Right, this was originally a lot longer than it is right now. I cut it down to size...which means that you won't get to any angst today. Sadness.


Chapter 4: Capture the Flag


"How the hell did your security system let an unauthorized user turn off the central control?"

"I don't know, okay," she snapped back. "I'm not the main technician over there. Never was."

"Why not? You would have done a better job of it."

It was strangely flattering to hear him say that, but Izumi knew that she wasn't all that special. After all, most of the time she was only allowed on the minor cases. Her work was limited to thwarting petty amateurs, not masterminds. "I doubt it."

"I'm serious." He turned her around and looked at her stubbornly. "Pretty sure you're good enough to keep me out."

Now, wait… "You tried hacking into my computer?!"

He sighed and seemed to backpedal. "No, but I've looked over your code. It's not neat enough to break easily. I probably would have taken one look, played around for an hour, and given up."

Izumi gaped at him, at the elegance of his back curling and uncurling against a sofa cushion, and the slender bones of his hand resting on his keyboard. He looked back, perfectly serious.

She swallowed. "For you, maybe. Not that it means anything to my superiors."

"What about you?"

"Huh?" Izumi looked up at him and stared into dark, serious blue eyes.

"Does it mean anything to you?"

She stared at him uneasily. It was just common, everyday praise. Something that you would give any co-worker. Right? "Yes. Thank you."

KM was sitting right next to her with his knees crushed to the plane of his chest, giving him the appearance of wilting flower…or a closed Venus flytrap. The skin of his arm almost brushed against hers, but he didn't make a move to close the gap. Somehow, that peculiar coldness made the distance widen from mere inches to miles. "You're welcome."

A wall of air settled between them. Izumi tucked her knees under her chin, feeling strangely lonely. She shook the bothersome emotion off slowly but surely. There was no way she could put her personal problems over a national disaster. No one else was authorized to control the security system, after all. Another thing that she had KM to thank for: he was somehow connecting to the government's deactivated server and redirecting all the information to her computer. Of course, that meant that every person who was currently accessing the data had to get it through their connection.

Izumi bounced forward on her ankles and grinned, feeling strangely exhilarated by the challenge of picking out just one user out of hundreds without alerting any of them to what she was doing. For the briefest of moments, she understood how KM felt about the thrills of hacking. Wasn't it all the same rush of adrenaline?

The lines on the screen blipped monotonously. She scanned the long list of users, most of whom were just innocent citizens who had logins to the government's website. Of course, to have a login meant you had to be a certain kind of person, but since they weren't there to sabotage anything, Izumi let them be. The users that systematically checked every page were more interesting. There were several of them, so she set trackers on the IDs to record their sessions.

Then she turned her attention to the security wall. It was a complete wreck, for lack of a better word. KM looked over her shoulder and growled quietly, "Of all stupid things to do, that right there is the stupidest."

"Yeah," she muttered. "He just couldn't do things the nice, normal hacker way, right?"

KM stared at her. "Would you stop trying to lecture me? I know it's not the nicest thing to do. I'm trying to help you here."

"Yeah? Well, it's not your job. You're the offense. I'm the defense."

"A good offense is the best defense."

"Not on the internet."

"What about real life?" He stared at her, looking almost like a lost child. Izumi forced herself to turn away.

"We're not talking about real life."

"He'll go straight to the media with those reports. That not real enough for you?"

Her voice was steady despite the undercurrent of uncertainty. "It's none of my business - or yours. I can't get distracted." What a nice evasion! The truth was a bit more pessimistic. She hadn't found the courage to look at the stolen data yet. There was plenty of time to doubt ethics after this job was over, sitting at home with all of the unread newspapers and learning how to distrust everything and everyone.

KM was surprisingly quiet as he watched her work.

Izumi eventually felt the close scrutiny and turned to look at him. "What?"

"Does he always do the same things?"

Blink. Blink. "Huh?"

"He's doing the same things. Over and over. Look! That's the data from the first break in. And this is the data from the second. And third. And now, the fourth." KM sounded just a little disgusted with the discovery, probably offended by the hacker's lack of skill.

