The Kyubi Herbs and Waffles Diner was surprisingly successful, and the discount offered to members of law enforcement and civil services has proven to be one of Ella’s best ideas. At the moment, the entire Grey Team, with the exception of their team leaders (Jason and Farhan said they were working overtime), was having their brunch there, having wrapped up their second night shift and waiting for their next work cycle.

For Lucas, Tom and Rendal, however, work doesn’t end when their shift is over. To cope with the initial rush of customers, the three were helping Ella, Tokimaru and Felipe in the kitchen while Inna, the moh shuvuu adopted by Lucas and Ella, was acting as the waitress along with the Yangs, a pair of twins who were Xiaoye’s housemates.

“Two chicken burger sets, one fish and chips, one waffles special and one Japanese curry omelette rice,” Inna said cheerfully as she laid out the plates of food in front of her adopted father’s colleagues.

“Oh, finally, I’m starving,” Ajibade commented as he took a chunk out of a waffle.

“Yeah, a good meal before we all go home after a long night is the best,” Weijin added as he blew at his rice to cool it.

“Inna, how did you managed to carry so many plates on your own?” Xiaoye asked the moh shuvuu, who replied happily, “Practice!”, before floating off to serve another customer.

“Man, can’t believe the so-called Three Thugs of the Shades are actually great cooks. This chicken burger is delicious,” Roderick said as he stared at the rather large burger in his hands.

“Weasels? Who’s been calling us thugs again? Those Second Shift Suckers?” Tom is heard calling out from the kitchen.

“Yeah, probably those assholes. They probably haven’t forgiven you and me for beating up one of their officers who made a comment about Ella’s face,” Rendal, the half-elf cousin of Tom, replied as he handed Inna two plates of risotto.

“Hey, they should be lucky it wasn’t Lucas who went to pay them a visit. He’ll flash-freeze that fucker’s face and shatter it.”

Lucas, who was focused on preparing the next meal, merely ignored the conversation.

“What spices are they using in the chicken? I seem to be getting hungrier instead of feeling full,” Amirah asked.

“Only the best herbs and spices from Japan, Korea, India, China and Southeast Asia,” Tokimaru replied as he finally emerged from the kitchen with a tray holding five bowls of miso soup which he gave to them.

“We didn’t order these,” Weijin said.

“On the house, courtesy of Lucas and Ella,” the kitsune replied.

“Thanks, Tokimaru,” Xiaoye replied before stuffing a piece of deep-fried fish fillet into her mouth.

“Actually, I’m a bit more worried about what happened recently. Weijin and Amirah attacked by a rogue mage, so I’ve heard?” Tokimaru asked.

“Aye, a hacker mage, to be exact.”

“Then he must be a very powerful and dangerous one. I asked Lucas to show me the glyph you found, the one that shot fire all over the place.”

“Dr Marog had already seen it. He says it looks like Mesopotamian Cuneiform or ancient Mayan.”

“He is very far from it. I recognize it. That glyph was formed using a combination of Archaic Chinese characters overlapping one another, properly and deliberately positioned in such a way that the characters become a channel for magic energy. An artificial magic glyph, in fact, but to turn ordinary words and writings into spells is a technique a lot more ancient and taxing than verbal casting. I am surprised there are still practitioners, though unfortunately, it appears that the practitioner in this case clearly has malicious intents.”

“Sounds like Haxe really has a grudge against you, Amirah,” Ajibade said.

“I don’t understand… I mean, he were an arrogant prick back when he was the Hacker Lord of the Dark Web, but when we dethroned them, he took the defeat rather well. I’m probably talking rubbish right now, but, you know, I need some convincing to be sure that it really is Haxe, you know?” Amirah replied.

“How do you know that Haxe’s a guy?”

“He claims to be. I don’t know, I just went with what gender he claims to be, and I never asked. Didn’t try to dox him or anything. This is just strange.”

“I believe Amirah. Most hackers are not exactly what you would call petty. Once they get knocked down, they simply get up, dust their hands and find new targets. That’s why they’re so hard to take down. For a hacker to throw a tantrum and declare revenge is not seen as professional, regardless of what hat they are,” Lucas explained as he emerged from the kitchen.

“Nevertheless, now that we know Amirah is a target, we need to take extra care not to put her in harm’s way. Amirah, your electronics, have you secured them?” Weijin asked his rookie.

“I did. All my electronics have extra five layers of security at the moment.”

