Falling | Mxm (Completed) Chapter 71

Edited

“Edwin, sit down! You walking around nonstop and not eating is not gonna solve anything.” Finn said, trying to stop Edwin in his track. He felt how the slim body was shaking inside.

“You don’t understand. It’s been two days. If he, wherever he is, doesn’t take his medication on time or at all, it’s possible for his body to go into shock.” Edwin said, gesturing his hands and on the verge of crying again. He kept it in. He had to be strong. He couldn’t just break into tears every ten minutes, thinking the worst things.

“Medication? What for? I thought you cut him off months ago.” Joe asked, confused.

“It’s… it doesn’t matter now. We have to find him, guys. We have to find him soon.” Edwin pled and checked his phone for the nth time in hopes of seeing a message from Aiden. None of the texts they sent him or Luis were seen. When they called, it went directly to voice mail.

“It matters.” Joe replied, standing up and walking closer to the tall boy. “It matters, Edwin. The company is not taking it seriously, saying he’s just gone somewhere without telling us beforehand again. Feeling at ease, only because Luis is supposedly with him. If his health is on the line, maybe they will do something.”

Edwin had never seen Joe like that. He had seen him angry, and it was terrifying, but this, the way his eyes were filled with worry, sadness, and anger, was something else. He swallowed before letting himself fall on the chair next to the glass wall. Rubbing his face roughly a couple of times, he brushed his hair back as he took a deep breath.

“Den, he… he showed some new symptoms, serious ones. I talked to Chad, the head doctor at the hospital, and we came up with a treatment. I can’t tell you more cos Aiden didn’t want you guys to know.” Edwin knew the older would be upset when he would find out about this, but he had no other choice.

Everyone went quiet for some seconds.

“Is… it still because of the accident?” Ian asked with so much hesitance.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Joe turned to him and pursed his lips together, looking at his boyfriend. “Ian…”

“No, it’s not. It goes way back. It’s not because of you. Don’t worry.” Edwin forced himself to smile at the older guy, who was nearly panicking at the thought of him being the reason for yet another breakdown in his ex-lover.

“Are you sure you can’t track him down?” Brad asked after minutes of ear-piercing silence.

Ian shook his head. “Aiden, he is a genius when it comes to coding. He always makes all of his devices unable to be hacked. I assume he has done the same thing to Luis’s phone as well, cos I can’t get through the wall. It’s just unbreakable.”

They all sighed in defeat.

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2 days ago, Aiden and Luis disappeared. Edwin contacted Patrick, and the rapper searched every corner of the hotel and asked everyone if they had seen them. No one had. Basically, they hadn’t even come to the hotel after the concert. That concert had been the last one Aiden would be at before coming back home, and that meant no more schedule for the singer to be present at. That resulted in the company not being concerned about their whereabouts that much and keeping silent, not wanting the fans and the public to go crazy over their artist and manager missing.

Brad and Joe had fought so many times with the CEO in just two days already to know that there was no way the company would risk the image of Aiden, in case the singer was just chilling somewhere. So they kept quiet. Saying if they didn’t show up in another two days, they would go to the police. The reason was logical. It was what any company would do. They wouldn’t want the fans to be worried over nothing. But that was something the group of friends wouldn’t understand in their current worried sick situation.

Everyone had been at Aiden and Edwin’s apartment for the last two days. Waiting for a call or a text or their messages to get delivered. But nothing. Ian had been trying every way he knew to get the whereabouts of either Aiden or Luis, but he just couldn’t. He had always said Aiden was better at hacking, although officially he had always done the projects related to that and Aiden had always made programs. It was rather Aiden didn’t enjoy hacking much, so he refused the projects that involved that kind of work. But he had done one or two of the big ones with Ian nevertheless.

Ian could still remember that one time, they were still rookies at the big company they worked at. It was a few months after Aiden had begun working there when they were finally getting some praise from their bosses. They were about to leave the company building late at night when one of the higher-ups called after them to follow her.

(8 years ago)

“Aiden Evans, Ian Johnson, you two work as a pair on projects. Am I correct?” The man who they hadn’t seen around, not even once, asked them. He was sitting behind the desk that normally their CEO would sit. It was his office after all, but right now, the CEO was standing by the man’s side and the boys were standing in front of the desk, confused by the whole situation and getting suffocated by the thick aura that surrounded the supposedly some government man in that chair. They had never worked for the government before.

