"I heard you were looking for me…"
"What do you want?" Macgyver asked, expecting someone as calm and collected as Murdoc, but he was surprised when the man on the other end seemed to challenge his theory.
"Look I know how this all looks but I swear I'm not behind it, and now my friends are going missing." He claimed, his voice steady as his spoke. He was clearly prepared to deny his involvement with the situation before Macgyver had even asked any questions
"You just happened to send two masked criminals to break into my house to tell me you're not responsible?" Macgyver retorted, hearing a sigh from the caller before he responded.
"My friends are dropping like flies and I've no intention of being next, I pay good money for decent protection, there's no crime in that."
"No, but there is for aiding and abetting, you encouraged their antics."
"I'm not in control of how they carry out my request to deliver this phone…" He hissed, growing more defensive as they call progressed. "Look I'm trying to help."
"How so?"
"I know someone who probably knows exactly what's happening." He said, Macgyver pausing for a second as the lead echoed in his mind, questions following each idea and theory he could conceive.
"And you don't?"
"She's got way more experience in the dark web that I have, who do you think introduced me?" He chuckled nervously, almost like he regretted revealing that information, despite going through all this effort to do just that.
"And let me guess, you can't reach her for some arbitrary reason?"
"Her online presence has been dormant for a while…" He said, a pause looming in the air as Macgyver clued in on what he was suggesting. Though the agent wasn't going to make things easy for the man hiding behind the phone.
"I don't see how that would stop you?"
"I'm a hacker, there's only so much I can do with a mouse and keyboard, following someone who's hiding their tracks out in the real world while their digital footprint ends at a brick wall isn't one of my expertise." He growled, growing defensive again as he huffed into the static, awaiting the agent's response.
"Say I was interested in this woman…"
"Her online handle is Nympho. When I first started out she had the gall to prank with that that urban legend…instead of, I don't know, telling me they were real." He dropped the information quicker than Macgyver would have expected. The tension in the caller's voice seemed to suggest he was becoming annoyed with the whole conversation.
"Didn't you do that to your friends?"
"I never encountered them before I made that call, I just took what she said a face value…A mistake that not all rookies on the dark web recover from." He mumbled into the phone, something that Macgyver had to listen carefully to in order to hear. "I'm afraid I don't know anything else though."
"That's it?"
"You've done a fine job of figuring everything else so far…" He said before his voice turned into the buzz that signified the end of a call. He slid the phone from his ear and placed it on the desk before heading back out to the front door where Jack was already waiting. Several paramedics already rushing back and forth from the ambulance parked across the street as they tried keeping the assailant alive.
"Expect to be in the dog house." Jack chuffed as he watched out the door, waiting for the boss and other to pull up, though they were at least another few minutes out. Macgyver cracked a smile briefly as he reached the other side of the door, glancing out at the street.
"That was a given." He replied, a moment of silence fell between the men as Jack gaze turned from the road to his young friend, a look of concern that Macgyver soon picked up on.
"You were in there a long time. What happened?" He asked, Macgyver looking to the ground and biting his lip before his eyes met with Jack's.
"I got a call…for what I'm guessing is Adam."
"Adam? The psycho who could very well be behind the whole thing?" Jack growled, pulling Macgyver to one side for a semblance of privacy with the people crowding the room and porch.
"Well I don't think we can definitively say he's behind the whole thing."
"He sent two guys to break into your house and attack us. What part of that screams innocent to you?" Jack asked, glancing over his shoulder at the passing paramedic, carrying the occupied stretcher out the door.
"That I don't buy, but he seemed sincere in terms of not being responsible."
"You know, I never believed you were true trusting…I being to think that maybe I was wrong in that assumption." Jack said, trying to mask his frustration and disappointment behind humour.
"He gave us a lead." The moment those words left his lips, Jack's interest was perked, his eyes locked onto his companion.
"A lead?"
"But I need Riley to do her magic." Macgyver explained, looking out the door to see a car pull up, three familiar faces exiting the car. Matty scowling at the boys, but before she could get a lecture out, Macgyver was by Riley's side. "I need you to find someone."
"Someone? Who?" She asked, surprised at Macgyver enthusiasm to follow this lead. Matty, while shaking her head, reluctantly allowed him to ask his request before putting him in the dog house.
"Her online handle is Nympho." Macgyver explained as Riley set down her laptop and began searching through data files, giving Matty the chance to confront Macgyver.
"I thought I told you to leave the phone?" She said, her eyebrows raised at the blonde.
"To be fair it's a good thing I didn't, else I would have missed the call."
"Call?" She repeated, stunned that he'd received a call from the phone before she deduced that must have been where this new lead came from. "From who?"
"Adam, who he now thinks is on our side." Jack interrupted, which only seemed to make Matty's temples pulse.
"Not on our side necessarily, but I also don't think we should condemn a guy we've never met." Macgyver defended, hoping his on the fence point would at least somewhat calm his boss. Thankfully Riley spun around with a smile on her face.
"Nympho, AKA Lydia." She said, looking at Macgyver who spied at the laptop screen, though the information there was limited.
"Does Lydia have a last name?" Jack asked, also spying the screen, though he seemed to gloss over most of it.
"Not a documented one." Riley said, her voice lowering slightly with disappointment. "To be honest, there's not a lot of information documented."
"Well it doesn't look like any government database…" Jack pointed out, noticing the dark website skin and odd layout that seemed rather disorganised.
"That's because it's not. It's technically…one of the websites from the A.N.N on Kurt's laptop. A website that offers doxed information on players." She explained, backing out of the page to show the website in full, a long, several page list of people's names and addresses.
"If she was doxed, shouldn't he have her last name?" Matty asked, listening carefully to what Riley was saying, looking at the excessive information on screen.
"Most of hers is redacted, several people have redacted information. And I don't think it's from faulty recovery before you ask Jack." She says, glancing over at Jack before he can utter a word. "There's a laughing skull at the bottom of the screen and the text underneath saying, 'I was hacked'."
"So another hacker redacted the information?" Matty asked, looking up at her computer expert who nodded in response. "Is there any information we can use?"
"There is an address listed for her." Riley pointed out, highlighting the LA address under Lydia. A suburban property surprisingly not too far from them, which seemed to visibly disturb Bozer and perhaps more subtly disturb Macgyver.
"Let's check it out." Jack said, tapping Macgyver's shoulder as two left, Matty shook her head as she watched them jog down to the street, jumping in Jack's car once more to head out to find the Nympho
