitated only briefly before extracting the card.
The camera's resolution wasn't good enough to pick up the words, but I didn't need it to. I knew them by heart.
Congratulations. You've been selected to compete at the Aureum Culinary Challenge.
Her brows furrowed as she read the rest.
An invitation-only, cook-off for chefs whose art and creativity rise above. Your travel, accommodation, and competition fees will be covered. Your only task: cook to win.
A phone number at the bottom. No name. No organization mentioned. Just a date and a place.
She read it twice, then looked around as if waiting for someone to jump out and tell her the punch line.
But no joke. And no explanation. Not yet.
"She's reading it," I whispered.
Alex glanced over the screen and grinned. "Hooked?"
"Curious." I grinned at the smallest suggestion. "Curiosity is enough."
Later that night, I worked with a second batch of screens. These weren't public feeds. These were mine, encrypted, locked down, traceless.
One screen showed Isla locking up the café and leaving for home, the envelope hidden away in her bag. The other showed her apartment from outside the street, the kitchen light flickering on.
"Tracking will remain passive unless she tries to decline," Alex reminded me.
"She won't decline," I said.
"Because you understand her?"
"Because she can't afford to."
But I sat there and observed her even after she had gotten into bed. I observed as she sat at her little kitchen table, tapping the card against her palm, her thoughts a thousand miles away. Observed as she finally laid it down and picked up her phone.
The feed was quiet. Then the sound crackled into life.
Her voice. Whispy. "Yeah… it's me. Something weird happened today."
"No… not bad, weird. Just," She stopped. "Do you think people can get lucky out of the blue?"
The person on the phone was too quiet to listen to, but whatever they said made her snort with laughter.
"Yeah. I know. I'll think about it."
I knew before she hung up.
She had no concept the decision would alter everything.
For her. For me.
The next morning, I was going through the lists of opponents when another flash on my main screen drew my attention: INCOMING TRANSMISSION, SECURE LINE.
Only three people had that channel.
I answered.
A female voice, smooth but biting. "You're playing with fire, Thorne."
"Am I?"
"She's not ready."
"Neither was I."
There was a hesitation. Then, "If she finds out who you are before the final round…
"She won't," I replied, although my eye never left the café feed, where Isla, ponytail pulled back, was brewing coffee as if it was the only worthwhile thing in the world.
The female voice lowered. "Just remember, Ethan, even the finest fire can burn your own house to the ground."
The line cut dead.
And for the first time that day, I let the weight of what I was doing settle in my chest.
I turned around at the screen, and froze.
The cafe view on the camera was… vanished.
Vanished, covered by a black screen.
And then, slowly, white text began typing across it:
"Stop watching her."
- Writer
