AN: Hello! Welcome to my new story! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it! Leave reviews and tell me what you think! Make sure to check out my other stories too!
~Miss-Ashwright
Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare owns all characters in this story.
"I've called you all here because we have an issue," the Director says. He leans forward in his seat and presses a button on the control panel in front of him, covering the windows with the blinds so nobody can see in. The projector screen drops behind the Director and he presses another button so a multitude of pictures show up. One shows a picture of the top secret file names that nobody in the room knows about. Another is of a blueprint for the building. A third, for the security codes. And the last was a new file with the title: I'm coming.
"Who is able to hack into our system?" The Director looks at the faces sitting at the long conference table in front of him. He notices his daughter Isabelle, his son Alec, and Simon, Isabelle's boyfriend who works in the tech department. Just as his eyes are about to scan the other side of the table, someone interrupts him.
"This is all one guy?"
His eyes dart to the owner of the voice, Sebastian Verlac, who looks confused. "Yes, Agent Verlac. This is all one person. Anymore questions?"
"Yeah," a girl with an Asian look to her delicate features speaks up, "If they're supposedly 'coming' how do we know when and who is hacking our system?"
He sighs, "That's the issue…we don't know. Whoever is doing this is a ghost. We're going off the limited information we have here. Lewis, you start scanning the computers to see if we can get a signal and see where their coming from, Herondale-" He looks around the room for a sign of the golden boy but doesn't find one. He grumbles, "Everyone else, listen for any information about this guy. You're all dismissed."
The agents stand and walk out of the room before Director Lightwood calls two agents back. "Agents Alexander and Isabelle Lightwood," his authoritative voice rings out halting the two in their tracks. They turn slowly to face their father. "Yes, Sir," Alec speaks first.
"Where's Agent Herondale?"
"Sir," Isabelle says, "He hasn't arrived yet."
Director Lightwood, ever the cold man with his own children states, "Bring him to my office immediately after he arrives. You are dismissed."
~.o.O.o.~
Jace POV:
I walk into Headquarters with my smirk as I pass the reception desk and head to the elevators. I see Kaelie sitting there looking at me as I walk in. She looks at Aline sitting next to her and tells her something. A few moments later, she is standing next to me waiting for the elevator. The elevator arrives quickly and she steps in after me. I press the button for the 27th floor and the moment the doors shut, Kaelie jumps me. She attacks my lips and things get pretty heated. I don't realize that the elevator stopped at the 27th floor until I hear Izzy. "You!" Kaelie and I separate and Izzy looks pissed.
She is standing in front of the elevator doors and has her arms crossed as she walks inside. She narrows her eyes at me and soon, her gaze shifts to Kaelie and she presses the button for the first floor. I try to sneak out of the elevator as they continue to glare at each other but Izzy stops me, "You stay right where you are Herondale. If you even glance outside this elevator I will hurt you."
The doors close again and I say, "It's not that big of a deal Iz."
She looks incredulously at me and says, "You're three hours late, Jace! Please tell me that this isn't what you were doing all morning." She looks at Kaelie again and Kaelie glares at Izzy. "She works at the reception desk anyway. She's not supposed to be up here-"
"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do!" Kaelie interrupts Izzy and Izzy turns towards Kaelie.
"Actually, I can tell you what you can and can't do. In case you forgot, I'm at a higher position than you on the board so don't piss me off," Izzy growls out just as the elevator doors opened on the bottom floor. Kaelie knocks into Izzy as she stomps out of the elevator in her pumps. I watch her ass as she leaves and then I feel Izzy swat the back of my head. "You're such an asshole," she grumbles as she presses the button for the 32nd floor.
We ride up the elevator in silence except for the occasional yawn I release and she rolls her eyes each time I do so. She leads me to her dads' office and knocks before she enters with me slowly walking in tow. "Ah, how nice of you to finally join us Agent Herondale."
I groan inwardly as I hear the Directors tone, preparing for the scolding that I know is coming. "You're," he paused and lifted his arm to look at his watch, "three hours late Agent. This is unacceptable."
In the room I see Alec sitting in front of the desk and Izzy takes the other chair, leaving me to stand behind them. "You two will explain to Agent Herondale what's going on and then continue to do your work. Agent Herondale," he addressed me, "this is your mission. Agent Lewis is trying to find their location and when he does, you will order some of the new trainees to go get him. Is this clear?"
"Yes, Sir," I said and he dismissed us.
~.o.O.o.~
"Someone hacked our system?" I was shocked. This has never happened before. Normally we catch them at our firewalls and trace them with ease. Now, we have the challenge of actually finding whoever this guy is.
"Yeah and they got whatever information it is they wanted. Simon is absolutely panicked downstairs. He ordered everyone to start working on decoding the signal and finding out something about this guy," Izzy pulled her brows together and shook her head. "I just can't believe it."
"Well, at least Simon doesn't have to go train newbie's like Jace does," Alec smirked.
