Hide and Seek by John-Paul Coté

The café spilled out onto the street. Small tables and thin metal chairs that rocked if you leaned too far back. The kind of place that charged too much for coffee and made you feel like you belonged there if you paid it.

Drake sat in the sun. His espresso, black.

People passed. He watched them the way a butcher watched livestock without looking like he was watching at all. A smile here. A nod there. Nothing that lingered.

On the table, his computer hummed. One more man pretending to work.

He wasn’t.

Behind his screen, numbers moved and accounts shifted. Doors opened where there shouldn’t be doors. Somewhere, far from the warmth of the street, something locked and certainty was being quietly undone.

They said quantum encryption made it impossible.

They always said that about something.

It wasn’t the machines. It never was. The machines did exactly what they were told. Perfectly, every time.

People didn’t.

Someone reused a credential. Someone skipped a step. Someone trusted a message or a voice they shouldn’t have.

That was all it ever took.

Drake didn’t break systems. He waited for them to be left open.

Then he pushed.

On his screen, resistance flared. Corporate countermeasures. Cold, fast, and inhuman. His AI met it head-on. For a moment, it was just force against force, invisible and absolute.

Then it gave.

Money moved. Not in stacks. Not in transfers anyone could see. It vanished then reappeared somewhere else, stripped of history, stripped of ownership. Clean.

In milliseconds.

Drake closed the lid.

Around him, nothing had changed. Someone laughed too loudly. A cup shattered somewhere inside. The smell of burnt coffee drifted out and sat in the heat.

Then the sirens started.

Distant at first, then closer.

He didn’t rush. He never rushed.

From his pocket, he took two chips. Small and matte black. Innocent things until they weren’t.

He rolled them once between his fingers.

The street shifted.

People slowed and heads turned. No one looked at him. Not yet. But the air had tightened. Cameras were already moving, finding angles, building a cage out of sightlines and data.

No one outran it.

He scanned the crowd.

Not too young. Not too old. No one who would be missed immediately. No one who drew the eye and held it.

There.

Late twenties. Brunette. Walking alone. Balanced. A face that would be remembered if you looked twice, but not if you didn’t. She had a tote bag with a library logo on it. A crease in her jacket she hadn’t noticed. Her lips moved slightly as she walked, like she was rehearsing an argument, maybe, or a speech she’d never give.

Perfect.

He pressed his thumb against one chip.

The laptop died in his bag. Burned from the inside. Nothing left to pull.

The sirens were close now.

As she passed, he let one chip slip from his hand.

“Miss,” he said, easy, almost amused. “I think you dropped this.”

She stopped and turned. Just enough hesitation to be polite.

She took it.

The world broke but not cleanly. There was a lurch, a misfire in the muscles. Vision tearing sideways, like a page being ripped out. For a second, less than a second, he was nowhere at all.

Then—

Breathing. Wrong.

Weight. Wrong.

Hands. Smaller. Different.

He caught himself, now herself, on the edge of the table. The metal bit cold into her palm. The nails were painted red. A detail she noticed and filed away without thinking.

Across from Drake—

A scream.

Raw. Confused.

Drake’s old body jerked back from the chair, eyes wide, hands shaking like they didn’t belong to him.

People were turning now. Really looking. Phones were coming out. Voices were rising.

“Sir, stay where you are!”

Weapons are drawn fast and efficient. But they were already too late.

Drake straightened. The body fit well enough. She adjusted her balance and tested a step. The heels were manageable, she still remembered how to walk in them from times before. Good.

Behind her, they were shouting commands and threats. A man's voice was breaking, asking what was happening.

Drake didn’t look back. She walked to the bus stop with the rest of them. Just another face in the heat. Just another person trying to get somewhere.

When the doors hissed open, she stepped on and found a seat by the window.

Only then did she allow herself a small smile.

The bus pulled away.

She’d done it cleanly. No mistakes.

Drake stared out the window and waited to feel something about that.

John-Paul lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with his wife and two children. He’s been writing for years and is a fan of Sci-fi and fantasy. He has been published in the Niagara-On-The-Lake anthologies Beginnings and Endings, Journeys, and Love and Loss as well as the Purple Toga’s anthology Feast or Famine as well as on sites such as CommuterLit, DarkWinterLit, Writers’ Journal, and Jerry Jazz Musician. He is a person of few words, so enjoys writing short stories and novellas the most.