Parallel Vol. 6

Chapter 4: Making a Plan

"Holy Fuck!" exclaimed Taiga as he stared at the documents on the screen. "Did... Did you just hack Genaco's servers? Is that something you can casually do?"

Jade snickered and proudly raised her head. "Hehe, I already hacked into their network earlier. Shouyou caught me back then, but he did not bother removing the backdoors I left behind." The young hacker's smile dimmed somewhat as she realized what Genaco's response probably meant. "It can't be... Did their assessment start that long ago? Come to think of it, in all this time roaming their servers; I haven't come across any really classified data. It's like they created fake servers for the hackers among the recruits to flex their skills."

"Regardless of their intentions, it does not change the security protocols they would have put in place to make it believable," noted Suzuki. "James will never make the hunt easy, so you can be proud of your achievement. None of us could do what you've done, especially on such short notice."

Jade's eyes lit up, and her lips spread into the widest grin, instantly rejuvenated by Suzuki's praise.

Across from her, Ayumi observed her expression with a thoughtful gaze. She then looked at Suzuki's indifferent eyes, and a hint of a wry smile played across the edge of her lips. Unfortunately, before anyone spotted this, she returned to a neutral expression and asked Jade, "Can you send us copies of the files? It will take some time to parse through all that information. It should be faster if we divide the load."

"Nah, I'll send the files, but we don't have to wait to get the main gist."

"Oh?"

"Come out, Kuro-chan." Following Jade's call, a black cat suddenly jumped out of her laptop screen and hopped on her shoulder. The holographic cat sat atop Jade's head and 'surveyed' its surroundings. "Kuro-chan's an AI I created. Of course, he's not alive like Genaco's AIs, but he's good enough for our needs." Jade lifted the cat and set him on the table, courtesy of her ever-present holo-gloves. "Kuro-chan, enter Teacher Mode."

Upon hearing the command, the cat's eyes suddenly sharpened with intelligence. It stood straight as a fine black and white tuxedo shimmered onto its fur. It then held out its left hand and snatched a black top hat out of the air, which it set snugly on its head. Finally, a beautifully adorned walking cane appeared in its right hand, which it placed across its chest and bowed in greeting. "Greetings all, Mr. Tibbles, first of my name. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The dandily dressed cat caused everyone to look at Jade with varying expressions.

Jade's cheeks turned beet red. Damn it! She forgot about the settings for teacher mode. She hadn't used it in a long time. Embarrassed, she weakly defended herself, "I... was going through a phase, alright?"

"Was?" teased Taiga with a knowing grin.

Jade pointedly chose to ignore Taiga's jab. Still beet red, she implored the AI to begin its report. "Mr. Tibbles. Please parse through the recently downloaded files and create a summary of the relevant points."

Mr. Tibbles' glowed as thousands of characters flashed across its iris. Roughly ten seconds later, its eyes regained calm, and a holo-screen appeared above its head. He then tapped on the screen with its cane, and it came to life, depicting a vast forest. The students frowned as they recognized a structure at the image's center—the dreaded blue sky beam in all alien invasion movies.

"This is Operation Headhunter," Mr. Tibbles explained. It tapped the screen, switching it to a 2D layout with a viewpoint from above.

The screen displayed a vast field of green with ten distinct structures. A gigantic tower sat at the center of the forest where the sky beam touched down with eight outposts posted equidistant from it in a circular shape. A river streamed from the east, passed through the tower structure, and flowed to the west. A dam a few kilometers up the eastern river controlled the river's flow.