I groaned and slouched back into my chair. "It's the worst task ever," I complained and Izzy laughed.
"Yeah, I know. That was what I had to do two months ago."
I put my head in my hands and mumbled before hearing Izzy and Alec leave, saying something about getting back to their tasks. I opened my laptop and pulled up the pictures again, scanning them for something to give me a hint so I didn't have to train the beginners.
My eyes quickly darted all over the pages until I reached the last one with the file. It looked like it was different a different color than the other files. I cropped close-ups of the files and scanned their colors in an html color code scanner. The other files were beige and this one was beige sienna. I reached for the phone on my desk and called up to the Director.
"Agent Herondale, why call?"
"Because Director Lightwood, I found something while looking at the pictures and need you to have someone fill in training for me and I need Agent Lewis." I heard him suck in a breath and he quickly replied.
"I'll get Agent Verlac to fill in for you and I'll have Agent Lewis sent up within minutes."
"Thank you, Sir." He hung up and not even two minutes later, Simon came running to my cubicle with two laptops in hand.
"You found him?" He had a bewildered look in his eyes and I quickly explained about the colors.
"All I need you to do is set up a secure laptop for me so I can open the file."
He shook his head, "We tried that."
"Well do it again. I have an idea." Simon sighed and set up the secure browser in minutes. I sat in the chair and opened the file. Nothing.
"It's blank," Simon said, "That's what happened earlier when I had someone look.
"Yeah, well did they look at the code behind the file?" His eyes widened and I began to inspect the script. "It's in JAVA." I looked at the code for the file and saw the plain line used to write script:
.println("I'm coming");
I then saw the code for a file within a file and inspected that. It was the jackpot. Exactly what we were looking for…a hint. It gave a code that I didn't know how to read and wrote it down on a post-it note and handed it to Simon. "Can you decipher this by the end of the day?"
He looked at the note and grimaced before nodding. "It's in a script that I don't recognize. It might be a low-level language so it'll be a while before I figure it out. I'll get it and give it to you as soon as possible."
He left and I looked at the code, trying to rearrange the jumbled letters and numbers to make sense but came up with nothing.
~.o.O.o.~
"I want 20 laps and I want them now," I shouted at the trainees and they grumbled before complying and running around the training center. One of the new guys thinks he's hot shit and talked back to me. So naturally I took him up on his challenge to see who's stronger and now he's in the infirmary with a broken nose, arm, and dislocated shoulder. So I'm punishing the others so they don't get any bright ideas.
"Agent Herondale!" I turned my head and saw Simon frantically walking towards me. He reached me and handed me another post-it note. It was an address and he explained as I memorized it. "It's the code you handed me earlier. It's a venue and there's a ball there tonight. I already told the Director and you have a ticket to get in. All you'll be doing is looking for anyone who looks suspicious and reporting back to Sebastian so we can get a more accurate description of what we might be working with."
"So I can still have fun?"
He rolled his eyes at my smirk and said, "Yes, but you still have to be safe and report in on suspicious activity before you do anything else."
"That will be done…oh, and I'll go get Sebastian so he can train the newbie's again while I get ready for the ball seeing as it starts at 6:30 and it's already 5:00. Watch them." Simon stuttered after me as I left the room with and went to go find Sebastian.
~.o.O.o.~
Clary's POV:
It was too easy. Way too easy to hack that system. It's almost elementary. Oh, well. That means that I get to look around on their system for a while. I coded myself to look like the security system they have that constantly checks every firewall on the system. Only when I want to give them hints about what I'm looking at do I turn off that code and let myself be coded as a common hacker. I opened every file and memorized everything within them.
After a while, an alert popped on my screen and told me that they finally found me. God, it took them long enough. I monitored their activity to scan the system and see what I'd allowed them to know I looked at. It was now 9:00 in the morning and I'd been shitting around on their system for three hours. And they're supposed to be some of the smartest programmers in the world. I scoffed at the idea.
"Would you like another coffee, miss," the barista at the coffee shop asked me. She was young. At least 16. I saw her try to glance at my computer screen and I leaned back to let her. I stared at her face as she inspected my screen and all she saw was code. She glanced back at me and I raised one eyebrow at her. She cowered back a bit before I told her, "No, I'm fine thanks."
She left hastily and I continued my work in the dark corner of the shop. I heard the bell ring, telling me that someone just walked in and I glanced up. I saw a couple who looked just a little older than myself and saw the irritated look on the girls face. Her boyfriend asked her what she wanted and she didn't respond. He then grabbed her wrist, hidden from view by the barista, and squeezed. She let out a tiny sound of pain and answered him quickly.
He nodded his head and ordered two before paying and ordering her to go sit somewhere. She looked around for a corner and saw me looking at her. She blushed and bowed her head before walking over to sit three tables away from me. Her boyfriend was at the counter waiting for their coffee so I leaned over and said, "You want out?"
