This is a compendium of several Hackers fanfics from AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Hackers%20(1995)/works

you wanna be elite, you gotta do a righteous hack
southsideglitter
Summary:
"You want in, you gotta pass the initiation first."
You swallow hard and meet Burn's gaze. Tell yourself not to get distracted by how goddamn beautiful she is. That's not what's important now. "I'll pass any test you give me," you tell her. "I swear."
"Yeah?"
You hold your ground and stare her down. "Try me," you say. "I'm elite."
On the other side of her bedroom, lazing on Burn's bed and watching you both like this is the most entertaining shit he's ever seen, Crash smirks. "We'll see about that."
And with that, the possibility that they might actually let you in seems suddenly, mind-bogglingly real, and you're anxious to get started before they change their minds. "So what do you need?" you ask them. "You got another Secret Service agent you need bringing down?"
"We already know you got skills," Burn says, and you bite your bottom lip to keep from grinning at the compliment. "But we wanna see what kind of... chemistry you have with us all."
"We're a tight crew," Crash adds. "Anyone we bring in's gotta be a good match."
"Sounds mysterious," you tell them. "I'm in."

So you hack, flirt and seduce your way through the group, one member at a time.

Notes:
I non-ironically love this film with all my heart and I wanna bone pretty much all of them, and that fic didn't exist that I could find so... here we are.

Chapter 1: prelude
Chapter Text
"You want in, you gotta pass the initiation first."
You swallow hard and meet Burn's gaze. Tell yourself not to get distracted by how goddamn beautiful she is. That's not what's important now. "I can pass any test you give me," you tell her. "I swear."
"Yeah?"
You hold your ground and stare her down. "Try me," you say. "I'm elite."
On the other side of her bedroom, lazing on Burn's bed and watching you both like this is the most entertaining shit he's ever seen, Crash smirks. "We'll see about that."
And with that, the possibility that they might actually let you in seems suddenly, mind-bogglingly real, and you're anxious to get started before they change their minds. "So what do you need?" you ask them. "You got another Secret Service agent you need bringing down?"
"We already know you got skills," Burn says, and you bite your bottom lip to keep from grinning at the compliment. "But we wanna see what kind of... chemistry you have with us all."
"We're a tight crew," Crash adds. "Anyone we bring in's gotta be a good match."
"Sounds mysterious," you tell them. "I'm in."

Chapter 2: cereal killer
Chapter Text
Your pager beeps. HACK THE PLANET, it says, then an address. You grab your rollerblades, laptop, disks. The notebook with all your hard-won passwords and codes. You're ready in minutes, heading out into the night with a fizz of excitement fireworking through your veins. Studying the subway map on your way downtown, the street name sparks a memory. You dig through your rucksack and retrieve a crumpled photocopied flyer someone shoved into your hands last time you were at Cyberdelia. Details of a party. Tonight. Now. At the address you're on your way to. Your first assignment's a rave at someone's apartment? Are they messing with you? Or is there something going on behind the scenes? Is something going down at this party? Something bad, or dangerous? Your brain buzzes with options for the entire journey, weirder and weirder possibilities coming to mind as you emerge from the subway and skate towards the address. It's a Friday night and the atmosphere is chaos, magic and mayhem; music spilling out from bar doorways as you dodge hordes of queuing club kids and finally locate your destination. The entire apartment block looks like a squat, with spraypaint art and anarchy symbols everywhere, and there's no need to speculate whether you're in the right place; the building is shuddering from the rhythmic bass thudding from the sound system speakers. In a stairwell, you change our your blades for combat boots, and check your make-up. Neon-bright swipes of colour on your lips and eyes contrast with your all-black cyberpunk uniform: tight pants and a shiny zip-up vest. Practical enough for almost anything, but showing enough skin when you strip out of your jacket that it won't look out-of-place at a party. You take a deep breath, then let the music lead you down the corridor and into an apartment teeming with people and noise. There's a few people you recognise, from school and Cyberdelia, and as you edge through the rammed makeshift dancefloor you see Nikon behind a bank of decks, big headphones on and dreads bobbing as he queues up the next track. When he sees you he gives you a huge grin and a wave, but next second he's back to concentrating on DJing. You're not sure if he's the one who summoned you here or if it's one of the others you're supposed to find.

You do a lap of party, but you're still not sure what's going on. Maybe you're early. You grab a beer from the kitchen then decide to loiter in the corridor; it's cooler out there and you'll spot the others as and when they turn up. There's enough people overflowing from the party that the corridor is a loud mish-mash of laughter, chat, drinking and occasional deals going down. Then there's a pterodactyl squawk behind you as long arms close around your waist, and you spin to see Cereal Killer in his sparkly Lou Reed t-shirt and round blue-tinted shades.
"Cereal," you breathe, flushing at the way he managed to sneak up on you. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, dude."
"What? Why?"
"Uh, I gotta give you something." He's disentangled himself from you and leaned back against the wall to talk to you properly, but he seems distracted.
"Damn," he says. "You look good."
"Thanks."
"Like, really good."
You snicker and cock an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
"So, yeah, your initiation. There's something you're supposed to do. I'm, like, the first assignment. And, um... "

He lowers his sunglasses to look you up and down properly, falters and licks his lips.
"Cereal." You pull his focus back to your face. This isn't getting you anywhere. "You wanna get out of here?"
He pulls himself together with a sheepish grin. "Babe, that is a righteous idea. Let's go."

The thing is, you've had a crush on Cereal since last year, when you first transferred to the gang's school and started idolising them from a distance. His hands – fast-moving with those constant manic gestures – they distract you sometimes. In class, you've caught yourself daydreaming about braiding his hair. And other, more X-rated, daydreams about that long tongue he's always flashing when he whoops and screams and pulls those ridiculous faces that you can't help but find weirdly adorable and also sort of hot.

And now he's leading you by hand up the stairs, half-dragging you to the next floor up, chattering excitedly the entire time. It's Nikon's place, Cereal explains, as he shows you in, but he's been crashing there the past couple of weeks. Plus Nikon'll be DJing for hours yet. The bass from the party below you thuds up through your feet.
"So, um," Cereal concludes, flopping down on his futon bed and gesturing for you to follow. "We've got the place to ourselves."
And that's when you think you understand. You remember Crash's smirk when Burn murmured the word chemistry. That thing they said about being a tight crew. About being a good match. You rewind and replay the scene in your head, and this time you pay attention to all the things not being said.
These fuckers, you think. Are they messing with me? Is this the test? To see how badly I want this?
You look at Cereal: the pale band of chest showing where his t-shirt's ridden up, the gleam in his mischievous eyes. And you think: I want it bad.

You shuck off your boots and join him on the bed.
"So what now?" It's a question, but you grin as you ask, reaching out to give one of his braids a playful yank.
Cereal swallows. "Uh... I can think of a few things."
You laugh and lean in to kiss him. And once you're near enough for him to close the distance, he growls, deep in his throat, and pounces. Like he's been waiting for permission, but now you've shown your appetite, all bets are off. He meets your mouth with his, kissing you hard, and you feel a zip-line of hunger go right through you when his tongue flickers against yours. Before you've even come up for air, you're tangled together with him somehow on top of you, his body pressing you down into the pillows.
"You sure this is cool...?" he whispers, lips against your ear.
Your breathing shudders at the sensation of it, at the hot path he licks down your neck, the light scrape of teeth at the base of your throat.
"Definitely," you manage to mumble, and feel his answering grin against your skin.

The beat from downstairs vibrates up through the floor as you tussle, all hands and mouths and tongues and teeth. You're wriggling underneath him as he grinds against you, and before long the friction from his jeans has got you making little mewling gasps into his mouth. Cereal gives a growl of appreciation in response to every single one.

You're dizzy by the time he pulls back, panting, almost shy for a second when he looks down at you, big blue eyes lust-dark and dazzled. You've never seen him so focused.
"You are unreal," he murmurs.
"I'm real," you tell him, and ease the zip of your vest top down.

You know what he means, though, about it feeling unreal. There's a moment, later on, when you're riding him and he's deep inside you, sputtering a stream of expletives and adoring praise for you in an uncharacteristically low hiss like a prayer, where everything seems so dream-like and ridiculous that you have to take a second to steady yourself. You lean down, knot your fingers with his and kiss him, then grind your hips down harder.

