Post by CYPHER on Sept 25, 2022 4:53:07 GMT -5
[Previously: levelupwrestling.freeforums.net/thread/1125/g4m3-0v3r-1-2]
“Tyler, I need your help.”
“Easton? Why the fuck are you calling me this late?”
“I knew you’d be up, nerd.”
…
“Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“What do you want then? Money? I can give you all the money you want if you just stop being a pussy for five seconds.”
“Bruh.”
“I know you’re friends or whatever with Thad and his cronies but he crossed the line with me. Now I want to make the prick bleed, not just physically, but emotionally.”
…
“Thad, Cyrus, Sahara, they all deserve to burn. I’m just asking you to throw some wood on the fire.”
…
“I’m in, on one condition.”
“Yeah?”
“They can’t find out I helped you. I don’t give a shit if they find out about you, but I have to stay the silent partner.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Need more than that, Thad’s gonna throw everything at this once it happens. My anonymity has to be guaranteed, you’re going to have to think about this from all angles.”
“I can do that.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Payment up front.”
/~/
September, 2022
Toronto Private Hospital
Post Massacre
The bright lights of the emergency ward at the Toronto Private Hospital wizzed by overhead as Cypher was wheeled along on a gurney. He fell in and out of consciousness as each one passed, in a sort of mental limbo. As the nurses rushed to keep him stable, so did his mind.
Despite Easton’s assurances, everything had fallen apart. Now he was likely the most hated man on the roster…not that he was even on the roster anymore. Thad and his pals had seen to that. His job, his championship, and his…strategic partnerships…had all been destroyed.
He was sure there would be a firestorm on twitter. Thad, Sahara, SEB, Sloane, and all the others would be whining about how he could be so horrible. But that was the thing. They never knew him, not really. They saw him how they wanted to see him.
In the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions.
They wanted him to be their funny quirky hacker friend who they could use for their own benefit when they felt like it. But they had paid a price for being so naïve.
For someone who had so much money just lying around, Thad was somehow blind to the reality that everyone has a price.
“23-year-old male with severe chest trauma-
“At least four broken ribs-
“O2 stat is dropping-
The words of the nursing staff came to him in a haze, fading in and out. Their urgency was lost on him in this dreamlike state, he didn’t feel anxious at all. In fact he felt totally calm and at peace with everything that was going on. It was funny, he knew no doubt that everyone would expect him to feel horrible after being busted for being involved in the kidnapping of a child.
Did he feel bad?
Yeah, but only that he got caught.
Frankie was fine, rich kid probably had never tasted danger in his life. His life was not at risk, though he knew it would never be framed that way. From now on he knew he was on his own, just like he had been when he started in this business. Things could never go back to the way they were…but that suited him just fine.
The time for playing nice was over.
“He’s starting to fade-
Now it was time for him to truly show he was Superior.
“Tyler? Tyler, can you hear me?”
…
“Tyler?”
/~/
May, 2022
Los Angeles, California
Action Wrestling’s XIII Press Conference
“We’ve got time for one more question, yes, Allan, up the back.”
“We all know about your hacking skills, Cypher, you’ve mention them a lot and you seem quite proud of them.”
“That’s not a question, but thanks.”
A smattering of laughter breaks out among the media pack, and Cypher flashes a smug smile.
“Is it true that earlier this year you posted this photo on Twitter, appearing to show This Is Awesome reporter Emma Langdon naked, without her consent?”
The press pack immediately fall silent.
“Yeah, I did, want me to send you a signed copy?”
The journalists explode into a frenzy, stepping over one another while fighting to quiz Cypher about his unprofessional response.
“Do you think this is conduct becoming of a-
“Leaking nudes without permission is illeg-
“Are you aware of an investigation into-
“WOULD YOU LOSERS JUST SHUT UP?!”
The sound of Cypher’s fist connecting with the media desk silences the press.
“You wanna make me the villain? Fine, I’ve been the villain my whole life. Ya’ll can stay mad, I’m good at what I do. And plenty of people value me more than they value you, so I’ll sleep tight at night knowing that.”
WIth that, the Superior Design stands up from the desk and makes to escape from the pack of vultures.
As he’s on his way out, a woman’s voice, soft but dripping with intent makes him stop in his tracks. It’s one he recognises. One he knows all too well.
“You think she’ll press charges, Tyler?”
He looks up to see Emma Langdon staring at him from the back of the room. Her arms are crossed, her eyes narrowed. Two black lines trace down her cheeks, still wet with tears from earlier in the night.
Cypher pauses for a moment, caught off guard by his ex-lover’s sudden appearance. Then he steadies himself, a smirk appearing on his lips.
“I doubt it.”
/~/
September, 2022
San Francisco, California
“And Cypher wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
Twisting up his pugalicious face in disgust, Tyler Norrie quickly backspaced the words on his Google Doc.
Too cliche.
He was trying to type the lines of his return promo. He wanted to write something that would get those fat, stupid, lazy marks to stand up and clap for once in their useless lives. Something that would trigger the Thads and Saharas of the world into a tweeting frenzy.
