Cyber Sleuth
#2 of Welcome To The Family
Chapter two, I am still not entirely sold on the title tho. The main title 'Welcome to the Family'. I mean it covers the themes of the story I guess, but I dunno...
Anyway thank you for reading and I really hope you enjoy it. I'm having so much fun writing these characters. I like how Riley's first chapter has turned out, I wanted it to have less dialogue than Lars' did, since he's a much quieter fur.
It's tagged as adult because of the mention of porn and some swear words. I think that might be overkill tho?
After two hours of digging around inside a computer, Riley concluded that the fur whose life he was invading was the most boring lion alive. He'd been sitting in a lecture, up the back as usual, except the lecturer taking the class was going on and on about PCP encryption, and Riley already knew all he needed to on that front. So he made a decision to test his new laptop while he waited for the class to end. He'd gotten it from a friend of his; a polar bear Riley had met online named Gareth. The bear sold stuff to the fox in exchange for various favours. They were usually to retrieve some random furs email history or fuck with their Facebook pages. Simple stuff, but the polar bear's specialty was building computers, not cracking them. It had been a bit of a push for Riley to convince him to give over a whole computer, but in the end the bear caved. He had a soft spot for the fox, who was very clearly alone in his own world. So Riley ended up with a Frankenstein-like, Linux running Toshiba. As a general rule he avoided this particular brand, since they tended to overheat, but Gareth assured him he'd installed countermeasures to that issue. So with his new gear, Riley set himself up in the back of his lecture room and installed the contents from his old hard drive. After that was done, creating what was essentially a clone of the old laptop, he decided to poke about the lives of the furs that had jumped him a couple of days ago. There were two of them, one was a lion named Jason Marks and the other was an owl called Henry Roberts. Boring names for boring furs. Riley concluded to himself. But still, he'd recognised them both as students who went to the university and thought they might enjoy having their lives fucked with. After using the student network as a gateway to access their computers, he opened their email and social media accounts. Right then he decided to leave Henry alone, he was a younger owl who'd just started studying and was clearly lonely. Riley recognised how easy it was to get sucked up in someone else's wake, so all he did was hope the owl would come to his senses soon. As for Jason, well he was the aforementioned most boring lion alive. His computer was made up mostly by poorly written essays, a ton of boring music and a folder containing a load of porn so incredibly basic and heterosexual it made the hacker fox roll his eyes. There wasn't much he could do with that, spreading around the contents of that last folder might embarrass the lion a bit, but it wouldn't really hurt him much.
Shrugging to himself apathetically, Riley chose to install a hidden program on the machine, which would allow him to get back in easily next time, and wait. He'd take the next couple of hours or days to think of an appropriate response to the destruction of his laptop, which was an important cornerstone of his life. The part that made Riley angry too, was that it happened for the dumbest reasons. As he'd been leaving the train station, rubbing his paws together to stay warm in the cold night, he'd heard the two punks walk up behind him.
"Faggot." That was all he heard, turning around just as the larger one sucker-punched him. Being beaten up for being gay was ridiculous, in the fox's opinion; to still be hating gay furs meant the attacker had to be a complete moron. He couldn't quite comprehend how other furs could be so stupid. The lion had said something about making sure he stayed away from him (Which was ludicrous anyway, because he only knew Riley through reputation, and the fox had only seen him at a distance) and threw the fox against a wall. When the smaller fur heard the smashing sound of his precious machine, he dived forwards on the lion. Jason had put his paws up to defend, but Riley just bit him, hard. After that the owl had pulled him off Jason and they each kicked him once or twice. It irked Riley that he hadn't even been beaten up for a good reason, just some fucked-in-the-head idiot being insecure. A lot of people in the university had heard of the Riley, the simple fact that he barely spoke to the other students made him interesting. He was that 'weird black fox who always wore hoodies'. Even though Riley never shared them, somehow the other students had found his school marks...which were excellent. This forced them to focus on him even more, which just pissed him off.
"Riley? I'm gonna lock the door in a minute." Said the lecturer, a gentle sloth who Riley regarded quite admirably. Looking around, the fox realised everyone had left, he'd been so caught up in what he was doing he missed the end.
"Oh, right. Sorry." He replied, logging out of Jason's computer, and then shutting his own down.
"PCP Encryption not to your taste?" Obviously the sloth had realised his student had not been paying attention.
"Uh...no, I guess not. I kinda knew most of it anyway, being truthful." He forced his paws into his pockets, unsure how to stand properly.
"That's okay, sorry if it was boring for you then."
"Oh, don't worry about it. I had some work to catch up on anyway."
