The worst part about going to school these days was not having Gazimon with me. In the three weeks since I met the short cat rabbit, I'd gotten used to having her around. To the point it felt weirder not having her around.

But it wasn't like I could just walk around school carrying Pabumon and pretending she was a plush toy. It would attract way too much attention and that was the last thing I needed at this point. Plus after what had happened the night before… best to give Gazimon a bit of space. So instead, I meandered through my school day while Gazimon stayed home, safe but probably bored in the Digitial Rebel.

Well unless she managed to get that movie player worker…

Man, she was probably living it up right now. What I wouldn't give for something to break the monotony.

And almost as though the universe itself was answering, I turned a corner and found a guy sitting at a corner where two hallways met. He was curled up into a ball, his knees so high up I couldn't see his face. Roxie was standing over him, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Hey there Roxie…" I walked up to the two while quickly checking my watch. I still had enough time before I had to make it to my next class. I stopped in front of the pair as Roxie turned towards me. "Is he uh… doing okay?"

"It's fine, my cousin is just freaking out because he's going to lose some files." She explained as the sitting boy's head popped up, his eyes red and the tears still on his cheeks.

"You don't get it. I spent years working on those prototypes. Each and every one of them was a lesson learned or a challenge beaten. And now this guy wants to take it all away… and for what Money!" He screamed out that last part before ducking his dead back down and going back to crying.

I just stared back at Roxie who gave me the quick rundown. Apparently, her cousin Tommy, who up until now I'd only heard about, was really into video games. But not just playing them, but also making them. He had several game-making programs and a giant file on his PC filled with a bunch of small projects he'd worked on over the course of the last year.

The keyword here was 'had'. Last night he'd clicked on something which filled his computer up with something he called ransomware.

In short, he had 48 hours to call the number on the computer screen and pay 10,000 dollars before everything on it got deleted. Seeing as how he was a teenager with no income, his chances of having that money in a little less than 40 hours were pretty much zero.

"I'm doomed!" Tommy suddenly… okay that was weird. I was going to just call him Tom. Tom suddenly screamed into the air before ducking back into his ball. "What kind of person would even do this? Hacking other people's things just for money. And the worst part is that the police won't do anything about it."

"Wait nothing at all?"

"Apparently we don't have a computer crimes division, so all they did was tell me tough luck and to be more careful," he smacked his fist into the ground, "like telling me that now helps!"

I bit my lip and held back a growl. They didn't have a division to deal with a crime like this? Then contact another department that did. If it was committed over the internet, the hacker could have been from anywhere in the world. The whole thing reeked of disinterest.

"Hey wait… your Gabi right? The kid who was contacted by the people who exposed Coach K right?" I jerked back as Tom popped his head out again, his eyes filled with desperation and something even worse.

Hope.

"Can you contact them again? Try and see if they'll help me? I don't have a lot of time left…" he crawled out of his ball and groveled at my feet.

"I mean… I can try?" I did my best to ignore the weird looks Roxie was giving me. I shrugged my shoulders at her before looking back at Tom. "Just… please stop doing… this."

He was off me before I could blink.

"Thank you so much, you're my only hope," and with that, he walked off down the hall.

"What happened to keeping a low profile?" Roxie leaned her back on the wall and glared at me. "The last thing you need is people suspecting you still have a link to the hackers who took down Coach K. Has Gazimon even finished mastering Paralzying Breath?"

"No she hasn't and I know. But three weeks is plenty of time for the heat to die down, and it's not like taking this guy down will cause a big public scandal. Plus we do only have around 40 hours to figure it out. It'll be like a trail run, a way to practice all the stuff we've been working on."

She opened her mouth to fire something back when the bell rang. We'd spent a little too long on this. We looked each in the eye and nodded before walking past each other to our next classes.

I sat down at my next class just in time to avoid being late. The teacher gave me a bit of raised eyebrow, but ignored me to start the lecture. Not that I could focus on it, I was too busy thinking of ways we could help Tom out.

"Yeah I have no idea how to help this guy out without exposing ourselves." After freeing myself from Gabi's arms and hiding from Laura, I had expected the rest of the day to go a certain way. I'd enjoy the time Gabi was at school with a few of the movies I'd… 'found' on the internet and some snacks. Then Gabi would get home and we'd work on his dumb homework to get it out of the way as fast as possible. As soon as that was done, we'd practice Parazlying Breath until I couldn't keep going.

