Finally! it's here! Chapter 7!! I'm so sorry I haven't updated for a while, but it seems that the teachers have come up with a plan to take over world domination by giving the students an endless stream of homework *grrr*, but now the winter holidays has just uand I'M FREE!! *victory dance*

Anyway; on with the story!


Chapter 7:

"Yo Tea! Where did ya go yesterday huh?" Joey yelled across the classroom as he entered.

Tea sighed, she'd been expecting this... "This is what you get from having too nosy friends."

"I have no idea what you're talking about Joey... and I would really appreciate it if you'd lower your voice a bit – I don't feel like arguing with you in front of the class." Tea answered in at a more normal volume seeing that Joey had reached her table, now with Yugi and Tristan close behind.

"Com' on... Ya know what I'm talkin' 'bout... Ya just vanished without saying anythin' to us... I know what ya did! Ya went to see some guy! Am I right? Am I right?" Joey fired back before he sat down on her desk. Yugi looked slightly shocked... not to mention worried.

"Grrrr I'm going to kill him!" Tea thought, mentally planning how that best could be done.

"It's not everything I do concerns you! I just needed to do something! If you absolutely have to know I was doing a friend a favour and now leave it at that!" she exclaimed while slamming her books onto the table... which startled Joey so much that he fell from her desk.

He raised his hands in defence: "easy now... Just bein' a bit curious – that's all."

"You don't have to tell us everything now" Yugi said as he laid a hand on her shoulder giving her a reassuring smile. Tea relaxed and was just about to thank Yugi when the teacher arrived. The class had begun.

Nikki woke to the sun shining through the curtains which was evilly hitting her face. She groaned and slowly opened her eyes trying to adjust to the unusually bright room. Why hadn't she drawn the curtains last night?

"Oh yeah... I remember now – I'm for some reason deeply depressed by the fact Kaiba loathes me, instead of being depressed because I've been beaten up, my body still hurts like hell and I'm sure they haven't stopped looking... Welcome to my life!" She thought with bitter sarcasm.

She pressed the pillow over her face and screamed...

Feeling somehow relieved she got up, dressed and started to walk down to the kitchen. It was yet another school day for Mokuba, which meant that Nikki had to find something to pass time with. She glanced at the clock; "Argh dammit! It's only 9 o'clock – that's 6 fucking hours I have to spend alone!"

Little did she know that she in fact wasn't alone. Kaiba had decided that he'd sooner break an arm before returning to his office in KC today. The mere thought of the 5 he had had to fire, was enough to make him snap, which would only lead to the discharge of more people. But all this Nikki was "happily" oblivious of...

She had decided to spend some of the day at the laptop Mokuba had provided her with, so after her breakfast she returned to her room and turned on the computer.

In the last few days since Mokuba had given her the pc Nikki's fingers had been aching to try it for herself. She hadn't dared before even though she had almost tried yesterday when she'd done some research on Kaiba Corp. So today was the day – she going to put Kaiba's security to the test.

Her skilled fingers moved across the keyboard pressing in the required codes, she wasn't as fast as she usually was since she could only use one hand because of the damn three broken fingers. And for maybe the 100th time she coursed the damn man, who had done this to her, to the deepest circle of hell...

She was a self-taught hacker and due to her spending hours and hours locked up in her room she was a damn good one!

She took a deep breath and started to type... Her eyes flickered across the screen as she reached the firewall, which she broke through so easily that she had to stop in pure wonderment; "What the... how could it possibly take them that long to crack this?! And why doesn't Kai..." Her trail of thought was abruptly stopped when she reached yet another obstacle.

A small smirk spread across Nikki's face as her fingers start moving again and after a few minutes she was through... only to reach another wall...

At the same time in Kaiba's office a small window appeared in the corner of his screen. He looked at it; a frown on his face, which slowly turned into a cold smirk. "Bring it on!"

He leaned back it his chair and waited... The protection on his computer was something that he himself at created. It consisted of 5 "firewalls" – the first was easy, any hacker with some skill could break through it. The second was a little harder, but only barely – it was then an alarm would go of on his computer. The third was where things started to get interesting; when someone tried to break through it, it would automatically send a small virus back into the hacker's computer. The virus played two roles: firstly to track down the hacker and secondly, when the hacker had been found, destroy the hacker's computer beyond repair. The fourth and fifth wall weren't really necessary, but Kaiba didn't take any chances – they were completely and utterly unbreakable.

So all he had to do was to wait and once he had learned the hacker's location he would send his men.

Nikki bit her lower lip; this had to be the hardest hack she'd ever made – she'd tried almost everything and she wasn't one step closer on "breaking and entering". She decided on one last try.

Kaiba stared at his screen with a mixture of confusion and joy; the hacker was starting to slowly gnaw his way through the wall – this had turned out to be a race against time: Who'd finish first? The hacker or the virus?

Kaiba felt a wave of excitement rush over his body, this was the longest anyone had ever reached before. He knew that a relatively talented hacker could make it this far, but such a hacker had never bothered – they knew they couldn't go all the way; the fourth and fifth wall were the real killers.

A few rooms away Nikki felt a similar excitement rush through her body; she was almost through!

"Gotcha!" Kaiba thought triumphantly as the virus found the location just as the hacker broke through. "Looks like we have a tide..."

His smirk turned into a frown when he saw the location; "What the fuck!? The hacker is... inside the mansion?!" There could only be one explanation... he quickly got up...

"Gotcha!" Nikki thought, just as triumphantly as a certain billionaire had done it just seconds ago, when she broke through the wall.

Her triumph quickly turned to fear as the computer started acting on its own. "It's like it's been... Infected!" She typed frantically with one hand; trying everything just to get the computer to stop, but it was to no avail – the computer literally died...

