Disclaimers:
1. All characters are 18+
2. No characters represent real people
3. Enjoy the fiction
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REVENGE OF THE PROM DATE
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As cliche as this sounds, this story starts when I was in my room, minding my own business.
"Big brother!" I heard from behind me. My sister Rachel had barged into my room without knocking, as usual, and was suddenly standing behind me as I worked on my computer. Well, step-sister. My dad had married her mom when I was 5 and she was 3. But that was long enough ago that neither of us could remember life without the other being around.
"I need your help," she announced.
"You need lots of help, but I'm not a psychiatrist," I said, without turning around.
"Hardy har." She rubbed my shoulders, which I had to admit did feel good. "I need a favor."
I sighed and turned around in my chair to face her. Her light brown hair was in a long pony tail behind her back, and she wore a tank top and short shorts. The tank top was probably just because it was warm outside. But she regularly wore those short athletic shorts, a habit she picked up from being on the school's volleyball team. Even though I knew she was my step-sister, constantly seeing her long legs in those shorts was terribly distracting. "What do you need?"
"My friend needs a prom date." Rachel had been talking about her prom for weeks. It's most of what I heard her talk about since I came home from college - her dress, her hair, who was going with whom. I had just finished my sophomore year as an Information Technology major, and she was graduating high school very soon.
I studied her face, suspicious of her motives. "Which friend?"
"Becky."
"Pass." I turned back around to my computer.
"Come on, Kevin!" She pleaded. "You don't have anything going on this Saturday. Plus, didn't you ask her out once?"
I remembered that day. At 18, I had asked out 16-year-old Becky, a hot, popular cheerleader. Her exact response had been, "Like I'd ever go out with a skinny geeky loser like you." Geek was accurate - I was a geek. I like sci-fi and computers and D&D, and I wasn't going to change that. Skinny had also been true, until I bulked up somewhat in college, taking advantage of the free workout machines. The name loser had hurt the most. I was not a loser, and I very quickly lost interest in stuck-up snob Becky.
"She's not my type," I simply replied to my little sister.
"But I really need you to take her. She dumped her jerk boyfriend a couple days ago, and she really needs a date. I told her you could take her, and she already agreed."
"You promised her something you couldn't deliver. That's not my problem."
"Please!" she begged, getting on her knees.
"Rachel, why should I go?" I asked, turning to face her again. "You have yet to give me a reason to go to your prom."
She froze. "Umm, I'll owe you a favor?" I stayed silent, staring at her. She finally broke. "Okay, I'll pay you $100."
"$300, plus the tux rental fee," I countered.
She glared at me. "$300 and you rent your own damn tux."
We continued our staring match. "Deal." We shook on it.
--
If I had known all the details, I would've given her a flat no. Or at least charged her a lot more money.
After Rachel left my room, I started doing my research. Apparently, Becky's ex-boyfriend was Johnny Monroe, a 19-year-old who'd been left back one year, so he was just now graduating (barely). He was a big jock with a mean attitude. And, after checking out social media, I learned that Johnny had threatened to beat up any guy who dared to take Becky to the prom, and his moron jock buddies had agreed to help him carry out the threat. It's no wonder that Rachel had to reach out beyond high school boys to find Becky a date.
As I read the posts, it made me suddenly take pity on Becky. She might still be a stuck-up bitch, but she didn't deserve to be treated that way. I also remembered Johnny from my time in school, when he bullied some of my high school friends. He didn't particularly mess with me, since I had at least one inch on him in height. At one point, he started calling me the King of the Nerds, but since I was the tallest in my social circle, my friends started calling me that as well.
But the bottom line remained: I would need to be careful in order to get through this.
My first step was to call Rachel back into my room. "You didn't tell me that Becky's ex was Johnny Monroe. I saw his threats online. Are you trying to have me killed?" I didn't yell, but I did raise my voice in an angry tone to scare her.
It worked. Her eyes were wide, and a tear started to form on the bottom rim of one eye. "No! I swear!" she stammered out. "Kevin, I... I..."
