A Perfect Disguise

Worms And Virus

"So you are their research member?" Christopher rubs Leo's head while casually lying on their office table scanning the room with the corner of his eyes.
"Y... Yes sir... I look after all the research..." His body froze still, his heart almost popping out of his chest. When he came to the office he didn't expect to be greeted by Cristopher, his mind and body were not at all prepared for such an encounter such early in the morning. The urge to get up and dash out the door and never return.
"And that's all you are capable of? No wonder you guys barely solved any cases..." His fingers rubbed Leo's earlobes, pinching them until they turned red. He squinched his eyes while biting harder on his lips.
"Ah... Ouch... N.. No, I can... also do a decent amount of hacking... I am not... completely useless..." Tears began clogging his eyes, as he firmly held his fists. His weak heart was already in turmoil, and Cristopher's harsh words tore through like a sword.
"Huh... Alright... Take this... And you have roughly... A minute... Prove how much less worthless you can be..." He threw a hard disk in his hands, while he barely managed to get a hold of it.
"Wh... What shall I do..?" He quickly plugged the hard disk into his laptop and fixed his glasses until it turned on.
"Access data from hidden folders, to be particular... Access data on Shadow which is stored somewhere in this." He jumped off the table and walked behind Leo, resting his arms on his shoulders.
"Your time begins now..." He pulled out his stopwatch and the ticking began, for Leo those thirty seconds were going to be the shortest yet scariest thirty seconds of his life.
He turned on his application and imported all the folders from the hard disk.
"Haha... You are clueless, right? Transferring files without any security check... It takes less than a second... Too bad kiddo I had installed Chernobyl and some variants of malware... You better give up being a part of this group... As worthless as ex-"
"Done..." Leo pushed his laptop back on the table, gasping and struggling for breath due to the intensity of the moment.
"Really... ?" Cristopher pulled that laptop in his arms and began going through the retrieved data, and to his surprise, Leo far exceeded his expectations. "Hm... You even managed to drag out files stored under level 50 security... And some of my custom security level 100... Haha... Hah... Kid how the hell did you do that." A mischievous smirk cracked on his lips, as he patted his back while scrolling through the contents of his hard disk, surprisingly not finding a single trace.
"I have seen many hackers out there who manage to break past level 50 quite efficiently and quickly, and yes... They do manage to pass through my custom level 100 too... But it takes them well over a minute, or mostly the system crashes itself and transfers all the data to other safety files... How did you manage to do it in only thirty seconds... And that too without a trace."
"I... Have created a program application... What it does is... Whenever I copy a program on my device, before getting stored, it is copied on multiple other devices... All these other devices have a custom set of codes, which terminate the requirement for any worm or virus, and implement its own set of requirements... In your hard disk... now the requirement for all these viruses to eat your data... It only requires Windows command..."
Cristopher was completely dumbfounded by his abilities, but he was still not satisfied by his answers. As if Leo was trying to avoid his questions.
"Well, I get that I will have to destroy my one device to access my data again... But how did you get past level 100, and that too without a trace..." He took a step back and laid his back on the wall while gazing out the window.
"To operate any file without security code... You need a friend class tag... or a member class tag... obtaining a member class tag without actually hacking into the control room is almost impossible... That too in thirty seconds... So... I um... hacked in as a friend class member... But still, I was denied of some files.... that is your level 100 files... So I just broke through..." Leo fidgetted on his seat rubbing his fingertips with each other, his voice shaking heavily.
"Broke through?" Cristopher raised a brow and looked toward Leo, confused by his absurd statement.
"A... Any administrator always keeps a few moderators to access the data in his absence, and the path used by them is often less secure, or gaps are formed due to too much access... So I just found one of those gaps... and broke through... and copied it on a demo access file, while leaving the command through which I broke in, and it  disintegrated within a span of a few seconds."
Cristopher ran his hands through his hair trying to process what happened... Even if what he said is true... To be able to do it all in less than twenty seconds... And a disintegrable code is something new he hadn't heard of before.
"Incredible... You surpassed my expectations by leaps and bounds..." His excellence and understanding of codes were unheard of, a valuable treasure indeed.
Cristopher walked around Leo circling him, while closely investigating his hard disk.
"So-"
"The start of the day was trash for me, what about you both?" Jenna kicked the door while hopping backward inside.
"Same.... That gorilla... AH!" James jumped away from the door and peeked from the frame.
Jenna turned her head around twirling on her toes, quickly collapsing the moment her gaze matched their guest.
"Huh... Gorilla?" He grabbed the window frame and stretched his arms, cracking his back.
