"Hack Neo-N? ARE YOU INSANE?!" Louige said on top of his voice. Louige was so shocked that he almost dropped the cup he's holding.
He knew something was off and he was about to do what he did before. Something that he doesn't want to see again. But, that moment of hesitation made him realized that what Markus was thinking is their only option at the time being, though he is still against it and his scorn face calmed down.
"You think you can get through their system smoothly? I mean, They are the second next to ORION on having the fastest Internet speed and of course the strongest firewalls and anti-hacking systems! Just so you be reminded." Louige stepped towards the kid as he points out things for the kid to understand. "You can't just knock into their gates and hack their system and expect them to let you in." he reasoned with a glare. "They are built that way since they specialize in outer connections and space studies involving researches in space to cultivate another energy source for the new earth, of course, they will be that hard to crack." he stopped right in front of the kid with his brows almost touching Markus' forehead.
The kid didn't move, and instead, he said, "I know that they are on the next level and they are second next to ORION, they're Neo-N of course but didn't you forget Louige-Ni-san, I have entered the realm of the First before?" Markus replied with a smug face.
Louige was stunned for a moment, trying to find the right words to continue. But, he lost all hope and placed his bet on the kid.
"Ahh, I'm sorry." the worn-out man rubbed his forehead and took a sigh. "So, how are you going to do that again?" Louige coughed from choking himself.
"First, I need you to connect me to all of the ORION servers." Markus turned to his monitor and started hitting keys "...I mean all of the satellites lurking 'round the globe... Micro, nano, pico... All the available satellites that Orion has connections with." He took a cookie from the box near him.
"Do what he says..." Louige said to his men and they followed. He took a seat near Markus and listened to the kid.
"Next, I will connect all the programs in the ORION system and make an access pass, the Hecate. You have one, right? You're the only company with that silver ticket with a horse and a torch at the back to access their system outside the Neo-N base just by scanning it on their system."
"How did you know about that..?" Louige's eyes almost got out from its sockets. "that's a top-secret.."
"I know a lot of things. Let's just say it was part of the info I accessed 4 years ago..." Markus answered, rolling his eyes.
"Brat..." he formed a fist as Markus hit the nerve.
"Hehe, I already asked sorry for that... can't we just move on and forget about it? It's ancient history." Markus took a sip on his cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.
"I really don't know what to do with you, damn brat..." Louige just shook his head feeling so helpless.
"...as I was saying, for privacy purposes, I will make our own access pass resembling the authentic one you have. In other words, I will make us a fake. It will be a big mess if they knew that the system is being hacked by an outside source, right?"
Louige's face can't be drawn.
"But it will be much a bigger problem if they knew that the whole world wide web is being destroyed and even ORION can't put a stop on it." the kid said. "They will totally lock down the system, isolate themselves and it will be hard to finish what we've started if that happens." Markus continued chewing his cookie.
"Hai... I'm following..." he took a computer and hit some keys. Louige was focusing to help on what the kid is saying.
"Then after making the pass, I will enter the key," Markus said, not even twitching an eye.
"What key?" Louige asked.
"That's a secret, but, I guess I have to tell you about everything I have here because it's interesting!" the kid exclaimed.
Louige frowned and the kid looked away.
"I don't want to be jailed here either." Markus' face turned sour "As I was saying.. I will use my blade to cut through their system, and I'll use the Phantom Algorithm 1.0"
"That thing you used at the ORIOlympics?" Louige gave him a cold snare.
"Hai exactly,,, it has many purposes and I upgraded it throughout this years. I hope one of its functions will work." Markus sounded like a legit programmer.
"But, you don't have the hardware with you." Louige muttered.
"0.1 is saved in my cloud drive. I can just access it anywhere I want. The higher version is still at home though." Markus continued to type on his keyboard.
"And I'm starting to get cold of what that higher version can do." Louige glared.
"Nah, it's nothing that impressive. It's just a copy of what you have here, that's all." Markus raised his shoulders nonchalantly.
"You kid!" Louige exclaimed with his eyes all red.
"Just joking," Markus replied with a teasing smile.
The mood lightened and they all worked as the kid instructed. Markus ran the program and Louige's men were astonished when tabs open in different directions running code of numbers and algorithms, filling the whole monitors with tabs and codes. The Neo-N system was being hacked and the pool of elite programmers fell behind a mere Middle schooler leaving them in awe as they watched him do all the stuff. The Neo-N's system of operations flashed on their widescreen.
"Impressive..." one of them said in amusement. All of them stared at the flashed image of the Neo-N's data.
