Story Progression: Pt 1.

Read this whole thing, and you’re a legend. Enjoy!




16 year old Markus ambled down the sidewalk, blending with the crowds of New York City.

Dressed in a black zip-up hoodie, black cargo pants that were tight enough to pass for jeans, and black lightweight lace-up boots which could pass for a pair of hi-tops at a passing glance. His hood was up over his sandy blond but short hair. He kept his storm gray eyes fixed on the concrete sidewalk in front of him as he mixed with businessmen, lawyers, and doctors, hands shoved in his pockets. Around his neck he wore a loose black bandana.

On his back he had a single strap backpack with certain...items...inside. First was his fathers laptop, which he had claimed from the wreckage of his family’s burning car. He also had various gadgets and tools that could be used to bypass locks and security systems. He also had one smoke canister. Along with the assorted devices was a folded down MP5K submachine gun with two magazines and a suppressor that wasn’t attached.

In Markus’ pocket was a modified iPod. He had a pair of earbuds for it that were running up under his sweater and in his ears. No music was playing.

On the iPod was five programs. One was dedicated to amplifying conversations from a distance to the point you would be hearing two girls gossip 200 feet away as if you were standing within a foot of them. The second was a communications program, a third a bug sweeper, fourth an encryption program, and fifth a jammer.

In the back waistband of his jeans in a concealed holster, he had a Glock 19. His late parents had never been fans of firearms in their household, but for Markus they were necessary to his day-to-day life. He had two spare magazines in his left pocket, and up his left sleeve in a modified sheath was a small but still decently sized combat knife. He also had a pocket taser in one of the pockets on the inside of his hoodie.

He glanced up briefly. A police squad car had its lights on and had whooped the siren a couple times, but they rolled past Markus and pulled over farther down the street, stopping a different man.

He couldn’t forget that there was technically still a warrant with his name on it. As well as the fact that there were groups in the city that would put a bullet in him without a second thought. That’s what the guns were for.

A man bumped into him and muttered an apology. Markus just kept his head down.

————————————————————

He had grown up pushed away from all the other kids at school, social events, you name it. He was seen as too analytical, too cold for any of the other kids to befriend him. His great grandfather had been a member of the SS in World War II Nazi Germany, and had passed fascist beliefs along to Markus’ grandfather. They hadn’t filtered down to his mother, but Markus was paying the price for them in the 21st Century. His father came from a middle-class family and worked as a software engineer.

Where other students excelled in athletics and studies, Markus picked up hacking and marksmanship, as well as moving unnoticed and blending. There were plenty of the tougher, patriotic kids, who’s ancestors had fought in World War II on the Allied side. They took great delight in sending Markus home with bruises, black eyes, scrapes, and cuts, along with the words, “Nazi.” and “Pig.” burned into his ears and mind.

He transferred schools in the sixth grade. Moved on to seventh. Middle school. Word got around about Markus. Two kids came after them looking to settle a score.

Markus went home with a fractured skull, broken wrist, and sprained ankle.

Luckily, Dad got a new job. They moved from dreary Miles City, Montana, to Chicago, Illinois.

All was well for 8th grade, and most of 9th grade. Markus went to a party one night over Christmas vacation. He had never gone near alcohol, and he didn’t that night. But he met this one girl, Bell Jameson, a sophomore. They hit it off well.

The next day Markus’ sister, Elli, was driving them to school to a high school on the south side of the city. They were four blocks from the school when a blacked out Chevy Camero coupe with tinted windows pulled up on the other side of the intersection. A male with olive skin, 17 or 18 years old, opened the driver side door. Markus was puzzled until he saw the MAC 11 in the teen’s left hand.

“You ****in’ with my girl, homie!” He shouted. It wasn’t a question. Then he raised the MAC and sprayed. The windshield shattered and Elli screamed. Markus was grazed across his left eyelid by a shard of glass, leaving a permanent scar. He caught a bullet through his left shoulder as well.

Elli bled out before the paramedics arrived.

