Is this destiny?

Aiden worked with JoAnna, Sophia, Felix, Michael, Oni, and Zack on understanding the current situation and figuring out the most effective way to tackle it. Noah also joined online several times, to coordinate resources from the Army of Chaos.

Because Eve is down and drones lost their Eve-driven capabilities, Noah assigned more manpower to guard strategic points of the Army of Chaos, and they prioritized other locations.

Several ships owned by Long Industries which are on the ocean reported failures and Noah assigned men from the Army of Chaos to accompany mechanics from Long Industries to go and check them with helicopters.

"The biggest problem is that new locations are showing up." Zack said while rubbing the back of his neck.

Aiden agreed with Zack. "I can't believe that it's less than one hour since we started tackling this mess. It feels like days…"

They all looked at the map of the Los Angeles and surrounding area and all the dots which showed where the locations of interest are. Colors indicated if the location was visited, if the men are assigned, or if it's still pending to be checked. And Zack is right. Steve, Charlie, and Jeff are sending them updates every fifteen minutes, adding more locations to the list.

"These two are important, and there is a technology failure." Felix said while pointing at two dots. "I will go to one, and Nico and Beck can go to the second one."

Sophia frowned. "What? You are staying here."

Felix framed Sophia's face with his palms and looked into her eyes which simmered with concern. "Ma chéri, I will go with bodyguards. These locations need to be checked by someone who understands hardware. I can do it, and I believe that Nico and Beck are capable. Everyone is doing their part. I will be careful…"

…

On the lowest level…

Sarah was typing fervently while isolating modules of code. She wants to get help from the Sigma army members, but she does not want to give them access to everything. Her plan is to give them specific parts, and then to tackle the problem with a divide-and-conquer strategy.

It didn't take her long to separate code by functions and to get on the call with Mishi, Lucija, Petar, Emir, and Teresa.

"These are parts of my pet project." Sarah vaguely explained. "Someone corrupted it. I hope that you can help me figure out what happened."

"Of course." Mishi assured Sarah in his usual calm and collected tone. "Tell us what we are working with."

"You are looking at modules that I developed with a goal to create an assistant. It is on a number of servers, and all of them are on my internal network which is heavily secured. Other than me and Aiden, no one has access. Even for me, it would take a lot of effort to access it without knowing the passwords and protocols. I don't know who got in, or how he did it, and that is where you come in."

"Do you think that it was a targeted attack?" Lucija asked.

Sarah thought about how to answer this. "Only a handful of people knew that this exists. And other than me and Aiden, no one is skilled in coding."

"Is it possible that it's Aiden?" Tereza asked reluctantly.

Sarah's whole body stiffened. If Aiden betrayed her, her heart would stop on the spot. "No. I trust him with my life and with my code."

Tereza smiled meekly. "Sorry, I had to ask."

Sarah exhaled and relaxed slightly. "It's OK. I am tense because this was one of my most guarded secrets and if someone got their hands on it, who knows what else they've got."

"You are saying that the person who did this is either very skilled or very lucky." Petar said.

"Or maybe a mix of skills and luck." Lucija said and added: "Sarah could be a target because she is the owner of Ceresc Solutions. Or maybe they wanted to use her to access her brother-in-law who is the CEO of the White corp. Or maybe they targeted Sigma and Omega. There are so many options."

Emir was looking at the modules and mumbled: "This looks like speech recognition… and this one reminds me of reading heat signatures... Self-learning?" He paused for a second, reminding himself to stay focused. He easily gets distracted with random chatter, and this is important. This is the first time that Sarah called them, asking for them to help her out. That is why Sigma's army was formed and it's his time to shine.

"Is it possible that some function was revealed? Maybe the hacker knew about one thing, and the rest was luck?" Emir asked.

Sarah shook her head. "Even if the hacker knew about one function or all of them… Knowing about the interface and getting access to the code behind it, are two different things."

Emir bobbed his head. "I am a hardware expert. And I can tell you that I can get into things without knowing what is inside. Also, every system has entry points. What are your entry points? Maybe you think of this system as something that will handle automated messages on your phone, but that tells me how your phone is an entry point and that I can send my scripts to your server through your phone."

Sarah knows that Emir makes sense. She remembered ear-studs and bracelets and Eve-lens… But they have a clear policy that if anyone misplaces an item, it needs to be reported immediately. She will ask Nala to do a count of equipment, just in case.

Sarah swiftly typed a message to Nala and mumbled: "Thanks for the idea, Emir. I need to think about possible entry points. If you can figure out how code got corrupted, maybe you can reverse-engineer the virus and that could be the clue to who did this."

"Whoever did this, targeted you and Aiden." Lucija said.

Sarah shook her head. "It's not only us. Aiden's brother, Jeff, and several other friends are facing issues with their companies. I'm asking you to look into one piece of the puzzle."

"Everyone leaves traces. We will find them." Mishi said. "We will get on this right away and we will keep you updated with the progress."

Sarah was grateful. "Thanks. You are the best. Ping me if you have any other questions as you work on this."

Sarah got offline and rubbed her face forcibly. Her Sigma army members got independent modules to inspect, and Sarah has the biggest chunk.

She took a minute to think about their conversation and the current situation.

Jeff, Charlie, and Steve got attacked at the same time as Eve. And there is a flood of negative traffic online. That requires money, skills, planning, manpower… Who can pull that off? In order to get an answer to that question, she needs to figure out how those people got information on White corp., Smithsonite corp., Long Industries, and most importantly, on Eve. Some information about those companies is available to the general public but some is restricted.

Sarah was frustrated. There are so many unknown things!

Sarah took a deep breath and told herself to focus on Eve, she is the only one who can tackle this task, and someone else can look into the information leak. But who is that 'someone else'?

Aiden is the next person who is good at gathering information and analyzing it, but he is busy. Other than him… there is no one else with enough knowledge or access to tackle all this. Ah, they need more people! Someone top-notch. Sarah remembered how when she needed help with Mr. Patel, she recruited Phoenix and Viper. But she used them already and… Sarah's eyes widened when she remembered one person. Her father gave her a number, and Sarah stored it.

Sarah got her phone and made a call.

---

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