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Chapter Forty: Security Breach
The hooded figure in the shadows came closer to us and I certainly wasn't about to sit around and allow this person to kill the both of us. Quickly, my instincts from the Games came back in as I slid myself out of Seneca's grasp and turned to run for the knife in the cabinet. In my periphery, I saw the figure coming for Seneca, someone who had absolutely no experience fighting. I knew that I would have to act swiftly. As I reached the knife that had wedged itself into the cabinet, I attempted pulling it out. As I did, I heard a loud crack and turned my head to see that the hooded figure was on the ground, Seneca was in awe, and another man with a cloak on stood amongst them.
My jaw was nearly on the ground when the new figure pulled off his hood to reveal my brother. Immediately, I ran to embrace him. Everything happened so quickly that I was simply thankful to be alive.
However, that didn't mean I wasn't enraged and curious to know what the hell just happened.
After breaking away from my brother, I looked at him with wide eyes, still in shock," What exactly was that?"
"Completely and totally my fault," He said quietly, running a hand through his hair as he pulled the knife from the man's body. To keep the blood from pooling, he held his hand under the blade and casually walked over to our sink.
Seneca and I opened our mouths to protest, but we found that, from the sounds of it, we were about to be upset with him as was. Getting a little blood in our sink was minor compared to what I was expecting him to tell us.
"I'm just glad I got here when I did," He said, almost so quietly that neither of us could hear him.
Seneca's fingers laced through mine as Ostro rinsed the blade clean. When he was finished, he dried the blade on the edge of his shirt before tucking it back into his pocket, casually as if it were no problem. I remember in the Games when this wouldn't have been very strange, but it has been so many years since I even experienced such violence.
"Why don't you have a seat and explain to us what's going on, Ostro," Seneca said tightly, raising a hand to invite him to sit on the long, white sofa in his living room that overlooked the city.
A little stiffly, Ostro strolls into the living room to plant himself square in the middle of the couch. As he and Seneca sit, I looked right at my brother and ask," Is there anything you want to drink?"
"No, I think the less amount of time I spend here…the better," He said softly and with that I perched myself beside Seneca.
"So, I suppose I'll just ask you to explain that…whatever that was," Seneca said with a slight edge to his voice as he leaned back, setting his feet up on the coffee table there.
My brother's eyes met mine for a long while before looking down, as if ashamed. He interlaced his fingers before saying," I made a deal with President Snow that I shouldn't have made. It was completely stupid on my part; if I could do it all over then…I wouldn't have done it."
I could tell he was stalling.
"Ostro, just tell us what you did," I said, partially scared to hear the rest of the details.
He sighed before running both hands through his hair," He wanted to speak with me…just days ago. I hadn't ever been invited to something like that before and I thought it would be more dangerous to refuse, therefore, I went and spoke with him."
"It was as if he knew all of the emotions I had ever experienced and was conducting some sort of personality analysis on me. He wished to know every little detail of my life and every emotion I've ever felt. When we came to the present, he could tell that something was bothering me. He knew that I was holding on to some sort of bitterness…he knew that I was angered," Ostro explained to the both of us. I waited for Ostro to further explain his emotion. "He knew that I didn't want you to get married."
I looked up at Seneca, who looked a little shocked.
"He knew that I didn't trust anyone from the Capitol; he could see it radiating off me. He knew that all I really wanted was for Savera to return to District Two where I knew that she would be safe. He knew that I never trusted anything from the Capitol and said that such thoughts were treasonous. I had little of a counter argument, to say the least. He had pinpointed all of my emotions nearly flawlessly," He said; his voice shaking greatly. "I hope you won't hold too much of a grudge against me, Seneca, but I am just a little overprotective of my sister and seeing that we never had much of an opportunity to get to know one another…I have had my suspicions."
Seneca nodded, seeing his point of view, but not wishing to comment until Ostro was finished.
"He gave me an ultimatum," Ostro said quietly. "He made me an 'offer', but I don't think I would have survived had I turned it down. He told me that he could return my life to normal; he said that Savera would be able to come home with mother and me. Even better, he could dispose of Seneca Crane so that she would have no desire to come back to the Capitol."
"Ostro!" I gasped, looking at him in complete shock. I felt Seneca's hand on my shoulder, urging me to quiet.
"He told me that all it would take is an assassin sneaking in during the honeymoon. He told me there would be no connection to me…they would have no idea. There wasn't any better of a deal: I could have my sister back without the baggage of having to worry about an upset ex. In my head, at that time, it was perfect, Savera as you know that I am no fan of Seneca Crane. "
"Until…I made the deal. I gave my blood and swore to follow through. President Snow even agreed to give me updates, as he would be hearing from the man. It was for this reason that I even knew where you all would be and where the attempted murder would take place. I left the mansion feeling the most minimal amount of guilt," He said tenderly before continuing. "It wasn't until I got back to my room and speaking with mother that I realized how stupid I had been. Literally, it was as if all the knowledge in the world came swimming back to my head."
"I had accepted a drink while I was with President Snow, Savera. And, in all honesty, I think that it messed with my senses. You know that I don't like Seneca…but would I ever do that under a clear mind? Would I ever do that if I were completely normal-"
"You're blaming this all on a little too much alcohol, Ostro?" I asked, nearly ready to strangle him.