Markus’ parents, blind with grief, blamed him for Elli’s senseless murder. Markus started looking for ways to defend himself. He purchased a knife from a kid at school, and kept it in his backpack. It was the same knife he carried today. Eventually he found an arm sheath to carry it in. What good was a weapon you couldn’t have with you even in the bathroom stall? On top of the blade, he spent some weekends at the shooting range, familiarizing himself with handguns, carbines, bolt-action rifles, even illegal automatic weapons.

Life went on for a couple months. He made a full recovery from his shoulder wound, but his relationship with his father never healed.

Markus was found with the knife, but he fled school grounds and hid the knife. When he returned, the police were waiting. At the station, an officer tried to explain to him that bringing a weapon to school was incredibly dangerous, even if he did it to be able to defend himself.

Markus looked the officer in the eye, and asked, “What did being unarmed ever do to save my sister?”

A year after moving to Chicago, Markus’ father hadn’t quite forgiven him. His mother was still cautious, but she still expressed love to Markus and had cared for him when his father would not. Soon, his father got an offer to work as an IT for a tech firm, Progression Corporation, or ProgCorp. They were based out of New York, so Markus’ father jumped on the chance to move away from what he treated as Elli’s grave.

The family of three made the move to New York City. Markus was enrolled at a high school to start his sophomore year. He went to a community technical college taking an IT class. He found that most of the curriculum the class offered was basic, and he was outdoing every single one of his classmates. His teacher called him a “technical genius.” He was pulled aside by a recruiter for the Army at one point, who asked if he was interested in Electronic Warfare. Markus told him to, effectively, buzz off.

Then, one day, in their expensive apartment, Markus was on his computer in his room, gaming, when his father barged into the apartment, yelling for Markus’ mother. Markus didn’t think much of it and kept playing.

His mother asked what in the hell was so important that he needed to come into the apartment screaming bloody murder for. He apologized profusely and said that they needed to discuss something in their room.

Markus, now sufficiently set in his curiosity, crept silently up the stairs to the door of his parents room. He had developed the skill of silent and unseen movement. His parents were speaking softly. He could hear his dad talking about something bad he’d discovered within ProgCorp. Something bad.

His mother responded that they should tell someone. Their voices got quieter. Markus was only catching bits and pieces of the conversation, so he went back down to his room, unheard.

Some time later, Markus’ father came down and opened his door. “Markus? We’re going somewhere. You’re going to have to come with us.”

Markus shrugged, powering off his computer and grabbing his white zip-up hoodie. He had a black long-sleeve shirt on, and his father couldn’t see the knife on his left forearm.

He followed his parents down the stairs to the apartment’s parking garage, and he got into the back passenger side seat of his family’s Impala. Before his father got in the car, he set his computer bag on the back seat next to Markus.

His dad drove faster than he usually did. His mother whispered something to his father. “What’s going on?” Markus asked.

There was silence for a moment. “Nothing dear. We’re just running an errand.” His mom assured him.

Like hell we are, Markus thought. Dad wouldn’t be driving fifteen over the speed limit for a stupid errand.

They hit the highway. The speed limit was 80, but Markus’ father was driving well over. He glanced in the mirror once or twice.

Markus just kept his eyes glued to the floor, thinking. He glanced up at one point and noticed his father’s knuckles were white. He was holding the steering wheel with a death grip.

Then, he heard a horn and a screech of tires.

He turned his head to look out the driver side rear window in time to see a black unmarked van with tinted windows pull up beside them. He had a brief flashback to a black Camero on the other end of the street, driver jumping out, MAC 11 raised. He shook himself out of it just in time to see the van door slide open to reveal an M240B aimed at the car.

Markus ducked. His parents never saw the van. There was the sound like nickels on steel, mixed with glass shattering. Markus was grazed again, across the right shoulder with a 7.62 bullet. It was just a graze across the back of his shoulder, but he felt it burn.

There was more screeching and then the car slammed into something.

Markus was still conscious. He heard an engine roar as the van sped past, continuing down the highway. Markus struggled to pull himself up.

He didn’t have to look at his parents to know they were dead.

Just past the airbags, through the shattered windshield, Markus could see flames licking at the air from under the hood of the Impala. He was almost on his hands and knees on the floor of the car.

He struggled to try the door handle. It was jammed, but the window was shattered. He managed to push out the remainder of it. Before climbing out of the car, he grabbed his father’s computer bag, and checked his knife was still with him.

