Leandro’s guttural shriek echoed off the cafe’s ornate ceilings, momentarily silencing the clatter of ceramic and the low hum of conversation. Baltasar, his face devoid of its earlier amusement, felt the raw, venomous hatred in the man’s voice land like a physical blow. Leandro owned DashGo? The app he’d poured his genius into, the digital shackles of his exile, the very mechanism of Don Hector’s convoluted punishment? Pure fury flared in his ribs. This wasn’t just about cream puffs or a flooded cafe. This was a direct, calculated attack on the Rivo legacy, on Don Hector, and by extension, on Baltasar himself. And now, Leandro knew his face. He knew his identity. The untraceable ‘Cascabel’ was exposed, not by rival tech giants, but by a dripping, entitled narcissist.
“Run, you imbecile!” Cosima’s voice, sharp and urgent, cut through his spiraling thoughts. She grabbed his arm, her small hand surprisingly strong, and tugged him towards the nearest exit. The cafe patrons, most now soaked, were too busy gaping at Leandro or fumbling for napkins to stop them. Baltasar, still reeling, let himself be pulled, Churro clinging tightly to his shoulder, chittering a series of furious, high-pitched complaints at the indignity of being splashed.
They burst onto the bustling Avenida Solara, the humid afternoon air a stark contrast to the cafe’s chilled interior. Cosima didn’t stop, navigating the throngs of tech bros and designer-clad tourists with practiced ease, her grip never loosening. Baltasar, accustomed to weaving through traffic on his moped, found himself surprisingly compliant. He glanced back, seeing Leandro, still screaming, being restrained by a bewildered barista.
“We need to get off the street,” Cosima gasped, her usually impeccable hair now a little wild, a small smudge of matcha on her cheek. She steered him down a narrow alleyway, past overflowing dumpsters and graffiti-scarred walls, before yanking open a rusted iron gate. Beyond it, a flight of fire escape stairs snaked up the side of a grimy brick building, adorned with blinking, mismatched neon signs for a defunct arcade and a fortune teller.
“Up,” she commanded, already halfway to the first landing. Baltasar followed, his annoyance warring with a reluctant admiration for her unexpected practicality. He was used to her pampered exterior, not this quick, decisive action. As they ascended, the cacophony of the street faded, replaced by the distant thrum of the city and the whine of an air conditioning unit.
On the third-floor landing, nestled amongst a tangle of defunct wiring and potted succulents, Cosima finally stopped. At her feet, shivering slightly, was a small, scruffy terrier mix puppy. It whimpered, a thin line of blood visible on its front paw.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Cosima murmured, her voice softening completely. She knelt, her expensive silk trousers brushing the grimy metal, and gently stroked the puppy’s head. “I found her under a dumpster earlier. She must have gotten tangled in something.”
Baltasar leaned against the railing, Churro now preening on his shoulder, his single eye fixed on the puppy with an unnervingly intense gaze. He watched Cosima, her designer facade momentarily shed, revealing a raw, tender concern. This wasn’t the spoiled heiress he’d pegged her for.
“You always find strays, don’t you?” he observed, a hint of something unreadable in his tone.
Cosima looked up, a faint blush on her cheeks. “It’s not… always. But they need help. Especially with the new condo regulations against… well, against everything.” She gestured vaguely. “Leandro’s been pushing the board to be stricter. He knows I have… a soft spot.”
Baltasar’s gaze drifted to the puppy’s injured paw. “It’s not just a soft spot. It’s a bleeding wound. Got any first aid supplies in that designer clutch of yours, or just diamond-encrusted credit cards?”
Cosima bristled, but then her shoulders slumped. “No, I… I was going to take her to my vet, but then Leandro happened, and now…” She trailed off, looking helpless.
Baltasar sighed, a sound that conveyed a millennium of suffering. He reached into his delivery bag, past the remnants of the cream puffs and the emergency tire repair kit. “Lucky for you, I’m a walking disaster preparedness kit.” He withdrew a small, waterproof pouch. Inside, neatly organized, were antiseptic wipes, gauze, and medical tape.
