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[Chapter Fifteen]

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Hoplophobia – fear of guns

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Walking into the meeting room where Faux and other NANO Directors were was not as daunting as I thought it would be. In fact, I really just wanted to get the whole thing over with. I was not here to sit and listen whilst frumpy old men argued incessantly over what to do. If that happened, I was going to snap.

"Ah Agent Storm," Faux said in a surprised tone, as if he hadn't been expecting us, "and...Miss Hartford," he added in a slightly less kind tone. Yah, nice to see you too, assface. He motioned for us to sit down, and introduced the other Directors present. Like that really mattered to me. The Directors greeted us back with half grunts and smiles. Lovely.

"Now that we're all here, let's get started," Faux said meaningfully, glancing at Jay and I. Don't react, Ainsley, don't react. "We're here to discuss the criminals who recently broke into our headquarters and to address the issue of Lisa Hartford, and the threat she presents to us...and her sister."

Listening to Faux ramble on about NANO's problems really irked me. He was almost blaming me for Lisa's recent attack on NANO. Like it was my fault that Lisa had decided to target NANO again. Regardless of where I was located, she would have hit NANO.

For another hour, Faux rambled on in Politian-styled sentences whilst Jay and I sat there, bored to tears. Nothing was getting resolved, and just like I suspected, all the fat, old Directors were arguing over meaningless rules and regulations, solving nothing.

"They are not to be trusted!" one Director shouted angrily, referring to my team. "I don't care if they claim to be against Lisa Hartford, they broke into our headquarters and attacked our people."

"That's a lie," I stated icily, not thinking before I spoke. When all head whipped in my direction, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, but I cleared my throat and said quietly. "They didn't attack anyone. They were only here to try and break me out. They're my friends and they are trying to stop Lisa, even though I've begged them not to get involved." I saw Jay giving me a frantic look, no doubt sending mind messages telling me to shut the hell up, but I couldn't. Not now. Faux was also glaring at me, but mostly in appalled anger. "It would be in your best interest to let my team help NANO in capturing Lisa. With their—our—help, we can finally stop Lisa once and for all."

I cleared my throat again, and looked at Jay for support. He had a grim look on his face, but he nodded quickly, letting me know he had my back. "This is preposterous!" Faux spat out angrily. "We've been trying to get information from you this entire time to no avail but now you expect us to believe that you and your team want to help? Pardon me if I don't take you at your word, young lady."

"Even though she is evil and has done many bad things, Lisa is still my sister at the end of the day," I seethed. "So pardon me if I don't just hand her over to you, you selfish man."

The Directors all had equal looks of shock on their faces, as if they were appalled I had dared to speak like that. Honestly, at this point I didn't care anymore. We were all going to die if we sat here and argued all day.

"Look, I don't care if you don't trust me or think my team is scum, the reality is that Lisa is on her way here to blow NANO to bits. If you want even a small chance of preventing it and beating her, you'll have to deal with my team, on our conditions. I'm not saying this because I want to make you suffer, I'm saying it because we know her the best and we've been tracking her for ages now. You need us, or we're all going to die. Think about that whilst you continue your petty arguments." With that said, I stood up, glaring at Faux and stormed out the door, figuring Jay would have to follow me. Sure enough a few minutes later he caught up with me.

"What was that?" he said tensely, grabbing my arm and turning me around to face him.

"I couldn't help it!" I defended. "I'm so tired of them judging me because I happen to be related to Lisa. It's not my fault and I know I haven't exactly shown them I'm trustworthy, but I also haven't been treated with the respect I deserve. I'm just tired of it all. Lisa is going to come here, whether we agree on something, or not, and I am not letting her ruin my life anymore. This needs to end now."

Jay sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. "I agree with you, but storming out is not the way to go about getting things done. All you've done is piss the Directors off some more." He gave me a stern look and started to gently pull me back towards the room. "You need to apologize and try to get them to see your way. Be the better person."