Izumi stared at it. "He's using an algorithm."

"Maybe. Or he's just repeating keystrokes."

"KM, you're a genius." Izumi whipped around and gave him a hug, delightedly.

He immediately stiffened and carefully shook her arms off after a while. "Yes, I know," he said, his tone light. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Smile? What smile? It was more like a twist of his lips, a grimace even. Izumi stared at him, confused by the impersonal reaction.

Something hurt in her chest. She rubbed it absently.

KM resolutely stared past her shoulder.

"So…," Izumi broke the suddenly awkward silence, "Can't we just set a new command that'll latch on to the pattern as it's being made and then track down the user?"

"Theoretically," he said, strangely thoughtful. "But I have a better idea." He spun his modified laptop around. The large screen held nothing but binary code, but with plenty of time to read it, she eventually realized that it was a message board of some type. "Orimoto, meet your new coworkers."

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Contrary to conspiracy theories, I am not telepathic. Answering that question is beyond my ability."

She scoffed, strangely comforted by the pattern of arguing right and left. At least when he reacted with sarcasm, Izumi knew where she stood with him. "It's a forum."

"Yes."

"For the hacker community."

"People like us, in other words."

She stopped short and stared at him with a gray expression. "Not necessarily."

KM's face was turned away from her, but his eyes swung around to stare detachedly at her laptop. "Oh?"

"I'm not like you," Izumi shook her head emphatically, "so don't get too careless. How many times have I told you that it's a bad idea to patronize your partner?"

He blinked dark blue eyes almost innocently. "Do you think I'm patronizing you?"

So direct. Not at all subtle. Not at all her idea of a criminal. Izumi opened and closed her mouth several times without making a sound. Finally, she muttered, "Does it matter?"

"It does to me."

"Obviously. Don't you have better things to worry about right now?"

"…Hey, Orimoto. I have a question."

Izumi stiffened and glared at him. Did he not realize what he was doing? Or rather, was it that he knew exactly what he was doing? The bastard. Normally, she wouldn't have a problem with ignoring KM when he got off on tangents – but he seemed to have a good idea of where to go next, and she knew better than to discount him so quickly. Most geniuses were eccentric; KM was absolutely no exception.

Woe.

KM waited. Izumi waited. They waited. Ten minutes passed. Finally, fed up with games, the blond woman threw her hands up and growled, "What is it?"

He smirked in victory and she suddenly hated everything in the world that lead up to this point. What did she care for a government scandal? All that mattered was that this man was toying with her the way he would a wooden puppet, smiling twistedly the entire way.

Soft. Almost humming. "What's your middle name?"

And then there were moments like this that made the hairs on the back of Izumi's neck raise, not so much because of what he would say but because of the way his eyes would stare at her knowingly. As if the words weren't unnerving enough. "I don't have one."

"Liar," KM replied, passing his hand lazily in front of his eyes.

Izumi didn't ask how he knew what was a lie and what wasn't. The government had given him as little personal information as possible for the sake of protecting her identity after the assignment was over, but personally, she didn't think that the precaution made a difference. They were dealing with a hacking genius, after all.

She straightened her jaw and refused to flinch. "Prove it."

His eyes twitched then. The slight movement was mirrored at the ends of his mouth. "What would you like as proof?"

"Just prove it," she repeated, staring at him directly.

"I'm not omniscient," he said with a sharp frown, "unlike some people in this country."

"Like who?"

KM shrugged. "The they's and them's of the world, I guess."

"You don't know?"

He bared his teeth. "Funny thing about information, Orimoto. The people who know everything always forget one thing."

"What's that?" Izumi asked, genuinely curious to see where this was going.

"That no one else knows as much as they do."

"Is that…selective ignorance?"

He blinked at her. "Why do you say ignorance? It makes them sound manipulative. No, I think that they just don't realize how they're different from other people. Like children, you know – or computers."

"For a hacker, isn't calling someone a computer a compliment?"

"Then I'm complimenting them. Are you surprised?"

"No, it figures. You admire them for knowing everything."