In the afterglow, the sounds of the party come surging back in, like you're listening to a far-off storm that's moving closer, thunderclouds getting nearer all the time. You're playing with his hair again, and when you realise how disheveled his braids are, you give one of them another tug.
"I messed these up."
He laughs, dozily, arms around you still. "I forgive you."
"Can I re-do them?"
"You wanna do my hair?"
"Yeah?"
"Babe, that is everything." He hums excitedly and maneuvers into position while you comb out the plaits with your fingers, then twist them back together. He is kittenish in his contentment, sighing with pleasure when you tap his shoulder to tell him he's all done.
"I better go." You don't know the parameters of your assignment, which makes you think it's probably a good idea to be gone before Nikon gets back.
"Wait."
"What?"
"Before you go, here. Burn said I needed to give you this." He dives off the futon, a chaotic tangle of long limbs, digging through his bag with typical manic energy. He locates a disk and hands it over.
"What is it?"
"She said you'd know."
"I'll check it out."
"Cool. And, um. You ever wanna do this again, you know where I am."
"You got it."
"I mean, I'm not always here. But, you know. Wherever I am. I'm not hard to find. So find me. You know, if you want."
You are suddenly so fond of this idiot. You give him one more kiss, long and soft and tender. "I'll see you on Monday," you tell him, pulling away.
"Yeah?" His eyes go big and his dimples flash.
"Yeah. At school, remember?"
He groans and puts a pillow over his head. "I forgot about school."
"See you around, Cereal."
"See you Monday, babe. Hack the planet!" He shouts it behind you as you go, one fist victory-pumping the air and voice muffled by the pillow still over his face.

It's late by the time you get home, but you don't want to wait. You boot up the disc from Burn and find a set of encrypted files. You crack the cipher in no time, follow the cryptic instructions, and – buried deep in an online labyrinth of digital dead ends and trick code – locate a text file with a phone number. By now, the hour is obscene, but you dial anyway. It barely rings once before Burn's voice cuts in.
"Good work," she purrs. "I knew you could do it."
"So am I in?"
"Not yet." She huffs a laugh, and you can't help but imagine her in bed, Dade next to her, half-asleep but still listening. "Get some rest," she tells you."You'll need it. I'll beep you tomorrow with your next task."
Before you can reply, she's gone, replaced by the dial tone drone. You listen to it for a long time before hanging up and shutting your laptop down.

Chapter 3: lord nikon
Chapter Text
You're on edge all Saturday, until you start to think maybe you've somehow missed a message, or that the plans have changed. Maybe you somehow messed up last night after all. When your beeper finally goes off at gone ten, it's a relief, and you hustle out the door in record time. The address this time is a swanky downtown Manhattan office block and at first you loiter by the huge glass doors, unsure if you're in the right place. Until you see Paul, locs scooped up in a topknot and wearing maintenance overalls, jangling a huge bunch of keys.
"What the hell?" you whisper, as he ushers you in and re-locks the door behind you.
"Friend of mine owed me a favour," he says, as though that explains everything. He leads you through a fancy gleaming lobby towards a bank of elevators, and you can't help but eye the CCTV cameras above you warily.
"I disabled 'em already," his voice comes back over his shoulder, but he's guessed where you were looking. "Don't worry."
In the lift he lets his hair down and shucks himself halfway out of the overalls, knotting them around his waist. "Just in case," he says. "For anyone walking past. It's demeaning as hell, but no one looks twice if they think you're security or the janitor."
You follow him into the mirror-walled elevator and he hits the highest button.
"Nikon, what are we doing here?" Your curiosity's driving you crazy, but the sight of Nikon's arms and chest in his tight tank top are doing something else to you too.
"We're going up to the roof. For your next challenge."
"Bring it on," you tell him, faking a cool you definitely don't feel.
He leans back as the elevator grinds upwards. "So what happened to you last night? I came looking after my set, did you bail?"
So Cereal didn't blab. Good to know. You guess they're all reporting back to Crash and Burn, but the realisation that the details aren't getting shared between everyone makes you bolder. Plus, your memories of Cereal's long tongue and fingers have had you squirming every time your mind replays them. Which has been pretty much constantly, all day. Knowing he's not confided in Nikon makes you even more inclined for a repeat performance, and the thought of that gives you another rush of confidence. You could get used to hanging around with these smart-ass, gorgeous lunatics. If they let you in their crew, you've got a feeling you're going to enjoy yourself. A lot.
You decide to play it casual and say you must have missed him.
"Too bad. I wanted to see you bring the moves on the dancefloor."
"Yeah." Your conversational skills aren't up to your usual level, but with all the mirrors in here, you're kinda distracted, and there's no way he'll miss seeing you perve over him if you're not careful. And maybe it's being confined in close quarters like this, but damn. Since when did Nikon smell so good? Whatever he's wearing, it smells like sweet smoke and spice and it's sending your brain haywire.
The elevator grinds to a halt and the doors sigh open. "Okay, hotshot," he says, grinning. "This is it."
He leads you down a mysterious utility corridor and you follow, giving yourself a stern telling-off to get your head back in the game. Then he swipes a card to unlock a fire door and you see where you are: a lush garden, with tropical flowers everywhere, the smell of honeysuckle sweetening the hot summer night, a twinkling view of the city skyline and the sky fading down to dark in swirls of cloud and colour.
"Wow."
He chuckles. "Yeah."
"Nikon, this is amazing. Do you come here all the time?"
"Not enough." He taps his temple. "But it's all up here, baby."
"This how you got Crash and Burn into that place with the pool?" Because you've heard about that a million times and always wondered how they got in.
He smirks. "What can I say? It's good to have friends in useful places. That and mad skills with security systems."
"You're a handy person to know."
"You know it," he says. "Come on."
Turns out, the secret rooftop garden for the fancy office workers is also the home for the corporation's central servers. They're not visible amongst the jungle of plants and the intricate pathways through them, creating hidden nooks and crannies for meetings, lunches, whatever. You wouldn't know unless you know. Some clever design from an award-winning architect gave them a complicated cooling system that sucks in the outside air and blasts it into the disguised chambers where the servers hum and bleep away to themselves. But Nikon knows. He shows you the hidden door then slides the key card into your back pocket. You thrill at the contact but force yourself to concentrate.
"I'll be out here," he says, with a wink like he knows exactly what just went through your head. "If you need me."

When you get inside, the first thing that hits you is the ice blast of the cooling system, making you more alert even as the shiver goes right through you and your nipples pebble up through your shirt.
Good, you tell yourself, welcoming the way your concentration's heightened by the cold. Enough distractions. Get on with it.
Before long, you've located what must be your task: the lights on one of the servers are flashing in a totally different sequence to the others. You grab your laptop, connecting to it and following the maze of digital pathways until you end up in a folder of media reports, full of stories detailing everything that happened with Ellingson Mineral. You've read all of this already, adventuring down research rabbit holes late at night just to feed your own curiosity and understand what went down. So you recognise when the files deviate from chronological order, and when the file names change format; most are made up entirely of numbers, but some include letters too. Then you work out the connection: these are the articles with the gang's real names, instead of or as well as their handles. You make a note of the letters, amend all their names to protect their identities, then get the hell out, erasing the evidence you were ever there as you go.
Once you're done, you look down at your page of notes with the letters from the file names:
A_ver_quien_le_pone_el_cascabel_al_gato

What the hell? You recognise the language as Spanish, and gato rings a bell because you've heard Phreak using gatita pequena as a term of endearment on the phone sometimes. Little kitten. So if gato is cat, what's the rest all about? You search the translation, and find you're on the right path. Let's see who puts the bell on the cat. It's a Spanish axiom, apparently. To find out who's going to take the plunge, do something bold. Something along those lines, anyway. Challenge accepted, you think, your intuition sparking when you remember the bar five doors down from Cyberdelia with the neon cat on the sign outside.

For now, you've done all you can, so you pack up and head out. The humid summer air is sticky on your skin but nothing can ruin your victorious mood, and it only gets better when you see Nikon's stuck around to wait for you. Better still when you see him glance down at your still-cold-stiffened nipples visible through your vest, watch his eyes darken in the soft twilight.

He turns his gaze to your face and you cock an eyebrow to let him know you've not missed a thing. "How's that photographic memory working out?"
"It's a curse," he quips, grinning wickedly.
"I bet."
"Seriously," he says, though his voice is nothing but. "It's a torment walking around like this, never knowing what kinda images are gonna be seared indelibly into your brain forever."
"Sounds hard," you tease. The words are out of your mouth before you realise the innuendo, and you bite your lip to keep a dirty laugh back, look at him through your eyelashes.
He gives a jokey leer. "Believe me," he says. "It is."