Something that might be judged as…superior.
Yeah, that’s it!
“And @superior_Cypher wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
Ehh, not as catchy.
He backspaced the line again, but before he could set his mind to typing again a notification in the top right of the screen drew his attention away from the page.
“Email from: Emma Langdon.
Topic: Justice.”
His veins ran cold.
Heart thumping, he slowly moved the cursor over the notification.
Click.
“Dear Tyler,
For too long I’ve let you live a life free of consequence.
I’ve suffered in silence every single day remembering what you did to me, how violated I felt. How small I felt when I watched thousands of people rush to comment, blaming me of all people for letting you take those photos. Instead of (rightly) calling you out for what was a massive invasion of privacy, they instead took it upon themselves to call me a slut. A whore. Someone even said I should have been grateful for my five seconds of fame.
Like I ever wanted those five seconds.
Those five seconds not only destroyed my life, but it ruined my relationship with Lissie. Not that you would care, I think that was your intention. Because you were so sure that I was in the wrong just for wanting to move on with someone new. You couldn’t live with the fact that I loved her and not you, so that somehow gave you the motivation to justify your shitty actions.
But that’s the thing.
Your actions weren’t cool.
They weren’t cute.
Or funny.
They were fucking criminal.
I really felt the burden of never giving you the punishment you deserved when I watched you be exposed for kidnapping a child live on Massacre.
It was the first time that I felt guilty for letting you get off so easily.
And now that I see all of the people you manipulated into being your friends turning on you, it gave me the strength to finally do what I should have done a long time ago.
I’m pressing charges, Tyler.
Below you can find a formal letter…”
Before he could finish reading the email a loud bang on the door to his room nearly blew him out of his chair.
“POLICE OPEN THE DOOR!”
Already?
How was that even possible?!
He scrambled out of his chair, his palms sweaty. He had to suppress the panic that was beginning to worm its way into his psyche - yes, he was going to jail. He couldn’t escape that now, there was no way around it.
Instead of trying to flee, he reached down and ripped the cable out of his desktop.
Now all he could do was try to lessen the charges.
“WE HAVE A WARRANT!”
The door continued to shake violently as he frantically tore his computer to shreds. Finding a USB stick, potentially the one that still contained the graphic images he used to blackmail the Entity employee, he quickly jammed it into his microwave and hit the 10-minute cook button.
The microwave whirred to life and continued slowly destroying the stick. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, but he wasn’t really worrying about his future as all this was happening.
No, he was worrying about the one person who meant the most to him. Through everything he had endured over the past few days Dot had stuck by him, and now they were about to be torn apart all because of his own sins coming back to haunt him.
He never had the chance to tell her…
“WE’RE COMING IN!”
The computer now reduced to a heap of scrap metal before him, he pulled out his phone and scrolled to Dot’s name in his contacts. He called her and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Tyler?”
“Dorothea Carter, I love you.”
…
“I love you too. I’m sorry I didn’t say-
“I know, I know.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going to jail, baby.”
“What? Why?! Because of Frankie? I told you that was stupid.”
“No it’s Emma.”
...
“Yer serious?”
“I am, look, I don’t have much time. I can only tell you one thing, and you have to listen to me, OK?”
“Ok.”'
…
“Rosenberg.”
The door to Cypher’s room exploded inwards as a squad of armed police officers entered the building.
Everything seemed to play out in slow motion.
Their voices came to him, one at a time, and he saw their faces as he was roughly slammed into the ground by the police officers.
Sebastian Everett-Bryce.
“Plus it felt good to help a friend, didn’t it?”
Sloane Taylor.
“Well, if it helps any, I don’t feel deceived and I totally think you’re awesome.”
Sahara Duke.
“I ain’t got many friends, and if it weren’t for you, I don’t know what woulda happened to me…”
Thaddeus Duke.
“He’s cute and totally fuckable.”
It was too late to tell them, but he really was going to miss them.
As the police led him out in handcuffs, his mind diverged from the good memories and found its way to grim reality.
The same faces flashed in his mind.
“I loved you, man. You made fools of us all, until you yourself were revealed the fool.”
“They were your friends! We were! And you just threw that all away.”
“You fucked up, Tyler… not me…you.”
“Had this been outside of the wrestling world, I would not be talking about the figurative killing of a man, but the actual assassination of Tyler Norrie.”
A single tear rolled down his cheek as the door slammed behind him, and he was driven away from the life he knew.
/~/
“We the jury find the defendant…guilty on all charges.”
…
“I hand down a sentence of three years in jail, with a non-parole period of two years, six months.”
/~/
“Here lies the hacker extraordinaire.”
January, 2023
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, off the coast of San Francisco, California
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The repetitive sound of water hitting the cement floor was the only noise which punctuated the dreary cell Tyler Norrie now resided in. Some time ago it would have annoyed him, but that was once upon a time. Now he was acclimated to it. Instead of being bothersome it was almost soothing. A perfect backing track as he read the same book he’d read for the last several months. It was weird, prior to this life he’d never really give himself the time to read. Between wrestling, traveling, gaming and having down time with Dot, he never really had the chance.