Then he ran.

————————————————————

Now here he was.

He glanced at his actual cell phone. An associate of his, nicknamed Scratch, real name Edward, had done heavy work on it, much better than anything Markus could have done. He was good at hacking through security and entry denial measures, not hiding a digital footprint. That’s where Ed came in.

Markus rounded a corner and, finally, came within sight of his target.

A ProgCorp front company, named Tech Kings, was a site for tech testing and development. It was, in essence, a bomb range for operating systems, computers, and the like. They did actual IT work as well, but just to cover.

It also, according to a review of his father’s notes, which Markus was extremely happy to find unencrypted, the site of several of ProgCorps top secret projects.

There was a bus stop outside Tech Kings. Markus glanced at his watch. The bus had just passed, and wouldn’t be through again for some time. He sat down on the bench and slouched, so his Glock in his rear waistband didn’t dig into him awkwardly.

He took off his single strap backpack and took out his father’s laptop. He had decorated it with stickers and some designs that could be easily removed, just in case he was being watched by some cameras. While the computer, with a modified battery to last for several days, booted up, he slid his iPod out of his pocket and activated the communication program.

“Good. Was waiting for you to check in.” Razor, or James greeted him, voice coming in loud and clear from his earbuds. “Ready on your go.”

“Jamming.” Markus whispered, activating the jammer.

The jammer program detected signals and filtered them to identify wireless or wired connections that lead back to recording devices, visual or audio. Once the program had filtered out the cameras around Markus, he hit the red option labeled DISABLE. All cameras on that city block went out.

The laptop was ready. Marcus opened he correct programs and began doing his thing.

After a few minutes of circumventing a couple firewalls, James spoke on the link. “Tech Kings just placed a call complaining about a camera outage. There’s been a couple other ones, but they’re being resolved slowly.”

Markus didn’t respond. He just kept hacking.

Eventually he broke the encryption on the executive manager’s computer. The programs his father had made were excellent, decades above commercial ones. Ed tinkered with them to simplify and improve them here and there. James helped monitor things that Markus would have to be superhuman to watch, and Markus did the insertions and actual hacking.

He found a file marked PC: BROADSWORD in the exec’s folders. Markus wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t think PC stood for personal computer either. And BROADSWORD was slightly suspicious on a manager’s computer.

Luckily it was locked with the same sixteen digit passcode that all of his other files had been locked with. The loading bar hit 78% when two red messages flashed across the screen. One read SECURITY LOCKDOWN. The other said: TRACE DETECTED: 0%, and immediately bumped to one percent, then two.

James swore. Markus severed his signal on the computer and slid it into his backpack, zipping it up and throwing the strap over his shoulder again. “Going in.” Markus whispered.

“Oh hell no. This isn’t what we agreed on.” James blurted.

“Got a better idea?” Markus hissed. James could see his every move. There was a micro cam embedded into his sweater zipper, one designed to get around the jammer. He pulled the loose black bandana up over the bridge of his nose to cover his mouth.

“Yeah. ****ing run.”

Markus grinned to himself. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Moron.”

Markus slipped into the store. He had none of his fancy electronic lock-slicing tools in his pockets readily available, but he could manual a normal lock if he needed to.

Three IT guys who definitely were not IT techs judging by the lumps under their jackets came out of the back of the shop. “Someone just tried to hack us. Block the doors, nobody leaves.”

Well, that certainly complicates things, thought Markus. He continued to slide his way through the tightly packed crowd. Tech Kings was apparently having a sale on the latest smartphones.

Eventually he made it to the other side, where he knew a door and a back hallway led to the executive manager’s office, where his computer was located.

Avoiding the circling not-IT consultants, he eased open the door and slid through, shutting it silently behind him...

...and coming face-to-face with a man with a beer belly, wearing a tag marked Executive Manager.

He opened his mouth to scream, but found himself staring down the barrel of a Glock 19 quickly drawn. The manager quickly put his hands up. “I won’t scream.”

“Damn right you won’t.” Markus chuckled, and smashed the butt of the pistol into the man’s forehead. He dropped like a stone.

“Damn.” James winced in his ear.