“How did you even get involved in the hacking scene in the first place, Amirah?” Ajibade asked.

Amirah sighed, clearly embarrassed by her past, but she began her story anyways.

“Look, I think you might have heard Nizam Khaled Zuberi?”

“Aye, he was one of the biggest tech company owners back in Saudi Arabia, specializing in cyber-security- Wait, he has the same surname as you,” Xiaoye replied.

“Yeah, he’s my grandfather.”

“What the shit?” Ajibade uttered in surprise.

“You had such an amazing grandfather?” Roderick asked.

“Yeah, he was quite an amazing guy. He went from a simple clerk in Saudi Arabia to owner of a small company in America and finally a tech business magnate in Southeast Asia. My father and I kind of followed in his footsteps. When grandpa retired, dad took over the company. He had to learn how hackers work in order to strengthen their systems and software, and I followed suit. The next thing I knew, I was breaking into every security feature I came across. It was like I was meant to be a hacker. If my dad didn’t help me harness my new skills, I’ve probably become a black hat by now.”

“But you did become a hat. A white hat.”

“I’m not that morally upright. I’m more of a grey hat. Found myself in the Dark Web so many times by the time I was in secondary school. That’s where I met Scrolls.”

“Scrolls? The leader of Cyber-Eye?” Roderick asked.

“Yeah, that guy. I’ve actually met him in real life when he retired from hacking two years ago. He’s an American software engineer and web security expert, now working as chief of cyber security for one of the local banks. Anyways, Scrolls invited me into Cyber-Eye. It’s a vigilante group, just with more rules than the bigger ones.”

“And how old were you when you joined Cyber-Eye?”

“Sixteen.”

“That’s pretty early.”

“Had to start somewhere. My dad wasn’t very pleased about it. He didn’t want me getting into trouble with any of the governments or big names, but Cyber-Eye seem to focus on black hats that cross the line and corrupt businesses, and they do offer to help companies test their security systems.”

“Is hacking really that simple that a secondary school girl can join an elite group of hackers?” Weijin asked.

“Yeah, I always see them hackers in Hollywood wipe out an entire business in five minutes,” Roderick added.

“Oh, hacking’s not that easy… With the advances in technology, we can hack into something like an electronic door lock, a phone camera or a car radio, but when it comes to firewalls, anti-virus, big computer systems and the likes? We need to go old school, take our time. That’s why I still have a old but working Lynxer sub-system in my tablet,” Amirah said as she lightly tapped her special design wrist-mounted tablet with an affectionate look before continuing, “Remember how it took me an average of fifteen to twenty minutes to break into every social media account during that polong case last week? That social media site has a pretty strong security system, but I know its flaws, problem is that system is like a shield with a dozen layers, which is why it took me longer than expected to break through.”

“Oh, right, I remember. All those green codes flowing down the black screen.”

“Weijin, that was my screen saver. This is what a hacking looks like in real life,” Amirah said as he showed the others what looked like several windows of scripting and commands on her tablet.

“So this Haxe person, I remember you faced off with him because he targeted your father’s company?”

“ZB CyberSec’s kind of a big target. If a hacker can penetrate the company that uses and sells the toughest, most complicated digital security system in the world, it’ll make them a legend. Haxe was stirring shit up in Europe, then he decided to attack my family’s company as an open challenge. Dad asked if I could help, but Scrolls and the entire Cyber-Eye decided to take on Haxe instead because of what he did to the U-Bahn. Most of Cyber-Eye’s members were from Europe and they went from supporting Haxe to having a problem with him after that incident.”

“Yeah, he took over the U-Bahn systems and nearly caused a collision.”

“He claims it was an accident. Not too sure about that, but he did try to stop his own virus, so I half-believe him. He was still a major threat, though. Hitting my father’s company made things personal. So Scrolls, myself and a few others said, fine, bring the challenge. Haxe was trying to rob ZB CyberSec’s files and prototypes, he managed to make off with one of the prototypes, but we finally managed to kick him out of the system. It lasted a week.”

“How do you even fight an active hack? It’s not like the movies, right?”

“Well, it involves studying, configurations, ensuring that the IPS and IDS are working. We didn’t know Haxe’s systems or configurations, so we only had his attack methods to rely on for countering. When the real-time battle do start, it’s a Capture The Flag match with the prize being Haxe’s information and the prototypes he’s trying to steal. We were simultaneously breaching and deflecting. Hell, we even used a few viruses and Trojans. He only managed to steal one protype before Scrolls and I had the entire Police Nationale after his ass,” Amirah replied.

