Château À Tout Prix

Chapter 16. L'espace Entre Nous

Chapter 16. L'espace Entre Nous

It felt like the end of the world, I always knew Parker Ellis and I were not friends, but I thought it was nice getting along with him, plus we had traumatic lives, both of us. Knowing what Black Bride meant for him only made me want to help him, he wasn't 100% evil after all, and somehow I felt it was all my fault, I had hacked into their company and showed the world their system wasn't impenetrable, if I hadn't done that this person wouldn't have done that, specially because he knew how to do it because he had seen me doing it, live and in color.

His name was Hector Speer, known as "The Nutcracker", the reason to that was due to his ability to crack anything; young, talented and charismatic, but when I met him he wasn't as proficient as me, that didn't stop me from falling head over heels for him while I was helping him break some codes, in some way he was using me, and it worked for a long time, we ended up dating for almost two years. By that time my only company was Nut, I had started questioning my life, how my mom would feel with having a daughter who made a living off of hacking, even though I had told Vasili I wasn't trying to be one of the good guys, that was a lie.

By the time I retired Nut had made a name for himself and was making good amounts of money by selling his services, but he was going beyond to line as to whom and for what reasons he was doing those jobs; Nut had lost all sense of morality or ethics, so the distance had began to grow between us until I decided to leave him, he wasn't very happy but he couldn't complain since I was no longer part of the community and wasn't even on the same economical status, he wanted a different type of girl in his life.

I knew Nut and his signatures, his ego was so big he could not help himself from signing every single thing he had done, but so far I had not succeeded into finding it, so I had my doubts he had really been involved in this, plus he had never done anything for free in his life, so I was 100% sure somebody had payed him, so even though he had been involved, there was a master mind, and I had to discover who it was.

I started thinking of all the tricks I knew Nut used; I made contact with PY2302 again to discuss possibilities of action far away from the server and used an old route to connect with Nut, I wasn't sure he still used it but I had no options.

"What's the plan?" Asked PY2302.

"Get in contact with him hoping he is as lousy as he was years ago, if so I can hack him."

"I know he was lousy, but don't you think other people have tried to do that before, you taught him well, Venom."

"I sure did, but the plan is re-open an old channel of ours, I know he won't protect it, it's old so he won't even think of that, let's hope he still is as stupid."

"Let's hope that, and that he answers." PY2302 was right, the only way to do this was if he accepted to re-open this channel, hopefully his ego would work.

While I awaited for Nut's answer I kept trying with the bug, I gave up after a while and ate something brought thanks to room service pacing from the bed to the window, after a while I decided to step in the balcony and breath the air of the city, the Summer could only last for a few weeks and the change was starting to be felt. I closed my eyes trying to maintain my mind in blank. There were two culprits apparently, me according to the news and The Czar, according to Gaston... I knew someone was framing us, but why? Did they know about me and PY2302's connection? Or was it because my mentor was hunting Nut, was my ex boyfriend throwing us under the bus or was something else?

"The signature!" I yelled and ran inside the room.

Maybe I could not wake up the bug, being me and away from the server, but I could pretend to be Nut with his signature, access the system that way could be possible, due to the fact that he didn't liked to be bound to an specific computer, place, server or IP, he kinda liked to be a citizen of the world, a hacker that wasn't restricted to his apartment and city, although the mostly used his own computer, that didn't restricted him to be able to hack with other tools, so I had to find the signature, the thing was how, so I tried some old ones but they didn't work, when I was about to lose all hope I realized Nut had gotten into our old channel.

"I knew you were gonna look for me." Was his first response. "You're all over the news, haven't you seen, the police are finally looking for you, Venom."

"You're blaming me, why?"

"So they don't look out for me, dummy." I need to keep him inside the channel for as long as possible so I could hack him and get the signature, it was like a tunnel connecting me to his device, and I had to do so with calmness, after all there were some tricks I never told him about, but I had to be careful as hell, he must've learn so much in the past years.

"Who payed to do this?"

"Why would I tell you, my client wouldn't be happy."

"What if I payed you to stop."

"Really? Why are you behaving as if you were stupid."

"I don't know what else to do."

"You've become such a disappointment."

"You too, even PY2302 is looking for you."

"He and his friends are jealous of me."

"Why would they?"

"I'm better."

"Your ego is so big is gonna be your downfall."

"Not mine, you think you can come here and give me lessons like years ago? Let me be clear, if you keep pestering me around I will tell Parker Ellis that Venom is you."

"Why him and not the police?"

"Haven't you seen? There's a bounty for Venom's head in the deep web, I don't need the money but it you keep trying to wake my bug, I'll  tell him."

"I'll stop, if you tell me who did it."

"I'm not getting anything from that deal, it's just that I'm mildly inconvenienced by you pestering Black Bride's servers, but I can keep the rhythm."

"Tell me or I'll hunt for you forever until I trap you and tell PY2302 where you're hiding, you know I'll do it."

"You won't come after me?"

"No." I lied.

"Gaston Mahoney." And with that name Nut closed the channel.

I was never a running champion, I never really exercised, my only talent was with my fingers but my legs were horrid, even walking was shameful, man I fell into a ditch no long before I was running through the Charles De Gaulle airport trying to stop Parker, I needed to tell him the truth, maybe he was angry at me but I had to tell him, he had to know Gaston wasn't someone he could trust.

After Nut had told me who had payed him to do all of this I had hacked into Parker's computer to see if he had left Paris, I found out he was about to leave in a night flight, I had little time to catch him, but it was possible. As I ran looking for him and was losing my breath I began loosing all hope, but I saw his tall head moving towards the embarking security so he could enter the waiting halls for his flight.

"Parker!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I stopped running, he turned around and I ran towards him again.

"I know who did it!" I whisper exhausted, he only started at me in confusion. "It was Gaston. He payed for someone to get the bug inside, it was him. It was Gaston."

"And you are Venom." Those words hit me hard. "You really expect me to believe that? Gaston, my friend payed someone to screw me over? You expect me to believe in you, Rosalind, or Venom? Whatever you prefer." He said in all calmness.

"Who told you?" I knew Nut had lied and given my name away.

"At least you're not denying it anymore. You really made a fool of me, didn't you, you must've had a great time, well now I know... You laugh enough, please stop it, stay away from me, I can't handle all of this and you too, I'm not that strong, but you've seen me, haven't you? Just go away." He said turning around and just before he took a step away he turned around briefly and said: "And don't worry about the police, I won't tell them about you, I can't put you in jail." He looked to his feet and smiled sarcastically and finally walked away.

I would lie if I didn't admit my heart broke.