Rolling my eyes, I let Jay take me back to the boardroom where the Directors were having a fierce discussion. All conversation ceased when they saw me enter the room and suddenly every pair of eyes was on me, and not one of them was friendly. "Uh...hello again," I said awkwardly. No response. I glanced desperately at Jay and he made a 'go on' gesture with his hands. I gritted my teeth and spat out (rather painfully), "I wanted to apologize for my outburst earlier, I just got frustrated because I want this whole deal with Lisa to be over and done with, forever."

Faux stared coldly at me, as if waiting for me to say something more than that, but I was done. I had apologized like Jay wanted; the rest was up to them. After a few minutes of awkward silence, he glanced at the other Directors and then began to address me. "We understand that you're under a lot of pressure right now, but you have not been the most...cooperative guest and that makes it hard for us to trust you."

It took every ounce of my willpower to not make a snarky comeback, but I managed to bite my tongue. Faux looked like he was going to continue speaking, but before he could, the boardroom phone rang, breaking through the silence.

One of the other Directors answered the phone and within seconds he had lost all color in his face. He put the phone on speaker and Ted's voice sounded throughout the room. "You're on speaker, please repeat what you just said to me," the Director said shakily.

Ted greeted the group and then said, "We have a situation in the computer room. We aren't too sure what's going, but the computers are acting up again. Sirs, I don't think my team can accurately assess the situation. We need Ainsley's help...and probably her team's help. We have reason to believe that it's the work of Lisa Hartford. I wouldn't ask for the release of Ainsley's team unless I was 150% sure that we needed their help."

There was silence after Ted finished talking as the Directors looked at each other, as if having a silent conversation about what to do. After a moment or two, Faux leaned forward and said, "Thank you Ted. I'll have Agent Storm escort Miss Ainsley to the computer room. Two other agents will bring her team to you from the basement." Ted thanked him and the call was ended. Faux gave me a disapproving look before nodding at Jay. Jay grabbed my arm and stood up without a word, escorting me out of the room.

When we were far enough away I let out an angry sound and stomped, "Oooh! He makes me so mad sometimes! I just want to punch him! How in the world do you stand working for him and seeing him daily?"

Jay shrugged, "I ignore all the annoying factors because I like what the job entails."

I snorted, "Please. Even you have to have the urge to punch him sometimes. How'd he react when you dyed your hair blue? I'm surprised you even got away with that to be honest."

His lips twitched in a half smile as he replied, "Faux wasn't too pleased with me when I broke uniform standards but I was volatile at that time and according to the on-site psych, it was my way of coping, so the hair stayed."

"Well I'm glad," I said softly, "I like it blue."

He gave my arm a light squeeze in response and a comfortable silence fell between us as we made our way to the computer room. I liked that, the fact that I could be with Jay but not have to say anything at all. Those were some of my favorite moments with him. Right before we walked through the doors of the room, Jay tugged me to a quick stop and looked down at me seriously. "We're all here to help, Ains, please don't forget that. This is our battle too. We're going to get through this." He leaned down and planted a scorching kiss on my lips. Even though the kiss only lasted a few seconds it said more than any words could in this situation.

My team and Ted's team were waiting for us when we walked through the doors. Ted's guys were already running around frantically, typing things into computers or pulling plugs. A few guards surrounded my team, but in the center were Ted and Ethan, having an intense talk, no doubt about what was currently going on.

"Have no fear, I am here!" I announced dramatically, shooting a quick smirk at Ted and Ethan. A flush crept up Ted's neck and Ethan rolled his eyes.

"Finally, Princess Slowpoke."

"Oi!" I laughed, "It's not my fault Director Stick-up-his-butt delayed Agent Smurf and I." I heard Jay make a noise of protest, no doubt in reaction to his nickname, but I waved him off and grinned at Ted. "So...what exactly is going on in here?"

