"What could this mean?" Hiccup mumbled to himself as he continued to stare at his computer screen, following the strange script that moved along his display.
Ever since the code appeared on his laptop, Hiccup had been looking at it almost non-stop, everything about it perplexed him, from the language it was written in to the way it reacted whenever he tinkered with it. Hiccup was currently sitting in the library of the school, it was lunch hour, normally for him it was a time where he would eat and try not to get harassed by Snotlout and the gang. Luckily for him the library was open to students around this hour so that students can catch up on some work or just get some peace and quiet.
"It feels like I've seen this writing before but where?" He asked himself in some vain attempt to find the answer. The writing on the screen was unlike anything he had seen before, however for some reason he felt that it was in some way familiar.
As he was checking the writing another familiar figure entered the library and that figure just happened to be Astrid. She came to the library to not only study, but also to get away from the others are a bit, Fishlegs was fine, however she could only take Snotlout and the twins for so long before she lost her mind and turn the cafeteria into a crime scene. As she walked among the bookshelves looking for a place to sit, she spotted Hiccup sitting by himself near the large windows. She's not sure why but she felt as though sitting with him wouldn't be so bad so she walked over and noticed that he was staring intensely at his computer screen.
"Hey Hiccup." She greeted which caused Hiccup to be startled and almost fall out of his seat and when he looked at her his eyes went wide.
"Hey Astrid, hi Astrid, hi." He repeated nervously which earned him a slightly confused look from her and after a few moments he regained his composure. "What brings you up here?" He asked.
"Oh I just wanted some peace and quiet, Snotlout can really get under your skin." She said.
"Yeah well that's Snotlout for you, believe or not he can be way worse." Hiccup said.
"Really?" Astrid asked in slight disbelief.
"Yes, trust me I know." He said while cocking his eyebrows and then let out a slight chuckle, "Sometimes I can't believe we're related." He said.
"Oh yeah, for some reason I keep forgetting that you guys are cousins, maybe it's because you two are so different." She said and after a brief moment of awkward silence she spoke again, "Hey do you care if I sit here?"
"No, not at all, by all means." Hiccup said trying to hide his shock from the fact that Astrid Hofferson of all people wanted to sit with him.
Astrid took a seat on the side of the table to the right of Hiccup and cracked open a Chemistry textbook and silently scanned through the pages. As she was doing this Hiccup went back to looking at his computer, but on occasion he would peak over to the blonde-haired girl in disbelief before returning to his work. After a minute or so he decided to try to break the silence by the first question he could think of. "So do you have a test coming up?" He asked.
Astrid looked up at him in confusion. "Excuse me?" She asked.
"The book, are you studying for a test?" Hiccup asked.
"Oh, well, kind of. Some of my classmates said that we might have a surprise quiz later today, I don't really believe them, but I might as well be safe." She explained.
"Okay, well at least you're thinking ahead." Hiccup said.
"Yeah, well lucky for me this class isn't too hard." Astrid explained.
"Do you have Mr. Fitzpatrick for Chemistry?" Hiccup asked.
"Yeah, did you have him?" Astrid asked.
"Ah no actually I didn't take Chemistry, I took Biology with Mrs. Ferdinand instead." He explained. "But I did hear from some others who had his class and said that he could be a tough teacher." He said.
"Well he's not all that bad, as long as you put some effort into the work that is." Astrid said. "So you took Biology, was that any good?" Astrid asked.
"As a matter of fact it was, I actually learned some interesting things." Hiccup said.
"Sounds like you're really into this sort of stuff." Astrid said.
"Well I've sort of grown up around animals all my life, my mom works at the shelter and when I was little I always wanted to hang around all the animals." He explained.
"Wow, that's pretty cool." Astrid said before returning to her book.
Hiccup was about to go back to his own work until something caught his eye. Looking over he noticed that Astrid has a small bookmark that had a picture of a dragon covered in vibrant blue, yellow and red colored scales.
"That's a cool looking bookmark." He said.
Astrid looked down at her bookmark and picked it up, "Oh this, it's nothing, just something I got because it looked cool." She said.
"Is that a dragon?" Hiccup asked.
"Yeah, I have a bit of a thing for them." Astrid said and Hiccup thought he picked up a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
"Really, same here." Hiccup said.
Astrid looked at him with surprise. "Really?" She asked.
"Yeah in fact when I was six I was totally obsessed with them to the point where I tried to make my room into a 'dragon cave'." He explained a little embarrassed.
"That's pretty crazy." Astrid said with a smirk.
"So where did you get it?" Hiccup asked.
"I uh, actually bought it last year at that art festival." She explained.
"You mean the one they host in the park?" Hiccup asked.
"Yeah, it's tomorrow and I always like going there." Astrid said.
Hearing this, Hiccup, for reasons he could not explain, felt a brief surge of confidence and did something that he had never done before. "You know I like going there too, maybe, if you're interested of course, you would like to go with me?" Hiccup asked while subtly bracing himself for the response, but to his utter shock he heard this.
"Sure that sounds good." Astrid said.
Hiccup inwardly screamed in a mixture of utter shock and pure joy, "Really?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow and say ten-thirty?" She asked as she collected her stuff and stood up.
"Sure no problem." Hiccup said still reeling from her response.
"Cool, see you then." She said walking away.
As Hiccup watched her leave the library, he remained frozen in his seat, almost completely forgetting about the contents on his laptop. 'I just asked Astrid on a date, and she said yes!' Hiccup thought to himself, and after a few moments he looked up and mentally shouted, 'THANK YOU!'
Within the confines of NSA headquarters, agents Philips and Nilsson were both in the control room minding to their own tasks. Nilsson was checking one of the computer monitors while Philips just stared out the window overlooking the main floor deep in thought. After a minute the door opened and agent Stenson came walking in holding some paper cups.
"I got coffee if anyone's interested?" He asked, and Nilsson came up and graciously took one of the cups. It has been a long process; they've all been monitoring computer chatter for over twelve hours.
"Thank you." Nilsson said to Stenson before she returned to her task.
"Coffee sir?" Stenson asked Philips.
"No thank you Stenson I'm fine." Philips said not turning from the window.
"Are you alright sir?" Stenson asked putting the coffee down.
Philips took a deep breath and turned around to face the others. "I just don't understand something." Philips said as the other two agents looked at him in confusion. "What would that be?" Nilsson asked.
"Whoever is sending the signal seems to be able to hack into whatever system they want without any trouble, I mean it broke through AFSC's firewalls without them noticing." Philips explained.
"What are you getting at sir?" Stenson asked.
"What I'm getting at is that whoever they are could have the potential to completely disrupt our communications or do God knows what else, but yet they don't, instead they choose to hide somewhere among millions of computers." He explained he turned back towards the window and looked at the giant screen which showed a map of the United States. "What are they trying to do?" He asked.