Arthur found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. It took a couple of seconds to remember he went to sleep at the mansion. The moonlight from the outside shined through the windows and left the room a shade of majestic blue and white. It seemed to be deep in the night.
He jumped from his bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. Niles gave him a quick tour of the house before they started training and he has a good memory, so he remembered where everything was.
The kitchen had marble countertops with an electric stove and oven. Arthur wasn't interested in how it was furnished, he was more interested in the fridge, or more precisely, the contents of the fridge. He was tired and vomited everything that was possible and impossible to vomit. Thankfully Niles kept the fridge full, so Arthur was not stuck thinking for too long. He got some eggs, tomato sauce and some seasonings.
Fifteen minutes later he finished cooking, and the end product was looking delicious. He decided to cook shakshouka, using a recipe he picked up in Egypt. He swiftly devoured it all with some bread and made his way out the mansion.
Niles told him training would only be three times a weekend so Arthur was going back home.
***
As Arthur was making his way back home, Alexia was sitting with her leg crossed on her bed. She lived a couple of houses down from Arthur, and she was still deciding if she should ask his sister what is wrong with him.
'Sure he got more handsome and his presence is different. But why?' That trip overseas really changed Arthur, not to mention that he went out clubbing the night before. That's not something the Arthur she knew would do.
After some time thinking, she decided on talking to Arthur face to face, unless he's not available. He was absent the day before and he didn't respond to any of her calls.
By the time she finished thinking, it was already 6am. She got up and started changing into her sports clothes to go out for a jog.
***
William was into his third cup of coffee of the day. It was now midday and he was just monitoring the activities of a 'Nil Malik' on his screens. A man raised in an orphanage in Egypt that does not exist anymore has British citizenship and was able to buy a multi-million dollar mansion miles away from William's town, and did not even do anything with it. It did not make sense. How did he get the money? How did he even get the citizenship?
William was interested in him, he suspected that this Nil was an enhanced human that was using his abilities for money.
There was almost nothing that William could connect him to. Nothing in the modern world. He apparently attended classes in his orphanage and went to some low tier university for ancient history. It was as if this man was left at the orphanage without any information to who his parents could be, and then over two decades later he buys a secluded mansion with centuries of bad omens, and does not even do anything with it. Something was off.
A ringing noise that sounded like it was produced by a bell came out from his computer speakers. His boss sent him an email.
<
James Wheeler
RE: Suspects for hacker
1 attachment
Dr Baron,
We found a list of potential suspects we think had something to do with the recent hacking problems we and others have had.
I have attached the list, please tell us what you think of each suspect in our next meeting.
Thank you,
James Wheeler
>
William clicked on the attachment and read through brief descriptions of each hacker. A couple Britons, a few Americans, a Frenchman, a Malaysian and some more… less capable people.
He took over two hours to read through detailed descriptions of every suspect, and he was certain that it was none of them. All of them were surely capable with computers, but none of them seemed to fit the unknown hacker. It was his intuition that got him to such a high position, and he was not going to betray it now. He quickly left some notes by each suspect, just saying he didn't feel like any of them was the hacker was not going to cut it.
As soon as he finished with that, he went back to looking into Nil Malik whilst still subconsciously trying to figure out who the hacker could be.
***
Arthur planted his head deep into books. He was yet to catch up with the many weeks of university he missed, so he went straight to the library after his seminar which was at the end of the day. He quickly thought back to when he gave the high-level book about relativity that Niles asked for to him, and briefly wondered why he would need it. He casted that thought aside and went back to his work.
After many minutes of tireless writing on paper and typing on his laptop, someone sat in the chair next to him. It was Alexia.
"Hey." she said with a monotonous voice.
"What's up?" Arthur knew they were not going to finish any time soon.