Night fell on Capital City and the bright colored lights of the city beamed up into the firmament washing out the stars leaving only the moon which was bright enough to be seen above. Cool air filled a sold-out stadium for tonight was Aveline’s last concert in her nationwide tour. Aveline’s concerts were spectacular events. Stage sets stood up to 3 or 4 stories high. Laser projection reached every square inch of the stage and displayed moving images of colors or clips of video. Banks and banks of stage light mounted overhead pointed back at the stage and flashed their colored beams onto performers who dressed in outrageous costumes.

For the next two and half hours, Aveline transfixed her thirty thousand fans with a show that overloaded the senses. She sang a repertoire of twenty of her pop songs and danced through many of them. The highly choreographed dance moves with her contingent of backup dancers swung, strutted and stunned with sparkle and electricity. Already at nineteen years old, Aveline was a seasoned entertainer giving her audience exactly what they came to see: high-energy, enthusiasm and an emotional ride all from a star who smiled at and made eye-contact with her fans, reached out to touch their hands and who was eager to please. No wonder they loved her.

While Aveline’s concert continued into the night, in the darkened rooms of the Office of Administration at Renard University, no one worked late and the offices were dead quiet. Light from outside street lamps filtered in through the tall windows casting gloomy long shadows of dark purple, blue and gray onto the floors. No sound, except for the whir of a computer’s fan which was left powered on under a desk could be heard.

Following the whirring sound to its source, crime scene tape wrapped around the desk which the computer belonged to. The words printed on the yellow tape read: “CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.” It was the desk of Melina’s mother, the Order of One Justice’s spy who worked undetected to steal UEN secrets until her cover was blown a couple of months ago and the STS arrested and jailed her.

Since the unmasking of Melina’s mother was almost two months ago, the crime scene should have been wrapped up by now. However, the wheels of justice turned slowly in the UEN and the STS investigators were not in any hurry to finish this case up to the inconvenience of the remaining staff who had to tip-toe around this taped up desk during the day. Other than the whir of the computer, everything lay still and inert.

Breaking the stillness, the computer’s screen flickered and came to life! It glowed and casted its light into the dark room. On the monitor screen, a mouse pointer moved by itself although no one sat at the keyboard and no one’s hand held the mouse. The mouse pointer clicked on a few icons on the screen and opened a tree of folders. As the mouse pointer scanned down through the folder tree, it seemed as if an invisible ghost looked for something and had not found it yet.

At the exact same time somewhere beyond the borders of the UEN, a group of computer hackers hid in their lair. They worked from a squalid room filled with folding chairs and tables inside a run-down, dilapidated four story building. The floors carried dirt that had not been cleaned in years and dust stuck to the walls much like the hackers themselves who could have done with a bath or two. They unloaded all their computer equipment onto the floor in piles, strewn all over in a heap of metal boxes and pulsating lights. One of the long-bearded hackers became excited and called over to his fellow cyber deviants.

“Hey guys! I’m in!”

“Naw, are you really?” Another hacker disbelieved his fellow deviant.

“Yeah, really!”

“Oh yeah! We finally hacked them!” The second hacker pumped his fist. Hackers took joy in breaking other people’s things.

There were three of them and they all crowded around the first hackers computer screen.

The third hacker, who had not spoken until now, was all business. “Where are you now?” he asked.

“You remember that spy who was working in the Office of Administration at that Renard University? Yeah, that’s her computer I’m controlling now.” The first hacker beamed with pride. Hackers had a culture of only respecting technical ability above everything else including personal hygiene.

“That’s awesome, man! I am totally shook right now!” It was not an exaggeration. The second hacker literally shook with elation.

The third hacker, however, did not shake. He focused on what was happening and concentrated on doing a job. Because he was responsible for this rag-tag group maybe that was why he smelled better than the rest of them. He asked the first hacker who was remote controlling the University computer, “Are you able to find information on the teleportation technology they’re working on? The boss says his scientists still can’t get teleportation to work good enough to convince his backers that he’s worth all their money. We got to steal the UEN’s secrets on how they get teleportation to work so good.”

“Boss who?” asked the first hacker, “You mean Carswell? Ah, don’t worry about him! We’ll find what he wants soon enough. Hey, I just broke in! Let me look around a bit, OK?”

With a toe-hold inside the computer network of the University, the hackers attempted to expand their reach from the Office of Administration to the National Laboratory. Their ultimate goal? To pilfer the research and technology of teleportation as known by UEN scientists so that the Order of One Justice can re-create 99.999999999% accurate teleportation for themselves and their power-hungry supporters.