He held up his hands in defense," I know what too much alcohol feels like, but I swear that wasn't-"
"I think I know what he's talking about," Seneca said softly, squeezing my shoulder. "I've seen its effects on other Gamemakers before, but never myself. Savera, I would trust your brother on this one."
I looked up at Seneca, amazed that he was more willing to believe my brother than I was. Once again, I silenced myself and waited for Ostro to explain.
"All I know is that I would never do that under any other circumstance, Savera. I realized how bad of a choice I'd made and literally locked myself in my room. Mother begged me to come out, but that was part of the reason why I was so late to your wedding…I almost didn't come because I didn't know if I could handle those last moments. I didn't know if I could stand being responsible for his death and I couldn't help but wonder if…what if it all went wrong and you ended up dead too, Savera?"
"I realized what an idiot I had been and knew that I had to use the knowledge I had learned back in the academy to stop all of this. Clearly, there was no talking President Snow out of the deal, but perhaps if I snuck into the apartment on the honeymoon…I could stop all of this. I just hoped I wasn't too late. Low and behold, I made it, obviously, but now…I think-"
"You're in trouble with President Snow," Seneca muttered under his breath.
"The President's travelling to a gala in District One tonight and will be gone for two days, if I'm not mistaken. He won't know for another two days," I added, still in shock of what had just happened.
"He'll be after you next," Seneca said, shaking his head as he ran his fingers through his hair.
"That's sort of what I gathered," He said with a sigh.
Part of me wanted to, honestly, kill my brother. How could he ever be so daft as to do such a thing-"drugged" or not "drugged"? The other part of me wished to sympathize with him though for I knew that I would be contemplating the same if he were to marry someone I never knew. Nevertheless, I knew that we had very little time to resolve this mess and try to save his life before President Snow attempted contact with him again.
"What if I took responsibility for killing the man? Could we not say it was in self-defense?" Seneca asked, leaning his head against his hand.
"I can't let you do that," Ostro argued, shaking his head firmly. "I think it will only make you look worse down the road in Snow's eyes. From what I can gather, you may already be in hot water with him and the last thing you need is more blood on your hands. The least I can do after attempting to kill you is to take responsibility for my own actions."
There was a silence for a long while before he spoke again.
"I want to flee the country," He said quietly. "Snow is going to know it's me and that's the only-"
"No, Ostro. You can't leave mother in District Two alone; she will die out of loneliness," I said sternly, shooting him a look.
Suddenly, I felt Seneca place a hand on my shoulder as he stood up. It appeared as though he were having an epiphany. A smirk came to his lips as he began pacing with his hands behind his back.
"We can help you flee the country with your mother…we just have to be smart about it," Seneca nearly whispered, putting a hand on his face before teasingly saying. "If only we had someone who was good with computers."
A smirk came to my lips," You should have married someone else then. In all seriousness, are you insuiating that we-"
"Cause a security breach. Have a system meltdown?" He asked looking at me. "I know what you do in your spare time and this may be the perfect opportunity for you to crash a real network."
"I think I'm failing to follow you here," Ostro said, looking at the two of us as if we were aliens.
"Here's my plan: we cause some sort of technological meltdown that requires all of the departments to be focused on trying to fix it. In the time that they're focused on fixing the system, we can access our private account. I have the ability to alter nearly any file on file in the land of Panem. Could we not make it as though he never existed? Open up his citizen file and delete all of its contents? Erase him from the system entirely. This would also work to his benefit as the security cameras would be down in all of the districts; he have..at least enough time to get out of here," Seneca explained, rather quickly.
As he was talking, I was already formulating a plan and I turned to go into the small room that I had stored my personal belongings. He and Ostro continued to work out details as I dug through boxes, searching for my tablet that I had created a completely private IP address on. When I came into the living room, I nearly became so absorbed in my work that I forgot to explain what I was doing.
"Because I work with that system at the Capitol every day, I can easily shut down the entire system. The only thing is I'm not the only person that's good with computers. If I shut down the system, those still at the station will have it back up and running within an hour and a half, easy. That clearly isn't enough time to get out of the country, but I've been experimenting with setting a timer on crashing a network so that it is down for x number of hours, but when that time is up…it returns back to normal. I like to call it the Hamster Wheel virus. No matter how long you work and work to solve it…it's never going to be fixed until the timer's up," I spoke very quickly, excited to finally see my project possibly being utilized.
"How much do you trust this?" Ostro asked, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
"Well, that's where it gets tricky. If it goes how it has on most of the experimental networks I've created to tinker with then…I trust it 100 percent, however, if it works how it did on the few outliers…then it may damage the network beyond repair," I said, seeing the problem in this situation.
"Most of the time it works?" Seneca asks seriously.
"Absolutely," I said, nodding my head and looking straight into his eye.
"Suppose it didn't work…" He asked, giving me a warning look.
I smirked," I've always wanted to rewire a security system."
We all laughed at this before Ostro chipped in another question.
"What about mom? Suppose this all works, you're only deleting me from the system," He said seriously, pausing all the works.
