This chapter is all villain, making it my favorite to write for this story! Enjoy!
Jasper was in his room with orders to get some sleep before 'the big show'. Anthony hadn't explained anything, like he'd said; just that they needed a couple hours to get things set up. Jasper thought there was no way that he'd sleep, but he was suddenly being shaken awake by a hand on his shoulder. It was Vasili, with his backpack.
"You didn't even change your clothes." Vasili, an unexplained germaphobic, wrinkled his nose at Jasper. "Must have been one crazy night for you."
And it's not even over. Jasper pushed himself off of his stomach, rubbing hard at his eyes. "What'd you want?"
"Everything's ready." Was the only reply.
Jasper glanced at his bedside clock. 5:12am. Had Raph been waiting this whole time? Jasper's heartrate sped up as the last five hours came at him more vividly. If Raph could be trusted, he'd be done with this place in a couple of hours. Jasper didn't want to hope as much as he was, but he couldn't help it.
"Can I go to the bathroom first?" Jasper eyed Vasili, who grunted. "Hurry up."
Jasper did his business and even managed to brush his teeth before Vasili led him downstairs. Jasper got a good look into the rooms they passed, committing them to memory. He wanted to make sure that he never saw one like it again. Anthony's limo- well, half-limo with its own driver- awaited them in the garage. And there was Anthony, whose grin was too eager for this early in the morning.
"You're burning with questions, I'm sure." Anthony said once the three of them were inside and the driver was pulling them out of the garage. Jasper just waited and Anthony handed him a single sheet of paper. There were over a dozen lines across it, each an arrangement of numbers and letters that Jasper recognized instantly. "IP addresses."
"Twenty-one of them." Anthony crossed his legs on his end of the limo. "You've hacked a few of them before, when we attempted to plant a virus into Oruko Saki's system."
"Attempted." Jasper leaned his shoulder on the door, the cool glass of the window calming him through his sleeve. "Going at them again is going to get us the same results."
Anthony's grin remained where it was. "Jasper, what do these IPs have in common?"
"Oruko Saki." Jasper hated being quizzed like a four-year-old. Anthony nodded at him. "The majority are linked to his financial and technical manifests. Together, they are a virtual family tree of the past twenty-four years of Foot Clan business. The reason that we failed before, is that we weren't hacking them in the right order."
You weren't hacking nothing! Jasper looked back at the paper. After a couple seconds, his techo-geek gears started turning. "It's a Russian nesting doll."
Vasili about guffawed and Anthony gave an excited clap. "Ironic, yes?"
"Yes." Jasper had to agree, forgetting about his impending freedom. It was a technique of cloaking they were talking about, used to hide real documents behind dummy accounts. Like the wooden dolls that opened you to another, smaller one until you reached the center, each one of these IP addresses was a layer- a firewall- you had to get around to reach the core. The kicker was that you had to get around them in a specific order.
This' their big move against Shredder. Jasper concluded. Finally getting to the heart of his network.
"This is where your genius will come in." Anthony leaned in to get him eye-to-eye with Jasper. "You're going to break us past each and every one until we reach the real McCoy."
Jasper's throat stuck as he swallowed. "Sorry?"
"We're going to that office property I bought." Anthony went on. "There's a special basement floor we've set up. Servers, cooling tunnels…"
"Are you nuts!" Jasper cried, earning him a squeeze on the shoulder from Vasili. But Jasper only batted him off. "Anthony, even if these IPs are in the right order, you know how long just one of them could take to break through!"
"You beat your personal best last week." Anthony shrugged his shoulders.
"89 minutes!" Jasper about ripped the paper, he was holding it so tight. "Times that by twenty-one, at best and what'd you get? And the hacking has to be constant, it can't be interrupted. Anthony, I can't stay up that long-"
"Why not?" Anthony had an exaggerated confusion covering his face. "You have somewhere to be?"
Jasper felt like telling him 'yes'.
"Connecticut, perhaps."
Jasper's heart missed a beat, jerking his whole chest. He looked up at Anthony, who in this whole time, hadn't stopped smiling. "That's where you wanted your friend to take you, right? When the bus station failed."
He knew. Of course he did. Why had Jasper hoped for a different result?
"What's in Connecticut, Jasper?" Vasili leaned on his shoulder, like an old confidante. "Where was your friend taking you?"
"I…" Jasper tried to form a defense.
"You ditched him, I know." Anthony crossed his legs the other way. "Or, maybe he ditched you."
At this, Anthony took a length of cloth from his front pocket and flicked it at Jasper. Jasper caught it and paled at the red and ragged color. Raph had been wearing this; Jasper got the impression that he never took it off.
"Hun came to my door, telling me of a squatter on my roof." Anthony said, his smile cold as his tone. "Seems he managed to plant a tracker on this… creature last night. Lucky for me because I got to have a talk with him."
A talk. Jasper tried to look nonchalant as he looked up from the do-rag. "How'd it feel when he beat you?"
"Do I look beat to you." Anthony's smile shortened. "Turns out, once I explained the situation, he was very understanding, this Raphael. He accepted the 20k with pleasure… before I killed him, that is. He had just been causing so much trouble…"
Jasper looked back down at the red rag, like it might explain things better. 20,000 dollars was what Anthony paid when he needed somebody to keep their mouth shut. Jasper had seen it done with lots of people, to keep his existence a secret.
"He wouldn't do that." Jasper insisted. Anthony pressed his fingers together in a sad formation. "I'm afraid he would, Jasper. He just didn't think that you were worth the trouble."
Jasper's chest continued to grow tight, his hand clenching the rag without meaning to. Anthony reached out again, covering Jasper's hand with his own. "I did you a favor, Jasper. Taught you something very important about trust."
Jasper threw the rag at Anthony, pushing himself as far back as the seat would let him. Anthony and Vasili let him be as Jasper fought back the sinking feeling of never getting out. He'd be kept here, under Anthony's thumb, until he outlived his usefulness. With Raph, he'd thought…
Jasper stared hard out of the window, angry at the tears he felt. That was what he got for hoping.