Ted cleared his throat and frowned, "That's a good question, Ainsley. We aren't really sure. I've been updating Ethan on what we know, but to be perfectly honest, our knowledge is limited. We've obviously been hacked, but as to how we were hacked...that's unknown. I'm not even sure where we were hacked or when."

"How can you not know that?" I asked.

"It doesn't look like a normal hack job," Ted explained. "There's a lack of trail to anything, almost like each action is independent of all the others, except, that's impossible."

Josie took a step forward and smiled hesitantly, "Would you allow me to look at one of the computers? It doesn't matter which one and I won't touch anything, I just want to see the screen. I might know what this is."

Ted motioned for Josie to sit down in front of a computer where some of his men were. He stood next to her and started talking through what the computer was doing. "We first noticed it on this computer about an hour ago and thought we could single in on the problem and eliminate it before it spread or got worse. We were wrong. Soon afterwards the same symptoms starting spreading to different computers all over the room, however, each computer reacted differently, causing mass confusion. We tried unplugging this computer but it didn't do anything. The problem continued, even when unplugged and disconnected."

Josie watched the screen for a couple of minutes and then motioned for me to come over. "Ainsley, why does this look so familiar?"

I glanced at the screen, and then at other screens, taking in each different picture. Everything in the room was so separated yet clearly connected. However, none of us knew how, we didn't even know the root of the problem.

"Has something else happened in the past to these computers?" Josie murmured softly, running a finger down the monitor screen.

"A while back NANO was hacked by Lisa, she used the Blitz approach, hitting the computers with a mix of Trojan viruses and Worms intertwined with a hacking program," I supplied.

Josie's brow furrowed for a minute before she let out a curse and slapped the table, "That's it!" she exclaimed. "Ethan! Do you remember when we analyzed computer terrorist tactics Lisa has used in the past and tactics we knew she was planning on using?"

Ethan grinned slowly and nodded, clearly joining Josie on the same page. "Yah, I do now."

"And you remember how we worked together to think of new ways Lisa would use cyber terrorism based on her working knowledge?" Ethan nodded again and Josie turned to look at Ted and I. "I'm pretty sure I know what Lisa has done," she stated. "It's a cluster of a situation, and more complicated than anything I've ever dealt with, but Ethan and I started to do research on an attack like this and I'm pretty sure we know what to do."

"But what is it?" Ted asked worriedly.

"We nicknamed it 'Schizo'," Josie said, "and with good reason. Let me explain how it works." She pointed at the screen in front of her, "This screen looks like it has nothing in common with the other screens, just like all the screens look unique, right?" We all nodded and waited for her to continue. "Wrong," she grinned. "It's almost impossible to notice, but the outer frame of each screen should have a blue color tint. It'll be really hard to notice, but once you do you'll see it all over. She waited whilst we looked over a few of the computers and soon everyone was seeing what she was talking about.

"Okay," I said, "but what does that tell us?"

Josie stood up and started pacing, "It tells us that whatever is happening to each computer is connected. We nicknamed it Schizo because it seems like every computer is different and unplanned, unorganized, crazy, whatever adjective you want. I need everyone at a computer, taking notes on exactly what is happening. It should only take about five minutes, because the activities will start looping. Once everyone has that, report back to Ethan and I. Once we know what is happening on the computers we can tell you where the center of control is and how to stop it." Josie motioned for Ted and me to stay back so that she and Ethan could fill us in with what they were going to do.

"We'll need your guy's help too. The four of us can tackle this and hopefully have it under control in about thirty minutes," Ethan said. Jay sat down next to Ted and me, offering his silent support whilst we were filled in.

"Basically," Josie started, "When Lisa originally hit NANO with the Blitz, she planted something else in one of the computers so that she could come back later and create havoc. You would never notice it because she had distracted you with so many other problems, so don't even bother beating yourselves up over it."

"From what we've researched," Ethan said, "All the different things that are happening on the computers have more things in common than we think. Obviously they have the blue tinted edges, all of them loop the same activities and they are all getting their instructions from one computer. That computer should reveal itself once we get the results back. It'll be slightly different than all the other results."