The day had been going as expected until Gabi plugged the Rebel Drive into the laptop. Instead of throwing his stuff on the desk within view of the camera, he'd instead told me about some guy named Tom. The longer he went on, the more I wanted to help him, there was just one little issue.

"No way at all?" He leaned forward on his chair, clearly less than pleased.

"In order to deal with this ransomware thing, we would have to be directly connected to his PC. In order to do that we would either need to connect the rebel drive to his PC, or find it through the internet."

"What's wrong with getting there through the internet?" I let out a sigh, I knew he didn't know, but it was still frustrating.

"It would take ages. Since we don't know where he is beforehand, we would have to manually search the internet, checking every PC we find, until we get the right one. And even if we found it, we would need to head back to figure out the fastest connection there and back in case anything goes wrong."

Gabi sat back his eyes narrowed before looking back at me… no he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were off, looking around me instead, almost as though he had his eyes on…

"What if we took the laptop?" He pointed out as he reached out and the angle of the room changed. "It's pretty light and all we'd have to do is hide it in my bag. We could take it over to Tom's house, find someplace to hide, and then connect to his house's internet. The battery on this thing is crazy powerful, so that wouldn't be a problem."

"And with a local connection, like the one I have to the TV and the PC downstairs… we could get to the PC in no time," I hummed out loud as I thought it over. It was just crazy enough to work. There was only one issue. "How exactly are you going to 'hide' while you do this?"

"You just leave that to me," He smirked while pointing towards himself with his thumb. I rolled my eyes before he set the laptop back down and reached for his bag. Looked like we were back on the normal schedule.

I did my part on the stupid homework and then it was Paralyzing Breath time. I only managed a few attempts today, and I couldn't help but feel a little distracted. The whole time we were together in the Laptop, there was this weird air between Gabi and I. Like he wanted to say something, but didn't seem able or willing to. After collapsing for the fourth time, I called it a day and he left.

I decided to not go with him when he left for the material world this time around. Instead, I crawled my way back to the small room I'd made for myself within the Rebel Drive and fell asleep.

I'd needed to be careful the next day. The Rebel Drive was small, and easy to hide in my pocket, but the laptop was another story. I'd needed to take out a few books I was hopefully not going to need from my bookbag before being able to stuff it in there. Fortautnly, neither my Aunt nor Uncle were the kind to make lunch for me. Laura was a different story, of course, she got to go to school with a full meal in her bag.

Lucky duck.

Well not like I cared, I just grabbed something from the vending machine using a bit of the money my parents left me… Although that was starting to run a little low. Was there any ethical way to make money with Gazimon's help? Maybe I could ask her about it after all this was over.

The final bell rang as raised from my chair and rushed to the exit. I surged through the crowd, reaching the exit before starting the walk towards my destination. It didn't take too long for me to start hearing someone walking behind me. I glanced back and spotted Roxie, catching up to me.

"I still don't like this Gabi," Roxie said as she started walking in sync with me, "my Aunt and Uncle don't know you're coming and we don't have anything planned in case they find you."

"I'm sure we can figure something out if we have to," I explained as crossed the street. "Worst comes to worst, we can say we're helping out the mystery hacker."

"I hope this works Gabi, there are a couple in town who would really like to know who exposes Coach K," she said that last part in a hushed whisper just as we made it to the address Roxie had given me.

It was a pretty standard 2-story house, with a red tile roof, a yard in the back, and a garage with probably 2 cars inside. Roxie put her hand up and motioned for me to stay back, hidden behind the fence before she walked forward. I watched as she snuck around the property, looking through the bushes and the windows before going around a bush by the side of the house.

A few seconds later, I heard my phone go off. I quickly read the text Roxie sent me and sent my response. As soon as I did, Roxie emerged from the bushes and I knelt down until I was completely out of sight. I heard her knock on the door, followed by cheerful greetings from both her and an older man I couldn't see.

Imagine getting along with your extended family, I knew I couldn't.

There were a few words passed between Roxie and her Uncle before she walked inside. I was a bit too far to get the specifics. About a minute later, I got a second text containing a single word.

'Go'.

I followed the plan just as she had described it. While she kept her relatives busy, I would run towards the bushes. It didn't take me too long to find the small opening in front of the side fence. I nestled myself in there, and once I was sure I was out of sight, dug out my laptop from my bag. I threw it open, took out the Rebel Drive, and got to work.