It was over, Blume had taken the fall and CTOS was under review, but Aiden felt empty inside. Nicky and Jacks were out of Chicago, both adjusting and doing well, Jacks was even doing more talking now that everything had calmed down. Aiden thought life was finally evening out, no more hacking, no more fixing but he got a visitor that changed all that. He opened the door to his apartment, surprised to see Poppy standing there in front of him, tears in her eyes.
"Aiden, I need your help." He opened the door wider for her, letting her in so that she could tell him what was going on.
"What can I do to help you?" She sat down, looking up at him with desperation in her eyes.
"You know how I wouldn't leave the auction without my girls?" He sat down across from her, nodding so she would elaborate. "One of my closest friends, the only one who helped survive the club until I met you, Alex, she's missing. She's been kidnapped." Aiden wanted to help, but he wasn't sure why Poppy had come to him.
"How do you know she was kidnapped?" Poppy wiped her eyes, pulling a phone from her pocket and handing it to Aiden. He looked through it, finding an audio file recorded from Alex, confirming what Poppy feared.
If you found this, I'm probably gone. I was one of Lucky's girls, sold at auction to the highest bidder, lucky for me the vigilante came and took down Lucky. The man who bought me though, he still wanted his goods. I've been running for three months, bouncing my signals from one tower to another so that their fixers couldn't get a location on me, but they finally caught up to me. I'm making this recording so that when they take me, maybe someone will come looking for me. I never wanted this, this life, I was a secretary at the Merlaut, but I heard something I wasn't supposed to and I woke up in the floor of some dark room, stitches in the back of my neck. Assholes put a god damned chip in my neck to track me, then they fucking sold me on the black market. My family, oh god they must think I'm dead, it's been god, seven months since I talked to them. Please, even if I'm dead, find me. Let my mother rest her head knowing where my finial place is, don't let her live and wonder. Please, help me.
"Who bought her?" Poppy looked up at Aiden who had made his way over to his computer, typing away as he waited on a name.
"I don't know, once you left all hell broke loose and they locked us girls up, not wanting nonpaying customers to take any merchandise. After that we were moved but, I have no clue who paid for her. There was a log kept, but that all happened six months ago, I'm sure someone destroyed it by now."
"How was the log kept? Like paper log, or on the computer" She had a glimmer in her eye, and he knew the answer.
"Computer, of course." Aiden's expression never faltered, he just nodded like that was enough and he went to work. He remembered that night he walked into SipSun Rentals Warehouse as Nicolas Crispen, that must be where the computer mainframe was kept, or at least it would be uploaded from that location, so that would be where he started.
He pulled into the old warehouse, the police tape still fluttering around some areas from the night he walked those halls. He made his way in, hacking the cameras to see if anyone was in the building, but nothing but a few vagabonds showed up. He made his way into the central nervous system of the building, Lucky Quinn's office. Lucky ran so much dirty money thought that little office it made Vegas blush. He looked around, but he found that the computer had been taken into police custody as evidence. He really didn't like the idea of going to jail again, so he'd have to find a creative way to break into the evidence locker to find it.
Aiden hung up from Jordi, smiling as he hopped on a bike and rode into downtown. There was a way to find this laptop, and maybe even a way to extract the data without setting foot inside the station. Sometimes that guy scares me with all the shit he can get his hands on in one way or another, Aiden told no one in particular as he parked the bike and walked along the busy street. He saw the junction box he needed to get to, problem was it wasn't going to be easy to get at mid-day. Now that he had cased it, he left to go see an old friend, needing supplies.
As Aiden left Tobias a few hours later, he was happy to have some useful tools at his disposal now that he was back to hacking. But was he back to it? No, I'm just helping a friend he told himself, but he had to admit his blood was rushing with adrenaline as he made his way back towards his destination, the police station. He moved through the city now as dusk fell, the buildings glowing in a beautiful amber light. As he walked along he found himself getting pulled back into the game, hacking phones of the people he passed along the way. He got to the police station, making his way up to the top-level of the police parking garage next door. He knew he was working with limited time, so he decided to put a few tricks to work to give him some extra time, just like old times he thought. He moved the cameras away from where he was standing, then he shut off the lights around him. He was now crouched up against the building, phone in hand as he intruded into the system.
He found himself navigating around the firewall and soon he was traveling through the system and cameras down to the evidence locker. Now he just had to find where it was located, and lucky for him the station still had everything logged into the computer. He found the location of the evidence and he started moving his signal towards it, only to find it wasn't easy to get to. Nothing was ever going to be that easy he thought as he moved the security camera around looking for a way to get the information, then he saw something else that was just as dirty as Lucky's money.
An officer walked down the walkway, turning into the isle Aiden was observing. Aiden watched as the officer, Bradly Macintosh or Mack as the other cops called him, linked the computer up to another laptop. He then put in a flash drive as he started siphoning off the information from Lucky's computer. Aiden simply smiled as he whispered out Gotcha. He hacked the signal from Mack's computer and he also started downloading the information. He had missed only a small percentage, but hopefully all that he needed was now on his phone. Once he had all the intel he needed, he smiled and offered a small Thank you Mack as he disconnected his signal.
Just as Aiden stood up the door that led from the station opened and two officers walked out, and Aiden dropped to his knees quickly, hiding in the shadows.
"Whoa, guess we'll need to have maintenance come out here and put in some new bulbs, this lots dark as shit." The officer turned to his partner as they climbed into their patrol car.
"Yea, you'd think we should be able to see if there are any perps up here watching us." The conversation continued inside the patrol car, and once the engine turned over and headlights came on Aiden found himself slinking away from the light emanating from them. The car turned, then suddenly it slowed down and Aiden silently prayed they hadn't seen him. The car parked and was only a few feet away on the other side of a small two foot tall wall surrounding a stair case as the door on the driver's side opened.
"No, I just forgot my damned cell phone on Jeanie's counter, give me a second." He heard the footsteps moving back towards the building, the door scraping the concrete as it was pulled opened and fell closed slowly before he heard the muffled voices of the officer and Jeanie. The door was pushed open again, and the footsteps seemed to slow as they approached the car. "Alright, now that would have been bad if the wife call and Jeanie answered, Lord knows she already thinks I'm fucking around with" The door shut blocking out the sounds of chatter, but the car never moved. The door opened and the other voice came from the car.
"No, it was over there, are you sure you don't see anything by the wall?" Shit Aiden thought They saw me and now I'm going to get arrested for sure.
"Your losing it, there's nothing over there besides maybe two rats trying to have a little privacy you perv." The other voice answered, not sounding so sure anymore.
"Oh come on, cut me some slack. After dealing with those Viceroys yesterday I'm still a little nervous. Those guys were ready to shoot our heads and fuck the holes the bullets left behind." The door shut again, this time the patrol car leaving quietly as Aiden laid there catching his breath. His heart had taken off running at top speed and now as he laid there coming down from his adrenaline high he thought to himself That was not one of the close calls I would say was exciting. I hope I'm done with the cops now.
Aiden stood up and made his way back to his apartment, needing to take apart the information Mack had handed him so he could hopefully find Alex, he just hoped she wasn't dead, or worse, being treated like a cheap piece of property.
