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[Chapter Five]

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Cyberpobia – Fear of computers or working on a computer

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Informing Jaz and Day about my mother was something I decided would be better to delay. It wasn't that I was embarrassed or anything, I just wanted to figure out how I felt about the situation before I let other people form their own opinions.

However, I didn't take into account the fact that I was residing in an unknown government agency that uncovered secrets like it was nobody's business. Only two days after Jay had told me who my mother had been, Jaz and Dayna paid me a visit.

"You know, don't you?" I sighed right when they entered the room.

They exchanged guilty looks before smiling innocently at me. "What? What do we know?"

"Guys, you walked in here like you were unsure of how to act. I'm not an idiot, I can tell something is off."

Their guilty looks faded into sympathetic ones as they sat on either side of me. "So," Dayna said awkwardly, "Er, how are you?" Jaz snorted, but managed to keep any sarcastic comments to herself.

"Well, I guess I'm ok. There's not much I can do about it now, is there?" I asked. I had come to terms with my family and our past and I knew that despite what I thought, nothing would change. Rubbing my hands over my eyes, I asked wearily, "How many people know?"

There was an uncomfortable silence as I waited for Jaz and Dayna to just tell me. "Um," Dayna cleared her throat nervously, "everyone?"

"Well not everyone," Jaz said quickly, shooting Day a speaking glance.

Dayna rolled her eyes and said frankly, "If my parents know, then everyone knows." I grimaced, knowing what she said was true. From what Dayna had told me, her parents didn't know much of what occurred outside of their work. They were constantly absorbed in it and hardly ever came out to eat. So once they knew something, it was no longer a secret.

"What...what do people think? What are they saying?" I asked nervously. My mother was an assassin and an enemy of NANO; frankly I wouldn't be surprised if no one liked me. It's only natural to judge someone based on their family. I already had two strikes against me—my mother and sister—and it would take a miracle to convince people that I was nothing like them.

"They're mostly just surprised," Dayna said casually, too casually.

"I mean, everyone knows about your sister already, so it wasn't too much of a shock that your mom was...er...different too. You know?" Jaz added.

I rolled my eyes, "Guys, you don't have to sugar coat it for me. I realize that a lot of people aren't going to be comfortable with me. I'd rather just know the truth." They shifted uncomfortably, no doubt trying to find a way to break it to me nicely. "Just tell me," I sighed.

"There are a couple people who are not comfortable with you being here, because of your family history," Dayna said. "They're worried about trusting you because we don't really know you."

"However, there are some people that don't judge, like Day and I," Jaz grinned. "There are always going to be people against you, mate. You just can't let it bother you."

Was I hurt that some people lumped me in the same category as my mom and sister? Yes, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could try to prove them wrong, but since I couldn't exactly leave my room...that wasn't going to happen.

"I guess there really isn't anything I can do," I said, smiling at them. "I just hope eventually I'll be more trusted."

"I'm sure you will," they both said quickly, trying to cheer me up.

"Come on, you have Kyle, Dash, Jay, Dayna and me supporting you," Jaz said. "The boys are pretty influential and I know Jay won't let people bad talk you. Eventually everyone will see how mistaken they were."

Her words were comforting, but something she said stuck in my mind. 'Jay won't let people talk bad about you'. Why would he care? In fact, I knew he didn't hate me, but he certainly didn't like me enough to stick up for me. My sister had scarred him and caused more trouble than she was worth and my mother had been a major enemy of NANO. On top of that, my dad hadn't been the greatest agent or made the best decisions. It's not like he had a good reason to be nice to me. Plus, he was the one who kidnapped me and was holding me hostage at NANO's headquarters. None of these factors were in my favor.

Before I could further contemplate what Jaz had said there was a resounding knock on my door. All three of us looked at the door then at each other, wondering who it could be. "Open up the door, we want to see some sexy women!" we heard Dash call through the door.

Dayna giggled and went to open the door for Dash and whomever else 'we' referred to. "What's the password?" she asked coyly, cracking the door open just enough to see through.

"Dash is sexy?" he answered.

She pretended to think about it before shaking her head, "Nuh uh, that's not it."

"Kyle is sexy? Jay is sexy? Women are sexy? You are awesome?" Dash rambled off, trying to figure out what Dayna wanted him to say.

"Nope," she grinned. "It starts with 'I love' you just have to fill in the rest." I heard her give an evil chuckle and watched as she leaned casually against the doorframe.

"I love...?" Dash repeated slowly. I imagined he had a frown on his face as he tried to figure out what to say. "Wait a minute...no...I'm not going to say...no. Dayna Rochester, you are a mean, mean person!" He cursed and mumbled something else before saying no again.