Being in a secret rooftop garden on a hot New York night is too good a chance to waste. You move closer to him.
"Shut your eyes."
He snickers. "Good job I trust you, right?" This near, reflecting the glimmer from the other skyscrapers, you can see an entire kaleidoscope of colours in his mischievous dark eyes. Amber and onyx and glinting flecks of gold. His eyelids close.
"Now there's nothing to photograph." Your voice is low, ghosting across his skin. Enough for him to realise you're almost close enough to kiss; enough that he can change things up if by any chance you've read this wrong. But he just nods, still smart and sexy even with his eyes squeezed shut.
"Thing is," he says, and his hands find your waist without him having to look. "Now all my other senses are heightened."
"Hot," you say, half-sarcastic and half-sincere.
"Don't keep me in suspense," he tells you then, and you don't. You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him, and he meets it and deepens it without hesitation. For a moment, you're unsure about doing this less than twenty-four hours after what went down with Cereal, but. You promised Kate, didn't you? That you'd do whatever it took. And it's not like you've never imagined what it'd be like with Nikon too. You have a sneaking suspicion that Paul's the cleverest of them all, and he's definitely got the best body (on a par with Burn, anyway). So you kiss him, long and hard and passionate. He tastes like toothpaste and cinnamon gum, and his lips are sweeter and softer than you ever could have expected. When you pull back to breathe, a distorted reflection of the skyline glimmers in in his even-darker-than-usual eyes.
"There's no one coming up here, right?"
He grins. "Building's empty apart from us. Door's alarmed. I got the only key."
"Sweet set-up." You wonder for a second who else he's brought up here and decide in the next moment that you don't give a fuck; you don't own any of them, after all, and more than anything you're grateful that you've been able to see and share it.
"You've not even seen the best bit," he tells you, motioning for you to follow him into another part of the rooftop garden.
"Promises, promises," you mutter, in a smutty tone, and he snorts with laughter, leads you into a secluded section. Trellises of climbing flowers form leafy walls around a rectangle of velvety grass Nikon leans over to where there must be a hidden sensor or something (either that or the dude's actually got legit magic powers, which after that kiss you're not going to entirely rule out, but you'll still look for more logical explanations first) because when he waves at the top-light corner, the spotlights and other lamps on the roof all dim down so dark that even with all the other city lights, when you look up you can see a milky riot of glittering stars.
You lie down on the grass, looking up in wonder. "Nikon, this is amazing."
"I know."
You want to show him how much you appreciate him sharing it with you. When he lies beside you on the grass, you instruct him to close his eyes again. When he does, you unknot the sleeves of his overalls from where they're still tied at his waist.

Later, you glance up at where he's still got his eyes squeezed shut, his hands buried in your hair.
"How about those heightened senses now?" you murmur, lips and tongue teasing through the words.
"Un-fucking-believable," he manages to groan, through gritted teeth, and you grin, lowering your mouth to him again as he writhes under the stars.

Chapter 4: phantom phreak
Chapter Text
You head down to the bar the following night. It's weird this time, because your beeper's been quiet; you've not been briefed with an address or a time. You're following your intuition, and the clue you uncovered on your last assignment.

But as soon as you walk in, you know you're in the right place. Everything is leopardprint; the velvety armchairs, the wallpaper, even the glittering countertop of the bar itself. Phreak wears leopard every chance he gets, so you can see him fitting in here. You move in further, eyes adjusting to the soft candlelit dark. There's a low swirl of music but it's a Sunday night, and quiet. There are a few other patrons in clusters of two or three, in booths or cosied on sofas in the corners. A gorgeous Latina barmaid with long dark braids and tattoos rainbowing her arms nods a welcome, then asks what you want to drink.
"I'm actually looking for my friend. I think I'm supposed to meet him here."
She beams as she reaches for a cocktail shaker."I think I might know who you mean." She gestures to a bar stool. "Grab a seat for a minute. I'll make you a cocktail to take with you."
Take with me? Where the hell is she sending me? After yesterday with Nikon, you're not putting anything past any of them. Perhaps all these places you've been passing all this time all have secret hideaways where shady initiations are taking place and you just never realised.
The barmaid sloshes measures of tequila, juice and liqueur into the shaker, mixes, then pours the concoction over crushed ice. She stirs and slides the glass across with a wink.
"Back room," she tells you, and points to a heavy gold leopardprint curtain you'd mistaken for being part of the wall. You thank her and head that way. The drink is good: heady and sweet, the sharpness of the tequila offset by the bright taste of pomegranate and lime.
When you duck through the curtain, you find a room set for some kind of cabaret. Chairs gathered around tiny tables with a candle burning on each one. A stage with another gaudy velvet curtain, a low throb of techno coming from somewhere behind it.
"Phreak?" you call. "You here?"
"Finally." His voice comes from somewhat out of sight. "Get in here, will you?"
You find him backstage at a make-up station bordered by glowing bulbs. He seems to be the only one there, but it's chaos anyway: he's got his laptop set up on the corner of the dressing table, and that's the source of the music, which is louder now. Around his computer the countertop is an explosion of cosmetics, colour and glitter.
Phreak greets you by kissing you on both cheeks and stealing your drink. He's wearing a robe – leopardprint, because of course - with what seems to be next to nothing underneath. His face is more beautiful than ever; his elfin cheekbones dusted with glimmering highlighter and his smoky kohl-ringed eyes extra bright. He's wearing fake eyelashes, but so far only on one eye.
"Phreak. Babe." You remember from Joey how much he hates dude. "What's going on? How come you look like the madame in a 1920s brothel?"
"First of all, I look slick as hell. Or I would if I could get this other one glued on properly. Damn it." He downs half of your cocktail, puts it down among the mess, then starts rummaging through the carnage, presumably searching for eyelash glue or something to fix this predicament. "Second, I'm performing soon. So, mi cielito, we gotta make our tango fast if I'm gonna be ready for showtime."
You blink, and shake your head, dazzled and not following. "Sorry, I got distracted by how pretty you are. Tell me once more what's happening?"
"Chica, flattery will get you everywhere. Come on." He finishes your drink with a satisfied smack of cherry chrome lips, then grabs your elbow and pulls you into what seems to be a changing room, with his various leopard-print street clothes hanging from pegs on the wall and a pile of floppy disks and notebooks in a corner.
"You got your laptop, right?"
"Duh."
"Then check it, here's your assignment." He digs through the pockets of his robe and shoves a piece of paper at you. "Do it fast, then get back in here and help me get ready."
"Alright, I got it. Don't freak out." It's an unintentional pun on his name but he dissolves into slightly manic hysterical laughter, then sashays out of the room with way more hip swivelling than necessary.
You watch him go, mesmerised. Then get to work. You curl up on the floor, read through the instructions and consult the books and discs. Right. Okay. You can do this.
You get to work. But you can still hear Phreak bustling about, bopping along to the music pumping from his laptop speakers and occasionally cursing in Spanish. And so every now and then, you can't resist leaning around the doorframe to take a peek. Phreak putting on underwear. Then stockings. Then heels. Lace and silk disappearing under the robe, then menacingly high leopardprint platforms. His reflection sees you watching and winks.
"You done?"
"Uh, almost."
"You better hustle. Curtains go up in half an hour."

Chastised, you drag your focus back to your laptop screen. When you realise what the task is, your entire body surges with relief. It's eerily similar to something you were messing about with online recently, and for a moment you go still, questioning whether one of them was there, lurking, invisible, and reported back to the others before you wiped your tracks. Still, you don't need those answers now. What you need to do is crack an encryption so you can see everything hosted on the secure server, and make a rip of the database and all the corresponding confidential files. Just in case. Or to be more specific: the court case. Ellingson vs Belford. You were already fascinated with everything that happened, and not all the transcripts made it to the media. So you've been here before, and this time it's with even more of incentive than bored curiosity. Plus, you've got the notes and discs of other evidence they must have already compiled. Annual reports, witness statements. But you want more dirt on Belford (and that idiot Gill, he came back from his untimely demise to get indicted for negligence but you still think he's a dick), so you knuckle down and blitz through layers of security, and once the case files are downloading, you risk sneaking another look at Ramon.

