"So that is why they are being attacked, huh..." Markus said under his breath while chewing his bland chewing gum.
Two whole long sleepless days and a sleepless night have passed but the virus whom he named as the D is still doing huge damage on the internet.
This is for the skin. He repeatedly told himself to keep him moving.
"You kinda piss me off, D." Markus muttered.
"Who's D, Markus?" Louige said scratching his bed hair curled on his temple and his sagged hoodie hanged on his shoulder. He yawned as he faced the kid.
"How's the sleep, Oji-nii?" The kid asked with a fake smile. His eyes looked half-open.
"That's not even a wink. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I see disaster." Louige muttered.
"That's part of growing up. You're already an uncle now, you know." Markus said with a straight face as he was trying to tease Louige. The rest who heard him kept their smiles, biting their lips, looking away.
He stepped forward, leaned next to the kid, and said in a whisper, "Do you want to die?!" Louige said on the kid's ear, gripping his shoulder.
Markus straightened up and replied. "No."
"De, who's this D?" he asked again. He stood up and looked around the monitors.
"You know, Oji-nii, it was very hard to talk about something without giving it a name..." Markus tried to explain. "I mean, do we have to call it the virus every time we need to mention it?" the kid pouted. "Even the tiniest microbe is given a name so I gave it one and that is..." he smiled.
"So you gave it a name, and that's D?!" Louige continued. He hit some keys on the table and looked straight to the monitor.
"You didn't even let me finish my sentence again." the kid pouted. "Anyway, I thought of something cool but I agreed with the term your men gave it, the Perses," he said with his hands wiping the air.
Louige eyed one of his men and said, "I guess I know who suggested that."
His men's smile suddenly turned cold.
"Anyway, that's its name. But, to shorten it up, I termed it P." Markus continued.
"Nice naming sense." Louige sarcastically said. "Then?"
"We know that The Perses is the cruel internet virus we have now that eats every file it passes through and destroys every strong founded firewall in the Orion system." the kid reached a cookie from the box on his left and munched it three times, finishing the cookie and continued, "It is leaving traces on the damaged file that cultivates a new body, and start the cycle again."
"But why can't we detect it?" Louige asked. His eyes glare with bloodshot red from stress and fatigue.
Markus stared at the box trying to decide whether he'll get another cookie from it or not.
"It is like the old Trojan virus but your programmers can't easily suppress it." Markus reached his hand on the box but stopped midway because Louige raises his voice.
"Just give your answer why we can't take it on!"
Markus felt like he was stung with an 11W current. "It was because of its date and the traces it leaves."
"What do you mean?" a programmer asked him from behind.
All eyes in him.
"You people studied the Octtum system, right?" the kid asked as he turned himself from his box of cookies and turned his chair around to see everybody playing a merry-go-round.
"Yeah, it was using the 8-bit system with 8 characters to project a code in a system." the programmer answered. "It is a number system expressed in a base-8 numeral system that can project the 8th dimension in one setting."
"Ahh, that was right. But this virus, as I said, it was like Trojan. And you know what does that mean?"
"It spreads like wildfire." the programmer replied.
"No" the kid replied.
"It destroys everything?" another programmer replied.
"No, not that as well. It was its system." Markus turned to see Louige's eyes and said, "It's not Occtum System, Oji-ni. It's Binary System."
Louige's legs failed to support him. He fell on the seat behind, defeated and helpless.
Binary? What's that? Markus heard the crowd murmuring inside the Serius. He knew they are not familiar with the system since the modern world has been applying the Octtum system since the second generation Ginsei ruled over the Orion. Knowing and studying the Binary system is only a matter of interest and not of need.
"I really hate how troublesome this thing has gotten," Markus muttered. He turned back to his box, grabbed three cookies, and placed them all inside his mouth altogether.
"I've injected the third anti-V in the 3rd layer, Mr. Louige." an encoder exclaimed from the corner of the room.
The young man sighed and lifted his head. He was trying to clear his doubts and turned a new leaf.
"Good, how about the others?" Louige asked.
"Doing great, sir but..." a programmer answered but he showed the screen and it says,
0.0000017%
Not that great, huh. Markus said to himself as he looked at the flashed screen.
"Ne, Oji-ni..." Markus turned to the haggard young man.
"What?" the guy bluntly replied.
"About the Aegis, can I know more about it?" Markus asked.
"This kid..." Louige eyed him but he looked away. "You tried to mess up with it before but you don't know about it?"
"Yup." Markus immediately replied.
"You see, the Aegis is the first in the whole world that has 10 layers of defense," Louige said.
"10 layers." the kid repeated in a whisper.
"You can think of it like from the scale of 1 to 10, 10 is the hardest."
"Oh, like the Moh's scale." Markus proudly exclaimed. His eyes sparkled for a second.
"Moh's scale?" Louige muttered but neglected what Markus said. "Anyway, that is our Aegis scale. Layer 1 is just for detection, 2 is for filtering, 3 is for blocking..."
"And the rest holds the most important role to defend the stronghold." Markus continued.
"Ahh, that's right."
"Then we have to pin the D at layer 3 or else, things might really turn out something bad." Markus ticked his tongue.
