Somewhere in the Eagle Alliance, Lexa could be seen getting off her phone, a breath escaping her lips.
"I-is there a problem?" an unfamiliar voice stuttered behind her.
If Mr. Valen were here, he would applaud that tactic, trying to increase humanity by engaging in conversation.
They seemed to be in a hotel room, a sweet smell in the air that made one feel bubbly, but it felt artificial, like cotton candy left to rot.
It was a small room with clean white bedding, a sofa, and a table, but that was it; there was hardly anything else in the room, not even a TV.
The bed was made perfectly, crisp, white sheets tucked so tight they looked vacuum-sealed.
There were no personal belongings, no signs of life, just a pristine bed, a scratched-up side table with a dented lamp, and a sagging green sofa that reeked faintly of mildew.
The wallpaper also appeared to have peeled slightly near the corners, with one light flickering above.
Letting out another sigh, Lexa said, "I just got a call that Valen is jogging to work again, he's been acting strange lately, and since when did he start doing business at that sex club?"
"W-well, t-that's very strange... What do you plan to do to him?" The voice behind her trailed off, its tone faltering.
If one looked closely at the room, they would notice that a man was tied up to a chair in such a way that he faced upwards.
On a shelf above him was a bowl filled with acid, a string connected to the edge, said string held by Lexa on the other end.
Lexa looked relaxed, almost disinterested, a woman in a black turtleneck and slacks, sleeves pushed up to her elbows.
She stood with one foot propped on the bedframe, spinning the string slowly between her fingers.
A phone lay abandoned behind her, the screen still glowing faintly.
Then the string twitched.
The bowl wobbled slightly.
And the man whimpered.
If Lexa pulled on the thread, the bowl would capsize, pouring its contents on the man's face.
'As much as I like my job, I can't wait to find Valen at the end of the month,' she thought, observing the terrified man before her, a small smile on her face.
_____________
Meanwhile, back at District Forty-Two, Mr. Valen frowned as he jogged past a beggar who smelled like trash.
He wore a black tracksuit, perspiration flowing down his forehead, his breaths coming in sharp exhalations—but he looked good.
His skin was no longer pale; his eyes looked livelier, and a certain sheen graced his messy hair.
Unfortunately, he only looked better compared to before, as he still looked like a malnourished youth to any observer.
It has been a few days since he met with the Magnetas, and since then, he has resolved to jog to work every morning.
Upon arriving at work, he took a quick shower and went straight to the changing room. The time was six AM on the dot, and other staff were beginning to arrive.
"Wow, Valen, you've been coming early lately. Come on, we have to update the apps on Walter's computer," a familiar voice called out.
Said voice belonged to Sebastian, his supervisor, a man with brown eyes and equally brown hair combed neatly to the side.
He seemed to be the second person to come in today—for a douchebag, he was quite punctual.
Deciding to respond, a smile graced Mr. Valen's face, "Be right there bro," he said.
Sebastian nodded at his words before opening his locker. As soon as he turned his back, the smile on Mr. Valen's face vanished as if it had never been there.
Soon, both of them were walking through the hallways which was still dark because the lights had not been turned on yet.
But they could still see as the red bulbs on the vault doors illuminated their surroundings.
"So have you watched any movies lately?" Sebastian suddenly began conversing, his words shocking Mr. Valen.
Looking toward Sabastain with raised brows, he asked skeptically, his voice hushed, "You watch movies? Do you want to go to jail?"
"Calm down, I even have a few web novels at home, it's awesome stuff," Sabastain trailed off, his voice low as he added, "I honestly don't know why any form of fantasy or religious material is banned, it's like our government wants us to work till our deaths."
Mr. Valen, hearing Sabastain's reasoning pondered deeply, his thoughts unknown.
«Now that I think about it, it is unusual that governments all around the world banded all sorts of fantasy books, movies and the creation of any fantasy material at all, they have yet to release a formal statement pertaining to the reason, all that is known is that such materials are related to the appearance of passageways, unfortunately I don't have the time to dwell on this.»
