Scorpion's New EQ

Chapter 4

"I never got to thank you," I said to Toby as we got out of the van and walked towards the garage. Our bugger had been taken into custody of Homeland. Toby looked at me.

"You know, I really can't read you. I can't tell your emotions or what your thinking as easily as I can with everyone else. It's quite extraordinary, and I don't know if it's simply because you don't know how to show emotions or you never get the chance to. Whatever it is, it's remarkable," Toby said as if he didn't hear what I said, and maybe he didn't.

"Congratulations. You guys busted another one," Cabe said as soon as we all got into the garage, "It might not have went as smoothly as you wished, but I think it's safe to say that you guys did your job."

"Thanks to Taylor," Happy put in quickly. Toby and Paige nodded in agreement.

Cabe nodded and continued, "Now our only issue is, what will the FBI do once they realize that we not only busted into a high security place in the building, but we also hacked their databases."

"They won't know about the database hack, but the security breach within the building might be an issue," I said. I hoped I was able to cover up the hack on the system.

"We still breached security. Luckily we have proof that we were doing it for a better reason. Had you not covered security, we would have been fairly screwed," Cabe said and sighed, "I'll sort it out."

I sighed with relief and turned to retrieve my laptop that was sitting on a desk. I heard footsteps behind me and I turned to see Happy standing there.

"I was thinking about how you said you've gotten in trouble for stuff like this before. What exactly have you done in the past?" Happy asked, almost cautiously.

I hesitated before deciding what to say. Was it worth telling her what I've done even though I'll end up back in that orphanage?

Finally I sighed before saying, "When I was eleven there were kids at my school that teased me, and made fun of me. I knew at the time that I was capable of a lot of things, so I used them to my advantage. One girl pushed me into a puddle of mud on school grounds and to say the least, I was pissed. I swore to her that she would regret ever laying a single finger on me. So when I got back to the orphanage, I used one of the computers and hacked into the school system. I gave her bad grades on everything and she got a letter home. At the time I wasn't the best at covering my tracks so I was busted. That was the beginning of my streak," I sat motionless for a second, letting everything come back.

"Granted, that's bad but not cringe worthy. What else did you do?" Happy asked. She seemed almost intrigued by my story and I felt like I could trust her, so I went on.

"When I was thirteen I wanted to buy a laptop for my growing interest in computers but as an orphan, I was poor. I knew I couldn't pull off a full fledged bank robbery so I went with something easier. People's bank accounts. I was able to steal almost twenty thousand dollars before I got caught for it. That one cost me a little more but when I turned fifteen, I pulled off the worse one. I hacked into the same system I did today and turned the FBI upside down," I said, not going into details on the last one. Before Happy could say anything, Paige and Walter walked up.

"You ready to head back?" Walter asked. I held in my sigh of disappointment but shoved my laptop into my bag anyways.

"Walter, she can stay at my apartment tonight," Paige burst out. Walter, Happy, and I all looked at her, shocked.

"Paige are you-?" Walter started but Paige cut him off quickly.

"Taylor saved a lot of people today, I think she deserves it. Besides, I bet Ralph would like to meet her."