Done up like a punky burlesque starlet, his hair in pin-up waves and his slender body magically cinched into curves with a satin corset (leopard, duh), he looks amazing. You stare in obsessed open-mouthed awe until he realises and spins from the mirror to face you.
"Good?"
You swallow, then nod, not sure if he's asking for an assessment on his appearance or a progress report. "Okay Phreak, you better tell me what's going on because you looking like that is making me even queerer ever second and, I didn't think that was physically possible."
"Listen, Nikon's not the only one who can DJ, right? I mix mad beats too, and Lucia who you met at the bar got me to make some tracks for the cabaret they have here, and then I started coming down to DJ live, and she kept telling me I should try performing and...things just escalated. Turns out being even more flamboyant than I am every day is fun as hell, you know?"
"It looks it," you tell him, trying hard not to drool.
"Plus it's hot having everyone want you."
"I bet."
"Like you. Right now."
Shit. Rumbled. Phreak's smirk is a combo of adorable, sleazy and straight-up evil.
"Uh, well. I can't help appreciating the view."
"You can do more than that, if you want."
"I'm listening."
"I'm not messing up this make-up, or this outfit, but we still got some time and... let's face it, what you're wearing doesn't even come close to mine."
"Being insulted has never been so sexy."
He snickers. "We can come back to that. For now, get over here." Under the music still grinding from Phreak's laptop speakers, you can hear a rumble of chatter and noise suggesting the little theatre room next door's started to fill. You're on borrowed time, the two of you, and that makes things even more urgent. But Phreak clearly loves being a bossy little bitch and you'd be lying if you said it wasn't working for you too. So you let him dictate what happens next: him reaching for you and pulling you in like you're going to kiss. But at the last moment, your lips almost touching, he moves by only milimetres, his nose nudging along your cheekbones and his breath warm and electric in your ear.
"Watch the lipstick." His voice is husky and mischievous, and you swallow a laugh as you redirect your mouth to his neck instead, kissing down his throat and sucking at the pulse point in the hollow between his collarbones. When he gives a soft growly groan, you redouble your attentions, scraping your teeth gently against the sensitive skin, not enough to leave a mark but enough for him to tighten his grip on your shoulders, then move his hands up to rake through your hair.
It's kinda teenage and innocent, though it feels anything but. It's hot, kissing every bit of him you can reach, and you can feel the tension and hunger humming through him like electricity, feel him wanting more. You press one of your legs between his, increasing the friction, the pressure, the drag of skin against lace and silk. Your fingertips tease the edges of his underwear and he gives a hiss, swearing in Spanish.
"Can I?"
"You'd better."
You push the flimsy material aside so you can wrap a hand around him, him hitching his legs up and around your waist, the spikes of his heels digging in. You suck along his throat again, finding a rhythm, his hips rocking up and against your grip.
"What did I say about not messing up this outfit?" The murmur is hoarse, half-warning and half-desperate.
"So don't make a mess," you mutter back, moving to your knees so you can get your mouth round him instead.
The angled mirror on the vanity table surrounds you with reflections of yourselves, and when you glance up at Phreak you can see his dark gaze mesmerised by the sight, his false eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks as he arches up into you with a shudder.
Flushed and panting afterwards, he looks even better than before. Slowly, he grins, adjusting his ensemble so there's no evidence of what's just gone down, and not a moment before time. Just as he's admiring his still immaculate make-up, a knock at door gives way to the Latina barmaid from earlier.
"It's time, beautiful. You good?"
Phreak gives you a devilish wink. "A manana, chica. Duty calls."
You watch the show from the shadows, then slip off into the night.

Chapter 5: boy meets world
Chapter Text
You've been kinda dreading Joey's turn. For all you know, it's unfounded; from the stories the others tell, he's grown up and leveled up a lot after all that mad shit that went down last year. But you've still got this hunch it's gonna be a headache, so when you turn up at the address from your beeper and Joey's mom answers the door, you have to keep yourself from groaning out loud.

Turns out, it's not too bad. His mom bakes amazing cookies, and she loads you up with a tray containing a piled-high plate and two glasses of milk before pointing you up the stairs to his room. Once you're there, it's actually pretty adorable how excited he is to show you all his scribbled notebooks of passwords and code. He talks you through his tech set-up, then hands over a pad scrawled with cryptic symbols and tells you that's your next challenge. You sit cross-legged on his bed, flipping through the pages, wondering whether you can quiz him for more info or if the others will consider that cheating. When you glance up, you see him fidgeting, his gaze darting down to where your dress has ridden up.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, tell me."
"You look good, that's all. Sitting on my bed like that."
You roll your eyes, adjusting your legs into a more demure position as he blushes, then swallows and speaks again. "I can show you some more stuff. You know, if you want."
You get the feeling that this time he's not talking tech, but you're intrigued all the same. You lower the notepad. "What kind of thing?"
"Um." He falters for a second. "I can show you how Dade got into that TV station. I figured it out. Or Burn's been teaching me about crypto-activism; how to connect with different cells, give them extra ammunition when they need it. Like last year, when we sent out the distress signal. People showed up, right? Seems only fair to do the same for others."
"They sound like good things to know. What else?"
"Well." He's blushing again. "I can make you feel good. I know how to do that too."
He says it with a certainty that makes you curious. "Yeah?" Your voice has gone weirdly husky and you can tell he hears the difference. "Where did you learn that, then?"
"I've done things. Lots of things. With Lucy, to start with. Then some others."
"Your computer? Oh god, is this the real initiation? Seeing how I react to you confessing your twisted your sexual relationship with your laptop?
"No, no, no, no. Lucy was a girl at summer camp. I named my computer after her. You know, like a tribute."
"Sure."
"It's true. People tease me all the time, but they just don't recognise my skills. And I've got skills. All kinds of skills. No-one believes me, but all I need is a chance to prove it. Then they see I've got what it takes."
Fuck it, you think. You've come this far. And he's talked such a good game that you kinda wanna see if the skills match the hype.
"Okay," you tell him, settling back against his pillows. "You make a convincing case. Show me what you got."

"Get comfy." He tells you, beaming and businesslike all at once. "Take your underwear off." You'll never admit it in a million years, but this take-charge Joey is kinda working for you. You do as he says, hoping hard that he's got a lock on his door. Getting interrupted by his mom would be a definite vibe-killer. He doesn't seem worried though, so you guess it's fine. Then he dips his head to between your legs and before long everything's gone melty and liquid and technicolour delirious, and you don't think about anything else for a long time.

Turns out, he wasn't lying about his skills. Both kinds are better than you thought. When you get home, you go through the papers he's given you again, and bit by bit, you assemble enough pieces of code to understand what you're being asked to do. It's a sequence, you finally understand, that when activated redirects your IP address around the world, then bounces you out at a mysteriously blank online portal that demands a username and password before you go any further. You consult your notes, find your way in, then snicker when you work out where you are; the central matrix for that stupid arcade game Crash and Burn still bicker about all the time. Right now, Crash tops the leaderboard, and that makes you chuckle more, imagining Burns' outrage at being beaten. But then you realise the high score is too long for even Dade's OTT gaming skills. And it's been altered so it's got hyphens in it. It's not a high score at all. That's when you realise. The numbers next to the name Crash Override are a set of coordinates.

Chapter 6: crash override
Chapter Text
You're more confident about this mission than the others. To start with, anyway. Once you copy and paste the coordinates into the online map system, you can't help but smirk. If they're trying to test you, they're gonna have to try harder than this. Looking at the map, you recognise the corner of a neighbourhood in Williamsburg, and you know what's on that corner. It's a fancy fetish boutique: you've hung out there before when your ex-girlfriend worked there for a while (the staff discount and samples were a definite perk of that time), and that also means you know about the upstairs space, sometimes used for workshops, events or private parties (and that in itself could mean all sorts of different things based on the clientele). So you make your way over. When you get there, the light-up sign is dark and the shutters are down, but you slip round to the back door and find that unlocked. You make your way through towers of cardboard boxes and into the boutique itself. It's just like you remember: beautiful and decadent, with plants everywhere, faux-fur rugs, glossy black mannequins in exquisite lingerie, toys arranged in artful displays, every item sensuous and expensive and exuding its potential for depravity.