"Right?... I have spent a lot of sleepless nights just to make this one handy..." he bragged showing his laptop screen "I even got arrested for using it before and I don't want to remember that..." he turned to his keyboard and entered an activation code. "Now, let's see where you came from, Perses." he clicked a few more keys and a code appeared,
22090002982000372500031370002026
00000000000000009000000000000000
15150003568000324900037170002324
"What is that thing?" Louige asked. He was pointing at Markus' screen.
"I don't know.." Markus shook his head. "Do you know something about it?"
"Maybe it's some kind of ...a code." One of the programmers added. "Like a puzzle."
"You're right. This was the second one now. Does it have to do with the other code you've found at first?" Louige asked.
"I don't know... maybe... that's why we have to learn what it says" Markus answered. "But I don't know what it is."
"Then" Louige faced his men and gave them an urged look "Decipher it, now!" he commanded.
"HAI!" all the members of the team worked to crack it.
0.01039%
That is the current damage of the virus on the world wide web.
Few hours have passed,
"We can't find a way to decipher it, Sir!" one of his men exclaimed.
"What? How come? We have the latest software to decipher codes, we are ORION!" Louige exclaimed. "Don't be so incompetent Masons!"
"But, Mr. Louige, the code doesn't fit any message nor any key just like what the kid thought. It's like a random collection of numbers trying to lure us. It doesn't depict a specific meaning at all. We cannot make it work, Sir!"
"What's the meaning of that? That's insane! Do more research about it! We can find what it means when you dig more into it! Do it now!"
"Hai! I understand!"
"Ma..ma.. keep your calm Brother," Markus said to Louige, still grabbing the cookies from the box. "We'll get through this."
"How can I be calm? There is something wrong with this code." Louige said. "The Boss left me here to manage things and now, I've even dragged his son to do some work. I can't make any more excuses."
"We're on a pinch so it can't be helped, Ni-san. Dad's not gonna blame you. Besides, it's his fault he's not here to solve this issue. Just give your men some time to decipher it. We just got that a few hours ago. Trust your men. Trust the software that the ORION have. We can still find a way to break that damn code." he turned his chair. "If push comes to shove, we'll prepare for the worst-case scenario."
"I know. But, every minute counts, Marky. This is a race between us and the thing that you called Perses. And we have to win the race."
"Hai... but, we cannot think of a substantial solution when we act recklessly. We sometimes need to unwind and reset."
"You really surprise me sometimes, Markus."
"Soo?"
"Ahh, I know at times you're a dimwit..."
"I'm sorry for being one, huh!" Markus pouted.
"But sometimes you talk big. More like an adult." louige threw his hand on the kid's head.
"I'm flattered...that is why, I need to unwind myself, right." Markus hid his smile.
"Where to?"
"School..."
"What? You're trying to be a good student at this moment, huh?"
"Not that much. We just have a long quiz on math and other subjects today, well it always happens when the exam is approaching, you know." Markus stood from his seat. "Besides, if mom knows that my grades are falling, I just can't imagine what she'll make me do."
"Ahh, soo... but how about the---"
"It's alright! I will leave a part of the Phantom Algorithm for you to manage to lessen the damage when I am still at school. I will also gather information on the library about that code, maybe I can find something there, found on books rather than online databases. Because you know, outdated programs were always left at a paper and not in the web."
"You're right, you have a point...The Library is our greatest database that most people don't want to visit." Louige shoved his face and renewed his vibe. "Anyway, do as you please..."
"My mom will drop by at school later, too, I need to be there for her to see me, or else she will kill me."
"That scares..." Louige raised an eyebrow. "but, anyway, I hope you can do it, the info gathering, ... and make it fast. I will give you a call when things got worse."
"Ahh..." Markus said in agreement.
He went outside the room and stood in front of the door facing the hallway, ready to get to school. He held his bag pack on his shoulder, took a deep breath but something caught his breath. He coughed it out, but he still can't take another breath in.
"Hey, hey,, it's the stress taking a toll, huh? Why now? I didn't have my inhaler on my bag pack either."
He walked slowly on the hallway building and lost his balance. He leaned on the wall for a few minutes to regain his breath. Lungs wheezing, throat itching, heavy breathing. He tried very hard to find ways to position his body to ease his breathing but nothing is helping. The two whole sleepless nights took a large toll on his body. He's frequently experiencing these in exchange for his panic attacks.
He stood up and managed to get on the elevator and immediately hopped inside, trying to avoid the CCTV cameras that he even disabled by sending a weird signal around him which is activated by his watch.
He went up to the ground floor and there he found the men who escorted him to ORION. They drove him back to school and left saying to give them a call if wanted a ride.
"Ahh, I will send a beep. Don't worry about me." Markus turned around quickly.