“Yes, sir.” Aiden replied firmly.

“And you specialize in… hacking?”

“Yes, sir.” Aiden answered again and Ian turned his face to look at him with widened eyes. He didn’t know Aiden knew how to hack. Not until that day.

“And you, Johnson? Do you specialize in hacking as well?” Ian looked at the man again. “Yes… sir” He was a little bit, no, a lot intimidated by this man. He didn’t like being there, but standing next to Aiden, who seemed like he would make a hell of a good soldier, calmed him a bit like he could get through this in one piece.

“And where would you have learned such skills?” The man’s face was rough. It was like he had never smiled once in his whole life.

“I learned the basics in school clubs. The rest, I taught myself.”

“Smart.” The man nodded his head. “And you?” He turned his fierce gaze to Ian.

“I… I, my father, he was a cyber defense strategist.”

The man hummed, going through the folder he had in his hands before closing it. He picked another thick folder and threw it to the other end of the desk, closer to them.

“Read the details by dawn. We will pick you up at 6 AM. You will be working under us for the next few days. Do not talk about this to anyone. Ever.” And the man left after. Just like that. Like they didn’t have a say in this whole situation.

Aiden was the one to pick the folder up and look through it. “Daniel, are we really doing this? This is… big!” Aiden asked their CEO, who was now the only one in the room beside them. The man had an apologetic smile on his face as he shifted in his chair a bit.

“I’m so sorry, kids. When they wanna do something, there’s nothing stopping them. They always keep track of smart people in this field of work, rather all fields of works, and you two happen to be the young geniuses they always like.” The old man sighed. “I just hope they let you go after this one and won’t want to make you their puppets.”

Ian was panicking. He hadn’t seen the folder yet, but from what it sounded like, it was something very important. Walking closer to Aiden and looking over his shoulder, his eyes widened the further he read. When they were done reading the first few pages, he looked up at Aiden, who was looking surprisingly calm.

“Are you insane? We can’t do THIS! I’m a good hacker and I suppose Aiden here is too but, we’re not capable of hacking through such a giant system! They have millions of alarms set in every line of their codes.” His whole body was shaking at this point. It wasn’t something they could get away with if they were to mess up. It could cause war. He definitely did not want to be the reason for millions of people dying, and he was sure it wasn’t what Aiden wanted, either.

“Listen, Ian. There’s no way out of this. If they want you to do it, you just do. They won’t let you be otherwise.”

“Are you okay with this whole thing?” He asked Aiden, frustrated.

The other was still going through the files with complete concentration. Aiden lifted his head up and focused his attention on a trembling Ian instead.

“Of course I’m not okay! But Daniel is right. We have no other choice, and I think I’ve already found a hole in their defense wall. So it won’t take much time.” Aiden closed the folder and placed it on the big desk again before taking Ian by the shoulders and looking into his eyes softly. “It’s okay. We’re gonna do this and then we’re gonna tell them to fuck off afterward.”

Ian’s lips parted as he looked back into the guy’s eyes. They seemed genuine. But… “But if we can tell them to fuck off, why not tell them that now?” He grabbed the hem of Aiden’s t-shirt.

“Because they’re on a deadline now. They won’t accept it. But if we tell them after this, beforehand, they’ll know they can’t count on us again.” He smiled his beautiful smile at him and it made him calmer. Made sense, what Aiden had explained.

Ian swallowed roughly. “Okay… but only this once. I don’t wanna be a part of the government’s dirty work.”

Oh, if only he knew what amount of stuff he was going to do after having his own company. He had skillfully refused the big and messed up projects, but sometimes there just was no escape.

Aiden had done as he said. He had told them they would never participate in such ‘projects’ ever again firmly, like he meant it, and wasn’t afraid of the consequences. The man and other people had thrown him a death glare but didn’t say anything further. They had never contacted them again.

Aiden was a genius. So much that it shocked everyone in the whole building when they found out he had given up on programming to become a singer. It was like giving up a whole personal island to go live in a shack in a faraway desert to them. Little did they know, he would prove himself in the music industry as one of the most talented ones as well. And right now, only Aiden could break through the defense wall of the cellphone they were desperate to break into, in order to find their locations.

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The sound of Edwin’s ringtone broke through the silence of the apartment. Jumping up, Edwin looked at the caller ID and couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Hello?!”

“Edwin. It’s Vincent. I think Aiden’s in danger.”