"What does she want you to say?" Kyle asked, sounding confused. Jay, at least I assumed it was Jay, snorted but didn't say anything.

Dash made an exasperated noise and said, "I can't tell you...because that would involve 'saying it', aduh."

"Come on...just man up and say it," Dayna teased.

"Dude," Jaz said frankly, "just say it and get in here already. You're being a drama queen." She smiled at me and winked. "Dayna made a bet with Dash that she could get him to say a certain phrase before he could get her to say one. I'd say she's doing a good job of proving why women are clearly superior." One of the guys growled something in response to Jaz's not so quiet explanation of what was going on.

"Fine!" Dash called out dramatically. "I'll say it, but only because it's the damn password." He paused and took a deep breath. "Ilovedicks," he said in one breath.

"I'm sorry...what did you say?" Dayna asked with a smile in her voice. "I didn't catch that."

He glared at her and said very slowly. "I...love...dicks."

Dayna opened the door all the way and patted him on the head. "I know you do. Come on in now."

Dash huffed and walked in glaring, daring all of us to say something. I bit back a laugh, but Jaz was having a harder time controlling her laughter. Kyle and Jay followed after him with big grins on their faces. Kyle kissed Dayna and smacked her ass lightly. "That wasn't very nice, cookie. Brilliant, but evil."

She grinned and stuck her tongue out at him. "You like it," she purred. Kyle made some face back at her, but Jaz cut them off by teasing Dash in a loud voice. He growled back at her, threatening to teach her a lesson for laughing at him. I blushed at his suggestive words and looked around for Jay. I jumped when I realized he was right next to me, staring kind of creepily.

"Hi?" I smiled tentatively.

He continued to watch me intently as he asked, "How are you?"

"Um...fine," I replied, wondering what he was getting at.

Jay narrowed his eyes, as if he didn't believe me. "Are you sure you're doing okay with everything? People can be mean sometimes, but I don't want you to let that affect you."

Suddenly it dawned on me that he was referring to everyone knowing about my mother and their reactions. Since I hadn't left my room, I hadn't seen or heard people's reactions other than what Jaz and Dayna had told me.

"So far I'm fine. I haven't actually talked to anyone or had anyone say anything to me," I answered with a grin, trying to act casual about the whole ordeal. In all honesty, it hurt to have people dislike me. I really didn't like it when people were mad at me; I liked harmony and happiness in my life. But Jay didn't need to know that.

He still didn't seem to believe me, but left the matter alone. "I'm sorry I still can't let you leave the room, especially since...well, you know. Faux has been working on getting things taken care of, but he has a lot on his plate at the moment."

"Have you found anything on Lisa?" I asked. I had no idea where she was at the moment. In fact, I never really knew where she was until she found me.

Jay looked frustrated as hell. "No, unfortunately your sister is very hard to track down. Every time we think we find something, the lead goes cold and we have to start all over again. I'll say this much about your sister, she is very good at what she does."

I scoffed, "She also has a lot of help. I don't even know how many people she has working for her because they always change since she can't trust too many people. There are only two people I know about that have been with her since the beginning. I don't even know their names, just that that one deals with weapons and supplies and the other works with the technological side of their business."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Jay hissed, looking slightly irritated, but more excited on the new development.

"You didn't ask," I replied flippantly.

He growled, "What else haven't you told me? What do they look like? Where has Lisa taken you before? Anything is important and helpful, Ainsley."

I held a hand up to stop his flow of questions, balancing between amusement and nervousness. "There is probably a lot I haven't told you because you haven't asked me," I started. "The two people that are always with Lisa are males. One is of Hispanic descent and the other is Caucasian. I can't really describe how they look, but if you have a sketch artist or something I can try my best to describe them. As for the places Lisa has taken me...I can't tell you too much. However, I can tell you that she won't visit the same place more than once."

Jay gave a frustrated groan. "I'll talk to Faux and see if he'll allow you to leave the room. It'll be easier if I can set you up with one of our sketch artists for the faces of the guys and for the places Lisa has taken you. If I can find a pattern in the locations, we might be able to finally track her down."

I nodded in agreement, but bit my lip nervously. "I don't want you to get your hopes up, Jay. Lisa liked to keep me in the dark about everything. It's all part of her little game she plays."

He opened his mouth to respond, but his phone rang, cutting him off. Jay pulled it out of his pocket and scowled before answering, "This is Storm." His features tightened as the person on the other end talked. "Are you sure?" he asked worriedly. "Alert Faux. I'll be there shortly. Yes, thank you Anders. Bye." He cursed as he hung up the phone and shot me an apologetic look.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Apparently we're having a computer problem even our IT guys can't seem to handle. They think we've either been hacked, infected with a virus or both. It just doesn't make sense though; we're supposed to have the highest security. We have contests every quarter to see if anyone can break through firewalls and no one has been able to."