"That's not it," he corrected neatly, "I admire them for not telling everyone else what they know."

"Why?" Izumi wondered if that was going to be her favorite word from now on. Why this, why that. She really couldn't help it, though. KM probably spent all of his considerable free time thinking of new ways to confuse the rest of humanity.

"Secrets are pretty things."

"Especially when they belong to you, right?" Izumi pushed him on the forehead with her palm. "You like being exclusive."

"I'm a hacker. Enough said."

"So is liking secrets part of the official hacker creed?" she asked, only half joking.

He looked at her with dark blue eyes and long, long eyelashes. "Seeing as you're not a hacker yourself…I can't tell you. Sorry. Secrets of the trade, you know."

Izumi scoffed slightly and reached her hand out to touch the black computer in his hands. "Do I need to remind you that we're chatting in the middle of work?"

"No," he sighed. "Aren't you a downer."

"I prefer the term efficient."

"I prefer the term downer. Have you ever seen the inner workings of a criminal organization before, Orimoto?"

"Only in Chicago gang system. I did some work there in law enforcement before I applied for my current job."

"Not bad," KM said in a stately, judgmental way, "better than what most people in your workplace know." In response to her glare, he let out a tired sigh and muttered, "It's the truth."

"I'll have you know that offending someone is not the best route to go if you want to stay out of jail."

"I see, you take offense easily when I insult the government. That's loyalty." KM nodded to himself, then casually continued his discussion of criminal communities like he had never been interrupted. "You probably already know this, but the main thing that sets organized crime apart is the hierarchy. The higher you go, the more powerful – or influential, depending on the kind of crime. A few rare cases can reach the upper ranks without purposefully manipulating others, but people like that don't come by very often. It takes a lot of natural talent to do something like that. Very rare natural talent."

"Do you know anyone like that? Personally, I mean?"

He stared at her. "I know someone who could be, but chooses not to be. If that counts for anything."

Izumi blinked. "Who?"

"Not relevant," he sighed. "Knowing who it is won't change anything. I think. Probably. Just be careful…it's better to let sleeping dogs lie."

"Well, how much of what you're telling me is relevant, then?"

KM blinked almost owlishly at her, completely motionless except for the slow shuttered movement of his eyelids. "All of it. Trust me on this one."

"…Fine."

"For the most part, the hacker community is typical. There are certain ranks that you can get if you're good enough – and it's usually like a dictatorship. With the occasional civil war here and there."

"How do people advance up the social ladder?"

He tapped slowly on the closed computer on his lap. "By hacking into the accounts of the upper ranks. Some people are what we call thresholds. The weakest links, so to speak. If you take control of their usernames, it's easy to transfer their privileges over to yourself."

"So the number of people with ranks is limited?"

"Not necessarily. The system is programmed to – well, never mind. That's not relevant either."

"I just wanted to know if the ranks are permanent."

"Of course not," he said quietly. There was a hint of appreciation in his voice, so low and insubstantial that she barely caught it. "You understand, right? Why it's necessary to have a system like this."

Izumi smiled brightly and mockingly. "Survival of the fittest?"

"Yes. You have such a good mind, Orimoto. It's really a shame."

"What's a shame?"

"That you hate us so much. You would have gone far." Somehow, he sounded so perfectly self-confident that not even Izumi could take offense. It was almost repulsive. A man like that shouldn't be able to flatter others with sweet words dripping off his tongue like vaporous honey, but he could. He could, and he did. His talent in hacking was mediocre in comparison.

She told him so in no uncertain terms.

In response, he swung his arms out carelessly but purposefully. "There's a reason that I'm useful to the government and the other hackers are not, you know?"

"Why, because you can sweet talk the law enforcement into letting you off?"

"No…because I can sweet talk the others into letting the government off."

"You don't feel like bringing us down just yet?"

A slow shrug. "More like it's not worth the energy."

"…I can't think of anything to say to that," Izumi admitted quietly, "considering our current situation. Does every hacker think so? That our security is a laughingstock?"

He hesitated before telling her, "Yes and no."

