“Haxe” first emerged in France in late 2058, targeting big corporations and banks with blackmail and sabotage of security systems. Although people called him a new cyber “Robin Hood”, public opinion quickly changed when he held the German U-Bahn hostage, nearly causing a train accident. Believed to be the most dangerous hacker post-WW3, Haxe disappeared when he was shockingly defeated in 2063 by a pair of hackers known only as Scrolls and Zura99, members of an international vigilante grey hat organization that Haxe had openly challenged to a duel…

“Look, more glyphs,” Farhan said as he moved a destroyed pick-up truck aside one-handed, revealing an inactivated glyph hidden under it which Roderick destroys using saltwater to erase parts of the glyph.

Every officer from the Shades’ Third Shift were at the abandoned carpark where Amirah and Weijin were nearly roasted alive just twenty minutes ago. If the carpark was not wrecked enough during World War Three, the arson attack had turned it into a burned-out ruins, and given its status as a hangout spot for several criminal organizations operating in Singapore, whoever was responsible for its destruction should prepare to receive hell from them. For the police, however…

“Well, there goes our favourite busting spot,” Corporal Torbe Flamefang, a salamander, or lizardmen as they are usually referred to as, commented as he stared at the destruction caused by the attempt on Weijin and Amirah’s lives.

“Aye, pity the roaster that thought using the favourite hangout of Singapore’s seven most dangerous gangs as a fire trap was a good idea. If the gangs catch them before we do, they’ll scatter his remains all over the country,” Xiaoye replied.

“True… Still, it’s been a while since I had to devour fire on a scene. I usually do it at home after a proper meal. Can’t believe it was so bad the fire department had to request for Shades with firefighting abilities to help,” Torbe said as he stared at the firefighters on the scene, two of whom were also arson investigators known to Xiaoye, an orc and a human male.

“Well, I bet Ren-Darz and Xavier are going to have a field day investigating. We’ll just wait for them to transfer the case to us if they feel like it,” Xiaoye said as Roderick approached.

“Hey, Xiaoye, Aiko just patched up Amirah and Weijin. They’re both fine, but… I don’t know, but the both of them seem quite disturbed,” he said to his partner.

“Disturbed?”

“Amirah was unusually quiet and did not want to talk about the whole thing, and Weijin’s hands were shaking non-stop.”

“Shit,” Xiaoye muttered as she face-palmed, “I forgot Weijin has severe pyrophobia… Running from that firestorm must have messed him up.”

“And the fire spelt out Haxe… I recall Amirah mentioning him as a hacker whom she took out before she joined the police? And he was passing information to Theodore Stone from one of our previous cases while working for some mysterious group doing something illegal?” Roderick mused.

“Haxe? I thought the French police took him down a couple of years back? You mean Constable Amirah was the one that defeated him in that legendary hacking duel?” Torbe asked, suddenly sounding excited as small jets of flames emitted from his nostrils.

“Not sure about that, she just said she and this Haxe square go over her father’s business secrets and she took him out. But now that you mentioned it… Could it be that Haxe is back for revenge? Amirah did mention that she doxed his last known location to French authorities,” Xiaoye replied.

“Or she exposed more than just his location. I don’t think hackers are that petty,” Roderick suggested.

“And not long after the pricolici revenge case, I had a contact in the Dark Web look up information about this Haxe fellow. Doesn’t sound like an arsonist, let alone someone capable of magic, just someone who got screwed by society and developed a hatred towards rich people. His intents were good, but misguided, and he got too arrogant because of public support. The U-Bahn incident caused his popularity to be replaced by infamy.”

“Well, he tried to burn down an entire structure with the two of them inside,” Roderick muttered as Xiaoye detected a trace of anger in his voice, though she did not ask about it.

“Just one more question, though. Who the hell is Zura99? Some of the scorch marks left by the fire spelt that weird name out on the asphalt,” Torbe asked as he scratched his snout.

“Not sure, but maybe we can ask Amirah- Wait. Amirah Zuberi. Zuberi. Amirah. Zura. Shit, don’t tell me she’s this Zura99?” Roderick asked suddenly.

“What’s that suppose to be, her online gamer tag? Argh, just make sure she talks when she’s ready to do so. I don’t know if the arson blokes are going to dump this on us or MLE, but given that one of our own was targeted, it’ll probably be us… Look, I’m going to go check on them both,” Xiaoye replied before heading towards the ambulance where her current girlfriend was tending to her colleagues.

“Xiaoye, come to check on them both?” Aiko asked, to which the cambion nodded.

“How’s their health?”

“A bit of smoke inhalation, but nothing too serious. Their lungs are clean… Scary, though. I heard they got lured into this… Er, death trap?”

“Aye, our control centre’s up in a fizz right now, trying to figure out how their security systems got compromised. This Haxe fellow not only broke through all their firewalls and data traps, he even fixed them on their way out, pretty much erasing any trace of their break-in.”

“That’s not good.”

“When is any crime good? World War Three messed Singapore up so bad, we have the Triads, the Italian Mafia and American gangs opening branches in this country, engaging in shootouts with rivals once every two to three months, and we folks in blue are dressed and equipped like Chicago PD. Kevlar vests, gun racks in our vehicles, armoured vehicles, . Do you know that before WW3, there were only six patrol divisions? Now there’s twelve, all the retired alphabets between ‘A’ to ‘L’ brought back and squeezed into the gaps, because there’s a serious need for extra manpower and firepower,” Xiaoye ranted in a half-joking manner.