But now? With no computer, wrestling ring or female companion in sight?
He had all the time in the world.
Now his existence no longer resembled anything like that life.
And neither did his appearance.
Orange was truly the new black, in that regard.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
No…now there was something else.
Rhythmic footsteps in lock with the beat of the water.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
One set of footsteps were followed by another, slightly behind it.
(You spend long enough in a cell on your own and your hearing suddenly improves dramatically).
It was a bit early for lunch, he thought, but he wasn’t going to complain. Tyler rose from his rock hard mattress and prepared to repeat the same monotonous routine he’d gone through every single day.
The guard greeted him at the door…but this time there was someone else with him. Someone he recognised. He wanted to say something witty, that would show his soul hadn’t completely been destroyed by a lack of human interaction. But unfortunately, all his mind could come up with was-
“...huh?”
“Oh, I bet I am the last person you expected to see.”
Trent Steel smiled. The guard let Trent into the cell. The man in front of Tyler was a billionaire. He was dressed rather plainly. Simple gray suit and tie. “Seems like you’re at rock bottom.”
Trent reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a Monster energy drink and handed it to Tyler.
“You look out of it and I’d rather talk to you when your brain is working.”
Still stunned by the appearance of his old boss, Tyler slowly brought the Monster up to his lips and took a long sip. The three of them, the guard, Trent, and Tyler stood there awkwardly for a moment as the sip dragged on and on.
Finally finishing nearly half the can, Tyler shot a sneer at Trent.
“The fuck do you want?”
“Oh. Loaded question.” Trent said as he leaned back looking like he hadn’t got a care in the world. “You can go.”
The guard smiled, locked the cell, and walked off. There was a moment of silence between the two. The oddest part about this is that Trent Steel was smiling. Not like the fake smiles he does for the promotional material of level up. No. This was the cat with the canary. The “I know something you don’t know” smile.
“I mean I have the means to get really almost anything I want. It’s funny. I got all this money, power, influence, and I don’t particularly go out of my way to ruin anyone’s life or make it better. Usually I do a lot of mindless work to take my mind off of, we will call it “personal issues”, and I found something really funny. Tell me…did you really think I wouldn’t know you stole access to one of my HR staff’s access?” Trent says as he cracked each one of his knuckles. Trent stood up and started to take off the suit jacket. He keep that sick smile up as he pulled off his gloves and rolled up his sleeves. The amount of scars on this man’s body was a bit unnerving. “You know what you actually did? You didn’t just fuck with me. No. You didn’t just fuck with what I have been entrusted to care for. You know what you did inadvertently with all your careful planning you set off one thing that you didn’t know about. You see…where you went sniffing was also where we house information on our classified government military projects. So when that signal got picked up all I had to do was trace the access and you…you just earned yourself a life sentence. Gitmo on top of all the other scummy shit you’ve done.”
Tyler paused, his brain spinning with all the information Trent had just dropped on him. It had been so long since that one night, it was hard to recall. He had been in a haze of weed and alcohol at the time...he vaguley remembered hacking something to do with Level Up, but never had he actually thought it had been anything close to what Trent had just described. Again, his words failed him.
"...shit."
“Now, I know in particular what set it off. I know the date, I know the time. I know even who was with you…it’s been a fun couple of months because of your propensity for fucking with people. Let me clarify something to you to let you know just how much you done fucked up. You helped people fuck with my life. There are few rules in the professional wrestling world that you do not break and one of them is fucking with my personal life. Not only that but you fucking kidnap a child? You release nude photos of a woman without her permission? You try to rob me? You know it didn’t even take a million dollars for me to bribe the guard to let me have all the time in the world in here with you without the cameras being on. He did it for just five hundred bucks because you’re such a fucking scumbag. I gave him extra because I’m such a nice diabolical evil man with money. I should do the world a favor and break every single one of your fingers until your hand looks like an eighty something year old arthritic digits. To where you can’t type ever again. I should fucking break every god damn bone in your spineless fucking body…” Trent said as he continued to stretch like he was going to strike at any moment. “And I’m wondering why I shouldn’t…”
Tyler fell to his knees, the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He couldn’t hide it any longer. All the emotion he’d tried to keep in check for months came pouring out as he sobbed into Trent’s suit pants.
“I’m sorry, just-just don’t press charges. I’m already in jail, I can’t touch any of your stuff in here…just have mercy bro.”
Trent stares down at Tyler and pats him on the head.
“And that’s why I’m going to give you a second chance.” Trent says as he goes back to his suit jacket and pulls out his phone. “I’m going to show you something I’m not proud of Cypher. I’m going to show you my lowest point. The point where you are at now. Then I’m going to make all of this go away…”
Trent brings up a video on the phone. We see a much younger Trent Steel inside of a steel cage setting a barbwire baseball bat on fire with a fireball. There is another man in the steel cage. Chained up with handcuffs to one wall. The guy is screaming at Trent to stop. Not to do this. He’s sorry. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen. And Trent slams the bat into the man’s face and keeps it there.