"Good to hear." With that Riley picked up his gear and left the room, without any kind of goodbye to his lecturer. As he was walking, his mind wandered back to that eager tiger he'd met the other night. He was cute for sure, but was he really all that interesting? Riley had ended up talking to him longer than he meant to, but he put that down to the alcohol. Thinking about the music student made him realise what that idiotic lion had been studying, he'd seen it as he flicked through the university network's list of students. Normally that was obviously restricted, especially the IP Address data, which even the lecturers couldn't typically access, but Riley had his ways. Lars had said he was studying music, which prompted the fox to recall that Jason was also studying music. Sure, Jason was a little further along in his course, so the two may not know each other, but Lars might at the very least know him in passing. Riley smiled, despite himself, it would give him a legitimate reason to visit the adorable tiger. Adorable? Not the kind of language he typically used to describe other furs. He shook his head, trying to shake himself out of the young person hormonal funk. That damned tiger probably isn't even gay, it was most likely harmless flirting. He was a bartender after all, Riley was pretty sure they had to flirt, part of the job. Deciding nothing would likely come of it, the fox pushed any 'not safe for work' thoughts out of his head regarding the tiger, and focused on his main goal.
With that matter settled in his head, he was woken out of his wandering stupor when he walked straight into a large fur. It was a dark horse who looked like she was either a mature-aged student or a lecturer. Riley quickly nodded, muttering an apology and moved on. The mistake had awoken him to the fact that it was almost lunchtime, and he needed food. With that in mind, he took himself off university grounds to a nearby café he enjoyed called Rafi's. It was a small, quiet place that made simple food and nice coffee. Riley ordered a sandwich and hot chocolate, needing something sugary to keep him focused, and sat down at an empty corner seat. Opening his laptop and logging in to the local WI-FI, he activated an encryption program (No, not PCP) that would protect his computer from intrusions. He was aware it was more than a little paranoid, since it was unlikely some random fur in the almost empty room was planning to use unsecured WI-FI networks to hack their fellow patrons, but it never hurt. Sipping his hot drink, he logged onto his own Facebook page, searching around until he found a page that matched with the Danish tiger he met the other night. Lars Johansen. The kit had a simple picture of himself taken by another, while attending to some drums. The tiger had looked up just in time for the picture to be snapped, and Riley didn't deny it was a pretty great photo. He stalked the page a little, noticing with disappointment the relationship status said 'single' and interested in females. Still, it wasn't always so concrete. The fox shook his head, throwing those romantic thoughts away. He didn't have the time to invest in another fur like that, especially if it was unlikely to go anywhere. Opening up messenger, he sent a private message to Lars.
Hey, great meeting u the other night. Wondering if you had five minutes in the next few days to catch up? I might need some help with the fuckers who jumped me. Only after he sent it did Riley realise, number one that most furs would likely interpret that as wanting help to fight them in some way, and number two it was possible that Lars was friends with the lion bastard. It was too late to stress about that now, the message was sent, and the fox anxiously noticed that Lars was already typing back.
Yeah u too. How so? What kind of help? He replied.
Nothing too exciting, I thought I recognised him is all, thought maybe u might have some information on who he is. A slight lie, but Riley couldn't exactly tell the whole truth; no it'd be easier to explain in person.
Why would I know him? Asked Lars. The fox wanted to hit himself; of course he'd left out some key details, it was a common problem when he got excited or focused on a problem.
Well if he is who I think, then he's a music student, like you right?
Who is it, you think? Riley hesitated for a moment, worrying a little. If Lars and Jason were friends, revealing that name would likely make Lars instantly dislike Riley. However...If Lars were friends with that bastard, then it Riley felt no reason to remain in contact with him.
Jason Marks? Large, lion fucker? After sending it Riley panicked, which was unlike him. Especially when Lars took slightly longer than before to respond, it wasn't an instant reply. He bit into the sandwich in anxiety, trying to relax himself.
Yeah, I've met him a few times. His brother is in one of the bands I play with. Shit, he did know him. The fox wondered if that was good or bad.
Oh? You guys friends or....? He sent through, trying to be a direct.
No way, Jason is a total psycho. His brother is okay I guess, but he told me Jason's been arrested twice. The fox sat back, he hadn't even thought to check for arrest records.
Are u serious?
Yup. Bar fights, so he got let off with a warning, both times. Riley felt astonished, the bastard had pulled this shit before. He just bet some male accidentally giving the lion a look caused the fights.
Motherfucker. U mind meeting me in person somewhere? He asked, trying to make it sound platonic and friendly.
Ok. Tomorrow morning okay for u? Riley had a class in the afternoon, but he was free until 1pm.
Perfect, 10am at that coffee shop, Rafi's? U know it?
Yeah that's cool. Riley laughed to himself, nervous for no reason, and sent back a smiley face. It was unlike him to be so interested in another fur so quickly, but he'd meet with the tiger and see what was what.
Riley didn't mind being alone; he enjoyed his own company. Not many could hold his interest for long anyway. So through his life he did most things on his own, but when he saw someone with their girlfriend or boyfriend, he knew he didn't mind being alone, but didn't really like always being lonely.