"I guess this is an appropriate time to ask why. Not that I really care about what happens in your forums, but…"

KM scoffed slightly. "Then why are you asking?"

"I don't know." She threw her hands up, watching the cramped muscles unwinding helplessly in the air. "Just answer the question."

"It's kind of complicated, but I'll try to explain. You know how we've only got one leader?"

"And how the leader is you?"

"For now," he admitted shamelessly. "Although it's been like this for a while."

"KM, how long have you been a hacker?"

"I'm an admin on the boards. That's how long."

"Oh. One of the originals, huh…"

"You could say that. Anyways, if it's about the government, not everyone feels the same way I do. Which point of view do you want, mine or everyone else's?"

"You could always tell me both."

He let himself drop face down onto the plush carpet. A low groan rumbled from deep within his chest; his next words were muffled by the cottony threads on the ground. "I should've figured that you would say that. Why didn't I?"

"Why didn't you," she repeated drolly, "I wonder?"

Quick as a flash, his arms lifted up beside him and tensed, pushing up the rest of his body into a slightly lopsided kneeling position. She registered the change quickly because her gaze was following him the entire way, and not necessarily just to maintain eye contact. He tilted his head in her direction and returned the stare. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to you."

She snickered quietly, unable to help herself. "Wouldn't that be something? And…you're getting off topic again."

"Oh. Right. The government." KM swung his legs back into a sitting position. "Most people think that there's something wrong with it. Just wrong. Not even corruption – although there's probably plenty of that going around – just…how should I put it? Something wrong."

"Inherently?"

"I guess." He looked somewhat doubtful about her wording, but not enough to keep debating the point. "For example, you have superiors, don't you?"

"Of course. I wouldn't be here otherwise."

His eyes passed from her face to the ground several times in quick succession before he said softly, "Of course not. And that's exactly it. You have superiors, superiors have superiors, and so on and so forth…but who's actually making the decision at the very top?"

Izumi was about to suggest the president before she realized that the executive branch wasn't supposed to interfere with her division. A better answer would be… "Probably the special officers."

"No," he shook his head, "there are too many of them. Nothing would ever get done if they didn't have orders coming from above."

"I see. You don't like it that the government hierarchy is so complicated, right?"

"It's not the complication that's the problem. It's the secrecy."

"I thought you said secrets were pretty."

"Not when the government is supposedly public property – wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. That's what I think, not what most of the community thinks."

"Okay." Izumi sighed in exasperation. Yet another thing that bothered her about KM, or rather, something that bothered her because it didn't bother her: he had no focus whatsoever. The guy seemed to do everything based on a whim, only taking the time afterwards to figure out a rational reason. And he always found one. Really…he was too damned normal to be a genius. Or too damned genius to be normal. Either one.

"A lot of people also think that we should take over and rule the world." It was said with a look of perfect seriousness.

"…you would screw a lot of things up." Understatement of the century.

He snickered. "What, you don't want extremists running the country? I wonder why."

"Do you agree with them?" Almost immediately after asking the question, Izumi knew the answer. Of course not. KM was many things, but not ambitious. Trying to gain power in the real world would contradict his inborn apathy too much. Wait…if that was the case, why was he doing so much for hacker community? Izumi pondered the issue for a while before realizing that she didn't even know how their leaders were chosen. If they only cared about skill, then it was entirely possible that he got to his position of power without even realizing it. Not plausible, but possible.

"Not really, no." KM shook his head, confirming her suspicions. "What would the country do without its government? I don't see any way to bring it down without causing a whole lot of collateral damage."

"Funny that you care. Last I checked, you weren't too worried about the rest of society."

KM suddenly slammed his computer screen down and pushed it away. She cringed at the sound, instantly recognizing the flare of an ugly temper in his eyes. He didn't do anything else. Heavy hissing breaths filled the room, steadily increasing in tempo until they came one right after another.

And then he almost stopped breathing altogether. Absolute stillness reigned in the room.

It felt almost blasphemous to break it. Oh, well. "KM, what are you doing?"

"Shut up," he said emotionlessly. "It would help if you acknowledged every once in a while that I'm not a heartless freak of nature, you know."

