Scott and Grey returned to Dedsec HQ.
"Grey reporting for duty."
"So this is what Dedsec looks like." Scott said, looking around the area.
Grey then followed up after Scott. "Do we have any leads on where Lucy might be?"
"No." Sitara said sadly.
"Darn it!"
As everyone was ready to give up, Wrench had an idea.
"Why don't we hack into Albion's security to see if they have Lucy?"
"Does this mean we have to go back to Albion HQ?" Grey asked.
"We don't have to." Scott said. "We can hack into Albion's security here. Go to the Albion website."
T-Bone went to Albion's website.
"Then what?" He said.
Scott went over to T-Bone's computer and logged in under his account.
"Thanks to the new Albion technology, we don't have to be in the security room to see where they're taking my girlfriend."
Scott went to the security files and brought up footage.
"There we go!" Sitara cheered.
The footage showed Lucy being dragged away by two thugs not with Albion. They both had tattoos of a strange symbol on their arms. Grey remembered seeing the symbol before, but where?
"Wait, what other footage do we have?" Grey asked.
"The one on Clan Crystal." T-Bone said.
"Bring that one up." Grey asked.
T-Bone brought up the footage. As Dedsec expected, the tattoo was seen on the guards' necks when they were bringing in a slave.
"They're from Clan Crystal." Grey summarized.
"So they are working together." Wrench stated.
"What? Let me see!" Scott said.
As the Albion guard viewed the footage, he came to the conclusion the company he worked for had turned over a leaf.
"No..."
Wrench gave Scott a reassuring pat on the back. T-Bone brought back the footage of Lucy being taken by the Clan Crystal. The two members who had her threw her into one of their cars and drove off.
"Rewind it." Grey said.
T-Bone reversed the footage. At the part where Lucy was being shoved into the car, Grey spoke up.
"Stop right there."
T-Bone paused the video. Grey then took a photo of the car's license plate on screen.
"What are you doing?" Wrench said.
"You know how police officers can track your license plate?" Grey asked.
"Yeah."
"So we use police tactics to find out where Clan Crystal is taking Lucy."
Everyone looked at Grey as if his plan was far fetched.
"My uncle knows this, okay?" Grey defended. "He's a security researcher."
"But how are we going to track someone's place with a license plate?" Sitara asked.
"We have to go to the police station." Grey said.
Grey stood near the entrance of the police station. As Albion took over as head of security, normal security guards, police officers, and SWAT teams were laid off. Grey went behind the station. Seeing a pipe leading up to the roof, Grey scaled the wall and onto the rooftop. He noticed the fire escape door that was simply padlocked. He went down the roof to pick up a cement block to smash the padlock open.
"Okay, I'm in." Grey said.
"Good, now find the police computer." T-Bone said.
Grey went downstairs and into the police station. With the lights out, he first had to turn the power back on. He then went to the janitor closet and found the fuse box.
"Okay Newton, you can do this."
Grey flipped all of the switched to the ON position. Nothing happened. There was a power level on the right of the switches. The bar was very high, above the limit. Grey then turned on the switches off. The bar went down, but only slightly. Grey then turned two more switches off. The bar went down even further, but still not enough. He tried one more switch. The generator behind him started rumbling. The lights in the janitor room turned on, and so was the hallway. Grey then went over to main lobby. He found the main computer and hacked into it. Grey went to the license tracker tab on the computer and inserted the license plate number he got from the footage. The address was shown.
"Crystal Academy?" Grey read.
Grey went to Crystal Academy's website. Like Solas, she was the dean of the Crystal Academy.
"Guys, I got the location." Grey said. "Lucy's at Crystal Academy."
"Crystal Academy?" Sitara questioned.
"It's a school where gifted humans go. It's essentially a better secondary education system."
"Well I'm going to investigate." Grey said.
"But what about security?" Wrench said.
"Don't worry. I can handle this."
Grey immediately noticed the increased security at Crystal Academy.
"Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought." He said.
"How are we going to sneak in? We were lucky to recruit an Albion guard, but this is just ridiculous." Sitara said.
"Wait, let me try something." Grey said.
Grey used his laptop to hack into the security cameras of Crystal Academy. He used the security cameras to locate Lucy. As he expected, Lucy was fitted into her neck collar just like the other slaves. Two guards walked into the room she was in. One of them held a film camera.
"Get up for the camera." A guard ordered.
The guard took footage of Lucy dressed in nothing but her undergarments.
"You'll be perfect for the slave trade tonight." The guard said.
"There's a slave trade tonight?" The other guard asked.
"Of course there is, you spaz!"
"Guys, there's a slave trade coming at Crystal Prep tonight." Grey informed.
"Really?" Sitara asked.
"Yes really. Clan Crystal won't know what'll hit them."
As night fell, Grey gathered the entire team to meet at Crystal Prep.
"Okay, let's crash this joint." Wrench said.
"Sitara, what's your status?" Grey asked.
"Guys, it looks like we need to show our phones if we want to get past the security guards."
"What?" T-Bone questioned.
"Let me try something." Grey said.
One of the attendees walked by them. Grey hacked onto his phone.
"Guys, he has a pass to get in."
"So we have to forge our own?" Scott asked.
