Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was crowded, and Tom had to push his way through the mass of talking, laughing, shouting kids. He lost sight of Alex somewhere near the microwave oven, and stood looking about the sea of faces, hoping to catch sight of her again. He felt a hand wrap around his wrist and pull him gently through the confusion, and then he was standing opposite her, pushed so close up that he could smell the scent of her shampoo clearly. She did not seem uncomfortable at all, and causally handed him his drink before yelling to him over the noise.
"What?" He called back.
"You wanna go somewhere we can hear each other!" She screamed.
They both laughed and then she took his hand and led him to the backdoor and out onto the patio.
It was starting to turn cold as the heat of the day was lost to darkness, but a few people were still hanging out in the garden, huddled together in small group, or paired off and making out. Tom followed Alex to a vacant swinging seat, and the two sat down and opened their cans.
Tom was not sure where to begin; it would be impossible to bring up the subject of the computer virus without it rousing her suspicion. He decided to wait for her to instigate conversation, deciding that he would just have to learn what he could about her, without asking too many direct questions.
"Enjoying the party?" She said, taking a sip of her soda.
"Yeah," he replied, with a lop-sided grin. "It's fun."
She gave a contemptuous grunt.
"What were you doing up there," he said. "Who comes to a party to play on a computer?"
She looked at him, the eyebrow arched again; "I wasn't playing," she said.
"What were you doing?" He asked carefully.
"What do you care?" She countered.
"Just wondering," he said, with a shrug and a hurt look. "I was just asking a question. You know; making conversation. Jeez, you don't have to be so touchy about it!"
"You're cute when you're cross," she said, her mouth curling into a smile.
"Yeah?" Tom replied without even thinking. He tried to compose himself; flirting with your main suspect was not the appropriate course of action.
"I'm gonna go back inside," she said, standing up. "It's too cold."
"You can borrow my jacket," he offered.
"That's okay, lets go find Eddie," she replied.
He nodded and they went back inside, they pushed their way around for a few minutes, and finally found Eddie in the den and on a computer.
"If you spill anything on the keyboard, my dad'll kill me," a boy, obviously the host, was telling Eddie.
"Would you relax," Eddie dismissed him.
"Why do you have to be on that thing now?" The host demanded.
"I work better surrounded by chaos," Eddie replied, as somewhere off in another room there was the sound of breaking glass. "It gets my creative juices flowing."
The host was on his way to the door, no doubt to investigate. "I don't see why you can't use my computer," were his parting words, as he disappeared into the throng of the hallway.
"Cos Alex is on it!" Eddie called after him.
"No she isn't," Alex said, and Eddie glanced back at her and Tom, noticing their presence for the first time.
"Give up already," Eddie scoffed.
"Hardly," Alex replied.
"What you talking about?" Tom asked, feeling as if he had missed something.
"We had a little competition to see who could get inside the main database of Woodboro Bank," Alex explained.
"You did it already?" Eddie said in disbelief.
"Like twenty minutes ago," Alex said, cocking her head to the side.
"Unbelievable," Eddie slammed his fists on the table. "I had one more security wall to break through and I was there!"
His head snapped towards Alex, he was pouting like a sulking child. Then suddenly the pout dissolved away, replaced by his comically grin.
"You are the undefeated champion," Eddie laughed.
"Yes I am," Alex teased.
"So you guys actually hacked into a bank?" Tom said.
"Well I did," Alex replied, giving Eddie a playfully shove.
"Amazing," Tom said, shaking his head softly. "So you actually get inside the bank, into peoples accounts and stuff?"
"I would have," Eddie put on the spoiled boy act again. "If I had a few more hours."
"So you guys could – I don't know – say, transfer money from some rich guys account, into yours?"
Alex gave him a curious look, and said; "Theoretically; yes."
"Have you ever done it?" Tom said. "You guys could get into anywhere, right? You have the world at your fingertips. Accounts, government files, it's all up for grabs."
Eddie gave a snort; "Don't be an idiot," he said. "That's illegal."
"Come on, you've never been tempted?" Tom pressed.
"It's not like swiping a pack of smokes from the mall, or copying your Mother's Milk album for a friend," Alex said, as if explaining it to a toddler. "The government gets pretty pissed if you go hacking into their systems. They'd send you to the slammer and throw away the key."
They could be lying, Tom thought. Maybe they did get their kicks causing chaos in cyberspace, but he got the impression that they were telling the truth. These were smart kids, they were not about to mess up their lives with a jail sentence. But maybe they would cause chaos for a bit of excitement; maybe in some light, the virus could be seen as a practical joke that got out of hand. The principal was threatening to have the guilty party arrested, but maybe it was a buff and the kids knew it.
He thought back to the hacker's message: Can you hack it? Who was it to; the students at Woodsboro? Mr Rogers? Could Mr Rogers 'hack' being head of the department, was that the question? Tom already knew that Eddie, Sandman and Alex were not impressed with Mr Rogers' technical abilities, but why would they want to sabotage their own computer lab? That was the only subject any of them seemed remotely interested in, so it did not make sense for them to do it. Then who had done it? Who had motive and means? Who was the hacker targeting? Perhaps it was some disgruntle school librarian, who was trying to ruin the digital encyclopaedia in a bid to force the students back into the library.
"How you guys getting on?" Eddie whispered to Tom, nodding towards Alex.
She had thrown her self, gracefully, across an armchair on the other side of the room, and was flicking through a PC magazine.
"Okay," Tom said with a shrug. "She seems nice."
"I think she likes you," Eddie said, elbowing him playfully.
Tom could not stop a small chuckle escaping his lips; he would never get use to teen crushes and locker room gossip. It had been unappealing first time round and now it seemed beyond puerile.
"You think?" He said.
"Yeah man," Eddie said with a nod. "What do you think?"
"She's pretty cute," Tom admitted, glancing over. "But I'm not looking to hook up with anyone right now," he added, feeling guilty for being attracted to her.