The shop floor is empty, so you sidle upstairs, finding Dade idly flicking through rails of latex and lace.
"Damn," you drawl. "Here I was thinking I'd find you in a dress."
He shakes his head, smirking. "I only do that for Burn's birthday."
"Shame," you tell him.
Wry smile from Crash. "I know."
"So what are you into then?"
He puts on a cool voice. "Oh, you know. The usual. Leather, lace, watersports."
"I've got an idea," you say. "If you're up for it."
"Kate said you had initiative," he says. "I like that. And I never back down from a dare."
"Yeah." You snicker, letting your bag thump to the floor and shucking off your jacket. "I've heard that about you."
You join him in flicking through the rails. "I dare you to tell me what we're doing here."
You've got plenty of other ideas, if this doesn't work, but what the hell. May as well try the straightforward approach to getting answers first.
Crash looks at you sideways. "I'm shopping. For Kate."
"So what am I doing here?"
"I seem to remember you saying you could pass any test we gave."
"I can."
"So show me something good."
The surreal experiences of the past few days have made you bolder than would've been before. "I dare you to show me something good," you tell him, doing your best to match that commanding tone Burn uses when she wants to be sexy, or scary, or both.
He meets your gaze, swallows, grins. Seems like the voice did the trick. "What did you have in mind?"
You pick out a lingerie set. It's see-through and slick, a soft neon mesh that'd turn day-glo under UV. But even here, far from club lighting, its kaleidoscopic liquid colours seem to shimmer and pulse to a non-existent beat as you hold the hanger up for Dade's reaction.
"Not really my colour," he deadpans, but his voice has gone low and hoarse, like he's more interested than he's letting on.
"I thought you said you never turned down a dare."
"Fine," he says, and you bite back a laugh at how little persuading it took. He snatches the hanger from your hand. "Your assignment's over there, by the way."
There are places he could get changed, if he wanted privacy, but he strips out of his shirt where he stands. You watch his fingers move over the buttons, thinking of the times you've seen them rampaging across his keyboard, think about Kate's smutty commentary being murmured in your ear: thank fuck he doesn't screw like he types. When his hands move to his belt you wrench your gaze away, glance over to the corner he nodded to when he mentioned your assignment.
His laptop's set up on a coffee table, animated fireworks exploding in slow motion on its screen.
Snickering again to yourself at your memory of his fevered typing style, you're gentle when you reach for the keyboard, nudging the screen into life and examining the display more closely. And when you recognise the interface, you grin. You're inside the portal for that TV network Crash and Burn fought over that time, before they even knew each other's handles. Is this like... kinky foreplay for them? They have their erotically charged battle over the airwaves and then unleash all the energy they've built up in the bedroom? Weird, you decide. But also hot. And definitely within your capabilities. The passing thought about what Dade and Kate's foreplay involves has the capacity for distraction, but you file the X-rated mental images away for later and get down to work. You've only made it past the first layer of encryption before a movement makes you look up. And then it may as well be that crashing GAME OVER graphic from that dumb game they both love. Because Crash is standing before you in the lingerie set and the sight scrambles your brain into shutdown.
It's obviously made for someone more curvy than him – you get a sudden flashback to Phreak with his corsetted hourglass shape – so he has absolutely no right to look as good as he does. But even though the mesh hugs muscles rather than softness, he's still a total vision: gorgeous and filthy, right down to the smug dirty grin and the fabric straining at the crotch.
"That's very distracting," you tell him.
"That's the idea. Sometimes we do our thing in... strange circumstances. We need to know you can focus."


You think of the anecdote of him and Burn dumpster diving at Ellingson Mineral, their quest for evidence somewhat disrupted by their weird sizzling love/hate thing, that time before you knew them that the others all joke about, when they wanted to kill each other as much as fuck each other's brains out. You can imagine it, sort of. And while any animosity you have towards any of them is more of the just let me in the damn gang already variety, your experiences over the past few days have illuminated the challenges of keeping your mind on your hacking when the distractions are so... enjoyable.
You hit a return key and the code you've been inputting gives way to the programming schedule, cued up with news clips of Gill dissing hackers, then the footage of him being led away in disgrace, the police chief announcing his dismissal cut in with Razor and Blade's hottest hacking tips and then Cereal's amazing takedown of the Plague's entire dastardly plan. You've even set up a soundtrack: techno dance beats that make you imagine Nikon's skills on the decks, the entire sequence underscored with a relentless manic brilliance.
From your position kneeling in front of the computer, you cock an eyebrow at Crash. "Good job I'm good at focusing, then, isn't it?"
"I'm good at focusing too," he says, and his voice is back to sounding like a dare.
"Show me," you answer, in an echo of your stern tone from earlier.
"You're a bit overdressed."
"Lucky I've got problem-solving skills as well as killer focus," you say, unzipping your dress and letting it fall to the floor.
Your underwear isn't quite as sexy as his, but it's close, and the way his pupils darken tell you he's enjoying the view nonetheless.
But not as much as you are. The music from the laptop ends, and in the quiet afterwards there's just the ragged sound of both your breathing.
"Touch yourself," you tell him, hearing the words come out of your mouth and wondering whether the hell that came from. "I wanna watch."
"You got it," he mumbles, already palming himself through the silky fabric. "But you gotta do it too."
You hold his gaze, hot and fierce, as you move your hand down over your own body, into your underwear. Keep your movements slow and deliberate, teasing and soft at first, then harder. You can tell he wants to go faster, but he keeps your pace, his fist sliding up and down at the same speed as your fingers.

Dade's eyes bore into yours, moving up and down your body but always back to your face. Until his movements start becoming more desperate, more frantic.
"Don't," you order, as his eyes scrunch closed, and he forces them back open, the scorching look he gives making your skin feel like it's on fire.
He bites down on his lip to hold in a groan, but it comes out anyway. You hold his gaze even as your own gasps start sneaking out, your thighs trembling. You keep your eyes locked on him as you give up all pretense at controlling your pace and let your hand move faster. As he reaches a shuddering climax, the sight of him shaking and beautiful in his flimsy lingerie, pupils blown out, is enough to send you crashing over the edge too. (Your inner monologue far too pleasure-dazed and delirious to catch that unintentional pun). Dade sinks to his knees, joining you on the rug, collapsing backwards to lie down and recover. You do the same, and he reaches out to give you a bruising sideways hug, and when he brushes a surprisingly chaste kiss to the top of your hair his still-uneven breathing makes you shiver.

You don't know who starts laughing first, but suddenly the adrenaline comedown has you both bursting out in bubbling, sheepish giggles.
"Think it's probably safe to say these are a lock," he mutters, gesturing to his outfit. "Might have to box them up and break them out again for Kate, see if the get the same reaction."
You strip out of your own wrecked underwear, ball them and flick them to him. He catches them in a deft movement, arching an eyebrow in question as you zip yourself back into your dress.
"You can wear those home," you say. "Give Burn my best when she sees them."
His grin is smug but soft, almost like he's proud of how far (and hard) you've come. But none of that gets said. His answer is back to that coy cryptic thing they both do so well.
"You'll be seeing her soon," he answers. "You can tell her yourself then."

Chapter 7: acid burn
Chapter Text
It's a fucking fetish dungeon. The door's hidden down a dark alleyway, with the words 'Pleasure Palace' on a discreet silver plaque by the intercom. You press the buzzer, and it crackles into life.
"Password?"
"Acid Burn?"
The intercom goes dead.
Fuck, you think, but then you hear the grind of bolts being drawn back, and the door's answered by an imposingly-muscled man in assless black leather chaps and bright red cowboy boots.
"Enter," he orders, and you think he might be smirking behind his immaculately gelled moustache.
He ushers you down a stark neon-lit corridor that pulses with music and a symphony of other noises from behind the various doors that line the walls. You see signs for darkrooms, a sauna, and several other anonymous rooms with no signs on them at all.
Your moustachioed leather cowboy leads you right to the end of the hall.
"You're up, buttercup," he says, then raps three times on the door and sashays back towards his entrance booth without a backwards glance.

Whatever you were expecting, it definitely was not Burn in a latex ensemble that leaves hardly anything to the imagination. The boots come up to her thighs, and her unzipped biker jacket doesn't hide the wet-look bodysuit underneath, or her expanses of glistening skin.
She's goddamn glowing, and as she stands back to let you into the room, the thudding music inside is louder, making you suspect there's another entire floor in this sex-and-sin maze with a proper club and a dancefloor. She's been dancing, or fucking, or both; her eyes are glittering with excitement and electricity and skin's even more ridiculously luminous than usual.
Like always when you're round her, you do your best to play it cool, stalking past her and covertly checking out your surroundings. The room's more decadent than you expected from the corridor: the walls and floor are glossy black tiles, and the ceilings's made from mirrors. In the centre, there's a sunken bed, with silky black cushions and sheets. You can see where Burn must have been lying, awaiting your arrival; her laptop's on a pillow, psychedelic screensaver swirling.
When you glance back, Burn's stood by the door, watching you case the room. "You found it, then?"
"This a regular hangout for you?"
"What do you think?"
"I mean... I knew you had a thing for PVC, but this is ridiculous."
She smiles, shrugging. "They have the best music here. And some other things I enjoy."
You allow yourself a flirtatious leer. "Should I even ask?"
She comes closer to you and her next words are a purr. "Well... the thing I really enjoy about this place is that they're near enough to get on the wireless network for next door."
Your face scrunches in confusion as you try and recall the surroundings from your arrival, but you come up blank. "Next door?"
"Connect your computer," she says. That sexy low murmur makes the instruction sound way more erotic than it is, but you order yourself not to get distracted and just do what she says. At this point, she could tell you to do pretty much anything and you'd obey without question. You glance at the racks of equipment that line the walls: whips, spanking paddles, an armoury to satisfy any kink or intensity level. Then bite your lip and force your concentration back to Kate.

