#patch and moby

There’s a notorious family in Cyber City. A very hidden one. A very quiet one. You can find them if you know where to look, but you better hope to the Angel they never find you first.

The Bloques.

The bloodline consists of Bastion and Vira, along with their children Patch, Nolan, and Ro.

Bastion is the Firewall. He keeps the City contained and safe, controlling a field of energy that seperates it from the Dark Web. His wife, Vira, is the Antivirus. If anything slips through her husband’s work, she takes care of it before it takes two steps out.

Nolan is the VPN. He’s pretty reserved. A silent mover, like his father. He observes and protects. His younger sister, Ro, is the Parental Controls. Sometimes the Dark Web’s Ads or hyperlinks pass through. They don’t get far. She’s a lot like her mother.

Nolan’s twin brother, though. He’s the favorite. Patch.

Patch is the Adblocker. The perfect mix of his mother and father. He’s quiet, but a swift killer. He fortifies and he hunts.

As you may have guessed, he hunts Addisons.

Queen doesn’t like him. Patch doesn’t like Queen. But the Bloques and Queen have always had a tense alliance.

Patch was put into service relatively recently. Any Ads found wandering somewhere they’re not whitelisted in disappear. He gets a target when he wakes up, and they’re gone by the time he lies down to sleep. If he sleeps at all.

Patch isn’t much of a talker. He does his work and leaves. He doesn’t converse with his targets nor anyone else.

The Bloques all are most recognizable for their masks. They are never to be removed, unless for family or for a partner. The bottom half can come off, but only before the Branding Ceremony, in which the mask is permanently worn by a Bloque, unless given the exceptions mentioned above.

Patch’s mask used to be pristine, but you may have noticed it’s begun to crack.

He won’t say why, but his most recent target might have something to do with it.

Moby G. Addison. The mobile game Ad. The unkillable Ad.

If anything is the antithesis of Patch, it’s Moby. Patch hated him from the moment he winced away at his blinding ID photo. He’s never wanted an Ad as dead as Moby.

But, obviously, given Moby’s nature, that’s not so easily done. He’s fought him in every way he’s been trained to, countless times, and it’s only resulted in more mocking, grating laughter.

Something changed in Patch, though, after a month of fighting him. His hatred turned into sadism. And, unfortunately for his dignity, Moby is a masochist. And Ads can be marked as “blocked” as long as they’re silent.

A deal was made. They both got something they wanted.

But the cracks didn’t appear then. They appeared later. The two started spending time together that wasn’t spent fighting, or… “fighting.”

Patch became aware of Moby’s one weakness. He understood what he had to do to kill him, and that was to make him trust him.

Yet…

Something in the Addison has been softening. Not just the colors, but that was a hint in of itself.

And something in the Bloque shifted, too.

His family doesn’t know, and they never will. He’d be dead if they did.

Patch knows he has to kill Moby one day.

But even the thought is starting to hurt him.

What’s a living weapon, though, if it doesn’t make use of itself?