The men didn't notice his difficulty in breathing. He thought to himself "I'm the best in using the stealth mode, I guess can be a ninja now." for being able to conceal how he felt. He headed to the clinic and asked for medicine to keep his asthma attack controlled. After a while, he went to their classroom and took his seat.
"Hhhhm." Markus took a deep breath.
When the bell rang for lunch, he went straight to the library to gather the info he needed. He was surprised that their worn-out library has tons of books, relevant books, about the old era. Their school was quite old since it was built a few years after discovering the meteor in this side of the globe.
"This is really amazing. The first-gen might have gathered all this info they wanted to preserve and this library is the living proof of their persistence. Because of so many books it held, it occupies the whole 4-story building next to the classrooms in the middle of the campus." Markus whispered. "This is really one of the treasures of Aurum."
Meanwhile, Dave and Cassandra went to Markus' classroom to have lunch with him, but they found no Markus when they arrived there.
"Where could he have gone to?" Cassandra said. She was holding her lunch box. "I'm kinda hungry."
"I think I do know where... maybe somewhere we cannot fit in again..." Dave replied, he's swinging his pack of sandwiches around his fingers.
"You're the one who can't fit in easily, idiot.." Cassandra said with a teasing face
"What?"
"Anyways, maybe he's in the library. Should we go there?" Cassy suggested.
"To library again?" Dave's brows meet "Then, we just have to go there..." he opened his sandwich and munched it as they go their way to the library. "But we can't eat inside the library, right?"
"We'll just eat after we got him." Cassandra rolled her eyes.
They found him on the 3rd floor of the library on the left corner, near the window facing the Computer lab in the Circulation area. Markus was alone on the table he used to seat on with many books on his side, talking to himself.
"I told you, it's something we cannot fit in..." Cassandra stated
"Ahh... and something really complicated" Dave replied in agreement "What's he mumbling about?"
Markus gathered books on Computer and Linear programming on different volumes and publication dates. He had quite stocked a pile of books on his table to easily gather the info he needed to find.
"Ahh, Marky... isn't it quite many?" Cassandra asked and took a seat near him, shoving the books piled on the table. "What were these books for?"
"Amazing... Marky, you emptied the shelve there..." Dave said in amazement, brushing books by his feet.
"Ahh, I needed to find something..." he said without taking his eyes off from the books.
"Like what?" Cassandra asked, held a book, and tried to read it. "I don't know what I was even looking at."
"Something, old..." Markus paused for a moment.
"Old?" Dave replied, "... then you can ask ol' man Ned, he's old right?"
Cassandra dropped a cold glare.
"Ahh, but going home is not an option here, besides, my mom will get mad at my involvement in--"
"Involvement? In what?! What's going on here, Marky?" Cassandra said, keeping a stern eye on him.
"Ahh..." Markus managed to shake the idea, he doesn't want them to get involved any further "...in a Quiz bee... well, never mind... I just need to decode something, that's all.."
"Decode, huh?" Cassandra repeated "You telling the truth, Sweetcakes?!"
"Hai,, that's all..." Markus answered
Dave stared at him, glared perhaps "Liar!" he said
"I'm not lying! I'm telling you the truth, you know..." Markus replied
They struggle him to tell them the truth as they hold his arms and tickle his sides.
"Stop it...ahh..stop...haha..Stop it Dave, Cass! Haha"
"No stopping until you tell us the truth..." they continue tickling him.
The librarian approached them, walking strictly, ready to scold the bunch of kids making noise on her library. She wore a long black skirt on a fitted white top with the matching high hills. Her brows meet as she approached the three kids making a mess in the "must be silent" library. Her eyes flamed behind her eyeglasses. She opened her mouth to shout at them, when suddenly,
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A huge explosion shook the whole school building.
"What the...." Dave said gaining his footing, blood dripped from his forehead. He didn't realized he was hit by a flying shard of glass from the window.
"...was that..." Markus said holding Cassandra's arms, helping her stand. He looked outside the window and saw what had happened.
Cassandra was shocked. Her leg was scratched with a broken glass but she didn't even felt the pain. She looked around to see if everyone saw what happened and she realized, many of them got hurt.
Crying, shouting and panic resonate the whole school. Debris falling, fires erupting, and sirens glaring engulfed the whole campus. The alarm echoed the whole campus and the students went to the open area, evacuating the buildings.
"Ne, Cassandra, are you alright?" Markus asked, still holding her arms. He helped her to stand. "are you hurt?"
"Ahh,, No, I'm fine. But... what was that? Marky I..." she tightened her grip on Markus' arm, trying to support her own weight. She only thought of herself that it took her some time to realize that Markus, too, got injured. "Marky, you're..."
