The Phantom: Code Breaker

Chapter 2: Boiling Steam

"So, what is your problem here?" the kid asked as if asking the teacher on what paper to use for the quiz when in fact the teacher had just announced it out loud in class.

The rest of the people inside the darkened room stared at him, dumbfounded. Heavy sighs and shaking heads doubt and scorn at the teenage kid.

"Why are you so confident on this kid, Mr. Louige? It seems like you are doubting your own skills for saying he can do things you can't. I mean, you are the President's aide and the Head engineer of Orion, top of the Numbers, so why are you degrading yourself in front of this kid?! Is he really that great of a programmer? Not to mention---" the bank owner exclaimed. His bald head shined in the dim light of the room. His glare towards the kid can even cut a flying pineapple. "--He's just a kid." he frowned.

"He's not just a kid for no reason. He's not just great... he's the BEST." Louige replied with brimming confidence in his voice. He stepped his foot forward, trying to make himself clear.

Oi, don't sell me that high. He kinda want to puke. He slipped away from the big guys and the black suited guys and got hooked looking up the big screens hanging around the room.

Louige Rosenwald is the Head Engineer of Orion, the right-hand man of the president who owns all of the facility. He's a not-so-old friend of mine for some reason and that brought me in this situation. He's exhausted from work that his brown eyes carry a big dark load under it. His hair is messy as if he just got out of bed. He pushed his eyeglasses back to his face and turned to me saying, "See for yourself, Markus. I can't hardly understand it myself either."

He grabbed my hand and pushed me down the chair fronting the array of keyboards on a fiber glass tables. I can easily conclude that it is the Master computer since it's in the center. He smirked. Or was it just me?

The computer has the biggest screen among the 7 big monitors inside the room, it has more controls and wider keyboards with functions you can never see on the normal ones, and the CPUs blink with different colors like Christmas lights.

Markus turned on it and immediately caught by the flooding codes of numbers and letters in front of him. He wiped his sweat on his face with his Spongebob-printed handkerchief from his breast pocket and sighed. He hit keys and tried to read the codes as it runs through the screen. After a few minutes, he stopped hitting the keys and stared at the wide screen with blank expression. Codes still running on the screen.

His eyes went blank as if it had lost all its life and said, "This can't be happening, right?" his expression turned wary as he face Louige "If this continues, everything... everything will be brought down into ruins! Not to mention every system will go down to nothingness, Oji-nii. Not just Orion, the other sites will go down with it as well."

"Just as I thought, this is a big problem." Louige said in reply in a big sigh. He fell on the chair behind him and sat in despair.

"You know that and yet you haven't done anything to stop it? How come?! It has spread through some parts of the world wide web!" Marks exclaimed, facing the haggard young man.

Louige didn't say a word. He waved his hand as if telegraphing his thoughts to the kid saying "As if I don't know that, brat!"

Markus turned back to the monitor and did some calculations by navigating the system. "If I were to say, it has damaged around 0.00013% of the whole internet information access. It is ruining data, databases, firewalls... EVERYTHING." he continued.

Everyone stared at him mumbling.

"So, can you identify the Virus?" Louige asked. He leaned forward and placed his hands on top of his knees. "We've been tracking it for 2 days now and what we have on us is all the damage it's left."