<LET|S Not &just Say We did>|<south>

[shrimp]

"L-Lyla, are you sure you want to do this?"

His brown eyes were slightly squinted, just enough for him to clearly read the glowing screen. Hands shook in his lap from sheer nervousness, enough to cause the pen in his grip to be released, falling to the floor in a clatter that to Prewitt sounded like explosions. This wasn't right, was it? No, he didn't see how the two of them would be able to get away with this. Bending down to get the pen, he pondered simply pulling the plugs out of their sockets, to prevent his friend from doing any more damage than what she was about to do. But what would Lyla think of him if he did that? She'd be mad - that much was for certain, not to mention the fact that she would probably never trust him again.

But the sheer dangerousness of the situation was enough to drive Prewitt insane. He was never one who liked conflict - preferring to stay in the background, unnoticed. In fact, he purposely tried to stay away from all things that would make people look at him. See, Prewitt was easily worried, and oftentimes one would find him simply mulling about in the halls, worrying about ridiculous things. Simple, paranoid thoughts were always enough to make Prewitt regret most actions, even those that would be thought harmless. Such as that little meeting with that boy, with whom he almost went out on a date with. Never happened, but every time he would think about getting found out, he'd blush in embarrassment, his skin turning a more saturated pinkish hue. Perhaps if he had gone out on that date, he wouldn't be ashamed about it, but since he didn't... Well, he'd remember that fact for a long time.

However, at this moment, instead of flowing towards his face, blood drained away from it as he realized what was about to happen. He had to stop this - it was illegal, they would have Peacekeepers at her door, and her father would be to blame for all of this. Besides, Prewitt would have preferred to stay out of the Detention Center for the time being - one little poke and he's burst like a balloon, wailing and crying and pleading for mercy, possibly. Perhaps his stoic attitude that corresponded to his relationship with his parents would transfer over to Peacekeepers - that would be nice, to not react at all while being tortured.

"Lyla... This is illegal," he muttered, his eyes once again locked onto the screen. It most certainly was; he still wasn't completely sure what Lyla had been trying to do, but it was probably something really, really bad. And Prewitt did not like to be around bad things; he had enough of that at home. But when he hung out with Lyla, everything did feel a little bit more fun. But then again, his idea of fun wasn't consisted of hacking into the government. But Prewitt just felt like somehow some good would come out of all of the stress that he felt when dealing with the blond-haired genius. After all, the two of them had been friends for quite some time now, and it would be logical to assume that there had been a reason that he didn't desert the girl as quickly as other acquaintances that he had met.

He tried one more time to sway the girl into abandoning her task for today, even though he knew it would be futile. It seemed that it was fate that this had to happen today, all of that hacking business and all. But it didn't hurt to dry, he reasoned, and with a shaky breath, spoke one of the longest sentences that he ever uttered in a single period of time.

"I mean really, Lyla. You don't want to get in trouble, because that's not good... You know? And think about what your father might think... Lyla?"

[Deleted]

Lyla Matheson

Actions: 87F717
Speech: F52887
Thoughts: 43BFC7
Others' Speech: FDD017

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"Shut up, Prewitt," Lyla snarled irritably, nimble fingers flying over the keyboard. Usually the blonde prodigy was far more amiable to her soft-spoken friend, but at the current point in time her temper had been significantly shortened by the task at hand. This encryption required her utmost focus, and Prewitt's quiet, insistent mother-hen act was doing nothing other than distracting her. Lyla's caramel eyes fixed intensely upon the scrolling characters that flitted across the screen, the force of her fingers on the keys sending sharp, precise clicks reverberating throughout the attic. One more code snippet. One more conversion to binary to override all passwords and minor security measures. 1101001101001011001010111001000110. Click. Three minutes.

Grinning triumphantly, Lyla dove into her work with an unusual ferocity. One final hurdle, and she'd be sitting in the control room for this year's Hunger Games. She'd have all the control of the Gamemakers and more, specifically the power to make every mechanical device in the area turn into so much useless junk with a single passcode. The gold-eyed genius had played some pretty big tricks before, but this one was special. A pet project, if you will. If she pulled this off, her work would be complete, her technological takeover of Panem's Capitol all-encompassing. There was only Project Beta to contend with now. It was odd, Lyla thought, fighting to hack through your own creation. Project Beta was an aggressive, high-security firewall that Lyla and her father had invented a few years back. The program isolated the IP address of any invading computer once it had breached all other defenses in the system, simultaneously tracking its location and remotely destroying its hard drive within three minutes. There was no way anyone could break the encryption in three minutes. The protection was, by all means, universally solid.

