Hackers and Hotties -a serial

Throwing chicken out windows saves lives.

Tina stood in front of the door to Kenny's apartment with a small bowl of chicken. Celine had a bunch of rice behind her. Tina hadn't wanted Celine to go, but she had been convinced when Celine described in vivid detail all the things that could go wrong.

"Well hon? You gonna knock or what?"

"What if he's not home?"

"The light's on."

"Yeah but what if he gets mad?"

"He probably already thinks your a stalker. Girl, knock on the god damn door before I drop this rice on your head."

Celine was right. Tina had already gone through the trouble of getting Fishy to follow Ken home, and she had made this wonderful supper to celebrate getting the Computer Sci. project over with, so she might as well keep going.

Praying that Kenny wasn't a homicidal maniac with an arsenal of boobytraps connected to the doorbell like Celine predicted, (and she was always right) Tina pressed the little glowing button almost hanging off of the run down shack they were at. There was some shuffling upstairs, and soon footsteps were coming down in a hurried rush.

Celine patted Tina on the back. "You're doing a good thing girl, the boy's a skeleton." Before Tina could respond, the door swong open and Kenny poked his head out. Apperantly he was expecting someone else, because the second he saw Tina his eyes went wide.

"What are you doing here?"

Tina held up her chicken. "Came to celebrate the end of term."

"You realy didn't need to." Kenny was begining to make Tina worried. He kept glancing down the road.

"I know, but I wanted too."

"Oh, OK. Come in."

That was it? Kenny had been elusive and aloft for almost three weeks and now he was suddenly a hospitable host? Something wasn't right. Tina let herself in though, and Celine followed close behind. Kenny motioned for them to go upstairs while he worked on an absurd amount of locks. One even looked like a keypad. The boy was parinoid.

Tina reached the top of the stairs and opened the door into a small, musty room. All of the windows were shuttered up, and the only light was coming from a belmoth of a computer consol, right in the middle of the room.

"Holy s*** Kenny. What the hell is that?"

"It's nothing. Please, sit down."

Kenny's kitchen, a small alcove with a fridge, a sink, and a tiny table, was much cleaner than Tina would have expected. There were no cockroaches or mold colonies to be found. She put the chicken on the table and went to look at the computers.

One of the monitors was on. The entire screen was filled with jumbled numbers and letters, scrolling slowly. A few were a different color. Next to the monitor was a little box with a button on it, labled "decode". Tina looked around. Kenny had his head in a cabinet, pulling
out some paper flatware, and Celine was opening up the rice. No one was paying attention to her..perfict.

The little box looked harmless enough, sort of like a remote. It was light too. Tina had a sneaking suspicion that if she pressed the button, the crap on the monitor would change, so she pressed the button. She was right. The second she did the numbers and letters started scrambling, and another monitor poped on with another code. It looked sort of like what they were doing in Comp Science.

If Tina remembered correctly, F5 ran programs. Curiosity peaked, she went for the keyboard. A hand on her wrist stoped her. Her head snapped up to come face to face with a very scary Kenichi.

"Don't touch."

"Eh, sorry." Ken grunted and typed something that got everything back to how it was before Tina had messed with it. Without another word he sat himself down at the table and Tina followed. Celine gave a little tut tut before starting to serve.

The second the food hit the plates, Ken's spirits seemed to rise. The way he was eating, it looked like he'd been living off pretzles or something. Tina was just about to start a conversation when a car door slamed and Ken jumped to the nearest window. Yes, he was most defenitly parinoid.

"Shimatta."

"What?" The two girls looked at each other quizzicaly and then back at Ken, but he was gathering up the plates and forks.

"Ken? What the hell are you doing?" He didn't respond. Instead, he grabbed everything -the chicken, the rice, and the flatware-, went to the far window, and threw it out. The glass container holding the chicken shattered, and Tina was suddenly very angry.

"What the @#%$ing hell!" Celine was actualy trying to keep from laughing as Tina jumped up from her seat waving a fist. "I was @#$%ing eating that! What the hell's the matter with you! That bowl was a family heirloom! If you didn't want us here you should have just said so, not thrown our @#$%ing dinner out of the window!" Oh yeah, Tina was in a rage. She marched right over to Kenny, still at the window, and spun him around to tell him exactly what she thought of the little game he was playing.

Instead, Kenny put a hand to her mouth. His face was set in a very dangerous expression, and Tina suddenly had the wild notion that he /was/ a homicidal maniac and was about to take out a knife or something to prove it. Tina could hear Celine walking toward them.

"Be quiet. Don't say one more thing." Ken let go of Tina's mouth slowly until he was satisfied that she wouldn't start screaming. Closing the shutters to the window, he rushed back to the kitchen and pulled on a string Tina hadn't noticed before. A small trap door opened above the sink.

"Get inside, quickly." Shocked beyond mad, Tina did what she was told. Celine needed a bit more convincing.

"What's going on Ken?" Kenny was begining to fidget. He was obviously very agitated.

"Please just get in. I'll explain later."

Celine was about to say something againg when the doorbell rang. Tina extended her hand from the little attic she had found herself in and Celine reluctantly took it. When they were both in, Ken closed the trap door and the girls tried to find a crack to watch through.