Issue 1 Downtime

"Hey hottie," Haley announced cheerfully as she barged into his room, Kramer style. She was having another "i hear almost everything" day, and was reasonablly certainly her boyfriend wasn't currently asleep, naked, or otherwise unable to be barged in upon.

Cal would know by now, that the cheerful look on her face presently was one primarily there covering up a migraine.

Cal's head snapped around, and he was momentarily glad that Haley couldn't see pictures from his head. "Hey, sexy," he said, grinning, putting down the hard drive he'd been disassembling to utterly destroy. "One of those days?"

"Yeah. You're good. Is my TP rubbing off on you now? What am I thinking, go!" she smirked, closing her eyes and putting her fingers to her temples in mock concentration.

"Ummm... going to take a guess," Cal said, pretending to think, "That you want your boyfriend to pamper you and make you feel better?"

"OMG, get out of my head you creepy stalker teep," she smiled, walking over and giving Cal a hug and kiss.

Cal winced. "Don't say 'omg,' I'm still wiping chat logs that would give you nightmares from my head," he chuckled, giving her a kiss back.

"Huh?" she asked. "Oh. From that hacker?"

"Imagine someone took the dregs of the internet, boiled them down until they were one lump of curdled crap, and then put that into someone's head to be their brain."

"What, like that lemon party thing with the old guys?"

"Worse," Cal said.

"...I'm gonna regret this. But show me worse?"

Cal hesitated. Then he pulled out his phone, texted a picture over to it, and showed it to Haley without looking. "That's worse."

Haley's eyes widened. "How does that....how is she...how is....oh man that is....what the fuck."

"That...that turns people on?"

"Oh my god I hope not," Cal said, his eyes getting wider. "I... oh shit, that makes it even worse if someone's getting turned on by this, doesn't it."

"Gross. So this hacker is a sick fuck then?"

"I think so? And she... like, talks in chat-speak. And she's... like, a crippled shut-in, so it's all disturbing and pathetic which makes it even more creepy."

"It's a *she*?" she asked seemingly surprised.

"Tell me more about this shithole you visited with Tommy's sister. Your texts were totally not enough info. And you're lucky you're sexy and still riding the awesome of my birthday, otherwise I'd be made a you for going to sneak around without me."

"I didn't sneak off! I just got into a flame-war and didn't back down when they called me out!"

"I mean, I posted pretty much all of it on the internet. DIdn't really post the hacker because... well, that was going to make us look bad, picking on a chick in a wheelchair."

"Still no excuse for not bringing me along. You know I can fuck shit up big time." she smirked.

"I... ah... kind of didn't want you getting in trouble," he admitted. "And I didn't think there'd really be much fighting. They SHOULD have been pretty scared of us outside the computer."

"Fuck that, whatever. Teachers can't stay mad at someone as adorable as me and those fuck sticks have it coming."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Just don't leave me out on all the fun next time."