3

"Keep up, Faber!" Jane panted as she began jogging backwards to lock eyes with Carmen, who was falling behind in their run.

The sun was beaming down onto Carmens slick skin and she breathed heavily as she waved her hand at Jane. "I'm coming."

Jane had shown up at Carmen's apartment at the exact time she promised that morning and was almost shocked to see Carmen ready to go in her work-out attire. Usually it was a battle to get Carmen out of bed early in the morning. However, Carmen didn't seem to put up much of a fight. They'd been alternating between jogging and walking the busy streets of New York City. They'd strayed quite far from Carmens apartment and were now nearing the downtown area. Jane abruptly began to slow down. "Let's take a break and walk."

Carmen halted a few steps behind her and put her hands behind her head in an attempt to catch her breath. Her chest burned and the air that she sucked in was thick with the warm September humidity. She brushed a hand over her ponytail and walked side by side of Jane who placed her own hands on her hips as her breaths grew shallow.

"I'm surprised that you decided to actually come with me this time," Jane confessed.

Carmen dropped her arms and tilted her head back. "My mom thinks that I need to get out more."

"Do you agree?"

"Probably." She shrugged. "I just don't know how you do this almost everyday."

"Exercise is good for stress. It releases endorphins in your brain."

"Ah." Carmen nodded. "The happy drug."

Jane chuckled. "It might as well be."

The two girls were prepared to cross the street that they'd approached when Carmen looked to her right down the street and paused. Halfway down the long street, lay a cement barrier. No car was allowed to exit or enter this road. Carmen and Jane knew exactly how far they'd strayed when they saw that concrete wall.

"The Grave District," Jane said when she caught Carmens stare.

When New York finally acknowledged The Grave District as the deadliest area of the city, a barrier was built around the area to block any direction to the main roads. Of course, only people who dared to go in knew that there was an opened entrance that drag racers had created on the other side of The Grave District. This area of the barrier was not nearly as populated as the side that Carmen and Jane stood now, so it wasn't common knowledge. Obviously Carmen knew about it given that she'd done quite a few sales inside of the dangerous zone.

Carmen didn't think twice as her feet turned and she started heading down the street to the barrier.

"Carmen!" Jane hollered.

"It's fine!" Carmen shouted over her shoulder at her.

When she managed to reach the barrier, she began assessing it. The concrete stood from the ground to just above Carmens chest. There was a thick yellow line painted over top of it and it seemed to be a few feet thick. It wasn't nearly impossible to jump. Carmen stood at 5'5 and could easily make her way to the other side by pushing herself up and over. But, the popular opinion was that only people who didn't value their life would make such a risky move.

The sound of Janes feet slapping against the pavement behind her drew her eyes. She looked over her shoulder to see Jane running towards her with wide eyes.

"Why are you getting so close?" Jane exclaimed.

"It's fine, Jane."

Her co-worker hesitantly took steps forward and stood beside Carmen at the wall. Her eyes were alert and fearful as she looked across the other side. The street opposite the main road was clearly not being taken care of by the city. The pavement was cracked and riddled with several potholes, on both sides of the road were worn down buildings and houses. Carmen had been inside, so she knew that this kind of view continued for several blocks.

"Can you believe that people actually live here?" Jane whispered as if she were scared to awaken anything that lay asleep inside the zone. "I couldn't imagine having to stay somewhere so.. unlivable."

"It definitely wouldn't be easy."

Carmen leaned her arms against the cement and stared over the other side.

"What's on your mind?" Jane asked.

"Have you ever thought about what it would be like to go inside?" Carmen was testing the waters. She hadn't told anyone in her immediate life about her activities in the black market, but after a while it can get rather lonely. She wondered if Jane would be someone that she could trust enough with that information.

Jane met her eyes and immediately scrunched up her nose. "God, no. My high school football team hazed a group of freshmen by sending them over the barrier and told them to stay in there for three hours. Two of the kids were shot and one of them died. Not to mention everything else that pops up on the news about what goes on inside this place."

Her eyes glazed over with a more serious look and she stared at Carmen. "I hope that you don't plan on trying to see what it's like in there. This place is crawling with criminals and if you go in there, then chances are that you're not coming out." Jane shook her head.

Criminals.

The word echoed in Carmens head. That was all that she needed to know. Carmen was now 100% sure that she could never tell Jane the truth about her tech. She would never understand why Carmen sells it, or why she even started inventing it in the first place.

A face popped up in Carmens mind at the thought of her reasoning and she nearly shuddered at the mental image. Jane nodded her head towards the main road. "Come on, let's head back."

She began walking back before Carmen even nodded in agreement. Carmen stole one more peak at the zone beyond the barrier once more before she too turned to head back.

Suddenly, her pocket began to buzz as her phone went off with a notification. She instantly froze her steps to reach into her shorts to pull out her phone. Almost instantly, Carmen realized that it wasn't her phone that had gone off. Well, not her main phone. She looked around to get a read on her surroundings before she reached into that pocket once again to pull out the burner phone that she kept with her.

Ever since Carmen was young, she gravitated towards all things technology and electronics in general. As soon as she could learn how, she became a great hacker. One of the best that many people have seen. Carmen even ran an underground business during her high school career where students would pay her to go into the schools system to change their grades. So, when it became most convenient for her at 17, she decided to take her talents a bit deeper than silly old high school scamming. Carmen began shifting her attention from hacking to developing her own branded technology for the black market. People would buy her products or they would make a trade and Carmens name had gotten around to the point where she was getting buyers trying to contact her quite often. She then decided to engineer and code her own notification system on the dark web, so that people could get in touch with her if they wanted to buy her products. Carmen had managed to connect that notification system to, not only her computers in her apartment, but also to the burner phone that she kept on her during the times that she was away from her apartment.

Whenever that burner phone went off, much like it had done right now, Carmen knew it was a potential buyer trying to contact her.

She unlocked the burner phone and read the message that appeared to her on the screen:

I've heard about your new tech. I'm interested. Want to meet?

The first thing that drew Carmens attention was that this IP was not one that she had marked, so this was not a message from someone that she's worked with before. A new buyer. Carmen needed to tread lightly, she straightened as she started typing her reply:

The new product is 10 grand. Still want it?

The 'new product' that Carmen was referring to was her newest chip that she'd invented. This chip could be inserted into the phone of any person that you want, as long as you coded the correct sequence, then you could see their entire call and text history ever made to, and from, that phone number. Deleted and all.

The phone buzzed in her hand with the reply.

I still want it. I can meet in The Grave District tonight at 9 behind the old pharmacy on 23rd.

After Carmen texted a reply in agreement, Janes voice drew her attention. "Carmen!"

Carmens head snapped up to see Jane who shrugged her shoulders in question on whether or not Carmen was coming. She instantly shoved the phones back into her pocket and began running away from the barrier to catch up to her co-worker.