Who: Brad Fitzgerald and Will Grady (Ursa) What: A Job Proposition Where: Blindeye Diner When: 28th April, Night Ratings/Warnings: Low
Brad walked into the Blindeye Diner, while it didn’t have the best food in Vegas it was still edible and he doubted that many of the people who were actually there came for the food. Blindeye was the place to meet up with someone if you didn’t want to be noticed, and it was much safer than some dark alley between buildings.
The reason Brad had visited that evening was to meet up with someone, he had been chatting online with a person who called themselves Ursa and from what he had heard from others they were a real whiz with computers and technology. While Brad knew the basics and could problem solve his own small issues, he knew he needed someone who’s knowledge in the area far exceeded his own if he wanted to get his confidential counselling idea off the ground - a whiz who could set him up so calls and messages to and from either his phone or computer would be untraceable, compromising neither himself or those who may call seeking advice or even just someone who would listen.
Brad was wearing a light sweater who’s primary colors were red and white, he had told Ursa that he’d be wearing it, to make it easier to pick each other out from a crowd and save the possibility of talking to the wrong person. There were still a few minutes to go so he ordered a soda from the counter, something to tide him over while he waited.
This wasn’t Will’s usual line of work; he drowned in the darker depths of the dark web typically, had learned to navigate those waters like a shark. But since finding Tal and uncovering the shadier sides of his older brother's reality, Will knew that he needed to set a few things moving in the right direction. Moving in with Tal had been an offer that required trust - it meant that the need for cleaner sources of income were necessary. It made his stomach twist to pay his part of the rent with blood money.
The Tesla he’d been driving had been long since ditched. Will had procured a new vehicle, an F-150 with a good many miles on it so as to blend in better with the locals and move any furniture Tal needed.
He eased the old Ford pickup into a slot at the Blind-eye, and before too long his sneakers were carrying him through the door. Blue eyes would sweep. He offered a smile and a nod to the hostess, and then caught sight of the man he was supposed to be meeting sitting at the counter. “I’m okay, thank you.” The hostess only smiled and nodded, letting Will go.
Like they’d agreed on, he wore a blue shirt in a primary color with a black, light jacket on to cover his arms. Fitted, dark denim jeans and of course his sneakers. Maybe he didn’t look like a computer hacker, or maybe he did. “Hey,” he offered, slipping up beside the man at the counter.
Taking a sip from the lemonade Brad looked over a menu that sat on the counter in front of him as he waited, the chicken burger with bacon and a side of fries sounded delicious and although he didn’t have to eat food like regular humans, that didn’t mean he had to refrain altogether, he had gotten used to the taste of certain foods and liked trying out new things.
He could feel the presence of someone moving into the space beside him even before the greeting was uttered, glancing at the man Brad noticed the blue shirt but didn’t take much else in. “Hey Ursa. Order whatever you want, deals should never be done on an empty stomach.”
“Nice of you,” Will murmured. He slipped a menu over to himself, finding the plastic on the covers to be oddly clinical. Or maybe he was the odd one for thinking it in the first place. The cover opened to display the many assortment of things. Blue eyes would fall to the words and search with faint interest. Breakfast, burgers, something fried steak.
He snapped the menu closed moments later and lifted his chin to set his eyes on the waitress behind the counter. “Tea please,” he asked. “Unsweetened.” She nodded and smiled, but drifted away.
And then Will turned to the stranger in the red and white sweater. “What are you getting?”
While Blindeye wasn’t the fanciest place in Vegas, he did like the retro feel and really, it was the fact no one paid any attention to what went on inside that Brad liked. You’d remember your own conversation but nothing about anyone else, he doubted even the staff remembered who they served.
“The chicken burger with extra bacon and a side of fries.” Brad replied. As it happened the waitress had come back with the tea and scrawled down his order on the pad in front of her. Looking towards the booths he noticed there was one free. “How about we get a booth?” Came the suggestion, while they wouldn’t be discussing anything illegal or dangerous, Brad would feel better if they weren’t sitting so close to others.
