Codename: Angelus

Chapter 13 - The outside world

<pre>Maria took a deep breath to calm herself and stepped inside Jan’s office.

Jan was ten years older but one wouldn’t tell from her appearance. She had a plumpy child-like face; unruly, bobbed, cyan-striped, raven hair and, since she was of mixed ethnicity — her mom’s American and her dad’s Japanese — her skin was fair and she had freckles all over her cheeks. She was minute and plump but not fat.

Maria never saw her wearing a dress or formal clothes; always cozy, informal stuff like sweaters, hoodies, t-shirts, jeans, anime-like pleated skirts, shorts, leggings, colorful, striped knee-high socks and sneakers.

Maria herself could never be so daring as to embody the word nerd-ish as Jan did. Though she was second to none when it came to hacking skills.

Her office was just like her and just as messy. A horde of life-sized stuffed dolls and action-figures from her favorite videogames and animes had taken it over from ages unknown. The walls were plastered with holoposters of her favorite tv shows, idols, actors and actresses from her best loved movies (with and without their stage costumes). She had terrible tastes, too. And it was dusty since the cleaning woman didn’t even bother tidying her office. Though Hiro’s and Miyu’s weren’t better off. Well, they wouldn’t be working as OmniSoft Cybercrime Defense Unit if they weren’t the nerds they were.

For Jan, Hiro and Miyu to have lost trace of their mysterious cracker — he or she had to be one hell of a cracker for them not to trace him back.

Jan, Hiro and Miyu were the best — only second to Maria and iConnect’s Andrew. Event Horizon’s Zach wasn’t too bad either, though no one’s on par with Maria.

“I know it sounds stupid but he mirrored the connection so many times we lost it!” Jan spat before Maria could ask.

“Jan you should clean up this place, you know? It’s dusty. My eyes sting and my throat is all tingly. Do you ever open the window?”

“The window?”

“Forget it! Just give me the data. I’m working on it from my terminal back at the hotel. You know my iConnect handle. Send it there.”

“I’m s—”

“Don’t. Tell me. You’re sorry. Again!”

“I’m — Okay.”

“We’ll go on a shopping spree when I’m done. A gorgeous one.”

“Gabriele will scold you.”

But she was smiling.

“I found them,” said Maria, yawning. “I don't think they're still there, though.”

She'd been online for five days and four nights looking for the crackers who put up the fake ad on their iConnect page and finally managed to track them down.

“You haven't slept for four nights straight?”

Janice couldn’t see her — her miniPhone was on audio mode only but pictured her as very tired, with bags under her eyes.

“No, I did get some sleep - four, maybe five hours? Don't remember.”

“So, where did the signal come from?”

“You won't like the answer.”

“Just tell me!”

“A place in Chiba but there was a fire last night.”

“Shoot! We're back to square one!”

Maria rubbed her eyes.

“Say, Jan, I know you told me before the email address they gave in the ad is no longer working, but I thought that maybe — just *maybe*, there might be some kids who applied but didn't follow through.”