“You see this was when I let all my pain out into the world because I was a piece of shit. I was at my lowest point here. Unforgivable. Evil. And from that moment I became the most sought after “bad guy” in the industry because no matter what happened on the show you could be rest assured I would be causing someone pain. You see the guy with his face melting. That was my tag team partner. The man was like a brother to me. A real brother. Years later we patched things up. I paid to fix his face. He was my best man at my wedding. My bride was his sister. Are you slowly getting just how much I had to make up for to fix all of that?”
Trent leans in with the video paused on the man’s face melting.
“And I like this guy. So understand me. With this second chance I’m going to give you…if you fuck up once…This. This right here. This moment that made me fucking imfamous…is going to look like a disney musical compared to what I fucking do to you. They will never fucking find your body. And I’m sure you’ve googled me before…I’m one of the few pro wrestlers who has gotten away with murder before and I can do it again. No problems. Now…as far as this second chance goes.”
Tyler slowly lifted his head to look up at the man who now held his fate in his hands.
“Yeah?”
“Oh. See. You’re going to love this. Because you either chose to do this or you get to know the full not giving a fuck that the federal government can do to you with the patriot act. You are the only person to nearly get away with hacking the company I run, and I think it’s time we put your skills to some actual good. So what you’re going to do…is you are going to find out whose kidnapped my family, where they are, and who has them. Also whoever is funding these guys…they’re pretty loaded. So I’m going to let you keep anything ill begotten from these people for yourself. You get to fuck with them just like they’ve been fucking with me for two years, but…you’re also gonna make amends. To everybody that you’ve fucked over. You do that…and I’ll say you were working for me and Gitmo goes away…time served with me and my associates in this venture. Or, you can keep being a miserable little fucking bitch and go to Cuba to feel sorry about yourself for the rest of your miserable existence. So what’s it gonna be? Are you ready to be the good guy doing bad things for the right reasons?” Trent holds out his hand.
Tyler rose up off of the ground, dusting himself off and wiping away the tears. After so many months of soul searching behind bars, Trent Steel had just given him the reality check he needed
Instead wasting his energy on all the shoulda woulda coulda, he could focus it on something positive. He could stop tripping on the past and walk into a new future.
Maybe he could even get his friends back.
“I’m in.”
Tyler grasped Trent’s hand and shook it firmly. Trent nodded and grabbed his coat.
“Good. This is strictly off the books. To everyone here…you’re in solitary. The one condition I couldn’t do anything about is the government insisting that you have a babysitter. Fortunately, I picked somebody perfectly qualified for the job. He’ll also act as a bodyguard for you just in case you attract the wrong kind of attention. Fair warning though...you think I’m nuts this guy is the epitome of thinking outside of the box.”
/~/
The room was small, smaller than he’d expected for what was going to be his home for the foreseeable future.
Then again it was definitely an upgrade on the tiny jail cell he’d spent the last four months in.
A single bunk bed lay in the corner of the room, directly behind an unassuming desktop pc with a standard keyboard and mouse setup.
A small stove and mini-fridge - which he was pleased to find stocked with copious amounts of energy drinks - rounded out the furniture crammed into the tiny apartment.
"Make yourself at home...but don't forget."
Dude JoB, Trent's Cyborg CIA Agent, stood in the doorway.
"Always watching."
The robot made the "I'm watching you" gesture before exiting the room.
Cypher rolled his eyes, annoyed that he was now going to be babysat by a robot. Why couldn't it have been his robot that did the babysitting?
Then he remembered that, should everything have gone to plan, the robot he built would still be operating his twitter account at this point in time. The code word he'd whispered to Dot on the phone had put into action Operation I Fucked Up, which had been prepared in case he well...ever fucked up.
As part of the plan, she would be provided with the user and password for all of his accounts - however he wanted to include the robot somehow, as kind of a first proper test for it, so he had included a directive for her to allow the AI to run his Twitter account.
Who knew how that had played out over the last few months.
Grabbing one of the Monsters out of the fridge, he slid into the desk chair and, for the first time since he’d been out of jail, took a deep breath.
It felt like he’d hardly had a chance to catch his breath.
Things had moved fast. His actions publicly exposed by Thad had turned his world upside down, leading to a chain reaction that had seen him lose his friends, his freedom, and very nearly his chance at ever living a normal life.
So much of this has been self-inflicted. His own abilities had become detrimental to his survival. Sometimes he wished this wasn’t who he was. That this wasn’t what he did.
“Tyler, ya have a gift.”
The words of his lover passed through his mind.
“I just wish sometimes ya could use it ta’ help people.”
A half-smile crept across his lips.
Maybe he had been looking at it all wrong.
If he was going to turn things around, he had to think about his talent as a blessing, not as a curse.
He couldn’t save his sister, but now he had the chance to save someone else’s family.
But it wouldn’t be Tyler Norrie doing it.
No, that part of his life was gone.
