The Red Thread of Fate || Wen Junhui

➶ nine ➴

Once I make it to Jihoon's door, I don't even have a chance to knock on it—it suddenly opens and Jihoon drags me in. He slams it harshly.

"About time," he says. "What took you so long?"

"I'm sorry. I was helpi—"

"Forget it." He pulls out a chair and motions for me to sit in it. "Just take a seat."

I do as he says and look around at my new surroundings.

There's only one word for Jihoon's office: messy. There is a red desk that has three monitors, and multiple shelves are scattered all over the place that contain books, loose pieces of paper, stereos, control panels, and mini televisions. A messy bed sits in the corner and, and there is a large pile of dirty clothes right at the foot of it. The place also reeks of sweat, food, and deodorant.

"You're going to be helping me with hacking," Jihoon says, turning on the monitors. "It's nothing too difficult. Just turning off the alarms, checking to make sure that no one else is in the building, disabling traps, that kind of thing."

"Traps? That seems a bit..." I struggle to find the right word. "Overdone?"

He smirks. "You'd be damned how dangerous spy work is. Sometimes there's situations that could mean the difference between life and death. That's where the hackers come in. We try to do everything we can to prevent or help those situations."

The monitors come to life to reveal the inside of a building. One shows an underground parking lot, another is split into four boxes to show different hallways, and the other reveals an office with nothing except two filing cabinets.

"This is where the mission is happening," Jihoon explains. "The GSIC wants us to retrieve some important files."

"Seems simple enough," I say.

Jihoon chuckles and shakes his head. "No. It's really not. The building that the Offense Unit is headed to is covered with traps and alarms. It's up to the two of us to disable them. Here, let's get started on doing that."

I slide my chair over and peer over his shoulder. A black box has appeared in the corner of one of the monitors.

"Hackers use hundreds of different programs to get the job done. The one we're using today is easy compared to the other programs, but it can do just as much damage if used right. I was able to hack into this security system using some algorithms and log keystrokes. So now it's easy part."

He reaches over to the shelf to grab a piece of paper.

"I'm starting you off easy," he says. "This here is a sheet of commands. After hacking and getting into the systems, you can use commands and codes to basically do anything you want. We'll be using this sheet for today. All you have to do is just input a command into the black box on the screen, and it'll be done."

Jihoon's quick fingers type one of the codes into the black box. "There. I just disabled any and all traps in the building. Now you try disabling the alarms."

He points to a command on the sheet that reads: disablealarms.all

I type it into the black box and hit enter. Jihoon smiles and pats me on the back.

"See? Not so difficult. There's another thing you need to have as well."

He gives me a piece of paper with the code names of each of Seventeen's members.

As I'm reading through the names, Jihoon types a few more commands into the box. He then points at the screen and exclaims, "Look! They're there."