“Thanks,” Will would murmur to the waitress. She only smiled at him. With a nod in reply he swept up the glass carefully and took a sip from it while casting a quick glance around at the other patrons. Then he spied the booth. “Yeah,” Will replied. “That works. After you.”
He turned back to the waitress to order for himself, just a regular burger with no onions and fries on the side. She jotted that down and then he moved after the stranger toward the booth. The fabric crinkled beneath him as he sat. The tea would be set carefully down.
With his soda in hand Brad got up from the stool at the counter and walked to the empty booth, knowing that the other man would follow him and take a seat across the table after he had finished placing his own order. He stretched a bit as he sat, the seating had seen better days but it still offered for cushioning than the stools had, and there was also more room and no worries about nudging someone else while trying to eat.
When Ursa sat opposite him Brad took a moment to look at the other man, definitely not what he had pictured, less stereotypical geek and more high school jock, although he’d keep those musings to himself. He knew what it was like to be labelled, forever the dumb blond. If that’s what others wanted to believe then so be it. “So Ursa… it should be a pretty easy job for you, probably get it done in a couple of hours.” Building confidence and inflating the other guy’s ego a bit.
“Depends on exactly what you’re needing,” Will returned. He hoped that the stranger was correct, but then the expectation could have been inflated due to lack of concept and the inner workings that were involved in certain things. They’d chatted a bit online but nothing solid had been confirmed yet. He was curious though. “But I’ll do my best.”
Brad smiled across at Ursa before taking another sip of his drink. “As I told you in our exchanges, I work for a consortium who wish to set up a confidential messaging service for counselling purposes. Pretty much a two sided VPN here both parties remain totally anonymous to each other, and big brother,” eyes glancing at the ceiling for a moment, “can’t see what is discussed. Maybe some kind of bot that deletes everything once the chat is over, to ensure nothing gets used as blackmail.”
Will leaned forward slightly as he listened. He nodded after a few moments of mulling things over. “I need to see your set up,” he explained. He could hack into almost anything - that wasn't the problem - it was the fact that most computers and devices had encryptions in them. And could this lovely stemware handle the bandwidth, the speed itself could tank the project. “But I can do it in a few hours.” It was confirmed. The VPN, once stable, could connect to the other device or computer without anything more than internet access.
"Well we couldn't afford a super computer with terabytes of processing power, but we're not expecting to be counselling more than a few people at a time." Getting the phone out of his pocket Brad typed in a few things before sliding it across to let Ursa see the main computer that would be suitable for running it all, state of the art with all the bells and whistles. "This is what we've got, think that'll be enough?"
His eyes would drop to the phone. He made no move to pick it up, only examined the photograph. A nod would come. “That will work.” As his gaze lifted and settled back on the stranger, the corner of his lips twisted into a bit of a smile. “When would you like me to start?” He inquired. “And I want half up front.” They hadn’t negotiated yet but he wanted to spare the surprises when it came to his fee. He was a known hacker, one of the more well-known, much to his want to be discreet.
"When are you free?" Brad replied with a question of his own. "It's not urgent but I'd like to get it started sooner rather than later." When it came to the mention of wanting half up front Brad reached into the small bag he had brought with him and pulled out an envelope. "This be enough?" Inside $5000 $100 notes.
Once more his gaze would drop. Will nodded. “Under the table,” he murmured, looking at the stranger again. “I’m free whenever. You know how to find me when you’re ready.” This one had found him once before, enough to have heard of him and negotiate for business deals.
The envelope was passed across to the other man under the table as requested. Cash was always good, it never left a paper trail and he was sure Ursa would spend it just as readily. "I'll talk with the others but you shouldn't be waiting for too long." Brad smiled, only time would tell if this man was as good as his online presence claimed but he still seemed like a nice enough person from first impressions. "Been in Vegas long?" He asked, interested in knowing a little bit more about the other man because, well, he wanted to.