It only takes a few moments to get online, then scan the networks nearby. It's protected and hidden behind layers of encryption, because of course it is, but the software you've code-cracked and enhanced with your own additions makes short work of it deciphering whose it is.
You look up at Burn. "You've got to be kidding."
She crooks an eyebrow. "You know what's in there, don't you?"
You've seen the main entrance on the news, but you didn't realise the building came back this far. Didn't even connect that it was nearby on your way here. It's funny to think of, all those suits up there, hunting you all down, chasing you through strange encoded mazes. Always a threat, even when you know how to avoid them. You can make yourselves invisible, but they'll still be there, chasing ghosts. Do they even know this place is here? That while they're up there, poring through data logs and attempting to unmask your avatars, there's this subterranean den of debauchery almost close enough to touch, where people wear masks to whip each other and fuck each other and bring each other all sorts of fucked-up white-hot pain and ecstasy. An entire other experience of anonymity.
You meet Kate's grin with one of your own. "The cyber crime unit."
"Very good," she says, and the praise gives you a delicious shiver. She unwinds a whip from a hook on the wall and brandishes it with a casual menace that suggests she's had practice. "And we're gonna fuck 'em up good."

Turns out, Acid Burn in full latex glory with a whip in her hand is a pretty damn unbeatable sight to behold. "Get creative," she purrs in your ear, trailing the tail of the whip over your shoulders before she returning to laze on the bed, bright eyes watching. "Show me what you can do."

Determined to seem confident, you crack your knuckles and settle down on a cushion, working your way through more layers of security until you're in the cyber crime unit's system. You find an evidence file they've been building, against one of the techno-activist cells Joey mentioned. Even at a glance, you can tell they've been duped by some of the false trails hackers have deliberately left for them to find, but there's other stuff in amongst the junk. Stuff that could come with consequences. No way, you think, digging deeper. You can't let that happen. Not when there's so much real shit going on. Lies and fraud, organised crime and corruption. They should know better than to go after hackers.

You go through the other available networks, discover you were right: there's a club somewhere in the building. Before long, you've pulled up the members list and the live camera feeds from the dancefloor and the darkrooms. Anonymous shapes grind into each other in time with the heavy throb of pulsating music. You let it play in a window on your screen while you keep working, glancing back at Burn to see her still watching. It takes a while, but you've got the skills to scrub the most incrimating evidence in the cyber unit's files without setting off any alarms. You replace it with highlights from the club's CCTV footage; a man in a leather harness and bunny mask getting fucked by a nun with a strap-on, a gorgeous androgynous biker getting oral from two goth cheerleaders while strapped to a torture rack. Then you find the list of personnel on the cyber unit's payroll, import them into the club's member directory. You can leak that later if you need to. For all you know some of them are already members, using pseudonyms to protect their identities. And they judge hackers for their handles. Hypocrites.

When you're done, you remove all the evidence that you were ever there, close everything down but the live feed from the club. It's hot, seeing those shapes pressing into each other, moving with the music. You glance back over your shoulder and see Burn lolling back against the pillows, watching the screen, watching you.
"I'm done."
Her smile is pure evil and sin. "Good work," she says. "You can go."
You falter, then steel yourself. This could be part of the test too. You swallow. "And what if I wanna stay?"
Her grin gets bigger. "Even better."

She kneels up and pulls you down. Almost near enough to kiss, but not quite. You can feel the heat of her skin. Her gaze keeps you hypnotised. "You know, it's important you know what you'd be letting yourself in for. We expect loyalty, but not obedience. Out there, I mean."
"What about in here?"
"That's a different story," she says, pressing her mouth to yours.
Her kiss is lightning and thunder and electrical storms and in an instant you get a whole new level of appreciation for why Crash is so goddamn hooked on her. You kiss her back, cupping her face while her hands find your hips and pull you closer, on top of her, the slink and slide of her latex ensemble underneath you as you press against her, meeting her with everything you've got. Pleasure and desire radiate outwards, spiraling together, until all you are is lit-up nerve endings and appetite.
When you pull back she's got that just-fucked flush again and she looks amazing, eyes lust-dark and lips swollen.
"I can be obedient," you assure her. You're here on her instructions, after all. You've shown your initiative, your perseverance, your creativity. You've shown you've got what it takes. And if Burn wants to get her rocks off and boss you about in the process, from where you're standing that seems a pretty sweet deal.
"Glad to hear it," she says, fingers closing round the handle of the whip, pushing herself up on her elbows. "Safe word's Ellingson Mineral." You huff out a laugh as she sits up to kiss you again, then she moves her lips to the shell of your ear, whispers instructions, sucks hard on the pulse point at the crook of your neck, and pushes against your shoulders to ease you down so she can straddle you this time.

"So am I in?" you ask her, later, still shimmering with euphoria and adrenaline from the lashes of the whip, the flicker of her tongue on the tender skin afterwards, the sting of her nails where they'd bitten into your hips.
Her lips are on yours again, somehow feverish and gentle all at once. "Tomorrow," she whispers, into your mouth. "Cyberdelia. You'll get your answer then."

The cowboy in the leather chaps doffs his hat to you as you go.

Chapter 8: razor & blade
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)


Chapter Text
By this point, you know this isn't part of the initiation. You just want to see if you can do it.

You can. Or they can. They totally, totally can.

Blade's dark lipstick leaves marks all over you and it takes ages to get those smears of white facepaint off, but it's worth it for how fun a time the three of you have.

When you emerge from their lair at the club, you find the entire gang lazing by the pool tables, hanging out, surrounded by the wreckage of food and drinks. When they see you, though, the atmosphere changes. You make your way over, unsure.
"What are you lot doing here?"
"More like what are you doing here?" Cereal asks it with a whooping cackle, grabbing you and dancing you round in a circle, then swiping at a rogue smudge of lipstick on your neck that you must have missed and holding his fingers up for you to examine with a gleeful smirk. "I mean, I could make a guess, but..."
His mischievous sing-song voice trails off as Kate steps forward.
"Indeed," she drawls, coming close enough that you could kiss her if you wanted. And you do sort of want to, a bit. But you hold your ground as she smoothes your still-disheveled hair off your face and makes you wait. "You've been very... committed to the initiation process."
"Totally admirable," Nikon puts in, at the same time as Phreak says something like, "so dedicated," and Crash makes a noise like he's trying not to laugh.
You front it out. "I meant it when I said I was elite."
"You were right," she says. "We just had our vote."
Your heart thuds through your chest. "And?"
She smiles, a slow sweet curl of her lips, making you wait for just one more moment of delicious torture before she answers. "It was unanimous. You're in."
"For real?"
"For real."
You stare at her for a moment, replaying the highlights from the past week and still not certain whether she's messing with you. Then Cereal does a joyous werewolf howl, and that breaks the tension. They all burst out into laughter and chatter, piling around you in a crushing group hug.
"I won't let you down," you tell them.
"I know you won't," Burns murmurs, close to your ear, in a voice that crackles through you like electricity, and you 've suddenly got a glimpse of what it's going to be like, being part of their crew: the easy banter and the teasing, the secret-swapping and the encryption-cracking, and whatever misadventures they're gonna end up getting involved in next. And the rest: you've got no clue whether this is a thing they all do, here and there, in various configurations. Or if it was a thing you made happen: your desire to be them, be with them. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Because Phreak is swiping a lick up your cheek, saying knew you had it in you, gatita pequena; Nikon's raving about a party he's DJing later where you apparently all have to go to celebrate; Kate and Dade are conferring with their heads close together, sending occasional sizzling glances your way that give you yet another squirm of excitement. And Cereal is still werewolf-whooping, fist-pumping your laced-together hands in the air. You got what you wanted. You're in it now, baby, right where you're supposed to be. And in that moment you just know you've got a lot of good times ahead.

Notes:
This is the most unhinged and self-indulgent thing I've ever written and I am not sorry at all.
HACK THE PLANET!

403: Forbidden
Quantum_Reality
Summary:
Fantom Phreak, the king of NYNEX, has a secret. Cereal Killer, a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein, manages to see what no-one else can see.

Notes:
This ficlet borrows from the novelization's back story about Dade's intervening years between his court trial and arrival in New York, as well as the spelling of Ramon's handle, but otherwise follows movie canon in general. The dynamic between Ramon and Dade is interesting and if you read between the lines a bit, there's a chance Ramon isn't as heterosexual as the movie would imply. This is my take on that in the form of a sort of character study ficlet.

I'd like to thank my friend AyalaAtreides for beta reading this, as well as helping with the title! All mistakes are, however, my own.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:
The first time Ramon Sanchez, a.k.a. Fantom Phreak, set eyes on Dade Murphy, he’d just thought the newbie was passingly good-looking, but not much else. Then he’d guessed Burchill’s password and done a pretty damn good hack in school.

Now that, he decided, merited a closer look.