"Wh... What are you doing here?? I- I mean you were going to be here... But we thought you would be visiting the police head office first." Jenna balanced herself and fixed herself hiding her eyes from him, slightly embarrassed by the morning incident.
"They are more useless than you... And I managed to strike a jackpot by hitting here first." He walked towards Leo shutting down his laptop and stuffing his hard disk in his back pocket.
"Jackpot.... ? Anyways... I hope you brought in the forensic report on the evidence which you plucked under our nose." Jenna pulled over her chair and collapsed on it while resting her feet on the table.
"Under the butt you mean?" Cristopher pulled out a pack of cigars from his pocket. "Here..."
Jenna bashfully stretched her hand picked one, and lit it between her lips.
"Take one." He offered one to Leo, who nodded while slightly pushing his hands away, "I... Dont like... To smoke..." 
"Haha... Such a pure soul..." Turning his head around where Andrew and James gave him a look full of bloodthirst. "You kids want one?" He tossed two of his cigars over to them.
"Hmph, we... We are only puffing it to ensure whether it has any illegal substance in it, right??"  James turned towards and lit his cigar with his lighter.
"Y... Yeah!!" 
Cristopher pulled out a small pendrive from a hidden pocket under his sleeves and tossed it on Leo's laptop. "Third file under the name of Shadow."
He plugged in the drive and quickly ran through the third file under the name of Shadow, while his eyes caught a glimpse of another file named S-30.
"H... Here..." Leo turned his laptop screen revealing its contents to others.
"It has all the details like whose blood stains are on it, and all the possible matches... Here this guy..." Cristopher pointed towards a shabby-looking guy with circular spectacle frames and a black strip earring. "This is Reyan, a professional bounty hunter infamous for hunting down political leaders who have a massive bounty on their heads... He is one of the prime suspects... You all have a month to investigate every single detail about this guy over here... I want him down by the twenty-second of October, no matter what alright? And yeah... Just to be clear we don't care if he was behind this case or not... We want him down... We are paying each of you a million by the time this mission comes to an end... So better work hard, or your bounties would be hanging under black markets of states." Cristopher plugged out his drive sliding it back into his hidden pocket while pulling over his black velvety overcoat.
"He- Hey!! At least give us some time to think!!" Jenna threw a marker from her desk, which was casually dodged by him.
"Huh..." 
*Ting Ting TIng Ting*
A notification popped on their screens as he casually walked out the door, "That's a downpayment, rest after the job is done."
Half a million dollars were deposited in each of their accounts.
"I wonder if this is how our taxes are used..." Andrew sighed slid his phone back into his pocket and walked out.
"Wait for me!!" James rushed behind him while slinging his backpack on his shoulder.
"Do these both ever spend any second inside?" Jenna took another puff before dropping her cigar back in an ashtray.
"I... I am going out... To get some fresh air..." Leo's voice was really low filled with sadness urging him to collapse in someone's arms and weep away all of his pain and suffering, "Come here cutie where are you going mhm?" Jenna's hand curled around Leo's palm, making circles in them while pulling him towards herself.
"I... think I should go..."His voice was extremely low, as the tears which he had held for so long streamed down his cheeks.
Jenna's hands gently capsuled around his face, wiping his tears with her thumbs while caressing his moist cheeks, "What happened, baby..." She gently pecked on his cheeks trying her best to calm him down, but her efforts were of no use.
"Did he do anything to you?" Her thumb gently rubbing on his delicate lips, caused him to flinch and take a step back, but his breath was too heavy for him to speak... he sobbed harder as he struggled and gasped for air.
"Baby..." Jenna brought her face closer to his and rubbed her forehead on his, caressing his delicate and soft cheeks she continued in a monotone tone, "It's alright... Am here right..." Moving her lips close to his... she gently rubbed them on his... as their breaths mingled, she cautiously approached him and tried pegging on his soggy lips, but he hastily placed his hand on hers gently pushing her away, "Y... You like... Bold guys right...." His heart was broken... the voice was shaky enough to make someone realize how miserable he was at the moment, "You... Heard it... In the morning...?" Jenna gently pulled apart his hand and pecked them... Realizing the magnitude of grief he was going through. "Y... Yeah..." All his emotions which he had been holding back breeze through as tears... at that moment the one weeping were not his eyes, but the heart... Which had unintentionally fallen for her... The lack of words were filled by his bitter hiccups... Ragging with self-hatred and doubt... whether he deserves her love or not... yet he couldn't muster up the courage to walk away... Cause somewhere he still yearned to curl in her arms, and let his consciousness fade away.