50 Shadow's Hotbed

As Ru heard the sound of the door, she turned to enter the second room on the top floor. The room had its separate security lock which needed her handprints to unlock. As the system verified her identity, a systematic voice rang out: "Welcome back to the Shadow's hotbed[1]!"

She took one step inside the room and the darkroom, suddenly lit up. The lights that illuminated it weren't too bright rather gave it an even more eerie look.

"Raven, connect me to the headquarters." Ru gave the order in a somber manner.

"Connecting master to headquarters," her personalized system, Raven answered and the entire wall before Ru turned on with multiple screens on display.

Ru sat down on the swivel chair before the computer screens and tapped the tabletop which had a keyboard on it.

"Sir!" The line connected and a man's face displayed on one of the screens.

"What's going on, Andrew?" Ru questioned keeping her poker-face game on.

Andrew hesitated a bit before answering, "Sir, just a few minutes ago, someone tried to hack into our main server." Ru raised her brow making Andrew gulp visibly. Even through a screen and a distance of thousand miles, he felt the intimidating pressure as if a boulder was weighing down on his body. "You don't have to worry though, nothing was taken. Our team managed to overpower them."

"Oh, you did? Then tell me who was the one who got guts to mess with this lord?" Andrew knew he had just knocked himself with a hammer and there was no way out of it anymore.

"About that... Sir Knight! We couldn't track the exact location." Ru lightly slapped the table and Andrew jerked back a bit in fear.

"Why not?" Ru inquired but with a smile this time that took Andrew's breath away. Not because he was enchanted or something but because he knew the devil behind that smile very well.

"Because the attack was happening from all over the world." Ru frowned at his words.

"What were they looking for?" she asked.

"Apparently, some details about our recent arms technology." Ru thought about it a bit.

"You look completely gutted[2]! Go back to work. I'll take over from here." Andrew heaved a sigh of relief as if he was granted a new lease on life and disconnected the connection.

After rubbing her lips in thought, she cracked her knuckles and placed her fingers on the keyboard before her. Her fingers pressed a specific combination and the screens before her suddenly showed the name: The White Shadow!

When Xiao Zhi-Yuan had done his research and found out about myths related to 'The White Shadow', his belief was that this person would be someone close to Lord Alev Knight and he wasn't completely wrong. Since our Lord Alev Knight a.k.a herself had always been the one under the guise of white shadow.

As for Xiao Zhi-Ren's suspicion about the hacker, he heard about during the competition was also true. She was the same white shadow hackers knew as formidable.

Both brothers knew two different versions of Ru; the elder one thought the white shadow was a hacker while the younger one thought that the white shadow was a skilled assassin. But both couldn't have guessed that it was the same person who loved playing the game of identities.

As her fingers flew across the keyboard in a smooth motion, the earlier attack on her Empire's server became more complicated to her. Andrew was telling her the truth, the attacking location was from all around the globe which meant that someone was remotely controlling thousands of computers just to attack her server.

But was Knight Empire's main server a piece of cake to cut? No! Definitely not! She had designed the firewalls and even the security measures were strong. There is no way one can leave without getting their computers infected with her viruses.

The question this time was; what they were looking for? They went as far as to actually create thousands of zombies[3] just to hide their tracks. Since they hid their tracks so well, Ru had no desire to waste her time looking for the bot herder[4].

She immediately started working on her own counterattack. Since there was an attack, there'll be another one for sure. Or she could give them a worthy bait.

She had looked through the files and although it seemed like the attacker was trying to find the arms technology details, in reality, the attacker was lurking around to look for Knight Medical Sciences Research Center's files.

Ru sneered and started writing new code. Strings of codes appeared as the soft rhythmic tapping sound echoed in the room. Her sun-kissed fingers were slender but long. Since she was taller than most girls with her 182-centimeter height, even her hands were bigger than most girls.

After working on her new software, she smiled beautifully and said, "Raven, connect me with Andrew and Charles." Charles was the head of Knight Medical Sciences Research Facility. As the calls connected simultaneously, she spoke up, "Andrew, keep the team on alert. I've embedded a loop inside the server, whoever will enter now won't be able to leave at least not until we track him down."

"We won't disappoint you, Sir!" Andrew answered resolutely, hiding his shock about how he had only talked to his boss half an hour ago and now, a new plan was in motion already.

"As for you Charles," she turned towards the middle-aged man on the screen and went on, "We need bait to lure out our prey. For that, release a piece of news that our research facility has mastered the art of controlling one's mind."

"Sir Knight?" Mr. Charles was rather taken aback because their research was the complete opposite of what he just heard.

"Relax! Don't get your knickers in a twist[5]..." Andrew bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing out. "You just have to spread a rumor like that. No need to announce it officially. I don't want any troubles with the Queen. But do it after a week or so. It might seem a bit odd if we did it right after the attack."

"I'll do as the lord just said," Charles curtsied politely and disconnected the call.

Ru leaned back in the swivel chair and spun it as she asked, "What do you think, Raven? Aren't I a genius?"

"You haven't taken the IQ test, master! How am I supposed to give you an answer?" Ru growled at that bloody machine. Why is it that even her own software doesn't want to accept her as a genius?

"You have gone crazy!" Ru roared at her.

"A child always resembles his parents and since you created me, master. Does that mean, you are also crazy?" Ru sat there with her mouth agape in disbelief. In what rotten time, have I created this dumb assistant?

"You know what, SOD OFF![6]" She stood up and went out of the room with an annoyed look.

[1] "hotbed": 'a place where people meet in secret, typically to engage in an illicit activity.'

[2] "Gutted": Devastated

[3] "Zombies": Otherwise known as bots that work under the instruction of hackers.

[4] "Bot herder": The one controlling the botnet of zombie computers.

[5] It means don't get worked up!

[6] "Sod Off": Piss Off!