"But I don't think he can get past the 4th layer because of its complexity." Louige tried to argue.
"Don't underestimate the Binary, Oji-nii. It being too simple makes it unknown in this time." Markus crossed his brow, facing Louige. "The fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all."
Louige felt like the sky just dropped on him. It was not the fact that surprised him, it was because the kid he knew said it to him.
The night continued and Markus is doing every single thing he knows on building firewalls on the first computer, creating antiviruses on the second, and finding where did the Perses came from on the third.
No codes can break through the ten-layer system of ORION, this is what he is hoping for. A fact he is clinging to make his wit at ease. That is why he is pushing all his luck on doing this job that Louige imposed on him.
ORION has the strongest shield, it is the Aegis. Markus added a chant on his brain. "That is why it is called a stronghold. The AEGIS is made to never allow anyone from the outside no matter what the source nor the purpose is to enter and get access to the system. It has 170 multiple firewalls and 210 barriers programmed to the most difficult manner that no one could just easily hack. All the controls of the system are manipulated inside the ORION, in the main computer room, Serius, where we are in." he said to himself.
They continued the battle for the rest of the day confronting the powers of D and the access of the ORION. The team continued to build firewalls and injecting newly built anti-viruses just to lessen the damage created by Perses. Lessen, though the team was composed of elite IT specialists and computer programmers called the Masons, their powers are still not enough to suppress it. The number of damages had risen up to 0.00003% and is growing faster in a nick of time.
"It is too strong..." one of the team members said. "I'm feeling dizzy. We're just able to keep it at bay for now.."
"I guess Imma throw up..."
"Yeah, I can't believe we are on the 0.00003%..." the other said, scratching his scalp. "It's humiliating us!"
"This is bad, really bad... how big could that damage had covered as of the moment?" the third said in a trembling voice, he stared blankly at his keyboard.
"It's mocking the ORION's reputation... Damn it!" Louige slapped the table and gave a cold air around his subordinates.
"If I were to say, ..." he raised his cup of iced coffee, "the damage would be...half of New Oceana," Markus said, not batting an eye.
"...half...half of New Oceana?" the other one exclaimed, he almost fell on his seat. "You mean the island on the southern hemisphere?!"
"Oi oi.."
They all feel rattled. Markus felt like the floor just tremble from an earthquake.
"Ahh, or simply to say, the whole Philipes worth of damage has already done." He put his cup and take a bite on his cookie.
"The whole Philipes you said? That archipelago on the Eastern is populated enough to make a data as large as a floor in ORION. This will cause panic if the word comes out. What should we do?!"
"Don't say those stuff, Markus. We are not giving up yet!" Louige stood to grasp the emotions spurting at the moment.
"Who said we're giving up? We will pull this through. Besides, I guess I know how to track that virus now." His smile turned into a grin.
"You're up to something and I don't like that look in your eyes..."
"Just so you watch, Oji-nii. " his grin said it all. He turned to his monitor and started hitting keys again. "I have a plan."
"What are you planning to do, Markus?" Louige handed him a cup of mocha and pieces of cookies he got from the staff to bring.
"He said he knows now how to track the virus, Mr. Louige," the team member said.
"I heard it. But, the question is,.." he faced the kid, "How are you gonna do that Markus? Don't tell me you're up to something bad...again" Louige's brows meet like a falling bridge.
"I said, you just watch. And enough of the past, please..." Markus replied. "It was not that bad."
"Not that bad, huh?! Isn't it something outrageous again?" Louige said with a stern eye.
"Who said it's outrageous?! It's interesting." he smiled on the monitor. "Okay, because it's interesting, I guess I have to explain to you about it." he turned and faced the gloomy Louige.
"Then, what is it?" Louige replied.
"I'm gonna hack Neo-NASA," Markus said nodding his head showing confidence, crossing his arms like a boss.
"Hack Neo-N? DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR BRAIN OR HAVE YOU DROPPED IT SOMEWHERE YOU SILLY BRAT?!" he said on top of his voice, spilling the mocha he bought from the vending machine on the ground floor near the elevator.
"You're too loud, Louige!" he said, covering his ears. "You don't have to shout. I can hear you nice and clear, you know..."
"But, what you want to do, what you plan to do is such ridiculous and impossible stuff! It's like walking in thin air! Or breathing underwater, without an oxygen tank, of course. Or crossing a quicksand!"
"I told you it is not ridiculous! On top of that, it's possible in this case. And with the resources you have." Markus argued.
"You think you can get through their system, they are the second next to ORION on having the fastest internet and of course the strongest firewalls! Just so you be reminded. You can't just knock into their gates, hack their system, expect them to let you in, and get what you want, kid!"
"I know they are second next to ORION, they're Neo-N of course, but didn't you forget big brother, I have entered the realm of the First before?"
Louige was petrified at that moment he heard his rebut.
The aircon hum in the silence of their quarrel and the monitors flash like fireflies.
Louige had lost his thought after all the things that happened because of the Perses and stress lurking around him that he had forgotten why he had let the kid do this job.
At that very moment, Louige remembered what happened 4 years ago.