Addition to Murphy's Laws: In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.

Jarod unlocked the door to his apartment, grabbed some leftovers from the fridge and promptly began digging into the cold Chinese food; manuevering the chopstics like an expert, which he of course, was. He stripped, one handed, out of his work clothes. He was a lawyer at the moment, or rather he had been a lawyer, and his pretend was over now. It was about time that he left the boring suit in exchange for some normal attire; he couldn't help feeling like a sweeper every time he looked in the mirror, which was an unnerving experience to say the least.

He looked at his computer, startled, as he heard the electronic voice say 'You've Got Mail'. Jarod walked over to his laptop warily and opened the file, his confusion marring his features obviously. He hadn't e-mailed anyone as of late, so why would someone e-mail him? Jarod had been slightly more... cautious... since he had met up with Lyle in the desert. One stupid mistake on his part had killed his little brother, and this time he didn't have someone to help him out of losing his thumb and his freedom. He did, however, still have plenty more people to lose.

He clicked the icon, and was relieved upon seeing the message was from CJ. He knew no one knew about his and Angelo's correspondence, and in any case, they would probably use his name, not his fake persona that he had gotten from a Cracker Jack box. He read the message, a feeling of foreboding growing with every word.

Can't let them do it again.

CJ

It was short, sweet, and to-the-point, just like his friend. Jarod had no idea what that meant, had no idea where he should even begin to speculate. He wasn't sure, but the message from Angelo had made it sound urgent. He thanked his friend silently, because if he hadn't e-mailed him, Jarod would have never known about it.

Jarod logged into the Centre's mainframe, listening to the 'beep. beep. beep' as his computer hacked its way through the various security devices and upgrades. His computer came up with a flashing sign.

'SYSTEM FAILURE' : access denied. Connection terminated in 5...4...3...2...1...

Now that was odd, they must have changed the system, because that had certainly never showed up before. He could probably work around it, but he didn't have the time, and the system would send out an alarm if he got it wrong, he had one chance and that wasn't enough. Jarod stared perplexedly at the screen for a moment before contemplating throwing a complete and total tantrum. He couldn't believe that the Centre had finally grown some brains and decided that they weren't going to let him sneak in undetected anymore. Furthermore, if he couldn't get the information he wanted from the mainframe by hacking in from the outside, that would mean he'd have to go back to the source of the problem, the Centre, the building that haunted his days and nights indiscriminately wherever he went. Jarod silently cursed Broots, he was the only man he knew of who could possibly find a way of cheating Jarod's computer system.

Jarod turned back to his computer to hack his way back out, but the screen turned blank even as his finger reached out to the keys. The hard-disk gave an angry hum and the indicator lights on his machine went out completely. Jarod disconnected his laptop from the phoneline, and sat over on the couch, PC set out on his lap. He re-opened it and hit the power button, waiting as the computer took stock of it's processes and opened executables. An angry message popped up, telling him "Don't you EVER shut down this computer like that again Young Man or your files and unsaved data may be lost permanently!" and that responsible owners pulled down the option from the start menu before turning off their computers. Jarod ignored the irate computer and clicked the okay button to get the message to go away. He opened the task manager with a CtrlAltDelete and took stock of the programs he had running. Sure enough, at the very top of the list of programs with the most memory usage, there was an executable that had absolutely no business on Jarod's hard-drive. Jarod clicked on the file labelled CntrRe-hst and hit 'end-process'. He wavered the default question his computer popped up with "Are you sure you would like to end process of 'CntrRe-hst--exe.'? This could have undesired effects upon other files on your computer."

The process ended, but popped up once again at the bottom of the list as 'CntrRe-hst2'. Jarod's shoulders sagged a bit as he stared at the screen with a growing sense of annoyance.

"Broots. You're a dead man."

He cleared it again, only to have it pop up once more as 'CntrRe-hst3'. God it was probably a tracking agent. How it had managed to be placed on Jarod's computer, he didn't know-- because somehow, the virus would have to get through his own formidable security systems. He couldn't think of anyone smart enough to do that, until his mind crept back to the e-mail.

Can't let them do it again...

The Centre had a new pretender. He quickly shut off his computer and unplugged it from the wall, entertaining the thought of dismantling it fully to ensure the tracking agent didn't have any way of surviving. Instead, he turned back to his chinese, a frown crossing his face. Thoughts whizzed through his mind as he mentally planned his latest excursion to the Centre. The fact that they had decided to change the security system left a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, he knew that the thought to change their systems would have stemmed directly from the need to hide something. Well so far they were doing a pretty effective job, but not for long.

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