“I seem to recall that Singapore was once called the Chicago of Asia back before it gained independence,” Aiko replied with a shrug.

“Huh, thought it was fake news… Can I talk to Amirah and Weijin?”

“Yeah, sure. The sergeant’s in a bit of a daze, though. Not sure why. I was half-expecting him to try to flirt with me like the last time… Something feels off. I think he’s actually having a panic attack, just hiding it very well,” the tanuki paramedic commented as she gave a worried glance at Weijin, who was seated at the back of the ambulance with Amirah.

“He’s not very good with fire,” Xiaoye explained before walking over to her colleagues.

Amirah was shaken, but otherwise okay. Weijin, on the other hand, was the reversed: He appears okay, but he clearly wasn’t. Xiaoye knew Weijin long enough to know he was a legitimate tough guy Despite his occasional bragging and being the butt of many jokes, Weijin isn’t someone to be messed with: He once cleared out an entire nightclub owned by the Lizards gang all by himself when off-duty. A young woman had been victimized by the Lizards, but the court was forced to acquit the culprits because of her incompetent lawyer’s major screw-up, which enraged Weijin to the point where, according to Tom and Rendal who went to stop him (too late by then), the Taoist exorcist left every Lizard out cold with broken limbs by the time he was done, the only injury he sustained being a small laceration across his shoulder.

So seeing his arms shivering badly as he gripped a cup of water with both hands was disturbing to Xiaoye.

“Still not used to fire?” Xiaoye asked, admitting to herself mentally that this was probably one of the few times she was seriously worried about Weijin.

“Yeah… I can’t believe I managed to get Amirah out. I thought I was going to have a panic attack,” Weijin replied.

“According to Aiko, you are having a panic attack.”

Weijin sighed.

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to deny anything at this point. If she thinks I have-”

“You are.”

“Xiaoye, please, don’t be so hard on Weijin. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have made it out alive,” Amirah pleaded in her sergeant’s defence.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound strict… Look, remember when I mentioned Weijin was pyrophobic? I never told you how bad it was because, well, see for yourself,” Xiaoye replied as she gestured at Weijin.

“Yeah… It’s embarrassing, you know? All this time I kept up my appearance as some tough guy, and then a small fire nearly made me break down and wet my pants,” Weijin said as he lets out a small laugh.

“There was nothing small about that fire! Oh, I can’t even get it sorted out in my mind! Why the hell would Haxe try to kill me? I only exposed his location, not his name or anything, and he took his defeat well,” Amirah grumbled in frustration at what had just happened to her.

“Aye, now that you mentioned it, I’m going to need you to start spilling the beans about Haxe and what you’ve been up to before joining the police, Miss Zura99,” Xiaoye said to Amirah, who was caught off-guard by the mention of that name.

“How did you know?”

“You’re a tech expect, a former hacker, and Roderick realized it was an amalgamation of your full name. ‘Zu’ from Zuberi, ‘Ra’ from Amirah. Not sure about the ‘99’ though. Anyways, I have a feeling Roderick might make it to the Investigation Arm soon enough if he keeps this momentum up.”

“You’re Zura99? You were a member of Cyber-Eye?” Weijin asked Amirah in disbelief.

Amirah sighed as Xiaoye grinned at her before replying, “I guess I really need to start talking…”

In an Internet café somewhere along the streets of Rennes, France, a young man was quietly searching the Internet for illegal music download sites. Sighing at the sight of another virus trap site, the young man made sure that no one was watching before inserting a USB drive into the computer he was using and transmitting a code into the website’s HTML. Two minutes after he unplugged the USB, the website he had accessed suddenly shut down on its own.

Yawning, the young man leaned back against his chair and looked up at the television screen showing the aftermath of a large fire in some abandoned parking lot in Singapore. At first, he wondered why the news would even broadcast something so boring: Fires break out in ruined structures with electricity still running in them. But then something caught his eye and put him into full alert.

Burnt on the asphalt in bold letters was the word “Haxe”.

“C'est quoi ce foutoir?” he whispered.

The young man knew very well who Haxe was. The elite hacker that terrorized corporations around the world for five years was none other than himself. Except he got defeated in the end, by this very Zura99 whom all he knew about was some young girl in Singapore, and while she had been merciful enough not to try and find out his identity, something he knew based on what he saw of her skills was probably more than easy enough for her, she did gave the French authorities a tip-off about his location, and because of her, he had been on the run for that last two years, during which he hasn’t done any hacking since.

So who the hell was using his alias?

Now, however, the young man was hearing worse things from the newscast. Apparently, whoever was posing as him just committed attempted murder on two police officers, and whoever it was, they were calling out Zura99. Ridiculous, he thought to himself. Zura99 defeated him in a challenge he himself had issued, and he had taken his defeat in stride despite what happened to him. Why would he do something so petty?

Suddenly sensing danger to himself, the young man grabbed his bag and left, and not a moment too soon. Five minutes after he left the café, five plainclothes police officers who had been tracking him entered in search for him.

But the young man had already predicted what would happen. Everyone in the café would be detained and questioned, their electronics seized by the authorities. One officer would see him leave the café just before they arrive, and no doubt the street cameras will be tracking him within seconds of that discovery, and for the first time, he felt grateful for his paranoia which had plagued him for the last two years as he disappeared among the crowd.

After a fruitless ten minutes of searching, two police officers discovered a discarded jacket along with a realistic mask that bore the face of the young man that they had been tracking, along with a message written on it that, when translated to English, says:

Gone to deal with my imposter - Haxe