Markus stepped over the manager and unscrewed the thread cap on the threaded barrel of the Glock, reaching for the suppressor in one of his many cargo pockets. He was moving down a narrow hallway, and people tended to scream when a Taser touched them. He didn’t want to start pulling triggers, but he would do what he had to do.

Markus jogged silently down the black-tiled hallway with white walls till he found a wooden door marked Executive Management. Holstering his pistol for the moment and, sliding on a pair of surgical gloves, he pressed the release to slide his knife off his forearm. He jammed it into the doorframe just above the lock and slid the blade down. The door clicked open.

Inside was a barren office with one of the neatest desks Markus had ever seen. Checking the room briefly, Markus shut the door and threw the deadbolt. Then he set his backpack down as he accessed the computer.

He navigated his way to the BROADSWORD file, when James spoke again. “I managed to get into one of the display cameras in the shop. The guys who I’m pretty sure aren’t IT specialists are frisking customers for anything up to a thumb drive.

Markus who, coincidentally, produced a thumb drive and plugged it into a port, initiating a data transfer. It progressed quickly, much to Markus’ satisfaction.

Then somebody tried the door.

Marcus unholstered his Glock and shifted it to his right hand, monitoring the data transfer out of the corner of his eye.

“They get through that door and it’s game over for you.” Ed murmured. So he was watching as well.

Markus was busy racking his brains on what to do. Eventually he came up with some semblance of a plan. He this single strap backpack and opened it, removing the M18 smoke canister and, pulling the pin, set it on the floor in the center of the room.

It began to hiss gray smoke, filling the room. There was a crash as something slammed against the door. It obviously had some sort of reinforcement, and these guys weren’t the professionals they thought they were.

“The hell you doing Markus?” James muttered.

“Trust me.” He replied quietly, just before the sprinkler system activated and fire alarms started wailing.

There were muffled shouts from the hallway, indicating that the sprinkler system had activated out there as well. There was another crash as someone tried to break the lock again.

Dean checked the data transfer. It was nearly complete. He just glanced between the screen and the door as something hit the door’s lock again.

The transfer flashed complete.

Markus ripped out the thumb drive and, drawing his Glock, put three rounds into the computer casing where the hard drive would be. He snatched the smoke canister, dropped it into his backpack, zipped it up, threw it on, and put a bullet through the window in the back of the office. It shattered, and Markus jumped on the second desk pushed against the wall, and climbed out the small window.

He immediately found himself swimming in a crowd of pedestrians and customers mixed up due to the fire alarm. As low key as he could, he slid his surgical gloves off his hands and into his pockets.

Behind him, from the window he had just exited, Markus heard a shotgun go off. There were screams and shouts as the crowd began to slowly struggle to get away from Tech Kings.

“Jesus Markus...”

“Did you have a better idea?” He murmured.

“No, I didn’t, which is why I applaud your course of action, bud, but this isn’t something kids like us should be doing. This is essentially industrial espionage.”

Markus chuckled under his breath. “This isn’t something anyone should be doing.”

“Gotcha.” James said sarcastically. “Pulling the car up. ETA twenty seconds.”

Markus just kept his head down. He was far enough out of the crowd where nobody would be focusing on him, but the throng of people behind him. He slid down his bandana over his mouth and, leaving it around his neck, stuffed it down beneath his hoodie.

There was a rev of an engine and Markus risked a peek behind him. A blacked out BMW M4 coupe pulled up next to him. Markus pulled the passenger door open and hopped in, dropping his backpack behind the seat. Then, he unholstered the Glock 19 and handed it to James, who slid it inside his leather jacket. Dean then opened the glovebox and slid his Kimber 1911 where the Glock had been holstered. Both handguns belonged to Markus, but he preferred the Kimber for it’s stopping power in the form of seven .45 ACP rounds. The Glock held 15 plus one of you carried it loaded, but even with a six pound trigger, it was sketchy drawing a loaded pistol from your rear waistband without putting a bullet through your rear. With the Kimber and it’s sensitive trigger, it was even sketchier.

“We good?” James inquired.

Markus glanced in the right mirror. There was still a crowd. Two unmarked Chargers with police lights followed by a massive armored Bearcat tore down the road past them.

“Punch it.”

 

OwO no u