I felt the excitement race through my veins when he mentioned computer problem. This was what I lived for. It was the one thing I was good at. "What exactly is the problem?" I asked, trying to keep a reign on my excitement. "I mean...did they describe the nature of the problem at all? I might be able to help."

"Ainsley," Jay said in a patronizing tone, "if our top IT guys can't figure it out, it's highly unlikely that you will be able to."

Irritation curled through my insides as I clenched my fists. "You don't know that until you tell me what the problem is. You never know I might be able to help. I have a lot of experience with computers, I can help."

"Even if you could help, Faux would never allow you to have access to our computers and files. I'm sorry Ainsley."

I growled, frustrated that he wouldn't just give me a chance. I understood not being able to have access to the computers, but if I knew what was going on I might be able to tell them what the virus was and how to fix it. "Jay," I said calmly. "When you go to the tech guys, please have one of them call me and describe the situation. I won't be leaving my room, so you won't be compromising secret materials. What can it hurt? I might be able to help, and if I can't then at least I tried."

Sighing deeply, Jay looked at me for a moment before sighing again. He must have seen something in my face because he nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll call you when I'm down there, but I still think this is a waste of time."

Grinning, I said goodbye as he left the room. He told Kyle and Dash what was going on, but only Kyle left with him. Dash shrugged, saying something about it wasn't his area of expertise.

I waited patiently for Jay to call up to my room. What's that saying? A watched pot won't boil? So true. After what felt like at least forty-five minutes, the phone finally rang. "Hello?" I answered on the first ring.

"Hey Ainsley, I have Ted here for you, he's one of the IT guys, he'll describe the situation to you," Jay said.

"Thanks Jay," I said happily. "Hey Ted," I greeted when he passed off the phone. "So what's the sitch?"

Ted returned my greeting and then made a noise of frustration. "I'm not really sure what's going on here. I've never seen anything like it. The virus, or whatever it is, is like a mixture of hacking programs and amateur viruses, but it's impossible to tackle one part of the mess."

"Can you tell me what the different programs are though? Sometimes, people mix amateur viruses, because together they're stronger than just a single virus." I racked my brain as I tried to think of why this situation seemed familiar.

"Um..." I heard Ted type something, "It looks like there are different versions of Trojan Horses and a couple of Worms. That seems to be the crux of the problem, but there is another program intertwined with all of them. It's clearly a hacking program, but none like I've seen before."

I frowned and rubbed my temples. "Alright. Ted, can you describe what the screen looks like?"

"Yah, our files keep getting opened and scrolled through. I'm watching them go through all of our information and there's nothing I can do about it." Ted continued to describe the rest of the screen, listening to random suggestions I gave to him.

"Wait!" I gasped and clutched the phone tightly. "Does the font turn a dark blue whenever a new file is opened?" I half prayed I was right, half prayed I wasn't. If this was what I thought it was...I could eventually fix it, but NANO would be in a lot of trouble.

"Yes, the text turns a navy blue color, barely noticeable, but now that you mention it..."

"Shit," I said. "I know how to fix it. This is Lisa's work though. It's going to take a while and I don't know what all she's gotten a hold of."

Ted relayed the information to Jay and I heard him curse. "What do I need to do?" Ted asked.

I told him a series of codes to type in that would delay the process for now. "That won't fix anything, but it'll stall them for the moment. It's likely that Lisa's computer guy is the one behind it. I know exactly how the program works and it's not something I can tell you over the phone."

"How long will it delay them?" Ted asked.

"Maybe an hour if we're lucky. I can't say exactly." I closed my eyes and asked, "Can I talk to Jay please?" Ted handed the phone off to Jay and before he could say anything I blurted. "I need to be seated at a computer to fix the problem. If there was any way I could tell Ted how to do it I would. If it'll make Faux feel better, the entire IT team can watch me. Please Jay, let me do something to help. I'm not like the rest of my family. I need to prove that to other people. Plus, if I do fix this, Lisa will know it was me and that'll bring her here faster than anything else will."

Jay made a quiet groan, "I will talk to Faux and see what I can do. I can't promise anything though. I'm sorry, Ainsley."

"Dude," I laughed, "as long as you at least talk to Faux about it, I'm fine. However, you might want to stress that I've only temporarily fixed the problem and that in less than an hour Lisa will be able to go through all of NANO's files again. You might want to also point out that I'm the only one who can fix it."

"Why are you the only one that can fix it?"

Ismiled, "It's a game. To beat the system, I have to play her game and beat it."CIWi4u�cqȋ8Q