It wasn’t long before he was enthralled with Dade, or “Crash Override” as he dubbed himself. It was like he’d lived algorithms and networks and coding! His hacking was so choice; it was almost like watching a samurai do sword movements, the way Dade so effortlessly blew past even some pretty tough network security. Ramon would swear Dade could run his eyes down a page of pure fucking hexadecimal and figure it out in his mind, mentally assembling the code, opcode at a time, until he’d built up the entire structure in his head and captured the – what was that word Burn had used once? The gestalt of the program. The “completeness” of it, as it were.

But there was a problem: Dade was so obviously smitten with Burn, and Burn, try as she might, couldn’t not find a way to put up with him. She didn’t tease guys she didn’t like – she just straight-up verbally slaughtered them.

So… Dade was forbidden. Period.

But he’d always tried to be careful to keep his eyes to himself when he could; he straddled the line between openness and closeted with his loud leopard print outfits, but was always able to pass it off as being Hispanic. People believe fucking anything if you just chalk it up to your “exotic” ethnicity, thought Ramon sardonically. So much for a world that follows the beauty of the baud and doesn’t give a shit what you look like.

And then one day it was just him and Cereal, hanging out at Cyberdelia after another round of judging the score in the tense Burn vs Crash hacking battles. As usual, he was sucking back a Coke while Cereal kept trying (and failing) to be discreet about stealing Ramon’s fries.

He set his cup down and groaned. “Man, it’s gettin’ harder to figure out how to keep them exactly tied so they’ll resolve their unresolved fuckin’ sexual tension. You can cut that shit with a knife.”

Cereal just stopped and stared at him levelly for a bit. Then he slowly munched on a French fry and mused aloud, his voice just barely heard over the background babbling, “You like him, don’t you? Crash – Dade, I mean.”

A sharp pang hit Ramon’s stomach, and he retorted, “Well, yeah, dude’s elite. Knows his shit like he’s got it all freakin’ memorized. I mean, ask him to quote page forty-five of the Dragon Book and he could probably spit it out without even breaking a sweat.”

Cereal shook his head. “Nah, man. It’s deeper than that. You like like him, don’tcha?”

Ramon froze. Boys just didn’t do that. Even just hearing his mom tell him she loved him was embarrassing enough; if he ever told another guy he liked him – or hell, loved him? Ramon was positive he’d sink through the fucking floor after that. And everybody’d think he was loco, too.

He took a long pull on the straw in his Coke cup, trying to stall for time.

Cereal shrugged. “Hey, man, it is what it is. World we live in, it’s got enough people hating each other over stupid shit anyway. Like, look at Bosnia.”

Ramon set his cup down and sighed, looking out across the arcade-slash-fast-food-joint. That standing-on-a-cliff feeling he had whenever he’d come close to confessing his sexuality was rising again. And every time previously, he’d always been too chickenshit to take the leap, letting the relief flow over him as he hid the truth once more.

But not this time. His leg started bouncing of its own accord, and he clenched his fist so Cereal wouldn’t see the slight tremor. He bit his lip, then looked back at Cereal.

Fuck it.

He threw up his hands and said, “Okay, fine! Busted! Queerer than a three-dollar bill, all that shit. Now what?” He let out his breath as though he’d just run a marathon, and screwing up his courage, he looked Cereal steadily in the eye, challenging him – daring him to say anything.

But Cereal just raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his seat. “So now what about Dade?”

“The dude is so incurably damn straight, it makes me just—” He growled. Changing the subject, he said, “How’d you spot it, anyway? I thought I was being so careful.”

Cereal chuckled. “Because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Ramon leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow, marvelling, “Where even the hell do you pick that shit up?”

“Two Corinthians Chapter four, Verse eighteen.” Cereal smirked a tiny bit, then went back to sipping his Coke. Ramon snorted. Only Cereal would quote the damn Bible in order to sound mysterious. “But seriously, dude, you only ever do long-distance calls with girls. If that isn’t a way to sound straight without any of the strings attached having an IRL girlfriend… can’t be too hard to see that.”

But reality set in, and Ramon slumped in his seat with a sigh. “Well, if I can’t have Dade, I can at least help fix it so Burn can get him. Yeah?”

Cereal nodded slowly and sagely. “Wise, indeed, Obi-Fantom! Now how shall we score the next head to head battle?”

“Let’s go find Nikon and ask. He was gonna hook up with some girl, but even guys with photographic memories can strike out every once in a while.”

“Good, ‘cause I need to ask to crash at his place again.”

Ramon tossed a fry at his friend, snorting. “Dude, you ask like every second week!”

Cereal Killer, a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein, just gave Ramon an impish smile in return.

Ramon rolled his eyes and threw his coat on. “You’ve stolen enough of my fries, damn it, so let’s get moving.”

Cereal just barely managed to pull off a convincing offendedly innocent look before cracking up as he got out of his seat as well; with that, the two men sauntered on out of Cyberdelia as though nothing had changed between them.

Notes:
The Bible quote of Two Corinthians is from the Revised Standard Version, and expresses a similar sense to the equivalent verse in the Gothic Bible, which is why I like the particular phrasing so used.

P2P Pressure
slashadventcalendar_archivist
Summary:
by Retrofit88

The day before Christmas Eve, what to buy, what to buy?

Notes:
Author: Retrofit88
Title: P2P Pressure
Date: December 8
Fandom: Hackers/Movies
Pairing: Cereal Killer/Lord Nikon; Dade Murphy/Kate Libby
Rating: R for language
Summary: The day before Christmas Eve, what to buy, what to buy?
Disclaimer: Parody/derivative works. Hey, maybe it's a legal protection. “Not mine” sure as heck isn't.
Feedback address: [redacted]
Website: http://retrofit.slashcity.net
Advertisement: Part of the SAC-2004 at: [redacted]
Note: Contains references to heterosexual sexual activities (kinky ones, but nevertheless het.) Also, several characters are in the 16-17-18-year-old age range, and are engaging in sexual activities and talk.
Beta: The excellently thoughtful Nit Wicks

Notes from LadyKardasi and Sahviere, the archivists:

For creators: This work was originally archived at Slash Advent Calendar and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2025. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on Slash Advent Calendar’s collection profile.

For readers: We are importing this work from an archive with metadata that may not be a good fit with AO3's meta structure, and we are cautious about making decisions on behalf of the creator. We haven’t read the work, and additional warnings may or may not apply. The tags may be inaccurate or incomplete. While the work may be marked as complete, it may not be. Once the creator has claimed the work, they can update these details as they see fit.

Work Text:
Like most New York apartments, this one had its own idiosyncrasies: the front door opened directly into a room that was either an unusually wide hallway or a spectacularly narrow living room. The kitchen and bathroom were cramped, and though both tiny bedrooms had the standard issue four square walls, neither had a closet. The heating and cooling system had been creatively cobbled together by several decades' worth of superintendents. On the morning of December 23 rd , the temperatures of the four separate microclimates within the apartment ranged from 76 ° F (Dade's room) to 36 ° F (the bathroom, unfortunately).

Dade sat on his bed, which was wedged under the window at one end of the room. The bright morning sun gleamed off his short-clipped bleach-blond hair, but his dark blue eyes were still bleary from sleep. He wore a red t-shirt that was about two washings away from transparent and about two sizes too small, even for his narrow frame. The neck of the t-shirt was completely stretched out, as was the elastic in his blue boxer shorts. If he stood up, the shorts would probably fall off.

He was fiddling with his homemade portable computer; the camo paint job was really flaking off – time to come up with a new color scheme. Across the room (just out of reach of Dade's bare toes) was a tiny desk, which housed his other computer and a haphazard collection of papers, tapes, and floppy disks. His other other computer lived under the desk, next to a pile of random computer parts that were escaping across the floor. Dade liked computers. So did his friends. Which was a good thing really; due to the extreme length of his legs, Dade's friend who was sitting on the floor was more or less in the pile of computer parts.

Though his given name was Emmanuel Goldstein, the friend in question answered happily to “Cereal Killer”. His fashion choices matched his improbable handle. Four light brown chin-length braids were distributed evenly around his head. The two front braids framed his rather wide forehead, and the two in back were unraveling after a night spent on the couch in the living room-slash-hallway. His sleepy blue eyes smiled at nothing in particular.

The Dead Kennedys t-shirt that he'd slept in barely qualified as clothing; the neck and both sleeves had been ripped off, and the side seams were slit almost all the way to the waist. His legs were clad in olive drab pants of dubious origin, much too large in the waist and rather a lot too short in the inseam. He'd slept with his shoes on; ratty Converse hi-tops of indeterminate color covered in several layers of ballpoint ink, white-out, duct tape, and permanent marker.

“Cereal, honey,” Dade's mom's voice rang out from the kitchen, “it's Winter Break. You do actually have a home to go to for the holidays, right?”

