Hacked: The Dark Web

▪Chapter XVII▪

With widened eyes, my mouth fell open as I stared at the chunk of trash and garbage that laid infront of me.

As I requested, Steven asked for the remains of the bomb from his buddies at the Bomb Squad Unit and they gladly handed it over to him for me to investigate. The bomb was now infront of me on the white lit up table.

I heard the door to the Investigating Laboratory open and I turned to see Liam coming in with a file.

"I see you've met your task" he said and I simply looked at him, barely

"This will take some time to disassemble and go through."

"Take all the time you need, it's Saturday, I don't think you have anywhere else to be."

"Are you implying that I don't have a life Cooper?" I asked with a threatening grin on my face.

"No, just stating the obvious."

"I'd be careful with that mouth if I were you. It might lead to your rapid demise."

He chuckled and shook his head.

I took the screwdriver from the tray of tools and started unscrewing the loose screws.

I was busy minding my own business when Liam spoke up, "We never actually talked about how your name is Jade but your eyes are clearly blue."

I instantly froze, placing my screwdriver on the table and looking up at him, a strand of hair falling onto my face.

"Don't you have a punching bag to pummel or something?" I questioned.

"I'd rather stay here and help you."

"Well then less talking and more unscrewing."

"But I've always wondered really," I huffed in annoyance but he persisted, "Why name your daughter Jade when she has cerulean eyes? It makes no sense if you asked me."

"My name is not Jade. It's Jadelyn, I hate it so I use Jade for short. Now that we have cleared things up about my weird eyes and weird name can we please finish analysing this bomb?"

He smirked and simply nodded, clearly realizing that he struck a nerve.

After we successfully got rid of all the screws, a bunch of weird tech stuff laid on the table. I started removing the wires one by one. I saw Liam pulling at an orange wire and I slapped him on his hand.

"Ouch! What was that for?" He squealed.

"Do you want this thing to detonate?"

"What?"

"The order to remove the wires is green, purple, blue, orange, purple, blue. You were pulling the purple wire before the orange one."

He looked at me then back at the bunch of wires, then he got back to work.

"Where did you learn how to do all of these things? For a 16 year old you're pretty versatile."

"Books and school never interested me. Learning to defend myself, hacking and living another life aside from reality, now that's my cup of tea. When you have so much free time you tend to explore beyond your boundaries."

"I could say the same. But I had different motives in mind when I decided to help get justice for my parents."

There was a moment of silence and all felt well as we continued working on disassembling the bomb.

"Do you actually know the function of all of these parts?" questioned Liam after we successfully put the piece of junk apart.

"Yeah, I do."

I picked up a cube shaped container and showed it to him.

"This contained the C4, see how you can see the residue. All of these wires help connect the motherboard of the bomb to the timer."

"Please tell me you can find useful things in this load of junk."

"Actually, yes. All I need is," I removed a chip from where it was lodged, "this."

I walked out of the Investigating Laboratory not even realising Liam was following me with a confused look on his face.

"You're telling me, we took a bomb apart and almost detonated it just for that little thing?"

I ignored his bickering as I sat down at my computer and inserted the chip into my desktop.

Numerous slides popped up on my screen and I scanned them one by one. Luckily for me the chip was not secure so it was easily accessed.

"Can you trace it?" Asked Liam.

"No, I can't find an I.P address but I can track the serial number to locate where the pieces were bought."

"Great, where?"

"Little convenient store on West Avenue. Owned by one, Damien McElroy."

"Are we going to check it out?"

I removed the chip from the desktop and placed it in a box in my cabinet.

"By we you mean you. I have to head to Hexagon and see what Intel I can get from their server. I'll come back later."

His shoulders dropped and his expression briskly turned from excited to disappointed.

"Stop looking at me like that, you were the one who persisted that I joined them again. Plus I have to find whatever I can about your parents' murder."

He shrugged and nodded and we went our separate ways.

《--->•<---》

I walked into Hexagon and was quickly welcomed with the warm fake smile I had gotten used to seeing.

"What's up Basic?"

Lexi came towards me with her usual cup of coffee in her hands and a deadly smile on her face.

"Not much."

I sat at my desk with absolutely nothing to do. I took the time to search for case files about Liam's parents' death.

The file I retrieved the other day was full of basic information. What I needed was solid proof of Logan killing them or even some motive atleast.

I hacked into Logan's computer and went through his files. Luckily for me there was one named Cooper and when I opened it I found nothing but pictures. I deliberately scrolled through each one looking for anything out of place.

Then it dawned upon me that I was searching in the wrong place. If I was the leader of a secret organisation of hackers and a serial killer, where would I hide my important documents?

I did a thorough background check of his computer and mentally grinned when I found what I was looking for.

Hidden, was a file labelled anonymous and when I opened it my eyes widened and I gasped, completely ignoring the fact that I was in a room full of nosy individuals. I lifted my head up to make sure nobody awas giving me any curious looks then I got back to work. I copied all the information on a hard drive and briskly got up from my chair and ran to the exit.

This is definitely something Liam would want to know.

I dashed through Phoenix with the hard drive in my hand, huffing and panting. I looked for Liam in the Base of Operations, but he was not there. I ran to the back towards the area where they trained and I saw him pummeling a punching bag. When he saw me he stopped and acknowledged my presence.

"Liam there's something-" I blurted but was cut off.

"Ohh yeah, I got information for you too. Turns out-"

"Liam, your parents were secret agents!"

《--->•<---》