Yukan Club and the Flower Four
Chapter 4: Invasion
"Miroku, can you hear me?" Akira asked from his seat next to Seishiro in the Yukan Club's laundry cleaner's van three days later.
"Yes, Akira, I can hear you," Miroku replied. He was inside the company ballroom disguised as a bartender as usual, wearing his usual disguise of a semi-formal pair of black slacks and white dress shirt with a black bow tie, a false mustache on his upper lip. He wore a large pair of glasses with black frames so that if someone Miroku knew happened to be at the party it would be harder for them to identify him.
"Good," Akira replied, "we'll let you know when you can move forward."
"Bidou, stop looking at girl's chests and do your job!" Seishiro lectured a few minutes later. The blonde boy, dressed in a very filly black suit, had begun to look down at the chest of the woman he was talking to. She was dressed in a low-cut, short pink dress and matching heals, and she just so happened to be a hooker with only high class clients; she was known as a frequent customer of Rin Yuuta, and the group of young adults hoped that the boy would be able to get information from her without her knowing.
"Yeah, yeah, fine," Bidou said quietly, raising his head to look at the girl's face without making it obvious he'd been staring at her feminine body parts. "So how are you doing tonight, beautiful?" he asked the girl flirtatiously.
She smiled. "I am doing good, thank you," she replied. Bidou took a glass of Champaign from a waiter walking nearby and held it out to the girl.
"Champaign?" he offered.
"Thank you." She took the glass and took a sip elegantly. "Delicious."
Bidou smiled. "I'm glad. May I request of the beautiful lady's name?"
"Erica," the girl replied.
"Beautiful name to match a beautiful face!" he smiled.
Karen stood nearby in a stunning red dress, talking to a handsome man in a white suit. "What do you do for a living?" she asked the man she'd been talking to for several minutes already.
"I'm a lawyer," he replied with a smile.
"That means he's wealthy!" she said to herself cheerfully. "That's amazing, is it hard?"
"It's fun, actually. I'm a defense lawyer, mainly working on murder cases, so it's quite challenging. I enjoy a decent challenge," he said.
Karen frowned. "Getting murderers off… not cool," she muttered. "But it would be too obvious if I left now. Great."
Across the room Noriko stood in the corner hiding from the scary men who had tried to flirt with her dressed in a black kimono with a pink cherry blossom pattern. "Scary, scary, scary, scary, scary!" she sobbed, shaking furiously. In the van, Seishiro sighed in exasperation.
"Noriko, I need you to get yourself together, okay? We might need you to get information out of Rin later," he tried to sooth the upset girl.
"Okay," she said quietly, taking a deep breath and holding it for several long seconds before releasing slowly. "Okay, I'm alright. I'll go back to mingling." She went over to a random guy and began to talk politely so she wouldn't stand out, keeping an eye on Rin Yuuta, a short balding man in an expensive, ill-fitted suit holding a glass of Champaign.
Meanwhile, Yuki stood at the buffet table covered in expensive food, grabbing bit food here and there, eating happily. "Yuki," Seishiro sighed, "you need to keep an eye on the staircase so Miroku can sneak up and look into the computer. Can you do that for me?"
Yuki sighed reluctantly. "I guess," she replied, walking across the room so she could see the staircase but standing in a way so that it wasn't obvious to the rest of the room that's what she was doing. "It looks clear, there's no one up on the balcony or anything, Seishiro," she reported after a quick but precise inspection.
"Good, Miroku, you're clear." Miroku left the bar nonchalantly, walking over to the staircase. Looking around, he snuck up to the second floor and down a hallway, peaking into the open rooms.
"Akira, which room is Rin's office in?" he asked his boyfriend through the headsets quietly. In the van, Akira looked down at the floor plan on a laptop computer, quickly finding the room in question in relation to the blip that was Miroku, placed by a GPS signal that all of the group members wore just in case things went downhill; another safety precaution Akira had insisted on.
"It's two doors down from you on the right, Miroku," he replied.
"Thanks." Miroku walked to the door specified, holding his ear up to the door to try and figure out if someone was inside. Hearing nothing, he carefully cracked the door, peaking in with one eye. Seeing no one, he walked in, closing the door quietly behind him. He sat down in front of the computer and turned it on only for it to ask him for a password. He tried a few possible passwords according to what he knew about Rin, but the computer didn't accept any of them. "Seishiro, I need the password."