"What do we do once we find the main computer?" Ted asked, voicing all of our thoughts.

"Ethan and I will tackle that problem once we find out where it is. That process shouldn't be too hard, it will be similar to untangling headphone wires, except this wire is at least three feet long," Josie stated. "Lisa has hacked in for a specific reason, not just to create havoc. Hopefully we can prevent her from getting whatever she wants."

The four of us continued talking for the next couple of minutes, waiting for the results from the twenty or so computers in the room. Soon enough, Ted's guys were bringing us their data. After the four of us split up the notes we came together and compared notes.

"Look," Ted said excitedly, "All the computers loop every two minutes, except for one," he pointed to Computer 15, "It loops every 1:35." Josie, Ethan and I looked through the notes and sure enough, all of the guys had reported looping at 2:00 except for Computer 15.

"Whoever was on Computer 15, please go time the looping one more time, thank you!" Josie said sweetly.

Ethan pushed another sheet towards us and pointed, "Most of the guys reported that the computers flicker twice between each loop, and again Computer 15 doesn't flicker at all."

"Guys," I grinned, "I think we've found our computer!" The techie on Computer 15 came back and reported that it still looped at 1:35, just like he had originally stated and we all grinned.

"Alright," Josie said calmly, "Ethan and I will start working on the computer. Ted, can you stay close by? We'll probably need your help with access codes and things like that." We all paced and fidgeted restlessly whilst the three of them concentrated on the main computer. Josie and Ethan were amazing, but I was itching to help out too. However, I didn't completely know the situation like they did...so it was best they were handling it. I missed hacking computers. Maybe when this whole situation was over I could work side jobs for NANO. Maybe. If Faux didn't hate me too much.

"Oh no you don't!" Josie snarled, typing furiously on the keys. "Ha! Sucka!" she cheered in an evil voice. It was killing me, not knowing what was going on. I hoped whatever they were doing was working though, we needed a bit of luck on our side.

At some point Jay had wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into his side in a comforting embrace. He must have understood my distress and for that, I loved him all the more. Something good had come out of this whole cluster...Jay had found me.

"Shit. Not good, not good. Ted! What's the access—fuck, I can't stop her from pulling out the—No!" Josie continued cursing and typing furiously. Suddenly she stopped completely and sat back, letting out a loud sigh. "Well...she's out."

"But?" I asked, not liking her tone of voice.

"But, she managed to grab something before I was able to kick her out. I'm not sure what exactly it was, I'm sure Ted can back trace and find out. I'm sorry."

Ted laid a hand on her shoulder, "There is absolutely no need to apologize. If you and your team hadn't been here we would be drowning in shit. You stopped it and if all she got out of it was a bit of info, then that's perfectly fine."

Josie smiled emotionlessly and leaned into Ethan's embrace. "I'm glad we could help out a little bit, I just wish we could catch the bitch, no offense Ainsley."

I grinned, "None taken."

"Well," Ted sighed, "I'll report to Faux and put in a good word for you guys. After this you shouldn't have to remain in the basement. You're clearly not our enemy."

Ethan and Ted clasped hands and the guards escorted my team back down to the basement after I hugged and thanked them.

"Hey Ted, I'm going to take Ainsley back to her room, let me know if Faux needs me for any reason," Jay said, nodding at the rest of the crew in the computer room.

I reached out and laced my fingers with his, wondering if it was okay to feel happy. I was in a limbo state of emotion, not happy, but not scared either. We walked in silence for a few minutes before I broke it. "Jay?"

"Hmm?" he replied, looking down at me.

"Is it just me, or are you also feeling like we're in the eye of the storm?"

Jay nodded slowly and sighed, "I feel the same way. Whatever just happened was bad, but there's no way that was it. We've managed to stop her for now, but she has something big planned, and if you're team is right, she'll act soon. And when she does, there will be hell to pay."

"I guess all we can do is stay prepared. There's only so