She stared at him with wide eyes. "Aren't you?"

"Orimoto, you should…I…" His voice faded, broke off. "That's not a fair thing to say."

"I don't have to be fair to be right," Izumi pointed out.

Apparently, he had nothing to say to that. His eyes looked almost gray from the side, pupils thin and suspended in a translucent iris. Rather inappropriately, Izumi wondered what his family background was, since a full-blooded Japanese person couldn't have blue eyes. She didn't believe for a moment that Kouji Minamoto really existed. Names could always be changed. Records could always be modified.

Silent. So silent. The white-washed room reflected the mood of its owner – uneasy and unhappy. Izumi was suddenly aware of being the trespasser on his territory. His, and not hers, and most certainly not the government's. Where would the law be more useless than in a place like this? Shivers ran up and down her spine in response to the anxiety buried in her heart.

Quietly, she said, "I'm sorry."

Just as quietly, he said, "Don't apologize."

Disconcerted by his mood swings, Izumi prodded him back on track by pushing his computer open and making a great show of chewing her lip confusedly. KM watched her with unnatural stillness before slowly realizing what she was trying to do. Then he almost smiled.

"What's next?" she asked.

Her partner shook off the last remaining embers of irritation and moved to help her with the computer. "This."

About half a dozen clicks later, it was official.

He. Was. A. Genius. There was no other way to describe him.

"This…this is amazing." Izumi tried and failed to keep the admiration out of her voice, but honestly, when it came to his profession, he deserved every ounce of pride in his body.

KM was sitting flat on his stomach, tilting his head all the way back. He had given up his position in front of the computer to Izumi, who knelt down warily next to large black machine like it was a ticking bomb. She wondered why he spent so much time stretched out on the ground, especially when the bandanna always seemed to be on the verge of falling off.

Like now, when he rolled onto his side to face her directly.

Izumi's hand instinctively shot out to press the dark cloth flat against his hair, long enough to push the knot back into place. The sensation of fine black locks between her fingers was completely unexpected and unpremeditated. She pulled back quickly. KM looked somewhat mystified at her reaction – or bewildered, or interested, or amused. Or all of the above.

She twirled her own hair around with that same hand and asked pointedly, "What?"

"You have such a skewed sense of what's amazing, Orimoto," he declared.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" Was it her imagination or was he getting closer? "You seem to think that it's perfectly normal to insult a criminal to his face, but chatting on a website is enough to make you go into hyperactive spasms. How does that work?"

She stared at him. "Hyperactive spasms? Did I hear you correctly?"

KM opened his mouth, closed it, and blushed faintly. "…Maybe that wasn't the best choice of words."

"Really?" Izumi retorted sarcastically, "And here I was thinking that people used that phrase all the time!"

He opened his mouth and said accusingly, "You can't tease me like that, Orimoto."

"Well, why not?"

"Because you won't let me tease you back."

Her lips fluttered silently. Oh. "You have a point."

"Right."

It was very, very awkward after that. Izumi tucked her arms under her knees and brought them close, lips puckered thoughtfully. She should have known better than to expect him to back off and bow down. KM was the master of doing exactly the opposite of what people wanted him to do.

What was he trying to pull this time?

Before she could get too far in her musings, the man coughed purposefully. "So, what do you want to put down for your name?"

"Um…" It took some time to realize what he was referring to. "Oh. Do you want me to join?"

He choked quietly. "You're kidding, right? I'm not going to endanger myself by doing an investigation with my personal account. You either make your own user or you don't use the forum at all."

"…are you seriously going to let me, Miss Government-is-Good, join your beloved little community?"

"You're not that bad, though."

She turned to face him head on. "You can't possibly…"

"Listen," he breathed, hand coming around to catch her jaw firmly, "There is no limit to what I can or can not do. Stop assuming things. Wipe your mind clean. Learn to think like a hacker, or I won't be responsible for what happens to you."

Izumi let her eyes stare straight into his. "What do you want from me?"

His hand was abnormally warm on the skin of her face, even though he was barely touching her. "Show me what you can do. Prove it to me."