Tyler Norrie was dead.
Long live CYPH3R.
THE END(?)
“Tyler, I need your help.”
“Easton? Why the fuck are you calling me this late?”
“I knew you’d be up, nerd.”
…
“Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“What do you want then? Money? I can give you all the money you want if you just stop being a pussy for five seconds.”
“Bruh.”
“I know you’re friends or whatever with Thad and his cronies but he crossed the line with me. Now I want to make the prick bleed, not just physically, but emotionally.”
…
“Thad, Cyrus, Sahara, they all deserve to burn. I’m just asking you to throw some wood on the fire.”
…
“I’m in, on one condition.”
“Yeah?”
“They can’t find out I helped you. I don’t give a shit if they find out about you, but I have to stay the silent partner.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Need more than that, Thad’s gonna throw everything at this once it happens. My anonymity has to be guaranteed, you’re going to have to think about this from all angles.”
“I can do that.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Payment up front.”
/~/
September, 2022
Toronto Private Hospital
Post Massacre
The bright lights of the emergency ward at the Toronto Private Hospital wizzed by overhead as Cypher was wheeled along on a gurney. He fell in and out of consciousness as each one passed, in a sort of mental limbo. As the nurses rushed to keep him stable, so did his mind.
Despite Easton’s assurances, everything had fallen apart. Now he was likely the most hated man on the roster…not that he was even on the roster anymore. Thad and his pals had seen to that. His job, his championship, and his…strategic partnerships…had all been destroyed.
He was sure there would be a firestorm on twitter. Thad, Sahara, SEB, Sloane, and all the others would be whining about how he could be so horrible. But that was the thing. They never knew him, not really. They saw him how they wanted to see him.
In the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions.
They wanted him to be their funny quirky hacker friend who they could use for their own benefit when they felt like it. But they had paid a price for being so naïve.
For someone who had so much money just lying around, Thad was somehow blind to the reality that everyone has a price.
“23-year-old male with severe chest trauma-
“At least four broken ribs-
“O2 stat is dropping-
The words of the nursing staff came to him in a haze, fading in and out. Their urgency was lost on him in this dreamlike state, he didn’t feel anxious at all. In fact he felt totally calm and at peace with everything that was going on. It was funny, he knew no doubt that everyone would expect him to feel horrible after being busted for being involved in the kidnapping of a child.
Did he feel bad?
Yeah, but only that he got caught.
Frankie was fine, rich kid probably had never tasted danger in his life. His life was not at risk, though he knew it would never be framed that way. From now on he knew he was on his own, just like he had been when he started in this business. Things could never go back to the way they were…but that suited him just fine.
The time for playing nice was over.
“He’s starting to fade-
Now it was time for him to truly show he was Superior.
“Tyler? Tyler, can you hear me?”
…
“Tyler?”
/~/
May, 2022
Los Angeles, California
Action Wrestling’s XIII Press Conference
“We’ve got time for one more question, yes, Allan, up the back.”
“We all know about your hacking skills, Cypher, you’ve mention them a lot and you seem quite proud of them.”
“That’s not a question, but thanks.”
A smattering of laughter breaks out among the media pack, and Cypher flashes a smug smile.
“Is it true that earlier this year you posted this photo on Twitter, appearing to show This Is Awesome reporter Emma Langdon naked, without her consent?”
The press pack immediately fall silent.
“Yeah, I did, want me to send you a signed copy?”
The journalists explode into a frenzy, stepping over one another while fighting to quiz Cypher about his unprofessional response.
“Do you think this is conduct becoming of a-
“Leaking nudes without permission is illeg-
“Are you aware of an investigation into-
“WOULD YOU LOSERS JUST SHUT UP?!”
The sound of Cypher’s fist connecting with the media desk silences the press.
“You wanna make me the villain? Fine, I’ve been the villain my whole life. Ya’ll can stay mad, I’m good at what I do. And plenty of people value me more than they value you, so I’ll sleep tight at night knowing that.”
WIth that, the Superior Design stands up from the desk and makes to escape from the pack of vultures.
As he’s on his way out, a woman’s voice, soft but dripping with intent makes him stop in his tracks. It’s one he recognises. One he knows all too well.
“You think she’ll press charges, Tyler?”
He looks up to see Emma Langdon staring at him from the back of the room. Her arms are crossed, her eyes narrowed. Two black lines trace down her cheeks, still wet with tears from earlier in the night.
Cypher pauses for a moment, caught off guard by his ex-lover’s sudden appearance. Then he steadies himself, a smirk appearing on his lips.
“I doubt it.”
/~/
September, 2022
San Francisco, California
“And Cypher wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
Twisting up his pugalicious face in disgust, Tyler Norrie quickly backspaced the words on his Google Doc.
Too cliche.
He was trying to type the lines of his return promo. He wanted to write something that would get those fat, stupid, lazy marks to stand up and clap for once in their useless lives. Something that would trigger the Thads and Saharas of the world into a tweeting frenzy.
Something that might be judged as…superior.