"It would be too obvious if we erased the both of you…but if it's just you…Snow will be suspicious enough, but we can cover up that suspicion. If anything, we can explain that you were able to break the system. He doesn't think I have enough guts to do anything of this magnitude. Plus, I'm under a private IP address that none of them even know exists. It doesn't exactly fit their brand of technology, but it certainly will get the job done," I say, feeling butterflies growing in my stomach.
"The story is that you went mad with the guilt, couldn't handle it anymore, broke into the system, and took your mother with you. He doesn't know you well enough to expect anything of you, but he knows that Savera is skilled with computers. Perhaps, he will see it runs in the family," Seneca explains, stroking his beard.
Ostro shook his head in disbelief before finally exclaiming," Just do it! I'm sick of thinking theoretically."
I smiled as Seneca gave me the nod and I began working quickly on the tablet, throwing various screens into the air in front of us all as I made progress. I could only imagine the interns sitting at the center overnight watching computer after computer began to frazzle in front of their very eyes. Everything was going smoothly, almost too smoothly until I came to the final code to get the mother computer busted. I prayed that as I worked at hacking this computer it would not do any permanent damage…though I joked about rewiring systems…it would not be a fun job to do…especially not with a furious President Snow.
I feel as though I sat there without saying anything for hours before finally I was able to toss the final screen into the air so that all of us could see it enlarged. In a matter of two hours, I had been able to accomplish something that every technological person wishes to do at some point in their life:
Hack a system.
A wide smile came to my lips as I successful shut down the Capitol's computers and set the timer for thirteen hours. The tell-tale moment would be in thirteen hours to see if the system actually came back online, but until then…we had all the time in the world. Quickly, I move over to Seneca's public tablet and send out a message to all of the workers to tell them of a security breach and briefly explain the situation at our hands to make it appear as though this were all real. In a matter of minutes, the entire company was informed and en route to the main headquarters.
During this time, Seneca was able to log on to his personal account while the rest of the system was distracted. His portion literally only took minutes before Ostro Stone was no longer a part of Panem's database. When we looked at the timer, he had at least twelve hours to get out.
Standing up, I noticed that I was still in my wedding gown and a couple mess. Ostro looked as though he was going pale as I embraced him and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, why was it that I was losing the rest of my family? I felt that this was hardly fair, but I couldn't throw any pity parties at the moment. I could only hope that this would give him the protection he needed and one day we might would meet again. Tears started to flow from my eyes, even though I fought them. He, in turn, kissed my cheek before whispering," You're so strong, Savera. So strong. I'm lucky to have a sister who cares so much and I love you."
"I love you too," I sobbed before reluctantly pulling away. "Where will you go?"
He shrugged his shoulders," I've always wanted to find the ruins to District Thirteen. We all know that's a possibility."
"There's nothing left, Ostro," I told him strongly.
"You never know. I've always enjoyed a challenge; it'll be mother who will struggle," He said quietly before moving on to give Seneca a firm handshake.
"Thank you and I don't know how many times I must apologize to you," He said tenderly.
Seneca shook it off," Do not apologize any more. Good luck in your journey, Ostro."
He nodded to him and swallowed hard before turning to the door. It was at this moment that I realized I would not be able to say goodbye to mother.
"Ostro, please tell mom that I love her and…I wish it didn't have to be this way," I could feel tears swelling in my eyes again, but it would be far too risky to try to go and say goodbye to her. I was expected at the headquarters at any moment.
He nodded his head before saying," Of course, Savera."
And with that, he turned to leave, but it wasn't long before he turned back.
"Would you like me to take care of that?" He asked, motioning to the dead body on our kitchen floor before running back in to find one of the many large boxes in our hallway. We both looked at him in amazement, completely forgetting about the dead body lying in our kitchen. If he offered, then we couldn't argue. We needed to dispose of it and he would already be suspicious…how much more attention would carrying a box draw to him. Quickly, he squeezed the body into the box, I couldn't look as he did so, but as soon as he had, he smirked to us and with that…left our presence.
When Seneca closed the door, I found the timer counting down very daunting.
In twelve hours, forty-four minutes and twenty three seconds…we would see just how much work lay ahead.
For the time being, however, we had to get to the main headquarters and play scared like the rest of the workers.
"It's going to be a long night," I groaned, dragging my feet back to the boxes to find something of mine that was decent to wear.
"I suppose this isn't the most romantic way to spend our wedding night," Seneca commented as he rushed back to his own closet to find something more appropriate.
"Hey!" I called out to him as I pulled out a shirt and pants from the box. "We've got the rest of our lives together to celebrate a wedding night."
I quickly stripped of the wedding dress and changed into the plain clothes as he came out in his new outfit. I tossed the dress over the back of the couch before grabbing my tablet and putting it into silent mode. Half paranoid, I threw the tablet into one of the drawers in the kitchen and locking it. I wanted no chance that anyone would get ahold of it.
With that, Seneca and I were headed out the door to go figure out this security breach.
A/N: Whew, that was fun to write. Hope you all enjoyed! Please, please give me feedback :) Thanks to those of you who do! Much love 3