"Hey, yo Valen, did you shut off your brain again?" Sabastain's voice drew him in, prompting him to shake his head.
They were already in front of Walter's office, so they opened it, a musty smell invading his nostrils.
The office was dark, so they turned on the lights, powering on the computer as Mr. Valen sat down to begin his work.
Sabastain, on the other hand, sat down on the sofa and continued rambling.
Updating system applications was not much of a task for him as he just opened a separate window for it.
It was now that he began the crux of his work, so he began by opening the company's surveillance app, as a manager, Walter's computer had direct access to it.
The app opened to a white page where he had to input the GPV base number and a password.
The GPV base number was public knowledge which Mr. Valen filled in quickly, as for the password, that was where things got tricky.
'Biometric access is off, but that's expected since I doubt he knows how to use it,' Mr. Valen thought as he opened the man's online chat.
There was nothing of interest—just normal stuff: 'explicit chats with other women indicating he was cheating on his wife, porn groups, a gore group, an exotic porn group... Oh, I didn't know our company had a group chat,' Mr. Valen thought.
Upon opening the company group chat, Mr. Valen noted that everyone was wishing Sabastain a happy engagement which caused him to raise a brow.
"Sabastain is engaged?" He asked himself, glancing at the brown haired man lazily scrolling through his phone.
Opening a browser, he searched for Sabastain's profile, and was shocked when he saw a picture of Sabastain hugging a brown haired woman.
The details of her appearance were of little relevance, what mattered was an item in her possession which caused Mr. Valen to linger for a moment, his eyes faltering.
The woman in the picture lifted her hand proudly, showcasing her ring for the world to see.
And Mr. Valen indeed saw, for that was the ring he had bought for his girlfriend Lia.
A faint feeling of annoyance immediately began to brew within him as he glanced at Sabastain, who was still on his phone, but he calmed down quickly. he could not afford to slip up on the easiest part of the plan.
It was time to get back to work, he had begun to stray.
He resolved to look into Walter's profile to find his exact date of birth, he then went straight to the man's local password manager and began to input gibberish until the option for forgot password popped up.
Clicking on that sent a one-time pin to Walter's mail, which did not have a password, and just like that, he was in the password manager.
"Walter is an older man who isn't familiar with most technology. Most older people in that category use what they are familiar with, like their names or date of birth or both, even," Mr. Valen thought as he scrolled through the list of Walter's passwords, verifying his theory.
He immediately went back to the surveillance app and inputted the password which was Walter's name and date of birth.
But then the surveillance app opened another page which asked a security question: daughter's name.
"It is most likely because I left the page idle too long," He mused.
Quickly, Mr. Valen opened his online chats again and searched for his chats with his daughter.
He found her under the name My Little Girl, "Why not just use her name? Why make things more difficult?" he thought to himself.
Scrolling through, he eventually found a time when Walter used her name; he seemed to be mad at her then.
It read: So you have begun ignoring me, Abigail?
Immediately, Mr. Valen went on and wrote Abigail on the tab and watched as he was granted access.
He was in.
Now for the real coding.
Quickly, he inserted his USB into the system, which, upon registering, forcefully opened up a sandboxed terminal window and fed it lines upon lines of custom shell scripts encrypted with polymorphic code.
«The logic bomb is set, and will activate at ten Am a day before the end of this month precisely when the system performs its routine backup and all nodes are linked.»
«When that happens, my code will corrupt the master boot records and flood the alert system with false positives, creating a digital blackout.»
"Hey, aren't you done?" Sabastain's voice suddenly resounded in the room, bringing Mr. Valen back to reality as he watched the man approach.
At the same time, the sandboxed terminal closed, allowing Mr. Valen to remove his USB, as he watched the system reboot with an expressionless face.
Looking up, he gazed at Sabastain with a smile on his face—but his voice was cold as he responded, "We're done."