"It's okay," I calmed her down. "I am mad, but not at you." I pulled her over to sit on my bed, and sat next to her, my arm around her shoulders. "I'm going to need your help, though."
She sniffed back a tear. "My help?"
"Yes. The first thing you need to do is call Becky right now."
"I just texted her that you agreed to go..."
"I know, but now I need to talk to her. Give me your phone." She did, and I used it to dial Becky's number.
"Hey Rae, what's up?" came the voice from the phone.
"Hi Becky, this is Kevin. You're on speakerphone."
A silent pause. "Hi Kevin. I'm glad you agreed to go to the prom with me. I do need to tell you about something first though."
"Is it Johnny Monroe's death threats?"
Another silent pause, longer and more meaningful than the first. "Yes. I'm sorry Kevin, I understand if you don't want to go."
"I do want to go, Becky. But I need something from you. I need you not to tell anyone about me being your date. Understand? If anyone asks, say you're going alone, or going with Rachel, or anything else. Can you do that?"
"Sure, but why?"
The wheels were already turning in my head. "It's best you don't know all the details, but basically, so he won't see me coming."
Rachel chimed in, "He'll probably be there, waiting for you. He'll bring his buddies too."
I nodded. "I'm actually counting on that. He said as much online."
"Oh. Okay," said Becky. "I'll see you Saturday then?"
"Actually, can you come over tomorrow after school? I'd like to go over a few things with you and Rachel."
"Sure!" she said, a bit more excited than she'd been a minute ago. "No problem. Thank you, Kevin."
"You're welcome. Thanks for the invite. Here's Rachel," I said, giving her back her phone. Then I told my sister, "Get out of my room, you little brat."
--
What was my plan? Well, I wasn't just an IT major. I was going into my field of choice - hacking. I was going to be a white-hat. For those who don't know, a white-hat hacker is someone hired by a company to hack their own systems, to point out all of their vulnerabilities, so they could fix it before they got hacked for real. It was fun to try to get into places, and then write up reports to show how I got in and how they could have stopped me.
So I prepped to perform some hacker tricks on Johnny. I'd need help though, so I called a couple of my acquaintences to get some supplies. My first call was to Marcus, one of my partners in crime. He had bought an old work van; you know the kind, white with no windows. He had then rigged it up with electricity and lights, so he basically had a portable office. He agreed to help me.
My second call was to my friend Gary and his brother Freddy. Gary had gone to high school with me, and his brother Freddy was now a senior like my sister. They were really into gadgets. Gary fancied himself like Q from the James Bond movies - he wanted to be the guy who supplied the cool spy equipment. Freddy was on board too, and since he was still a student, he could get me access to the high school gym.
My third and final call was a bit dicier. I had to call a friend (whom I won't name here) and convince them to call their friend - a dealer. The result was purchasing medium-sized baggies of both cocaine and meth. It cost me almost all of the cash Rachel had given me.
Then I simply took the rest of the money and rented my tuxedo. All in all, it was a very productive Tuesday afternoon.
--
Wednesday morning, I was up early. Heading out the door, I passed Rachel at the kitchen table, still in her pajamas and eating cereal. "Where are you going so early?" she inquired.
"I'll tell you later. Remember, you and Becky are meeting me here after school."
"I remember," she said, and I nodded and left.
Ten minutes later, Marcus and I were camped out in his van, across the street from Johnny Monroe's house. His parents were wealthy, which explains his spoiled attitude, and one of the houses on the street was being renovated. It was a perfect excuse to have a white work van parked nearby.
"So explain to me what you're doing here. What's the plan?" Marcus asked, while I unpacked my three laptops. I had an HP, a Dell, and a Lenovo, but I had nicknamed them all Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
"So you know how people use wireless signals for everything?"
"Yeah, remember, we took that class together last fall." Marcus said. He and I were in school together. He was majoring in IT too, but he wanted to be a network architecture consultant. There was big money to be made there.