Chapter Three
Benji
The twins walked back into the office with the meals in tow.
Benji had already made a bet with Andi on what Travis was going to say when they passed out the coffee to everyone.
Something along the lines of how rude it was to go out and buy new coffee when he took the time out of his busy morning to make a pot for everyone.
It wasn’t the first time he had said something like that and it certainly wouldn’t be the last unless he would figure out how to properly make a pot of coffee. But that was a long shot, apparently.
“We’re back.” Andi announced while she walked over towards the table in the center of the office and opened up the bag. She began to divvy out the food for everyone while Benji walked around and gave everyone a cup.
“What’s this?” Travis asked.
Benji smiled. “Coffee.”
“What the fuck,” his uncle began and pointed over towards the coffee pot. “I made a pot already!”
“Well, we bought everyone a cup anyway.”
“You know, it’s extremely rude to go out and buy coffee for everyone when I took the time to make a pot for everyone,” he paused. “A good pot too,” another pause. “Plus, it’s extremely wasteful.”
“Shit.” Benji muttered under his breath and glanced over to Andi who was grinning like she just won a million bucks.
He forgot about the wasteful part. How could he?
That was essential to the Travis rant. He officially owed her twenty bucks.
Walking over towards his dad, Benji held out the cup for him and Andi was quickly making her way over with the food, since it didn’t look like he was budging from his seat. “Hey, dad. Can we talk to you?”
Turning in his chair, his brow furrowed as he shifted his gaze between his kids, gingerly reaching out to take the food. “Sure… Should I be concerned?”
Andi shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Their dad blinked then turned his gaze to his brothers. “Get outta here.”
Spence huffed. “Yeah, saw that coming.” He gathered his things and left the office and a few moments later, Travis followed suit.
Soon enough, they were left alone with their dad.
Benji grabbed a couple of chairs and brought them over for himself and Andi before he sat down.
He took a bite of his hashbrown, unsure where to start but luckily for him, he had his sister there to start it all.
He shifted his gaze towards her as she situated herself in her seat and folded her hands in her lap.
“Dad,” she began. “We have some concerns about this mission that you accepted.”
He hummed. “I figured as much. You don’t typically do this unless there’s something dire to talk about,” Matthew took a sip of his coffee and he gave his kids his full attention. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Well. I would like to know what you did to vet this job.”
Matthew’s brow quirked. “My normal protocol. Intensive database searching on the requestor to ensure they’re who they say they are. Then I researched the area to ensure that the building they spoke of actually exists.”
“And none of that came back weird?” She asked.
He shook his head. “No. It was all pretty standard. In fact, they are in direct relation to Brigadier General King.” Well, that was good to know. Brigadier General King was one of the military officials they got a good chunk of their jobs from.
“Okay,” Andi began. “Who requested this job?”
Matthew hummed softly while he reviewed his paperwork. “Looks like it’s First Lieutenant Warren.”
“And we haven’t gotten a job from them before?” Benji chimed in between bites of his hashbrown.
“No.”
“So, why are they sending it to us and not King?” Andi asked.
Their dad shrugged. “People come up in the ranks all the time. We can’t expect King to do it all.”
“But he’s never had any issues with it before. So what changed since like…last week?”
He sighed. “Things change all the time.”
“But not with this. Not with our job, dad.” Andi stated simply. She had a point.
“Did you look up this guy?” Benji asked.
He looked at his son and gave him a look that said ‘what kind of a fool do you take me for?’ “Of course I did.”
“And that was all normal?”
“Yes. It was standard information. He used to be with a different group but moved to King’s recently.”
Andi frowned a bit. She clearly still wasn’t satisfied. “Why can’t they give us an IP address?”
“I told you–”
“No, dad. That’s a bullshit excuse. I don’t think that we should do this unless they get us the IP address. It shouldn’t be that hard to procure.”
“I already asked. They won’t do it.”
She shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “We shouldn’t be risking Benji’s life for something like this.”
Matthew looked over towards his son, trying to read his facial expression. “Do you agree, Ben?”
He really didn’t like being put on that spot like that.
He was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.
On one hand, yeah, Andi was right. They should give them the details before they go.
It’s the military. They should probably have the IP address somewhere.
But, also, he trusted his dad. And he didn’t think that mission sounded all that hard.
