Kendall Geary
Takka-takka-takka...
It had been another long night at Kendall's post at his computer, tapping away at his keyboard with all of the quick, clever precision and efficiency he was renowned for amongst the e-crime community (and reviled for amongst law enforcement agencies). This particular small-beans case was proving to somehow be a tough nut to crack; some skinflint CFO of a mid-range industrial firm holding back pension funds for the workers was pegged as a good, easy hit, so Kendall had taken the job on, expecting to take no more than two hours to break whatever cheap, low-range security the guy had posted on his bank accounts.
It turned out the man had been very clever, turning a one-hour hackjob into a fourteen-hour battle of attrition between Kendall and the asshole's remarkably-up-to-date security systems. But fourteen hour later, Kendall moved the last of his pieces into place on the board and moved in for the kill. Within minutes, his network of spyware was in place and slowly, steadily siphoning the man's funding away one red cent at a time. Kendall leaned back in his desk chair, watching dawn's first rays filter through his windows--
Tap-tap. Cooo-eee.
'Oh for pity's sake,' Kendall thought to himself, rubbing the bags under his eyes. It was the pigeon. It was always the pigeon. Ever since the day he had moved in, there had been a flock of pigeons sitting on the fire escape outside his window. He'd tried desperately to drive them all off, and mostly succeeded. For months the pigeons left him alone. But then, four months ago, he had started waking up to a single partial albino pigeon tapping at his window every morning. He'd tried everything to scare this one away, short of nuking the apartment complex or burning his room out, but nothing would drive it off--it was persistent.
Kendall eventually, grudgingly, started to feed it; scraps of bread at first, then black oil sunflower seed. Every morning the bird would tap his window, and every morning the techie would set out a dish of seeds. The pigeon would wobble across the windowsill and sit on the ledge above Kendall's tiny kitchen nook, splitting a breakfast with the borderline reclusive Kendall. The pigeon was like the world's least obtrusive, best-scheduled houseguest. Kendall preferred its company to most people.
A few minutes passed as Kendall prepared the bird's breakfast, then his own. He puttered around the apartment, checking his e-mail, his phone messages (his plan was talk-only), then taking a shower and getting dressed. He figured he would have to get out and buy food at some point today, and so he left his apartment, heading down into the streets of New York, moving slowly towards his local corner market, a single cell in the great beast that was New York.