"All right, I'll get Noriko on it. Noriko, I need you to try and get the password out of Rin."
"Roger," she replied, politely getting out of her current conversation and subtly moving toward the target.
"Hello, Rin-sama, how are you doing today?" she asked politely, her arms folded in front of her in a submissive-looking pose. Rin smiled in such a way that Noriko's inner alarm bells began to scream. She was on the verge of panicking, and only Seishiro's whispers in her ear kept her calm.
"I am doing well, and you, my pretty lady?" he asked. His voice was low and had a dangerous air to it, overall very unpleasant to listen to, especially for someone afraid of men like Noriko.
Noriko smiled softly. "I am doing very well, Rin-sama. May I ask your birthday?"
"Of course, it's February 12, 1964," he replied.
"Miroku, did you hear that?" Seishiro asked from the van.
"Yes, I did." Miroku typed in 021264, but the computer rejecting that password, as well. "Hmm, wait a minute… Seishiro, I don't think I'm going to be able to get into the computer. This password is at least twelve digits long."
Seishiro sighed. "Then we probably aren't going to be able to get into the computer. Go ahead and leave. Noriko, get yourself away from Rin somehow."
Noriko smiled. "Really? That's… oh, my cell phone." She reached into the small bag she carried with her and pulled out her cell phone, opening it and holding it to her ear. "Hello? Oh, hi Mom, what is it? Oh, you need me home? Why? I see, all right, I'll begin to head home immediately. I will be there in about half an hour. Later." She closed the phone and looked up at the man the group of young adults were investigating. "I'm sorry, Rin-sama, but I have to go, family emergency. It was nice meeting you." She bowed lightly and turned to leave. Rin, however, reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"I didn't tell you that you could leave, miss," he hissed.
Noriko winced. "Sorry, sir, but I really have to leave." She pulled herself free and began to walk across the ballroom. "Seishiro, we may have a problem," she hissed into the headset.
"I see that," Seishiro replied with a frown. "Miroku, how close are you to the ballroom?"
"I'm walking down the staircase now," he replied.
"Hurry and go help Noriko."
"Roger," the boy replied. He lightly ran down the staircase and entered the ballroom, walking over to Noriko. Rin had caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder again, trying to stop her from leaving the party for his own perverted reasons.
Miroku reached out and grabbed her wrist firmly but gently, pulling her away from Rin and into her arms. "Hello, sis, there you are, I've been looking for you. Mother wants us home. Sir, we will be taking our leave." He wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulder, escorting her out of the building to the van. By this time, Bidou, Karen, and Yuki had already made their way out as well.
"All right, let's go," Seishiro smiled, climbing into the driver's seat. In the back, Akira pulled Miroku into his lap, wrapping his arms around the smaller boy's waist tightly.
"You are so lucky you didn't get caught," he hissed into the boy's ear. Miroku winced.
"Sorry I worried you," he whispered, leaning into the older man's chest comfortably.
Akira smiled. "You'd better be." He turned to the rest of the van, who'd been watching the two flirt with bright smiles on their faces, pleased to see their friend happy. "So what are we going to do now, since we weren't able to get into the computer?" he asked.
Seishiro sighed from the driver's seat. "I don't know," he replied reluctantly. "Miroku has never had problems getting into the computers before, we were always able to figure out the password."
"I know someone who could get us in," Miroku spoke up.
"We can't sneak back into that building, Miroku, Rin will recognize you and Noriko at the least," Seishiro informed his friend.
Miroku smiled. "Yes, but this guy doesn't need to get in. He's a hacker."
"A hacker? How good is he?" Akira asked curiously.
"Ever hear of a hacker known as Falcon?"
Akira nodded. "Yeah, he's the best hacker in the country, and maybe event he world. He's even hacked into the United State's pentagon, apparently."
"Yeah, he has. And that's who I'm going to have help us."
"You know the falcon?" Akira and Seishiro asked in shock.
"We met at a computer class in elementary school," Miroku replied with a shrug. "He taught me a lot of the programming I use in our devices."
"Surprised he didn't teach you to hack, as well, if you're such good friends," Akira commented.
"He offered, but I really wasn't interested," Miroku replied. "I like making electronic devices, not hacking into other people's computer systems."
