It was nice to finally get to meet Leni's siblings, except for Lori, who wasn't there, but now I had more important things to deal with. There was a report of a major scam at someplace called Flip's Food & Fuel, which I was now heading over to as quickly as I could.
The police had not yet arrived. I had gotten pretty good at dealing with local police, but at this time I did not want to have to deal with them.
"Hello, is anyone here?" I asked.
"Are you the police? I need help. I have just been stolen from," the owner of the store said.
"In a way, yes. First, what is your name?"
"Flip."
"So Flip, tell me what happened."
"Well, I was approached by this guy in a black hood who had a business proposition for me. He would help advertise my store in exchange for some money. He even showed me the website of his company. When I gave him the money, though, I never heard back from him, and the website he showed me was gone."
"That sounds like Xranstran, all right, Flip. I will need you to give me the name of that website and I will take a look into it," I replied.
Flip did give the name of the website. I went to a public library to do some digging. It took a lot of source code diving, but I was able to find out that the website did exist. It was seemingly created solely for this scam and was instantly deleted as soon as it was no longer needed. Xranstran has pulled similar tricks in the past, though this is the first time I have seen him use a website.
I, however, discovered a possible slip-up Xranstran made. The creation of the site was still tied to an IP address, and if I could track it down, it could lead me to something useful.
I had my phone track the IP address, but due to constant glitches and slow internet, it was taking forever, so long that I ended up falling asleep in the library and not even noticing.
I woke up at around 6 in the morning, still at my desk in the library, with the building empty. I had just realized what had happened. Checking my phone, I discovered that my IP tracker had finally completed its task, and I now knew the exact location where that fake website was created.
I left the library and rushed over there as fast as I could, hoping that I could still catch some sort of trail Xranstran left behind. When I arrived, the location was the mall, I thought I must have been mistaken at first, but nope, it looks like this is the place it was sent from. This just made my job ten times harder, as now I had to find the exact store in this massive mall that this was done from.
I didn't have any time to lose, though, so I rushed into the store as quickly as I could. The way I had to do this was not ideal. I had to walk to each store one at a time and check the IP to see if it matched. I had a good memory, so I could remember the exact number when I checked, but it was still not great. While checking my tenth store, I was spotted by someone.
"Hey, Nick." I turned around to see that the person calling my name was Leni Loud.
"Oh hey, Leni."
"So are you hanging out at the mall as well for the weekend?"
"Yeah, sure I am."
"Well, do you want to hang out then? Like, hanging out in the mall with my friends is always totes the best."
I had to think this through. Saying no to Leni might seem very suspicious, especially after what Lisa said to her yesterday, but if I do say yes, tracking down Xranstran is going to become even harder. I was still not ready to tell Leni what I was doing, so I made my choice.
"Yeah, sure Leni, I would love to."
Me and Leni started walking around the mall, visiting some stores. While there, I would check the IP address to see if it matched the one I was looking for. While we were leaving a book store, I spotted someone wearing the same black coat that Xranstran wears. I was not sure if it was him, so I needed to find a way to get close to him.
"Hey Leni, I left something in the book store. Head over to that clothing store over there, and I will meet you there in a bit."
"Alright, Nick."
When Leni left, I went into the book store and circled to that person with the coat. However, when I got there, I saw that it was just a coat hanger with fake legs. This meant only one thing: Xranstran was setting up decoys over the mall to throw me off the trail. Right after I saw another hooded figure running into the same clothing store Leni went into, it was quite convenient for me, I wasn't sure if this was him or not, but I had to make sure.
I ran in as quickly as I could, but I lost his scent. Soon after, I saw a black hood on the ground and figured this meant Xranstran had discarded his disguise and was now posing as a civilian. This wasn't the first time he did this, and as per usual, there was no DNA on the hood.
"Hey, Nick," Leni said, which caught me off guard.
"There you are, Leni. I was just looking at this."
"Looks lost. I will put it in the lost and found." Leni grabbed the hood and put it in the lost and found while I just stood there. While Leni was busy with that, I checked my phone to see if the IP address matched, but unfortunately, it didn't.
Throughout my time in the mall, I would continuously encounter Xranstran poking around some stores, and sometimes it was a disguise, but sometimes it was the real him. Each time, though, he would manage to slip away from me, with me still not finding that damn IP address. I had managed to keep Leni in the dark about what was going on the entire time, but only barely, and I was playing a dangerous game by doing this.