“Good,” he murmured. The envelope would go into a jacket pocket. Then he removed the layer, the sleeve of his shirt pressing against the bear tattoo that he sported. Part of it, anyway. He sipped from his tea. “Just moved here,” Will offered, his blue eyes finding the stranger’s.
Brad's own sweater soon followed suit, placed on the bench beside him, it was too warm inside for it anyway. "It's unlike anywhere else really, it gets in your blood and next thing you know, the years have gone by without you knowing. Weather's a lot nicer too… well except in the middle of summer." He flashed a smirk, he didn't miss Chicago's freezing winters, not one bit, though the summers still took some getting used to. "Find a place with decent air conditioning is the only advice I can give."
“I don’t mind the snow,” Will replied. Chicago wasn’t just windy. It was also chock full of snow. Colorado had much of the same. This was entirely different than he was used to yet he found himself enjoying the change. “You get more creative with the warmth.” They had a fireplace or two. Sleeping bags.
“There’s a difference between snow and a full on blizzard though.” Thankfully the university had the foresight to close for those times when blizzards or winter storms were forecasted, so Brad often just sat inside and looked out the window at the flurries of white. He did miss that. Brad had also seen some snow and cold temperatures during his year in Paris and knew it’d take some acclimatising to get used to Vegas’s dry weather again. A grin spread across his face at Ursa’s mention of getting creative with finding warmth “Oh definitely. That’s the fun bit about getting trapped in a winter squall with someone else.”
“Sure,” Will replied, nodding. Thankfully the waitress came by with their food and a refill. He tucked into the nourishment as a distraction. You didn’t mix business with pleasure. Right? Either way he was fine.
It was definitely not a good idea to mix business and pleasure, he had learned that the hard way quite a few years ago. Though it did seem like half the time whatever came from Brad’s mouth sounded more like a flirt than it should. “Bon appetit.” He said to no one in particular before picking up his burger and taking the first bite, it wasn’t as bad as others he had eaten in the past and it would keep him happy until he had the opportunity to feed properly.
Had he been able to read minds, Will would have agreed with Brad about the food. He had enjoyed better but it wasn’t terrible. Typical diner food. You couldn’t really mess up a hamburger unless it was intentionally done. Now that the business seemed concluded, Will tipped his head to the side and got a better look at the man who had requested his help.
“You know,” he began, softly. “Those glasses look good on you.”
After that first bite Brad had checked his burger, making sure that the chicken was cooked all the way through in the middle, a bout of food poisoning had made him cautious of every chicken burger since that day years before. At least Blindeye used real chicken, something he filed away in his memory for future reference.
Brad lifted his head from where he had been looking at the fries. "Hmm..? Oh these? I usually use them for close up work but most people who know me don't know that I have glasses, I've walked straight past a couple of them more than once and they don't even recognize me." A small smirk. "Makes you feel like Clark Kent."
It was interesting to hear that tale about the glasses; Will found it funny that something so small could render a person a ghost in certain circumstances. The man did look good in them, though. “Does that make you Superman when you aren’t wearing them?” He teased lightly. He didn’t have to worry about glasses or contacts, born with naturally good eyesight.
He wiggled out of the jacket. The sleeves of his shirt didn’t quite cover the bear tattoo on his arm.
Brad laughed. "I wish! I'd love to be able to fly. Though I'm sure the laser and x-ray vision would come in handy at times too." He'd leave that for the other man to interpret how he wished as he picked at a few more fries. "Though I wasn't really one for comic books as a kid, too busy with Tolkien and CS Lewis." Even now he still read them at least once every few years.
“The classics,” Will murmured with amusement. He would nod. “The movies weren’t nearly as good.” They were what they were for the big screen, chalk full of action and suspense, but they’d left out a lot of the lore and the network. “I didn’t have time for comic books either, really.” Most of his time was occupied with either sports when he was younger or computer hacking as he aged. With school in there somewhere.