Cosima watched in quiet fascination as Baltasar knelt beside the puppy. His large, calloused hands, usually so adept at maneuvering a moped or tapping on a smartwatch, moved with steady care. He cleaned the wound, the puppy whimpering softly, then deftly wrapped it in gauze, securing it with tape. He even fashioned a makeshift sling out of a spare bandana from his bag.
“There,” he said, his voice gruff, as if embarrassed by his own competence. “Keep pressure off it for a few days. And no running around trying to chase the neighborhood pigeons.”
Cosima stared at him, a new expression dawning on her face – not amusement, not annoyance, but sheer bafflement, perhaps even awe. “You… you’re actually good at this.”
“The old man used to drag me to the city’s animal shelter every Saturday. Said it built character. Also, some of the Rivo-Tech drones were prone to mid-air collisions with pigeons. Had to learn how to patch them up. Same principles, really.” He shrugged, trying to downplay it.
“Drones? Not… actual animals?” she pressed, a small smile playing on her lips.
Baltasar looked away, fiddling with a loose thread on his jacket. “Animals too. The shelter animals, I mean. Look, Cosima, about Leandro…” He hesitated, then plunged in. “He wasn’t lying. He owns DashGo. Or at least, the parent company that bought it out.”
Cosima’s expression shifted, concern clouding her features. “How do you know? And what does that even mean for you?”
Baltasar ran a hand through his perpetually messy hair. “Because I… I coded the core algorithm. The entire routing system, the dynamic pricing model, the predictive analytics for demand surges. All of it. Before… before the patriarch exiled me to the moped brigade, it was my project. My inheritance, in a way.” He admitted it, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. “I built the cage I’m currently stuck in.”
Cosima parted her lips slightly, a slow understanding blooming. “You… you’re ‘Cascabel,’ aren’t you? The ghost programmer everyone talks about? The one who disappeared from Rivo Tech overnight?”
He nodded, a flicker of his old pride – and present bitterness – in his gaze. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s supposed to be a secret. Part of the punishment. No digital footprint, no online identity, just ‘Baltasar Rivo, moped boy’.” He spat the last words with disdain. “But yeah. That’s me.”
She looked at him then, truly looked at him, and he saw a flicker of something new in her usually guarded gaze. Not just the pampered heiress, not just the exasperated customer, but someone who saw past the grimy uniform and the prickly exterior, to the sharp, wounded intellect beneath. The humid air smelled sharply of exhaust fumes and cheap ramen.
“So, if Leandro owns DashGo, he really could fire you,” Cosima said, her voice quiet. “And that would ruin your chances of… whatever it is Don Hector wants you to do.”
“Precisely,” Baltasar confirmed. He reached into his delivery bag again, fishing out a slim, dark-grey laptop that looked far too advanced for a run-of-the-mill delivery driver. Its casing bore the faded, almost invisible etching of a coiled serpent. His old ‘Cascabel’ machine. “Which means I can’t let him. And I need to find out exactly how he pulled this off.” He flipped it open, the screen glowing with a soft, familiar blue light. “First, let’s get this little monster microchipped, see if she has an owner.” He carefully scanned the puppy’s neck with a small, handheld reader attached to the laptop’s USB port.
The laptop whirred, accessing a city-wide pet registry. Baltasar, his fingers flying across the custom keyboard, input the unique ID number. The database spun, then a cascade of green text began to fill the screen, showing the puppy’s registration, vaccination history, and a contact name: ‘Solana Morales’. But as he hit enter, a brief, anomalous flash of red text flickered in the corner of his peripheral vision. A momentary cross-connection, a ghost in the machine. His old backdoor access, still active, had briefly brushed against a restricted Rivo Tech server.
He blinked, thinking it was a glitch, but the information, fleeting as it was, had already registered. A new entry. A medical file, not from the pet registry, but from the Rivo family’s private healthcare network, encrypted and highly confidential. It was tied to a name he knew, a name that made his stomach drop colder than any splash of water. Don Hector Rivo. The diagnosis, stark and unblinking beneath his patriarch’s name, was ‘Terminal pancreatic carcinoma. Prognosis: 90 days.’