Two days later after school, a Monday, the Yukan Club and the Flower Four met again, but this time all sitting around the table on the right side of the room.
"So when is the Falcon getting here?" Soujiro asked Miroku, who smiled.
"He'll be here in a few… oh, there he is. Hey, Fujimaru!" He waved towards the door, which opened silently. The group all whirled around to see a boy about the same age as the Yukan Club wearing blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black zipper jacket zipped up halfway.
"The falcon is a college student?" Seishiro asked in shock.
The boy Miroku had called Fujimaru tilted his head to the side. "Why do you think I'm a college student?" he asked in confusion.
"You aren't wearing a uniform," the young genius replied.
Fujimaru smiled. "Ah, that makes since, but you're actually wrong. I'm a senior at Mishiro Academy High School, we just don't have uniforms."
Seishiro, Akira, and Soujiro, the only members of the group who'd known of Falcon before Miroku called him in, stared at Fujimaru in shock.
"The best hacker in the world is a high school student?" Akira asked. Miroku nodded.
"Yeah, although Fujimaru hear actually gained that reputation in middle school. He's gifted," he said with a shrug. Fujimaru lifted his right hand and fidgeted with his hair.
"I wouldn't say I'm gifted, I've just studied a lot," he tried to deny the complement.
Miroku grinned. "And so modest" he teased. "Does Aoi-san know this side of you?"
Fujimaru blushed. "Shut up!" he said crossly, walking over and hitting Miroku over the head. He then sat down in the open seat next to his friend, pulling a small laptop computer out of his shoulder bag. He opened it and then reached down, pulling a flash drive out of his pocket. The case was white decorated with a black falcon, wings spread. He pulled the actual drive out, revealing a slim black devise with bold white text 'SAVE THE DATA' in all caps. He plugged the flash drive into his computer, and then turned to Miroku.
"So, who's computer am I hacking into?" he asked.
"Rin Yuuta, he works in advising at Toudou University," Seishiro informed the hacker.
Fujimaru nodded. "All right, then, I'll see what I can find on his work computer first, that computer won't be hard to find. I'll track his personal computer through there."
"You can get into his work computer? Isn't that hard to do?" Karen asked curiously.
The boy shook his head. "No, not really," he said as his hands began to fly across the keyboard. "I just have to go through the firewall, which… has surprisingly light security for some reason, that's odd. Wait a minute…"
"What is it?" Soujiro asked. Fujimaru leaned in closer to the computer screen a bit, pointing to a line on the window full of codes that, of the group, only Miroku could understand, and even he could only understand a small percentage. The line read "Incoming freshman…Elite."
"See this? Someone created a backdoor that leads directly to the files on incoming freshman," he said.
"That's probably the work of Rin, that's too big of a coincidence for it to actually be a coincidence," Rui commented.
Fujimaru frowned. "Then you're going to need to be careful if you have anything on computer files, this wouldn't have been easy hacking. I could have done it easily, but it's not something even an advanced student could do without being caught," he warned the other young adults.
"That would explain why I couldn't get into the guy's computer yesterday," Miroku commented.
"You tried to get into his actual computer?" Fujimaru asked his friend in surprise.
The other boy nodded. "Yeah, but I think the password was encrypted, I couldn't even figure out how many digits the password was."
"Ah, then yeah, probably. That won't be a problem though." Fujimaru, who'd been continuing his hacking throughout the conversation, smiled. "Capture complete," he announced a moment later.
"What did you get?" Seishiro questioned.
"The guy's home IP address," Fujimaru replied, and then began to explain before anyone could even question him. "He's checked his personal email at work before, and I can trace the other IP addresses that account has been accessed from. It's actually not that hard to do, but a lot of people overlook the possibility to even trace email access, so it's not done much. So, now I just have to hack into computer… Hmm, that's interesting."
"What's interesting?" Akira asked curiously.
"He has a powerful firewall on his home computer, even stronger than the one at the college. It monitors the system every ten seconds for suspicious activity, which is pretty rare; every twenty or thirty seconds is more common."
"What does every ten seconds mean?" Seishiro asked.
"It means that a hacker only has ten seconds to get in, download the documents they need, and get out. It would take a super computer to do that"
Soujiro sighed. "We don't have access to a super computer, though!" he complained, frustrated at reaching yet another dead end.