"Start quoting Tom Bombadil and you'll soon weed out those who actually read the book." A fry pointed towards the other man. "I wanted to read Arthur C Clarke when I was a kid but my parents made me wait until I got a bit older. Twenty years after the first book was set and we haven't gone back to the moon, let alone built a base on it!"
Maybe he had a penchant for surrounding himself with educated, cultured people, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. Instead, Will nodded and smiled a bit more. “Certainly helps, doesn’t it?” Sussing out the weeds, anyway. “I re-read the Alienist the other day. One of my favorites.” Maybe it wasn’t elves and battles but it was a good crime mystery with a sequel.
It didn't really surprise Brad that the other man had an interest in books and things that were intellectually diverse, computer hackers weren't exactly dunces. He felt himself relaxing a bit more, he got sick of playing an idiot. "Can't say I ever got into that author's work, I preferred the Millennium or Hannibal Lecter series. Though Anthony Hopkins still sends a shiver down my spine!"
Will chuckled a bit, nodding. “Hannibal Lector, for sure. I did like the Silence of the Lambs movie. Red Dragon was alright.” Sequels and Prequels weren’t often as good as the originals unless you counted the LOTR trilogy or Star Wars. He didn’t watch a lot of movies, though, up until recently.
"Again… the books were much better." He smiled warmly before picking up the rest of his burger and taking a large bite from it. It was doing a good job of distracting him from the other hunger that lay inside him, he'd find someone soon enough that would fulfill that need, it didn't stop Brad's mind from wondering if he could slyly feed from Ursa, and how to instigate the required touch without seeming like he was trying to get the other man into bed.
He couldn’t disagree with that statement. It seemed they had more in common than he thought originally. That could make the work either easier or more difficult depending on how much they continued to divulge. Will knew better than to give up too much - it wasn’t just trouble for him but for the other person as well. Instead of replying he simply finished his meal and sipped from the tea.
It wasn't like Brad was giving away too much about himself, lots of people had a love of the kinds of books they had talked about. Hopefully their discussion had helped rather than hindered, hackers weren't exactly all that trusting. With both meals finished and plates moved aside, Brad took a chance, a hand reaching across to rest on one of Ursa's. "Thank you for agreeing to help, I really appreciate it." He also knew that the other man would be feeling quite happy at that moment, all part of how his kind hunted.
That surge of emotion was odd; Will would’ve pulled back had he been able to consider things quicker. Instead he left his hand laying there on the table and did nothing at all about the stranger’s own over it. “Sure,” he replied. “Tomorrow is good then? What time? Would you text me your address?” He didn’t like to give out his number but then he did have more than one phone.
The hand under his hadn't pulled back in shock or disgust, that was always a good sign. Brad would only take enough that he classified as a snack, the same he took from clients at work and Ursa would be none the wiser. "I'm not working tomorrow, so anytime that suits you." The computer was set up at the apartment that he rented just near the strip. It was easier when he worked late at night to just sleep there than trying to fight with traffic for sometimes an hour to get home.
Will would nod. “Okay. Just message me when you’re ready,” he replied. Either way, he would be there as promised. It wasn’t like he had anything pressing happening beyond a few small jobs easily done from home.
"It definitely won't be before 11am, no one should do business that early in the morning." Though he rarely slept in, Brad didn't know what kind of schedule the other man kept and late morning or early afternoon would mean traffic would be lighter than usual. Giving the hand still under his a quick squeeze he then pulled it back. "How about noon? I'll supply lunch."
“That will work,” Will replied, nodding. Noon he could do. Lunch was even better. Withdrawing his hand, Will slipped back into his jacket. Out of the envelope in his pocket he withdrew enough to cover their food - he was trying to get off on the right foot after all - and then slipped out of the booth to leave.
"See you then." Brad replied as Ursa grabbed his jacket and put some money on the table, adding some of his own for a tip. He smiled and threw a wink in the other man's direction. He'd wait a few minutes before leaving.