"Pardon," she questioned, her eyebrows going up to her hairline and glanced at her boyfriend before her eyes darted back to mine.
"Your boyfriend," I stated more than asked, "he hurts you doesn't he."
She immediately went on the defensive. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You have bruises all over your wrists and arms. It's August, why else would you be wearing sleeves?" She lowered her head and didn't respond. "How long have you been together?"
"Three years. And I-I know I should leave but I've tried before and he came back," her eyes darkened at the memory.
"I'll help you."
"What? Have you seen my boyfriend? I don't want to be rude, but he's at least one foot taller than you and a good 100 pounds heavier." She looked scared but I just glanced at him and saw he was irritated because the coffee was taking so long to make.
"I'll be fine and you will too. What's your name?" I asked her quickly because he just got the coffee and went to the counter to fix it up with sugar and milk.
"Miranda."
"I'm Clarissa and I'll meet you outside. Enjoy your coffee and leave when he wants. You'll be free of him before you reach the end of the street. I promise. Just run back to your place when I tell you to. I'll be fine. Just run." She looked at me with thanks and confusion in her eyes before I stood, closed my laptop, and darted out the door before he saw me.
I turned right and crossed to the other side of the street so I could watch the door. I sat on the landing steps of someone's apartment while I waited. Almost an hour later, they walked out of the coffee shop and he looked pissed. I jumped up and pulled my bag on my shoulder before darting across the New York City stand-still traffic.
Once I was finished with dodging all the yellow taxi's I started walking after them and was a good enough distance so they could hear me as I asked, "Miranda?"
She turned with wide eyes and uncertainly questioned, "Clarissa?" I stepped towards her and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. A warning I completely ignored.
"I haven't seen you for years! How are you?"
"I'm alright," she spoke slowly, trying to gauge her boyfriend's reaction to meeting an old friend.
He still looked pissed as he growled out, "Who is the little redhead?"
I let her come up with the lie as she said, "I knew her from when I was growing up in Brooklyn. She was my neighbor's daughter."
"Yeah, well she needs to leave. She looks irritating." She closed her eyes softly and turned to walk with him. He leaned down and whispered something in her ear to make her shake.
"Well that was rude you asshole." I was goading him on. He stopped and turned to face me again before releasing Miranda's hand and taking a hostile step towards me.
"You need to learn to keep your mouth shut, bitch," he spat out at me and I looked around him to Miranda and mouthed 'Run' to her. She turned on her heel and started running. He realized too late that she was running and before he could run after her, I ran past him and knocked into him with the force of a bull. He lost his balance a bit before sprinting after me and spewing threats.
I turned down an alley way and ran to the dead end before I turned to face him. I got into position and saw him running into the alley. I watched his movements and saw when he pulled a knife out of his pocket. He stopped about three feet in front of me and made sure to show that he had a knife in his hand, trying to intimidate me.
"You need to learn some manners," he ground out, breathless from running. He started towards me and tried to slice my stomach with the blade. I jumped out of the way and he looked startled. "What the hell?" He tried again and I dodged him again. This went on for a while before I noticed him getting angry, tired, and sloppy.
I quickly dodged his attempt to hit me on my left side and hit his arm, causing him to lose his grip on the blade. I grabbed it quickly and turned it on him. I spun around and his back was against the wall. He looked shocked and went to charge at me. I avoided his grasp and stepped behind him with the knife now pressed against his throat. "Will you ever hurt anyone again," I questioned.
He didn't respond so I pressed the blade a little harder against his throat. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to let him know I wouldn't be afraid to do it. "Okay, fine. I won't hurt anyone again."
"Say it like you mean it," I pressed on.
Once again he said nothing and I used my right foot to kick him in the back of the knee and bring him down to the ground. He was lying on his back, gasping for breath since I knocked the wind out of him. I sat on his chest and put my knees on his arms to prevent him from getting up and trying anything on me. I leaned forward and pointed the tip of the blade at the underside of his chin. He lifted his head up higher, trying to avoid the tip.
"Say it," I growled. He groaned and I gently touched the tip to his skin. I noticed him starting to sweat from his brow and pressed on. "Now."
"Alright, alright," he conceded, "I won't hurt anyone ever again!"
"Good," I said before standing up and walking away a few steps. I turned around and told him, "Just so you know, I know everything that goes on in this city. I have eyes everywhere and if I hear so much as a rumor that you've harmed anyone, especially a woman, I will find you and remove your balls before I finish you off with my bare hands."
He gulped and I threw his knife at him. it landed in the dirt next to his head and I heard him give a sigh of relief before I walked out of the alley. I smirked and saw Miranda at the corner of the street and told her to not ever worry about him again. She hugged me in thanks and I gave a very awkward hug in return. I'm not the hugging type but couldn't get out of it.
Once she turned and walked away I saw lightness to her walk and smiled lightly before turning and heading back to my apartment.
I had a ball to get ready for.