Yeah, that’s it!
“And @superior_Cypher wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
Ehh, not as catchy.
He backspaced the line again, but before he could set his mind to typing again a notification in the top right of the screen drew his attention away from the page.
“Email from: Emma Langdon.
Topic: Justice.”
His veins ran cold.
Heart thumping, he slowly moved the cursor over the notification.
Click.
“Dear Tyler,
For too long I’ve let you live a life free of consequence.
I’ve suffered in silence every single day remembering what you did to me, how violated I felt. How small I felt when I watched thousands of people rush to comment, blaming me of all people for letting you take those photos. Instead of (rightly) calling you out for what was a massive invasion of privacy, they instead took it upon themselves to call me a slut. A whore. Someone even said I should have been grateful for my five seconds of fame.
Like I ever wanted those five seconds.
Those five seconds not only destroyed my life, but it ruined my relationship with Lissie. Not that you would care, I think that was your intention. Because you were so sure that I was in the wrong just for wanting to move on with someone new. You couldn’t live with the fact that I loved her and not you, so that somehow gave you the motivation to justify your shitty actions.
But that’s the thing.
Your actions weren’t cool.
They weren’t cute.
Or funny.
They were fucking criminal.
I really felt the burden of never giving you the punishment you deserved when I watched you be exposed for kidnapping a child live on Massacre.
It was the first time that I felt guilty for letting you get off so easily.
And now that I see all of the people you manipulated into being your friends turning on you, it gave me the strength to finally do what I should have done a long time ago.
I’m pressing charges, Tyler.
Below you can find a formal letter…”
Before he could finish reading the email a loud bang on the door to his room nearly blew him out of his chair.
“POLICE OPEN THE DOOR!”
Already?
How was that even possible?!
He scrambled out of his chair, his palms sweaty. He had to suppress the panic that was beginning to worm its way into his psyche - yes, he was going to jail. He couldn’t escape that now, there was no way around it.
Instead of trying to flee, he reached down and ripped the cable out of his desktop.
Now all he could do was try to lessen the charges.
“WE HAVE A WARRANT!”
The door continued to shake violently as he frantically tore his computer to shreds. Finding a USB stick, potentially the one that still contained the graphic images he used to blackmail the Entity employee, he quickly jammed it into his microwave and hit the 10-minute cook button.
The microwave whirred to life and continued slowly destroying the stick. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, but he wasn’t really worrying about his future as all this was happening.
No, he was worrying about the one person who meant the most to him. Through everything he had endured over the past few days Dot had stuck by him, and now they were about to be torn apart all because of his own sins coming back to haunt him.
He never had the chance to tell her…
“WE’RE COMING IN!”
The computer now reduced to a heap of scrap metal before him, he pulled out his phone and scrolled to Dot’s name in his contacts. He called her and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Tyler?”
“Dorothea Carter, I love you.”
…
“I love you too. I’m sorry I didn’t say-
“I know, I know.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going to jail, baby.”
“What? Why?! Because of Frankie? I told you that was stupid.”
“No it’s Emma.”
...
“Yer serious?”
“I am, look, I don’t have much time. I can only tell you one thing, and you have to listen to me, OK?”
“Ok.”'
…
“Rosenberg.”
The door to Cypher’s room exploded inwards as a squad of armed police officers entered the building.
Everything seemed to play out in slow motion.
Their voices came to him, one at a time, and he saw their faces as he was roughly slammed into the ground by the police officers.
Sebastian Everett-Bryce.
“Plus it felt good to help a friend, didn’t it?”
Sloane Taylor.
“Well, if it helps any, I don’t feel deceived and I totally think you’re awesome.”
Sahara Duke.
“I ain’t got many friends, and if it weren’t for you, I don’t know what woulda happened to me…”
Thaddeus Duke.
“He’s cute and totally fuckable.”
It was too late to tell them, but he really was going to miss them.
As the police led him out in handcuffs, his mind diverged from the good memories and found its way to grim reality.
The same faces flashed in his mind.
“I loved you, man. You made fools of us all, until you yourself were revealed the fool.”
“They were your friends! We were! And you just threw that all away.”
“You fucked up, Tyler… not me…you.”
“Had this been outside of the wrestling world, I would not be talking about the figurative killing of a man, but the actual assassination of Tyler Norrie.”
A single tear rolled down his cheek as the door slammed behind him, and he was driven away from the life he knew.
/~/
“We the jury find the defendant…guilty on all charges.”
…
“I hand down a sentence of three years in jail, with a non-parole period of two years, six months.”
/~/
“Here lies the hacker extraordinaire.”
January, 2023
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, off the coast of San Francisco, California
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The repetitive sound of water hitting the cement floor was the only noise which punctuated the dreary cell Tyler Norrie now resided in. Some time ago it would have annoyed him, but that was once upon a time. Now he was acclimated to it. Instead of being bothersome it was almost soothing. A perfect backing track as he read the same book he’d read for the last several months. It was weird, prior to this life he’d never really give himself the time to read. Between wrestling, traveling, gaming and having down time with Dot, he never really had the chance.