The firewall had become wildly popular with the Capitol's high-security systems, shielding everything from the food-delivery and water-regulation systems in the President's mansion to this, the big hurdle, the operating systems at Games Headquarters. Knowing the capabilities of her creation, Lyla was always careful to put cloaking devices into place to hide the location of her hacking computers, but she had fried many a good machine into a pile of useless parts during her dry runs to gear up for this, the real challenge. The thought finally struck her that if she connected several computers together, working down them like an assembly line, that the program's three minute rule would not apply. Multiple IP addresses, multiple computers, no fried hard drives, and successful entry into the technological jackpot. The connections had to be made last-minute though, or the quick-acting virus contained in Project Beta would travel up the chain, destroying all connected machines. Two minutes.

Lyla had about a third of the encryption broken, but she was going to need more than her short amount of remaining time to complete the hack. She'd have to make the first connection and continue working at her second laptop, which lay next to her on the desk.

"Prewitt, I need you to get one of the fiber-optic cables out of my supply cabinet, please," the blonde threw over her shoulder, her focus on the screen in front of her unbroken. The encryption was halfway done. One minute.

"Prewitt! Now!" Lyla didn't have to look behind her to feel the look of disapproval boring through her. He never did say anything if he didn't like something she was doing, he just glared. He always glared. So, Prewitt wasn't going to help. Lovely. Spouting a stream of obscenities, she launched herself out of the rolling chair, flying across the room with all the speed she could muster. Whitish hair springing haphazardly from the ribbon that held it away from her face, the young hacker yanked open the grey industrial-metal door of her supply cabinet, digging frantically through a tangled bird's nest of brightly-colored wires. The fiber-optics were at the very back, hardest to reach. Of course. Thirty seconds.

Lyla sprinted back to her machine, frantically opening the lid of the second laptop and pressing the power button. Sweat beading on her pale forehead, she jammed the end of the cable into the jack of the first computer, taking time to speedily type a bit more of the encryption before going to plug in the second side of the silver wire. The plug was just entering the new laptop when the first machine started to smoke, an alarming wailing noise emitting through the speakers.

"Shit!" the precocious teen shouted, yanking the plug from the undamaged computer immediately, only able to watch in horror as her best hacking computer destroyed itself from the inside out. Groaning miserably, Lyla thought of how she'd had to write five really good programs to pay for that machine. The speakers sputtered out abruptly, and after a few seconds the hard drive exploded in a shower of sparks and plastic slivers, filling the room with smoke. The blonde furiously ripped out the ribbon holding back her waist-length locks, flinging it across the room. Coughing heavily, she threw herself back into the rolling chair, bringing a few fingers up to massage her aching temples. They'd have to stay up here until the smoke cleared on its own. There were no windows in the attic, one of the many reasons Lyla had selected the space as a base for her secret operations, and letting the black miasma escape through her house's ventilation system would create too much of a risk of discovery. Caramel orbs flicked up from under thick lashes to glare accusingly through the haze of smoke from the ruined computer, the gaze directed unmercifully at the meek brunette boy standing a few yards away."Remind me again just why I keep you around?"

[shrimp]

Quite simply, the boy was a tad bit insulted that his best friend had told him to shut up. Of course, she had been a tad bit stressed at the moment, with her hacking stuff and all, but a simple "please be quiet" would have sufficed. Then again, Prewitt was a rather sensitive boy in the first place, so simple statements with the smallest bit of spite nestled in between the letters made him somewhat upset. Sighing the boy rubbed his temples, the pen once again falling from his hand. Cursing inwardly for being so clumsy, he bent down once again to retrieve said pen, just in time for Lyla to ask him to get her some fiber-optic fibers.

Of course, he could have done that, but the boy never liked to indulge himself even more in the illicit activities that Lyla had so often foraged into. Perhaps getting those exact fibers would result in the two of them getting in trouble, and that was the one thing that Prewitt particularly hated. Rubbing his latest bruise - a slight purple-tinged mark on his left cheek, the boy simply glared at his blonde friend, hoping that she would get the hint that he didn't want to get involved.

Clearly, she got the message. Spewing obscene words left and right, Lyla sprinted towards the fibers herself, working furiously to do.... Whatever the hell she wanted to do. At this point Prewitt couldn't really care less. She was going to get in so much trouble, and it wouldn't be his fault, because he did nothing to help the situation from occurring. Of course there was that whole 'guilty by association' crime, but that would simply override his argument, so he pointedly ignored it.