Me and Leni went over to a coffee shop called Starbucks to pick up something to eat. I had to once again trick Leni into paying for it, as I had no money myself. When we sat down to eat, I went to check my phone to see if the IP address matched, and to my shock, it did. It makes sense, there is free wifi in this place with minimal security that Xranstran could use for some hacking purposes. I now knew that Xrantstran had been here before.
I wanted to try something new, to entice Xranstran to come here now that I knew of some element he wasn't aware of that I could exploit. Coming up with exactly what it was, was the tricky part, though. I decided to go for the option of relaunching a website at the same URL from the same place, It wasn't guaranteed to work, but it was, as of now, the best option I had. I had to stall Leni for long enough until Xranstran arrived.
I was able to get through, though, and after some time, I spotted a black-hooded figure trying to get into the coffee shop. This was my perfect opportunity to trap him. I told Leni, "I need to go to the bathroom. Leave without me. I will catch up later" and went inside. I set up a small camera inside the shop so I could observe everything that was going on and wait for the perfect opportunity.
Xranstran went into the coffee shop. However, I am guessing he sensed a trap as he managed to pull some sort of alarm that caused the whole shop and mall to evacuate. I knew it was my chance, though, so I sprang out of the bathroom and managed to tackle Xranstran to the ground. It was the first time I had him right in the palm of my hands. However, Xranstran was stronger than I anticipated, and he was able to wrestle me off and then start running away.
I gave chase to Xranstran, chasing him throughout every corner of the mall. With no people to get in my way, I was able to chase him non-stop. I chased him into various stores, and this time he wasn't able to hide due to there being nobody else around. After several minutes of chasing him and me barely having any energy left, I managed to corner Xranstran in a storage area. It was the big chance I had been looking for.
"It's the end of the road, Xranstran, your corner. It is now time for me to bring you to justice."
I will admit it was odd. For the first time, I had come face-to-face with my nemesis, who I had been hunting down for months. He was wearing a mask, so I wasn't able to see his face, but for the first time, it felt like I was seeing him.
"Greeting Nicholas McCoy I believe this is the first time we have properly met. You have been a real thorn in my side for the longest time. I will admit, I do find your skills impressive. You have managed to foil several of my schemes, but in the end, I have always managed to get away."
"Well, not this time, Xranstran. This time I am taking you down."
"Even if you defeat me, McCoy, my work will continue in a place you won't be able to stop me. My work will continue forward across the world, and you don't have a chance to stop me. Though thinking about it, you could always kill me, but I don't think you will."
"I am not that kind of person, Xranstran. I am not like you."
"Do you think so low of me, McCoy? I would never resort to such unsavoury methods such as murder."
I do have to admit that throughout the many months I have been tracking Xranstran down, he has never endangered anyone's life. I guess even criminals have some level of standards.
"Do you think McCoy that I have not prepared for this exact situation?"
Xranstran drops a smoke ball, which disorients me and allows him to get away. I was enraged for falling for that trick and letting him slip away again.
I would only walk through the nearly empty mall, lamenting my failure. I was so close to finally catching him, but in the end, my uselessness kept going. However, a tiny nugget of hope was about to come. As I was walking down the mall, I noticed some notes. The mall wasn't exactly full of random stuff sitting on the floor, so I decided to check it out. Right away, I recognized the handwriting. This is one of Xranstran's things. It was some sort of list of banks, one of which was circled as the Royal Woods National Bank. I knew this could imply Xranstran was planning some sort of heist, and my desire to catch him was reinvigorated now that I had this to go off of.
I went outside of the mall to see the crowd of people who had been evacuated due to what I later found out was the fire alarm being tripped. Leni was there as well, and when she saw me, she ran up to me.
"Are you okay, Nick? I was worried about you."
"I am not doing the best. I hit my head after the alarm was set off."
"Wait, so there was no fire?"
"I guess there wasn't. I didn't see anything. I guess I got lucky."
"That is totes so great to hear." Leni gave me a big hug after saying that, which I returned. I felt something weird upon receiving this. It was not romantic love; I didn't have those kinds of feelings for her, but it was a feeling that for the first time, there was someone who cared about me. I just hope that I don't ruin our friendship, I am still scared of revealing my true self to her.
