The World of Tiny Tan

Chapter 19

Young-Mi's POV:

"Let's start with a proper greeting to you and a small preface." RM started. "So, it was nice meeting you and however we tried not to end up like this here but we had some situation so it turned out this way."
"We are tiny tans as you know and we do rounds of meeting our armies in-person kinda tour when they need us the most."

"Well, we know most of you and other work! like we do know of other armies too!." Suga added.

"Sorry to interrupt but it seems like I don't have an emergency now, so you might not have come to just wish me hello from your busy schedule right?". I was a little confused and decided to confront my feelings. I am not the one to keep my feelings being lingered for a long time.

"Ok, so for that, we have a situation that we know only you would be able to help us and so we came here to seek your help." Kookie enhanced his lines perfectly specifying that it was an important matter.

"As you know due to this pandemic we are not having our world tours and concerts and we are releasing all pieces of stuff online. Our projects, our concerts, and everything is being spread online." RM explained. I nodded.
He continued.

"We are working on a new album with Ed Sheeran right now. And.." I cut them abruptly though it wasn't the intention but out of curiosity.
"Heol! Deabak.. Jinja? Wow, I am so excited ! Can't believe what I just heard!". I was in a total joy state.

" Well, this has to be a secret Young-Mi," Jin said.

I came back to my senses and holding my fangirl moments inside I was all ears to what serious situation they were in.

"This has become a serious and little concerning subject for us because that is very different from having meetups personally with other international artists while you are working on a collab or such things. But this situation is awkward." RM continued.
"For most of our discussions we have to decide the time for call because of time zone differences well that is not much of an issue but calling for meetings and sharing stuff online is a little risky."
"Though we have the most trustworthy staff with us who have been with us since we debuted, there are still some fishy things we have found out."

"One of the parts of our songs has to be written by Ed and we seeking help from him for the lyrics part." J-Hope expressed.

"But while lyrics are in progress to be written some of them sought to be leaked on the internet." Jimin signed with worry.

I could totally feel them. " But how? Like it has never happened so far as I know. You have been releasing so many songs till now and as per like this incident I have never heard even rumor of it." I asked with concern.

"That's the concern!". Tae added.

"Even though when I attended your first-time online concert a few months back it all looked fine and managed". Ae-Cha asked with concern as she was also hearing it for the very first time. She also seemed quite surprised.

"Yes! Back then it was all set and cool. Since we released Dynamite and the amount of appreciation and love was so mesmerizing for us. But after we could not make it to Grammy and company changed to HYPE Labels and Ariana and Beiber's company having a merger some strange things have been happening all of sudden." Joonie worriedly spoke.

"Even though they are small incidents, we have never experienced such things. It's been over 8 years since we all moved together now. Though we are messy at a time but still." Kookie said. Jin tapped with a blush on his face. It was like he said why is it has to be revealed in their first meeting.
But you know we armies know it all, I thought.

"Some parts of lyrics have leaked and that too on some dark web. Our team tried to look into the matter but there is something that has still not caught their eyes yet!". Joon continued.

"We want this song to be a gift to our armies after we release one more full English track on the army day." Joon expressed.

"Lyrics may not be the issue now but we are more concerned about the gift we are composing now. Now, this is a part of lyrics but what if something more than it gets leaked?" Jimin said with concern.

"Like can you explain me with more specifics? and also why am I approached when you have your team which might be surely more capable with connections too?" I asked.

"Lately when these lyrics got posted on the dark web we heard a rumor and asked our team to check upon it. It turned out to be true and in no time we saw this text." Joon took out his phone and showed me the text.

"We don't need permission to post! You got us right. These are some of the lyrics of BTS's upcoming album. #stayTuned #ArmyDay." The post said.

For me, it seemed a normal text or updates of Kpop idols that pop up tabloids eventually. I was not much clear of it, when Joon added," Though we are still working on our lyrics the starting words are a part of our lyrics and this seems to be kind of threatening like we would post it without your consent type."

"But you do you think so maybe you are overreacting? " I asked with doubt. But I knew Joon cannot be wronged with his level of IQ and kind of skilled leadership.

"Strangely, Kookie received a text one day saying I know you are on a call with Ed.". Jin said. " And we were really on a call with Ed that time discussing final parts of lyrics". Kookie said.

"After that, we checked our Wifi connections and even made some surveys for the whole network we used at our company. There was no strange activity in the whole network and no intruder could be spotted." Joon said.

"It does not seem for someone to break in our Wifi area and post that to us and that too especially at our personal numbers." Joon continued.

"Then once Tae was practicing for some high notes and it got some glitch so he turned his mike on and off and suddenly his voice was heard from our room. Only a few seconds back practice was recorded and played signing that I know all your activities.
It felt like a seasang activity first but there was not a single human activity around us when it was checked."

"Strange ! this is someone who is keeping an eye on you. Did you check the secret camera installations or kind of such stuff?" I asked.

" Yes, we did! and we spotted one small chip in one of our cameras! We checked for it and it turned out to be a chip that has a kind of code that sends you activity of the surroundings when the attackers want. It is a cyber attack." Joon said with a huge sign.

"Well, I got it. They kept the chip with a reverse shellcode implemented which on connection can connect to your phones as you all are on same Wifi and send you texts and turn on your cameras without you knowing whats going on." I added.

"Yes, you got it right! that's the exact thing our cyber expert told us when he surveyed the camera and the chip." Suga said with a smile. I smiled proudly being a cyber tech geek.

"So, our expert tried to get rid of that chip and that code but that chip seems to be custom coded, and hence even though the code was manually deleted it somehow creeps down the network automatically and does its stuff and gets destroyed. It looks kind of self-destructive code." Joon added.

"It is a reverse shell with self-destruction code and customized to time when it will automatically creep in again and does for what it is been coded," I said. Tinytans nodded.

Ae-Cha was in completed destructively surprising mode. "For now we have moved to some other dorm now. Also, we have changed our wifi for now. But we are still afraid that something like this can happen again and also we need to find the culprit and we can't underestimate him/her as we are still not sure about his/her intentions". RapMon said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"When we checked further we got a common IP from the list of scans we did," Tae said.

I was looking at him with amazement. "Did you caught the person then?" I asked.

"Well, that IP is of your company's PC from where it is being operated," Jin said.

"What!!! No! That can't be the case you might be mistaken." I said with a higher voice.

Noone was amazed as if they were expecting this kind of reaction from me.

Well, that's it for this chapter! Did you like the climax twist? Well, there are furthermore chapters with a lot of excitement coming! Don't miss them and read them to the end!