He could easily get in, plug in whatever Andi needed and get out in fifteen minutes tops.
And if he did a good job, it would show his dad that Benji could do more.
“Um,” he sounded softly, turning his gaze down towards the sandwich that was sitting on his lap.
“I mean…Andi’s not wrong. It’s really weird they won’t give it to us. ”
“I don’t disagree,” Matthew mentioned. “But I figured the job itself would be quick and easy. We like easy payouts.”
“Yeah…”
“Then I think it’s fine if we do it.”
Andi’s gaze darted back and forth between the two before they settled back on their dad. “We shouldn’t do it. I don’t feel good about it, Dad. Please.”
Matthew shook his head. “It’s going to be fine, Andi. Ben has this covered,” he looked towards his son. “Right?”
Benji frowned a bit as he looked over to his sister.
“Yeah.” It felt like he had just betrayed her by saying that.
And the look on her face was enough to cement that.
She scowled at both of them and stood up from her chair, sliding it backwards she did so.
Andi didn’t say anything else before she stomped out of the office, clearly done with the conversation.
His dad sighed and reached over, slapping a hand on Benji’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about her, bud,” he shook his head again.
“She’ll get over it. It’s not very often she’s told no, is the thing.
” That wasn’t necessarily wrong. Andi usually got what she wanted.
But those were just little things. It was nothing like what was going now.
Benji couldn’t remember a time when she was so adamant about not doing a job.
Perhaps he should have tried harder to stop it… “I’m gonna go talk to her.” Benji mentioned while standing up.
“I wouldn’t. She’s like your mother. It usually just makes it worse.”
Benji shrugged. “Oh well. I’m going to do it anyway.
” His mind was made up. Walking out of the office, he looked in both directions before he decided to go to the left.
Andi probably went to the computer lab. It just made the most sense.
Peaking through the window, he saw the back of his sister's head and opened the door.
“Get out of here, Benji.”
He shrugged. “No can do.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Too bad.” He sat down in the chair next to her, straddling it. He folded his arms on the top of the chair, just staring at his sister. “I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“I really am.”
She looked at him with tears welled in her eyes. “Then why didn’t you fight harder against this when we know it’s bullshit?”
“I mean…we don’t know for sure.” Andi turned away at that statement.
“I trust your judgement. I know you know when something smells fishy but…maybe it really is just a weird fucking situation, you know?” He paused for a moment and frowned.
“And you know this is a big deal for me after everything that happened…”
“But what if I’m right, Benji?” she asked and turned to look at him again. “What if it all goes to shit and you’re stuck in there alone?”
He shook his head. “Nothing in there can be that bad. There’s no way.” She sighed heavily, clearly not convinced. “I promise you, I’m going to be okay,” Benji lifted his hand up and held up his pinky finger. “I’ve never broken a pinky promise in my life and I’m not starting now.”
Andi swallowed and sniffled softly before she wrapped her pinky around his, squeezing tight. “I’ll fucking stab you if you do, Benji. And I’ll take my twenty bucks from you as you bleed out.”
“That’s a valid thing to do when you think about it.” He smiled and shook their hands around, officially binding the pinky promise. “You still mad at me?”
“I’m never really all that mad at you,” she paused. “Usually just peeved.”
“Also valid.”
“You are quite annoying.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Andi huffed and opened up a drawer on the desk and pulled out something that resembled a USB drive. “I’m going to load this up so that whenever you plug it into that computer, it will immediately remote me into it so I can get to work on wiping it and the cloud.”
“Sounds good. So just plug and play?”
“Pretty much,” she smirked. “I can’t see you handling much more than that.”
Benji scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. “I resent that. I’m better at computers than you think.”
“And who do you have to thank for that?” Andi pointed at herself, “me.”
He rolled his eyes. “So modest.”
“It’s true! You’d know nothing if it weren’t for me.” Benji hated to admit that she was right, but she was. No one else could do anything near what Andi could. She was really good at her job.
“Well, it’s not my fault you haven’t taught me much lately.”
“We’ve been busy.” Andi shrugged before she fell silent so that she could focus on the program, she needed to make sure it worked properly for her brother. He imagined the last thing she wanted was for that to be the reason why everything went wrong.
Benji took that as his cue to leave her to it. Standing up, he quietly left the room to prepare for the flight.