Then, everything went to hell. Lyla cursed even louder this time, and a blaring sound was emitted from one of the machines, smoke rising out of it faster than those fog machines that District 3 had been making with increased frequency lately. Those Capitolites sure loved their mysterious fog, probably for parties of some sort. Coughing, the boy watched as Lyla's favorite computer simply exploded, making him feel slightly less proud of himself for refusing to help. How much did that cost again? Much more than what Prewitt made in a month, that was for sure, and most - if not all of his earning went directly to his parents.

"Remind me again just why I keep you around?"

He looked at Lyla, who was practically boring a hole through his brain with that gaze. He felt the blood rush towards his face, and he looked down, slightly ashamed. Even though Lyla engaged herself in illegal activities that would surely get her killed someday, she was still his only friend, and friends stuck by each other, didn't they? Yes, they did, Prewitt reasoned, which would explain why she was rather angry at him.

He sighed again, followed by a cough - the smoke was getting rather thick at this point, and he really wasn't sure if he should open a window. "Look, Lyla... Whatever you were doing... I didn't think it was right to do... You know? Sometimes... Things are better left as they are," He stated, walking towards the charred mess. Staring at the remains of the computer, he wondered why he even decided to accompany her to her house in the first place. Obviously, he knew that something was going to occur. Lyla was like that - always wanting to get her revenge, and he acknowledged that. But sometimes, he thought that she should just move on.

"I'm sorry, Lyla... But I did what I thought was right."

[Deleted]

Lyla Matheson

[/color]

Sometimes I get so weird, I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep, it's my lullaby.[/color]
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"What you thought was right..." The white-blonde teenager clenched her fists, the chipping neon-polished nails digging little half-moons into the pale expanse of her palms. She hated that she was being so short with her best friend, but the irritation compounded, the death-rays shooting from her amber eyes intensifying as the smoke from the destroyed hull of her laptop began to dissipate into the surrounding air of the high-ceilinged attic. "Yes, Prewitt, what you thought was right. I suppose when the Capitol murdered my little brother, they thought what they were doing was right. I guess when Snow sits at his parties and eats until he can't hold another bite and then throws away half the food while people starve to death out here in the districts, he thinks what he's doing is right. I'm sure that the Gamemakers, whose database I was about to hack into, think it's right when they sit around the table and plan out the gruesome, painful deaths of twenty-three innocent children every year. So here I am, trying to put an end to all of that right-ness. What a horrible thing for me to do, Prewitt. How dare I?"

Lyla bit her bottom lip, a default expression of frustration or nervousness, denting the brightly-lipsticked flesh with her front teeth to the point of causing actual pain. The young hacker leaned forward in the rolling chair, propping the elbow of her good arm on the knee of her electric blue skinny-jean-clad leg and cradling her aching head in her hand. bright green glitter-lined eyes stared blankly at her favorite pair of pink high tops, now tinged gray with dust from the attic and the haze of smoke that covered them. Lyla's warped left arm dangled over the side of the chair, the mangled mess of bone that jutted out of the side of her elbow covered with the sleeve of a bright orange cropped hoodie that stopped at the bottom of her ribs, zipped over an almost painfully intense lime green tank top. The blonde genius irritably tugged her signature bright green aviator frames from her face, sending them sailing through the air and skittering across the floor, coming to rest about a foot or so from Prewitt's feet.

"I'm sorry."

And she truly was. Lyla felt guilty for shouting at her mild-mannered friend, whose life she knew fas far from easy. But she had almost had it! Elegant, pale fingers clenched a handful of whitish hair, tugging in frustration. The hack had been perfectly designed, expertly executed, so near to completion... She had almost completed her vengeance, almost destroyed the bastards who'd taken her little brother from her. Tears pricked her caramel-colored eyes, hot little needles that pooled almost to the point of spilling over as she raised her head to glance back at Prewitt. "I was just so close..."

Lyla quickly blinked away the salty sign of weakness, pushing herself up from the chair and forcing herself to stand in the midst of her defeat, moving her neon-bright body across the floor to where her friend stood. The teen prodigy tried to make herself smile in her usually bright way, but only a sad little grin game out as she rested a delicate hand on the earth-toned shirt that covered his shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. "I shouldn't have yelled, Prew," a little used nickname used only in times of rarely-shared affection. While Lyla was clingy and overly-huggy, she knew that Prewitt wasn't all that big on physical contact, and she usually respected that fact. "Forgive me?"

She glanced back at her workbench, eyes fixed sadly on the smoking remains of her laptop, now a half-melted, useless lump of plastic. A sigh, the soprano timbre of her voice deepened a bit with sadness and smoke exposure. "It's gonna take some really big commissions to replace that thing. Meh, could've been worse."

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