SPECTRE

5| PROGRAM NOT LOADED

"How do you know about OPTIS?" I snarled.

"That, ma'am, is not for me to answer."

An underground base. Fantastically high tech. Suspiciously advanced resources. A strangely coded security system that even made SPECTRE hesitate for a second.

I started to piece the clues together.

"You..." I realised it with a start. "You're part of SHADOW."

Mockingly, he clapped his hands. "Finally, you realise. Tsk, tsk, I thought a skilled hacker like you would be smarter."

I glared at him. "You are criminals."

"And you aren't?"

I concede my point. That was an excellent argument in his favour.

"So you are working for OPTIS after all. No wonder," he said scornfully. "Only a member of them could have hacked into a system as advanced as ours so seamlessly."

"I am not working for OPTIS," I said quietly. "They are the reason I have had to be invisible and nonexistent for the last four years."

"Nonsense — "

I wasn't taking any of this. Not now, not ever.

"No, you listen," I snapped forcefully. "I was trained by OPTIS, and betrayed by OPTIS. I am not one of them. I might've been once, but never again."

The technology in the walls started responding to my anger, and stealthily, I tapped my foot and sent a line of code towards the tech.

A line of code that would utterly destroy the inner workings of any technology that came into it, just by deleting a tiny little line.

"Good-bye," I said, and walked out the now-glitching door as electricity started to run down the walls, all the technology in there completely ruined with no way of recovery whatsoever.

Turns out the door was tech, after all.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I slipped into another identical corridor, hoping that it was the right one, but the labyrinthine base had me fooled. I had walked right into a dead end, again.

I sat down and drew out an empty page of code from my techno-bracelet, programmed a body-heat-tracking program, which was child's play, and let a glowing blue line run down the hallways.

I followed the line to another tube transport. This must be the one I came to the strange technology-walled room by.

Quickly, I jumped from one side of the glass tube to another, slowly making my way up the tube silently. After this, I would have to delete my painstakingly created SPECTRE virus and reinvent myself, again.

I absolutely hated hacker organisations.

They were a very, very large pain in my bottom. Why couldn't I just live peacefully, hacking everything forever?

I leapt outside the tube and raced down the blue line, which led me to another door.

That had a traditional lock and key.

Oh, great.

I'm not strong enough to kick a door in, and judging by the blue line starting to blink, I didn't have much time until the code 'expired'.

I needed to hurry and get out of here as quickly as I could.

I desperately looked around for something — anything — that could break down the lock, but there was nothing. Out of options, I carefully slid out a reusable wire from my techno-bracelet and straightened it, then poked it inside the lock.

I hoped I still remembered the lock picking lessons I had at OPTIS.

After a minute of fiddling,the door swung open with a satisfying click, and I quickly jumped into another corridor, this time a lot different. The walls were lined with patterns of code, and shone bright green.

I was going the right way.

I ran down the hallway to discover a garage. An advanced model of the Gigatron Bike was right in the centre, with a matching helmet on the seat.

Perfect.

I hopped on the seat and revved the engine. One of the places I'd 'stayed' at had a Gigatron Bike, and since I essentially stole it from the homeowner for a mission from an employer who paid very well, I knew how to use one quite well.

Sensing that the bike had been activated, a large door right in front of me slid open, providing the perfect exit, and I gladly directed the bike out of here, jumping into a deserted highway and going back towards the central part of the city, where SHADOW would never find me.

Hasta la later, SHADOW.