But now? With no computer, wrestling ring or female companion in sight?
He had all the time in the world.
Now his existence no longer resembled anything like that life.
And neither did his appearance.
Orange was truly the new black, in that regard.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
No…now there was something else.
Rhythmic footsteps in lock with the beat of the water.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
One set of footsteps were followed by another, slightly behind it.
(You spend long enough in a cell on your own and your hearing suddenly improves dramatically).
It was a bit early for lunch, he thought, but he wasn’t going to complain. Tyler rose from his rock hard mattress and prepared to repeat the same monotonous routine he’d gone through every single day.
The guard greeted him at the door…but this time there was someone else with him. Someone he recognised. He wanted to say something witty, that would show his soul hadn’t completely been destroyed by a lack of human interaction. But unfortunately, all his mind could come up with was-
“...huh?”
“Oh, I bet I am the last person you expected to see.”
Trent Steel smiled. The guard let Trent into the cell. The man in front of Tyler was a billionaire. He was dressed rather plainly. Simple gray suit and tie. “Seems like you’re at rock bottom.”
Trent reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a Monster energy drink and handed it to Tyler.
“You look out of it and I’d rather talk to you when your brain is working.”
Still stunned by the appearance of his old boss, Tyler slowly brought the Monster up to his lips and took a long sip. The three of them, the guard, Trent, and Tyler stood there awkwardly for a moment as the sip dragged on and on.
Finally finishing nearly half the can, Tyler shot a sneer at Trent.
“The fuck do you want?”
“Oh. Loaded question.” Trent said as he leaned back looking like he hadn’t got a care in the world. “You can go.”
The guard smiled, locked the cell, and walked off. There was a moment of silence between the two. The oddest part about this is that Trent Steel was smiling. Not like the fake smiles he does for the promotional material of level up. No. This was the cat with the canary. The “I know something you don’t know” smile.
“I mean I have the means to get really almost anything I want. It’s funny. I got all this money, power, influence, and I don’t particularly go out of my way to ruin anyone’s life or make it better. Usually I do a lot of mindless work to take my mind off of, we will call it “personal issues”, and I found something really funny. Tell me…did you really think I wouldn’t know you stole access to one of my HR staff’s access?” Trent says as he cracked each one of his knuckles. Trent stood up and started to take off the suit jacket. He keep that sick smile up as he pulled off his gloves and rolled up his sleeves. The amount of scars on this man’s body was a bit unnerving. “You know what you actually did? You didn’t just fuck with me. No. You didn’t just fuck with what I have been entrusted to care for. You know what you did inadvertently with all your careful planning you set off one thing that you didn’t know about. You see…where you went sniffing was also where we house information on our classified government military projects. So when that signal got picked up all I had to do was trace the access and you…you just earned yourself a life sentence. Gitmo on top of all the other scummy shit you’ve done.”
Tyler paused, his brain spinning with all the information Trent had just dropped on him. It had been so long since that one night, it was hard to recall. He had been in a haze of weed and alcohol at the time...he vaguley remembered hacking something to do with Level Up, but never had he actually thought it had been anything close to what Trent had just described. Again, his words failed him.
"...shit."
“Now, I know in particular what set it off. I know the date, I know the time. I know even who was with you…it’s been a fun couple of months because of your propensity for fucking with people. Let me clarify something to you to let you know just how much you done fucked up. You helped people fuck with my life. There are few rules in the professional wrestling world that you do not break and one of them is fucking with my personal life. Not only that but you fucking kidnap a child? You release nude photos of a woman without her permission? You try to rob me? You know it didn’t even take a million dollars for me to bribe the guard to let me have all the time in the world in here with you without the cameras being on. He did it for just five hundred bucks because you’re such a fucking scumbag. I gave him extra because I’m such a nice diabolical evil man with money. I should do the world a favor and break every single one of your fingers until your hand looks like an eighty something year old arthritic digits. To where you can’t type ever again. I should fucking break every god damn bone in your spineless fucking body…” Trent said as he continued to stretch like he was going to strike at any moment. “And I’m wondering why I shouldn’t…”
Tyler fell to his knees, the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He couldn’t hide it any longer. All the emotion he’d tried to keep in check for months came pouring out as he sobbed into Trent’s suit pants.
“I’m sorry, just-just don’t press charges. I’m already in jail, I can’t touch any of your stuff in here…just have mercy bro.”
Trent stares down at Tyler and pats him on the head.
“And that’s why I’m going to give you a second chance.” Trent says as he goes back to his suit jacket and pulls out his phone. “I’m going to show you something I’m not proud of Cypher. I’m going to show you my lowest point. The point where you are at now. Then I’m going to make all of this go away…”
Trent brings up a video on the phone. We see a much younger Trent Steel inside of a steel cage setting a barbwire baseball bat on fire with a fireball. There is another man in the steel cage. Chained up with handcuffs to one wall. The guy is screaming at Trent to stop. Not to do this. He’s sorry. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen. And Trent slams the bat into the man’s face and keeps it there.