Cereal called back, “Yes, I do, Mrs. Murphy. I just like your home a lot better!” He added, “Pretty much anybody's home is better” just loud enough for Dade to hear.

“Okay boys,” Dade's mom came to the bedroom door. “I'm headed out for some last-minute Christmas shopping. I'll be back this afternoon. Try not to do anything that'll cause the Feds to raid the house while I'm gone – I'm fresh out of bail money.”

The two boys turned their most angelic faces towards her. She gave them a dirty look, shook her finger at them, and left.

The ringing phone sent Dade scrabbling under the bed. He hunted it down and answered on the fourth ring. All he got out was “Heh-“ before he was interrupted by the voice on the other end. Dade responded with “Uh huh”, and “Yeah”. After a final “Okay”, he hung the phone back up.

“Dude, you're so totally whipped,” Cereal taunted.

“Why yes, that was Kate, thanks for asking. She's coming over.”

Dade's girlfriend was the scariest person either of them knew. She was also just about the hottest girl in their entire school. When she had chosen to go out with Dade, he – and all of the rest of their friends – had been amazed. Dade still seemed to be walking around in a haze a lot of the time, and he and Kate had been together for about five months. Cereal figured that Kate's interest in Dade had a lot to do with the fact that he was easy to push around; he was beginning to think that Dade's interest in Kate was at least partly due to her talent for pushing.

“Did you really wear a dress on your first date?”

“It wasn't a dress , exactly…” Dade was stalling.

“Oh, so, normal pair of pants, then?”

“Well… More of a, um, frock coat, really.”

“A ‘frock coat'?”

“Um, a coat with a, uh, kind of a skirt?”

“Yeah, okay, that doesn't sound anything like a dress .” Cereal's tone conveyed his utmost sarcasm as he sauntered off toward the bathroom.

Dade was a pretty fashion-forward guy; his clothes didn't convey the happy-go-lucky insanity of Cereal's outfits, but they were not the sort of thing you saw on the street every day. Well, in New York, maybe you'd see something like them a couple times a week, but he managed to communicate his individuality pretty well. The almost-dress Kate had picked out for him for their date had kinda pushed his boundaries, and he figured he'd been pretty lucky to avoid the red patent-pleather lingerie.

Kate had actually worn a dress on the date, too – an unprecedented event. It had been the terms of the bet that Dade had won. Still, since his buddies had confessed to letting Dade win solely so he could get a date with Kate, she'd insisted he hold up his end of the deal as well.

“So,” Cereal began conversationally as he returned from his brief shower, shivering, “you and Kate are-“ he thrust his hips “-doin' the nasty, right?”

“You are so incredibly RUDE,” Dade yelped.

“But you are, right?” Cereal was nothing if not persistent when it came to inappropriate conversations.

“Yes, we are.” Dade admitted sheepishly as he lay back down.

“Has she ever, you know, fucked you?”

“What the hell?” Dade's eyebrows practically jumped off his forehead.

“Well, I was just thinking, when I was in the shower. Kate's kind of, ya know, bossy. And I figured, she likes to be in charge the rest of the time, maybe she kinda…”

Dade flopped back on the bed, as Cereal dug a clean and completely shredded t-shirt out of his army-surplus bag. Dade threw his arm over his eyes. “First of all, please refrain from thinking about my girlfriend when you're in the SHOWER! Second of all, it's none of your business.”

“Hey, don't feel left out – I was thinking about both of you while I was in the shower.”

Dade pulled a pillow over his face and screamed quietly into it.

“Bet she's played with your ass, at least,” Cereal mumbled.

When Dade didn't reply, Cereal looked back over his shoulder. Dade had dropped his jaw and pressed his lips together, staring at some invisible crack in the wall. His cheeks were flaming red.

“She has, she totally has!” Cereal crowed triumphantly. “Isn't it awesome?”

Dade rolled over and looked curiously at his friend. Cereal finished pulling on his pants, cinched them in with a leather belt, and began fastening his suspenders.

“You should totally let her fuck you,” he continued. “Git your freak on!”

A new voice broke in, “Much as I hate to interrupt the corrupting influences you're exerting on Dade right now, I have to ask, what unfortunate woman has been confronted with your hygienically-challenged body?”

Kate Libby, Dade's girlfriend, stood in the door. Her right elbow was planted on the doorframe next to her head, left hand on hip. She wore a red and white motorcycle jacket with black trim, tight black pants, and heavy black boots with just the slightest suggestion of a heel. She'd just pulled off her motorcycle helmet, so her short shag haircut was a little mussed. As always, it looked as good as if she'd done it on purpose.

Dade moaned and put the pillow back in front of his face. “Can we not be talking about this?”

Cereal, however, could not be silenced. “Hey, I'm clean, I just got out of the shower! And who said anything about any girls?”

Kate smiled slowly. “I didn't know you were playing both sides of the fence.”

“Well it's not like I'm gonna go getting fucked with a dildo when there's the real thing available!”

Kate came in to the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She reached over Dade, leaning on her arm. Cereal turned to face her and missed the entrance of a slightly older man with ear-length dreadlocks. He was shorter than either Cereal or Dade – closer to Kate's height, actually - and at about twenty-five, older than any of them. A few of his dreads were bleached gold and he wore a multicolored bike-racing jersey under his overcoat. There were at least two pagers clipped to his belt.

“If a ‘dildo', as you put it, is so vastly inferior to ‘the real thing', why are you advising Dade to settle for one?” Kate asked Cereal.

Dade “mmphed” into the pillow again, this time louder and higher-pitched. Kate stroked his exposed stomach.

“Well, he's totally into you, so he'll like pretty much anything you do to him. And you're the only girl I know who could fuck as good as a guy, and you're totally into him, so I'm outta luck there, right?”

“Nice save,” the man standing behind Cereal chimed in. His voice was low and resonant. “From her perspective, and mine.” Cereal turned around, startled, as Dade removed the pillow from his face and craned his neck back to look at the door.

“Nikon!” Cereal exclaimed.

Dade said, “Thank God– maybe we can move on to some other topic of discussion?”

“Oh, no,” Kate broke in. “Emmanuel, here, implied that he's been exploring the potential pleasures of anal stimulation with a fellow member of the weaker sex. My interest is certainly piqued.”

Cereal hemmed and hawed a bit; looked down at Nikon, grinned lopsidedly. Nikon rolled his eyes. “This was supposed to remain private, you idiot. Remember how I explained to you about statutory rape?”

“Aww, c'mon Nikon. I was just telling Dade how good it feels…”

“And I'm sure Kate appreciates that, but it's my idiot-child-molesting self on the line, now isn't it? I'm wondering why I ever let your gangly, sorry, pale, narrow ass stay over in the first place.”

“Umm… ‘cuz ya like me?” Cereal bent to rest his temple on Nikon's shoulder, making puppy-dog eyes up into the stern face. Nikon gave Cereal a shove in the ribs, and then they both cracked up laughing. Kate and Dade looked on bemusedly.

“Really?” Dade said wonderingly, “You guys are sleeping together?”

“Well, he's been crashing at my place most nights for the last couple months. He's been sexually harassing me for many moons longer than that,” Nikon explained.

Cereal smiled proudly. “I harassed him into having sex with me!”

Nikon reached up and pulled Cereal down into a headlock. “Honestly, I can't take you anywhere!”

“So wait,” Dade asked. “If you're staying at Nikon's place all the time, how come you slept on my couch last night?”

“Christmas rush. I picked up some night-shift hours, and he doesn't like staying alone when I'm at work,” Nikon answered.

Kate snorted, “How pathetically romantic.”

“That's me, pathetically romantic!” Cereal beamed. Nikon rolled his eyes again and turned to look at Cereal. The goofy smile on the tall boy's face softened Nikon's annoyed expression, and he thwacked Cereal gently on the forehead. Cereal wrapped his long thin arms around Nikon's waist, and leaned down. Their lips met in a gentle kiss, then Cereal opened his mouth to softly lick Nikon's lips. Nikon opened his mouth, deepening the kiss, and put his hands on Cereal's chest. The gaping t-shirt exposed a dark pink nipple, and Nikon tongued it as Cereal's head fell back.

Kate, inspired, ran her hand up under Dade's t-shirt and tweaked one of his nipples. “Get dressed,” she ordered. “We're going Christmas shopping, remember?”

“I thought we finished yesterday!” Dade protested.

“Didn't you still want that extra cat-5 cable? Besides, now I have some new ideas for your stocking stuffers…” Kate's voice held all kinds of intent and Dade blushed furiously, then got and began to get dressed fairly energetically.

Cereal broke out of his clinch with Nikon. “Cool!” he exclaimed. “Sex toy field trip!”

END