Fujimaru smiled. "Actually, I have a virtual super computer set up, but I'm not going to need it."
"What do you mean?" Miroku questioned.
"This Rin guy is on his computer right now, and there's a major fault in his security system. He has it set on automatic defense, but it's so secure that you wouldn't be able to do anything without causing the system to shut down even with the password to log in on as the administrator. Because of that, he has to turn the security system to low when he's using the computer. And that means it only checks for invasive entries. As long as I have the password there will be no sign of my presence, even if Rin is staring at the system specs."
Everyone's eyes widened in surprise. "That's some system!" Rui commented.
Fujimaru nodded. "Yes, it is, but it's pretty worthless if it has to be inactive when the computer is being used. So, I just need to get the password… capture complete. Now to un-encrypt it… done. And I'm in. What do need?"
Miroku shrugged. "We aren't sure, really, we don't know the exact details of the plan at the moment, only the vague idea."
"Okay, then I'll just download everything. Done." He quickly exited the program before turning to his friend. Miroku, may I borrow your flash drive?" Miroku handed him his black flash drive, and Fujimaru smiled. "You're still using the one I set up for you with the programs on it, cool. How are they working?"
"Great, actually, it makes programming my gadgets a lot easier." Fujimaru nodded as he plugged the flash drive into his computer and transferred over the data he'd just stole from the other computer. He removed it and handed it back to its owner. "Here you go, enjoy. Let me know if you need anything else."
Miroku suddenly frowned. "You aren't going to get into any trouble with THIRD-i because you hacked into a computer illegally, are you? I'd hate to be the reason you get into trouble with the police again."
"No, it's fine. After the incident last year I've been given diplomatic immunity when it comes to hacking as long as there's a decent reason for it and don't do it just for the heck of it. Considering they don't even understand what I'm doing half the time, they tend to give me the benefit of the doubt."
Miroku nodded. "Yeah, I can see why though, which everything you've told me about the last four years or so." His eyes widened. "Hey, would you, Kudo, and Asada like to help us out? We could probably use the help, that is, if the others don't mind?" Miroku looked to the other ten members of the group, who nodded in agreement.
"That's fine with me," Seishiro spoke up, "the more minds we have working on this the faster we can solve this."
Fujimaru tilted his head in thought. "Hmm, well this has to be less dangerous than helping the government catch terrorists, so sure, why not. I'll ask Otoya and Aoi tonight."
"Are Otoya and Aoi the same people Miroku mentioned?" Yuki asked, confused by the name changes.
"Ah, yeah, sorry, they're my best friends at school, Kudo Otoya and Asada Aoi."
Rui frowned. "Kudo Otoya… isn't he the grandson of the Minister of Justice?" he asked.
Fujimaru nodded. "Yeah, he is, actually."
"I'm surprised that the Minister allows his grandfather to help out a hacker," Rui commented in surprise.
"Well, the two don't really get along, and the whole terrorist deal last year didn't help," Fujimaru replied.
"Terrorist deal?" the older boy asked in confusion.
Fujimaru nodded. "Yeah, when I was in junior high I found something hidden in a picture that pointed at a possible terrorist plot. I reported it and the plot was stopped, but the group came back last year to try and take revenge. My friends and I almost died, one of them actually dying…" he closed his eyes for a second before continuing. "Then we discovered that another friend was the leader behind the terrorist plots… let's just say that last year was very stressful."
"But how'd that make your friend lose trust in his grandfather?" Soujiro asked.
"When our friend died, it was because we were locked inside our school and infected with a virus known as Bloody-X-"
He was cut off by Seishiro. "You were infected by Blood-X? How the hell did you survive?" the teen asked in shock.
"You've heard about that virus?" Fujimaru asked, avoiding the question momentarily.
Seishiro nodded. "Yeah, my family owns a hospital and we received a packet on what to do if someone came in with symptoms randomly last year, I'm guessing that was due to this terrorist incident?" Fujimaru nodded, and Seishiro continued. "How did you manage to survive?"
"There's an anti-virus now," the hacker replied.
"Why don't the hospitals have it?" Seishiro asked in confusion. "That virus is the deadliest one I've read about, that should be easily available in all health care facilities if there's any risk of it spreading."
Fujimaru smiled. "Actually, you know that new injection against this rare fatal cancer called Ceratonine that came out last year?"