"It's alright, we're fine, so as you. But I don't know what had just happened. The computer building fronting the library just blew up." He looked outside from the stairs they took to get out from the building.
He can clearly see the busted 3rd floor of the computer building where the computer class has access to the internet much better than what they have on their phone thru Wi-Fi.
School internet tend to be fast and accessible for educational use. Some students manage to access the internet from that building to hack stuffs and use it for their own means. It's not as fast as the internet in ORION but school internet is the fastest free internet in the whole city.
They came to the open field and sat on a bench in the evacuation. Nurses attended to the injured including the 3 of them. Cassy was not that hurt since Markus shielded her from the debris. In return, he got cuts on his back and his right arm.
"Marky, I'm so sorry. It was my fault that you got hurt like that..." Cassandra said with guilt.
"What are you talking about?!" he raised his eyebrow. "You should be thanking me, right? I just played the hero part, Princess," he said with swag.
"I did some hero work, too. You know..I was the Knight." Dave muttered, holding his forehead with a gauze.
"Shut up, you two." Cassandra smile. "Thanks, Sweetcakes."
"Don't mention it, Princess."
The teacher-in-charge of the building was taken to have a talk to the police as they gather information on the incident. Markus happened to be sitting on the bench near the police who ask questions to Mr. Waegon, the computer teacher who was having his class on that damaged building, so he tried his best to eavesdrop.
"So, Professor, what happened there?" the police asked taking his pen and notebook out.
"I don't know, Mr. Inspector. It happened so fast. I was just making a report on the enrichment activity we did yesterday, and the students were just making their hand-outs for the day as we accessed the internet. A sudden tab opened and when I browsed it the thing happened. The whole system malfunctioned and showed irregular codes on the screen. We tried to apply what we learned on the computer class to stop the virus, but it damaged all the files we have and some we can still save. It was not letting us get to it either. The CPU did not able to take the immediate change in computer usage and the sudden enter of a huge expanse of codes that is why it blew itself and the others followed. We managed to get ourselves out before the whole floor exploded in that very instant but--" Professor Waegon said, holding his trembling voice.
"Virus you said, how did you know it was a virus?" the police inspector asked. "Isnt this a serious case of Hacking incident?!"
"I've been teaching computer class for the past 10 years and I'm a graduate of that course, too. Of course, I know what a virus is. The thing is, I haven't seen a virus like that before, not until now. And, it's a strange type of virus. It's dangerous."
"Ahh, I can see. But, I just can't believe that a mere computer virus can make a huge explosion like this..." the police replied "...there was something more."
"Me, either. I can't still believe it. But, that's the truth, Mr. Inspector." Mr. Waegon emphasized the matter. "It just happened so fast! We don't have that kind of program in our system. I am sure someone just hacked our computers."
"Hacking?!"
Markus heard everything that Mr. Waegon said to the police inspector. He took a deep breath and stopped for a minute to think.
"It was the Destroyer, I can't be wrong. It has spread through here now? And it damaged the reality as well. Not just on the virtual side, huh?." He murmured to himself. He can't imagine that the virus they are fighting were able to get to the real world and create havoc on the people.
"It should be stopped immediately." He stared at Cassandra, still shocked and helpless after experiencing the explosion "...I can't let anyone be put in harm's way anymore. I need to do something now."
"Marky... what are you saying?" Cassandra asked
"It's nothing... I just..."
"Ne, Marky. If you are planning to do something ridiculous again, I just want to say---" Dave said trying to stand firm even if he's holding his bleeding forehead.
"What?... I won't do anything reckless anymore, Dave. You don't have to worry about me.."
"--- Listen, We've also heard what that teacher said and I know what's going on your mind now. You'll jump into something 'cause you think only you can do the saving. Just so know, I just want to say, don't leave us behind! We're friends, right?" Dave glared at Markus.
"...Friends?.." he replied, "...we're not..."
"What?!" Dave said and grabbed Markus' collar leaving his wound uncovered. He formed his fist and pointed it towards Markus' face."Say that again, sweetcakes."
"It's Best Friends, right?..." Markus replied with a teary smile.
Cassandra's tears fell, and she hugged Markus "Moron.."
"You really are an idiot!!" Dave shouted. "But, what's that book for?"
"Ahh, this one..." Markus didn't realize he was holding a book in his right hand. "I found something interesting on it but I didn't think I brought it with me. When the explosion happened, this book fell on the floor and opened a specific page that caught my eye." Markus replied.
"And what was that?" Dave asked.
"The key on how to solve this whole mess. I guess."