"Prove what?" she asked with no small amount of trepidation after he trailed off. There was a considering look in his eyes again – the one that KM always got before he went off on one of his ridiculous rants. God, she hated being dragged into things like this, because the conversations would sometimes last until dawn and she would be so tired that he could probably ask anything from her and she'd give it.

Anything at all.

It was a chilling thought. Even more chilling because it was true. She quietly promised herself not to let it happen again.

A heavy weight suddenly dropped into her lap. Izumi blinked, recognizing KM's computer, and stared down at the man on the floor. He looked back at her and said, "Go on."

Izumi filed away her questions for later and set herself to the task of ripping the website's security apart. It took a while to get to the real login page – certainly longer than it would have taken an experienced hacker like KM. As tired as she was, Izumi decided to ask him for suggestions halfway through, only to have him wave the question off.

"Do it all yourself. I'm your partner, not your babysitter."

And it was true. She had started this joint venture wanting to be his equal. Asking him to lend a hand wouldn't help her reach that point at all. And yet, why was he only starting to take her seriously now? What awful timing…

Fine. It didn't matter. Failure was failure. And she could always hack into his account later if things got that bad. KM was a genius, yes, but not for security. Compared to some of her other assignments over the years, it would be a piece of cake. There were benefits to having so much experience with the government's firewalls, even if her partner didn't think so.

KM finally broke the silence several hours later with a tired sigh. Izumi felt victorious. It was only recently that she had learned the meaning of patience; KM used to put on an act of complete silence so that she would try to fill in the empty spaces with small talk. It wasn't so much the awkwardness that got to her in the beginning – it was the expectancy. The man would make a magnificent interrogator if he ever decided to quit the criminal route, though she doubted the chances of that ever happening. Even if…wait. Wait. He was tired? Psychotic, derisive, brilliant KM was tired?

Izumi quickly glanced at the clock. Oh. Well, she didn't blame him. "Hey," she called quietly.

The sound of yawning stopped as suddenly as a bullet. Slowly, his blue eyes lifted open and stared at her blankly. "Yes?"

"It's three in the morning. Go to bed."

"Can't," he muttered. "You're using my computer."

She scoffed quietly. "If you're so worried about security, why did you give it to me in the first place?"

"No choice. It's the only way to access the forum…"

"I doubt it. A chat room that's only reachable with one computer isn't very much of a chat room."

"Ha," he laughed. "Sharp, so sharp."

"What's sharp, my head or my tongue?"

KM raised his eyebrow at her. Some time ago he had taken one of the cushions and laid it under his head like a makeshift pillow. No wonder he was nearly asleep. "Both, Orimoto. You're pretty sharp in general. You just need to believe me a little more. Listen…you can only make a new account by using a registered user's computer. Otherwise, the system just kicks you out."

"Why?" she asked, baffled.

He shrugged. "It's convenient."

"No long-winded explanations today, KM?" she asked dryly.

"Not this late at night." Pause. "Or early in the morning…you know what. Why don't you ask me questions? It'll probably help me stay awake."

She chortled then, throwing him a glorious smile. "Fine. Why are we using a chat room to find our criminal? And how?"

Although his eyes were closed heavily, KM didn't sound all that sleepy when he answered. "It has to do with the way new users sign up. Everyone has to be physically in the same room as a senior member before they can join, right…and the hacker community is pretty close-knit. We kind of have to be. Any kind of organized crime is always best with collaborators."

She stopped typing. "My god."

"You get it, right?" KM murmured. "Chances are, the target's in the community. And if he's in the community, there's a trail of people leading right to his doorstep. Literally."

"How do you know that he's in the community, though?"

"Simple. I don't."

Now she couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Okay then. Great. So we might be going a wild goose chase?"

"It's a gamble." He shrugged awkwardly, elbows bumping up against the carpet. "If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't have suggested doing things this way if the odds weren't in our favor."

"Fine," she said quietly.

He was a bastard. But at least he was an honest bastard, the kind of person you could believe in when worst came to worst.

She could work with this.