Grey nodded. "Yep. But thankfully..."
Grey sent passes to everyone.
"You can thank me later."
The group showed their passes to the guard as they walked in. Their minds were shot as they walked past the cafeteria door.
"What on earth?" Wrench said.
It didn't look like some dark slave factory. It looked like a school dance. There were not just men, but women too. There was a punch bowl, a disco ball, pop music playing in the background. Balloons, confetti, cake, and sweets.
"This isn't the slave trade auction..." Scott said.
"Let me try something." Grey said.
Grey used his phone to hack into the security. He traced Lucy at the dean's office, forced into being a servant like the other slaves.
"I can see Lucy."
"Where is she held?" T-Bone asked.
"The principal's office." Grey said. "I'm going in."
"But what about Crystal and her small clicker?" Sitara wondered.
"If it's hackable, I can render it useless."
Grey left the cafeteria and walked into the hallways. Seeing flashlight beams, he knew the area was being patrolled. Grey hid into one of the lockers as one of Crystal's guards walked by. He continued his way onto the principal's office.
"Guys, how's it going out there?" Grey asked through his earpiece.
"The audience seems to have gone quiet." Sitara said. "Maybe there's an announcement."
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to our auction tonight." Crystal announced.
"Act cool." Sitara said as the group tried to blend in.
"We take pride and accomplishment in bringing the finest slaves in ever created. Now, let's bring up our first slave."
"This could be Lucy guys, get ready." Scott said.
The first slave was a barrel-chested bearded man in his 40s. As with the other male slaves, he only had a white tank top, white pants, and white socks.
"We have Alan up here and ready to be sold. Do I hear $500?"
"Oh no, they're bidding." Wrench said.
"Grey, you got to hurry up and find Lucy." Sitara said on her earpiece.
Grey answered back. "I'm changing our plan. We're deactivating the collars."
"What?" T-Bone said.
"We can use this as an advantage to cover our escape. I'm still trying to find the security console."
"And sold for $150,000 to Bob over there!"
Alan was brought over to Bob for safekeeping. Alan begged for help from the party guests as he was dragged away.
"Poor guy." Scott said.
"At least he doesn't have to worry about the collar anymore?" T-Bone suggested.
"Next up we have, Lucy!"
Everyone turned to the stage to find Lucy being brought up.
"Grey, Lucy's being auctioned." Sitara said.
"Try and stall them!"
"Okay, do I have $500?" The auctioneer said.
Wrench raised his flag.
"Come on... Come on..." Sitara said.
Scott had beads of sweat running down his face as the bids continued.
"And sold for $250,000 to the masked stranger over there!" The auctioneer said, referring to Wrench.
"Do we have that money?" Scott asked.
"No." T-Bone said.
One of Crystal's guards walked up to the group.
"Pay up, please."
"Oh jeez, I must've left my credit card at home." Wrench said.
"This isn't funny business kid." The guard said. "You're coming with me."
The guard was ready to take Leon away. As he latched onto the latter's arm, the lights cut out. Everyone was sent into a frenzy as they used the flashlights on their phones. But by that point, the slaves started turning on the guards and Crystal.
"What's happening?" Sitara said.
Grey then got onto Sitara's earpiece. "How'd you like Blackout: The Remix?"
"Lucy! Over here!" Scott shouted.
Lucy ran over to Scott when she heard him.
"Let's go!" Scott said.
"But what about Grey?" Sitara said.
"I'll be fine." Grey said on his earpiece "Just go!"
The five made their way out the door.
Meanwhile, Crystal used her clicker to take out the slaves. Only two were taken out. Grey had disabled the chips inside the neck collars, rendering the clicker useless. He watched on footage as Crystal barricaded herself in her office.
"Bloody Crystal, you're about to get mined." He said as closed his laptop.
Grey made his way to the principal's office, passing over dead bodies along the way. He opened the door to the principal's office to find the slaves armed with broom sticks, plungers, mops, and whatever weapon they could find.
"Stand down!" Crystal shouted as she held one of her slaves hostage at knifepoint.
"Hey!" Grey shouted.
This distracted Crystal long enough for the other slaves to beat her to death.
"Did you?" One of the slaves asked to Grey.
Grey silently nodded.
"Thank you."
Grey left the building as the slaves overwhelmed Crystal's guards.
Dedsec welcomed Lucy back into their hideout.
"So this is Dedsec? Kind of..."
"Gang-like?" Wrench answered.
"Sort of. This place sounds like you want to break the law."
"We're hackers." Grey said. "Hacking isn't always a bad thing."
"I don't want to be a hacker." Lucy said.
"Neither do I." Scott said.
"You don't have to be hackers." Grey stated. "Lucy can draw fanart of Dedsec, which can bring more people to us, and Scott be our Dedsec spy."
"Sounds pretty cool."
"Dang right it is." T-Bone added.
"Now, let's go after Albion!" Grey stated.
The group was ready to go on their own ways before a call happened on the main monitor. T-Bone answered it, a short woman with green skin and white long hair appeared on screen.
"Are you Dedsec?" She asked.
"Yes we are." Grey said.
"I'm Tanya. I might have a lead on Zero Day."
CONNECTION LOST.
Cliffhanger moment right here.