Seishiro nodded. "Yeah, last month's data stated that about ninety percent of the population had chosen to get the vaccine as a precaution, but what does that have to do with... Wait, that's actually the anti-virus to Bloody-X? But anti-viruses are meant to fight off the disease, not protect you from them," he said in shock.
"In most cases, yes, but this one actually does both," Fujimaru explained. "We decided to cover up the actual purpose of the vaccine since we didn't want to cause panic. Actually, almost every major country in the world has given their citizens this vaccine under some sort of cover in the last year."
"Ah, that's a good point, I'm glad we don't have to worry about that virus as much anymore, that was a scary information packet to read."
Fujimaru nodded in agreement. "All right, I've got to get headed home, I promised my sister I'd eat dinner with her tonight. I'll go through the information from Rin's computer tonight and fill my friends in if they decide to join us," he said as he closed his laptop and placed it back in his black shoulder bag.
"Bye, Fujimaru, I'll text you with the details for the next meeting, okay?" Miroku smiled at his friend.
"Later, Miroku, see you soon." Fujimaru waved at the other ten people in the club house as he left.
"He's an interesting guy," Seishiro commented once the other boy was out of sight.
Domyouji, who'd been silent since Fujimaru had arrived at the club house, not knowing much about computers or viruses, snorted. "He's not as interesting as me!" he said arrogantly. His fiancé whirled around to face him, anger glittering in her eyes.
"Domyouji! How many times do I have to tell you, if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all!" Makino lectured the older boy, who pulled at her jacket sleeve childishly.
"But, Makino!" he whined, "I can't help it!"
"Yeah? Well, you'd better learn to start, Domyouji, if you know what's good for you!"
"Makino, are you sure Tsukasa can do that? For a globally known businessman he sure doesn't have much common sense," Rui said jokingly to his one-time crush.
"Rui, now you're being mean, too! Why does everyone enjoy making fun of me all the time?" Domyouji complained.
Akira laughed. "Oh, you didn't know? Everyday is Official Make Fun of Domyouji Day," he told his friend.
Domyouji pouted. "Akira! Shut up! You're lying, I know you are! I'd know if something like that had been decided!" he said loudly, slamming his hands down on the table as he stood, leaning over the table into Akira's face. The rest of the group began laugh. "Why are you laughing!" he raged once more.
"We were only teasing, Domyouji, Akira wasn't being serious, you idiot!" Makino informed her fiancé, laughter evident in her voice.
"Hey…" Akira cut the high-tempered boy off with a smile.
"Okay, okay, let's move on, shall we? Miroku, do you have your laptop on you?" he asked his boyfriend, who nodded. "Good, why don't you pull it out so we can all go through the data and see what it tells us? I'd like to have more information when we meet back up with the yakuza heads tomorrow."
Miroku nodded, pulling out his own laptop and plugging in his flash drive. "Let's see what Rin was hiding…" he muttered to himself quietly as he opened the folder containing the documents Fujimaru had just hacked for him.
"What's that?" Akira asked, leaning over his boyfriend's shoulder and pointing to a folder titled 'Business'. Miroku shrugged.
"I'm not sure, let's find out," he stated as he double-clicked on the icon. "All that's here is a bunch of excel sheets, surprisingly," he commented. He opend the first one, and blinked in surprise. "Well, that's interesting."
"What is?" Akira questioned his boyfriend. He leaned in closer over the younger boy's shoulder to get a better view of the screen. "Is that a bunch of names?" he asked curiously, pointing at the first column.
Miroku nodded. "Yeah, and the other columns are addresses and phone numbers; basically, these documents are contact information. We just don't know if the names are of his allies, targets, or something else entirely. I'll ask Fujimaru if he'd mind looking into these people for us tonight." He grabbed his cell phone, and sent a quick text message to his hacker friend.
"Isn't that a lot of work, though? We don't want to overload him, he just joined this thing today," Makino spoke up, surprising the Yukan Club; she'd spoken very little in their presence except to lecture her idiot of a fiancé when he did something idiotic - which happened pretty frequently, actually.
Miroku shook his head. "No, actually, he has programs that will do it for him and organize it into a power point presentation. It won't take very long to flip through the slides and figure out the link between all the names and why Rin has their information in spread sheets on his computer."
"That's pretty impressive," Seishiro commented.