Nikki kept staring at the screen unable to figure out what the hell just happened, but she was quickly snapped out it when the door behind her flew open.

She'd never seen Kaiba this angry before; his face was, if possible, even more emotionless than normal, but his eyes... Nikki felt a shiver run down her spine when she saw his eyes – the normal icy blue eyes were cold beyond every measurement and even though she stubbornly tried to hold his glance she failed miserably.

Kaiba was angry... no, pissed was more the word; how dare that little wench hack into his system?! "Wait a second" a thought suddenly hit him, "Maybe I could take advantage of this..."

Was it her or did it seem like Kaiba's anger eased a bit? Whatever it was he still continued his path towards her and she felt a rising urge to hide under the bed.

"Get up!" his voice almost literally cut through the air and Nikki felt like she'd been hit by a wall; she slowly started to get up...

Which apparently wasn't quick enough for Kaiba, because suddenly he grabbed her arm and yanked her upright. Nikki felt a stab of pain go through her ribs and had to bite inner cheek hard to avoid screaming... she started to taste blood...

Maybe Kaiba saw the pained expression in her face or maybe he didn't, but he lessened his iron grip around her upper arm and let her stand on her own accord.

"Follow me."

Nikki did as he said without any comments whatsoever and they headed towards his office.

Once they reached it Nikki dropped down in the chair in front of his desk, feeling relieved; her legs felt like they were made of jelly.

Kaiba positioned himself in his own chair and started to type a series of commands on his laptop. Nikki started to wish that the earth would swallow her, "what's going to happen?" she thought feeling more and more unsettled, one worse-case-scenario after another playing through her mind... but what did happened she had never expected..

Suddenly Kaiba stopped typing and turned his computer around so that it now was facing Nikki. "Try to hack through this" was his only words.

Nikki just stared dumbfounded at him, unable to understand what he meant.

Kaiba sighed heavily and started to rub his temples, "Damn this girl is giving me a headache."

"Try. to. hack. through. this." He said deliberately talking slowly as if trying to explain something for a child.

Nikki slowly moved her chair towards the desk and then started the progress of hacking through whatever Kaiba had come up with.

Soon Nikki's mind was fully focused on the problem that lay before her and her right hand fingers rapidly moved across the keyboard until... "Done" she said triumphantly until she remembered her position; she quickly lowered her gaze and waited for Kaiba to say something.

Kaiba turned the laptop back towards him and he looked at her with a calculating expression in his ice-blue eyes.

"She did it in a fairly good time and she managed to cover all of her traces." He thought casting a glance at the girl in front of him.

"You need to answer quite a few questions."

Something in his voice told Nikki that this wasn't a request – this was a direct order.

"Why?"

"I-I d-don't really know... I guess I just wanted to see how far I could go?"

She looked at him through her lashes finding an expression of mild disbelief in his face, but after a minute he asked another question:

"Who taught you to hack?"

Nikki tried to look him in the eyes, but failed yet again. Instead she focused her gaze on her trembling hands.

"I'm self-taught... M-my s-stepfather often locked me in my room and there wasn't really much besides a computer to do some schooling on in there, so that's where I spend most of my time..."

She paused and cast a small glance at him; seeing as he had a you're-not-done-talking-yet-look in his eyes, she continued her story:

"The only problem was that anything besides certain things on the computer was blocked and so I started to find ways in which I could dodge these blocks..."

Nikki closed her eyes and remembered the feeling she'd gotten when she'd finally broken through – a warmth spread through her body and her hands stopped trembling.

"I found that I had a talent for this and I liked the idea that I at least had some sort of freedom so I started to explore and learn more... and that's really it".

Nikki finally looked up and found that Kaiba seemed to be in deep thoughts.

Several minutes passed away until he finally spoke:

"It seems like it's time for you to make yourself a bit useful and seeing that you can use a computer fairly with one hand, you can start by working for me... As you know I'm five people short."

Nikki's jaw dropped to the floor, "M-me w-working for you? What would I do?"

"This is getting out of hand! Why is that man never acting the way I think he is going to act?! Argh!! He is driving me crazy!!"

"Mainly research. You seem to be fast at a computer, which is an important ability, and you can hack – which is also very useful seeing that I sometimes need information that aren't... what shall we call it? "open to public" if you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do."

"Good. So here is how we're going to do this: according to Dr. Jones you have to stay here at least a month if not longer and it only seems fittingly that you should repay the favour. When you're fully recovered you can do whatever you want, but if you proving yourself useful I may consider hiring you for "real". Any objections?"

"N-no." Nikki managed to stutter. "Whoa... what just happened? I'm going to work... for him?!"

"Then we're done here... I'll get you a new computer tomorrow seeing that the one Mokuba gave you is now pretty useless."

Nikki felt the dismissal tone in his words and started to get up. When she reach the door and started to turn the handle Kaiba spoke again:

"Oh... and Nikki – don't EVER try to hack my system again."

The message in his words was crystal clear and she quickly stepped out of the room.

After sitting an hour in her bed just staring into the air trying to grasp what had just happened Mokuba came home and she spent the rest of the day with him.

She didn't see the elder Kaiba brother more that day, which was fine by her even though she couldn't help hoping and fearing that he might show up. The only question was: Which feeling was the strongest? Fear or hope?

When she lay in her bed that evening she realized something – even though Kaiba had giving her a serious warning that was the first time he'd ever used her name. The thought made a strange warmth grow in her chest and soon she fell asleep.


Well, this was the 7th chapter! I'd like to say that I am NOT a hacker or have the greatest computer-talent, so please don't pull your flamethrowers out if I've made a few computer term-ish mistakes ;)

Okay, enough babbling - Now it's time for you to review! I really hope you liked it :3