“You see this was when I let all my pain out into the world because I was a piece of shit. I was at my lowest point here. Unforgivable. Evil. And from that moment I became the most sought after “bad guy” in the industry because no matter what happened on the show you could be rest assured I would be causing someone pain. You see the guy with his face melting. That was my tag team partner. The man was like a brother to me. A real brother. Years later we patched things up. I paid to fix his face. He was my best man at my wedding. My bride was his sister. Are you slowly getting just how much I had to make up for to fix all of that?”
Trent leans in with the video paused on the man’s face melting.
“And I like this guy. So understand me. With this second chance I’m going to give you…if you fuck up once…This. This right here. This moment that made me fucking imfamous…is going to look like a disney musical compared to what I fucking do to you. They will never fucking find your body. And I’m sure you’ve googled me before…I’m one of the few pro wrestlers who has gotten away with murder before and I can do it again. No problems. Now…as far as this second chance goes.”
Tyler slowly lifted his head to look up at the man who now held his fate in his hands.
“Yeah?”
“Oh. See. You’re going to love this. Because you either chose to do this or you get to know the full not giving a fuck that the federal government can do to you with the patriot act. You are the only person to nearly get away with hacking the company I run, and I think it’s time we put your skills to some actual good. So what you’re going to do…is you are going to find out whose kidnapped my family, where they are, and who has them. Also whoever is funding these guys…they’re pretty loaded. So I’m going to let you keep anything ill begotten from these people for yourself. You get to fuck with them just like they’ve been fucking with me for two years, but…you’re also gonna make amends. To everybody that you’ve fucked over. You do that…and I’ll say you were working for me and Gitmo goes away…time served with me and my associates in this venture. Or, you can keep being a miserable little fucking bitch and go to Cuba to feel sorry about yourself for the rest of your miserable existence. So what’s it gonna be? Are you ready to be the good guy doing bad things for the right reasons?” Trent holds out his hand.
Tyler rose up off of the ground, dusting himself off and wiping away the tears. After so many months of soul searching behind bars, Trent Steel had just given him the reality check he needed
Instead wasting his energy on all the shoulda woulda coulda, he could focus it on something positive. He could stop tripping on the past and walk into a new future.
Maybe he could even get his friends back.
“I’m in.”
Tyler grasped Trent’s hand and shook it firmly. Trent nodded and grabbed his coat.
“Good. This is strictly off the books. To everyone here…you’re in solitary. The one condition I couldn’t do anything about is the government insisting that you have a babysitter. Fortunately, I picked somebody perfectly qualified for the job. He’ll also act as a bodyguard for you just in case you attract the wrong kind of attention. Fair warning though...you think I’m nuts this guy is the epitome of thinking outside of the box.”
/~/
The room was small, smaller than he’d expected for what was going to be his home for the foreseeable future.
Then again it was definitely an upgrade on the tiny jail cell he’d spent the last four months in.
A single bunk bed lay in the corner of the room, directly behind an unassuming desktop pc with a standard keyboard and mouse setup.
A small stove and mini-fridge - which he was pleased to find stocked with copious amounts of energy drinks - rounded out the furniture crammed into the tiny apartment.
"Make yourself at home...but don't forget."
Dude JoB, Trent's Cyborg CIA Agent, stood in the doorway.
"Always watching."
The robot made the "I'm watching you" gesture before exiting the room.
Cypher rolled his eyes, annoyed that he was now going to be babysat by a robot. Why couldn't it have been his robot that did the babysitting?
Then he remembered that, should everything have gone to plan, the robot he built would still be operating his twitter account at this point in time. The code word he'd whispered to Dot on the phone had put into action Operation I Fucked Up, which had been prepared in case he well...ever fucked up.
As part of the plan, she would be provided with the user and password for all of his accounts - however he wanted to include the robot somehow, as kind of a first proper test for it, so he had included a directive for her to allow the AI to run his Twitter account.
Who knew how that had played out over the last few months.
Grabbing one of the Monsters out of the fridge, he slid into the desk chair and, for the first time since he’d been out of jail, took a deep breath.
It felt like he’d hardly had a chance to catch his breath.
Things had moved fast. His actions publicly exposed by Thad had turned his world upside down, leading to a chain reaction that had seen him lose his friends, his freedom, and very nearly his chance at ever living a normal life.
So much of this has been self-inflicted. His own abilities had become detrimental to his survival. Sometimes he wished this wasn’t who he was. That this wasn’t what he did.
“Tyler, ya have a gift.”
The words of his lover passed through his mind.
“I just wish sometimes ya could use it ta’ help people.”
A half-smile crept across his lips.
Maybe he had been looking at it all wrong.
If he was going to turn things around, he had to think about his talent as a blessing, not as a curse.
He couldn’t save his sister, but now he had the chance to save someone else’s family.
But it wouldn’t be Tyler Norrie doing it.
No, that part of his life was gone.
Tyler Norrie was dead.
Long live CYPH3R.
THE END(?)