“So he lost,” Xiaoye said.

“Exactly, but he took it rather well. Maybe all these time on the run cracked him, but he doesn’t really strike me as the type of murderous sore loser.”

“And yet you’ve never seen his face before. How can you be so sure?” Weijin asked.

“He’s right. No face, no trust, short and sweet,” Ajibade chipped in as he devoured the last morsels of his meal.

“Assuming it really is Haxe, don’t you think the rest of Cyber-Eye would be in danger?” Lucas suddenly asked, causing Weijin, Ajibade, Roderick and Amirah to flinch in their seats, having forgotten that the Nobody was there.

“Crap, I was so caught up with what happened at that carpark, I never thought about the others… I think I should contact them, warn them about Haxe,” Amirah said when a loud crash was heard.

“Stupid bird! Watch where you’re going!” a man yelled at Inna, who was on the floor with some of her wing feathers crooked and a tray on the floor.

“They must have trouble hiring real servers in this dingy diner to have a monster like you working for them,” his female companion added with a snide tone.

“Fucking cunts, they pulled her wing,” Xiaoye snarled as she got up from her seat, having seen what happened and in the midst of rolling up her sleeves when, in a flash, the Three Thugs of Third Shift were standing before the rude customers, with Lucas wielding a cleaver, Tom holding a carving knife and Rendal with a meat tenderizer, while Inna quickly hid behind them as Lucas tapped both the backs of the couples’ chairs to alert them of his presence.

“Shit, it’s Iron Chef, murderer version,” Ajibade commented.

The rude, snobbish couple must have lost half their lifespan each upon seeing Lucas seemingly appearing out of thin air between Tom and Rendal. The fact that all three were physically tall (Lucas like his partner Ajibade, stood a hundred and ninety centimetres tall, impressive for a Singaporean), physically wide (Tom may be fat now, but he still maintains much of the muscle mass he earned during his rugby days) and that each of them were wearing a different type of murderous expression (Rendal especially is known to display a wide, psychotic grin when angry) only made them even more intimidating.

“Is our waitress giving you any problems?” Tom asked.

“Is the food not up to your standards?” Rendal added.

Unable to retaliate without potentially getting murdered and cooked into meat buns, the rude couple quickly mumbled an apology, but Lucas, whose status as a Nobody made him unable to show emotions, suddenly exudes a dangerous aura, and it terrified everyone who knows him personally.

“Did you pull my daughter’s wings for a Karen moment?” he asked the woman, his voice emotionless but low, a sign that he was experiencing a rare bout of rage, and if that wasn’t enough to confirm it, both his male in-laws were now glancing at him with a nervous expression.

“Sorry…” the rude couple whimpered.

“Get out.”

“Right away, sir!”

“I swear, that guy’s hair was starting to turn grey,” Roderick commented as the rude couple practically dashed for the door, and the Three Thugs returned to the kitchen like as though nothing happened, while Inna went back to serving other, more appreciative customers…

The young man once known as Haxe got off at the Gare de Dol-de-Bretagne, having left the bigger metropolitan areas for a quieter place where police presence is lower, though there is still the threat of the Gendarmerie, who were also searching for anyone resembling the last known photo of himself.

After leaving the train station, the first thing he did was check his bank account, which to his relief had been topped up from his last job, and quite a generous sum too.

Haxe hated the fact that he was now having to do odd jobs for criminal organizations, but the money they offered was helping him survive, and he was slightly reassured by the fact that none of the job offers involves him going too deep into whatever they’ve got planned. One of the Hong Kong triads branch in Paris did went a bit too far, though: They wanted him for a job, but he backed out when he saw them dumping the corpse of his predecessor into the river, and just in time, for the police ended up conducting a raid on their hideout the next day.

Right now, however, he was more worried about this other Haxe, the one that was attacking Singapore right now. Clearly, someone else other than him had a grudge against Zura99, but unlike himself, this idiot was trying to murder her.

First, Haxe put on another of his special face masks to hide his real identity, then he bought a second hand laptop before checking in at a rather isolated motel where he locked the door, pulled out his equipment from his bag and began to work. It has been two years since he did any hacking, but a few rounds of harmless penetrations later, he cracked a small smile. He still has it. But the smile quickly faded as he remembered his mission.

He was damned pissed about this imposter. For two years, he had been avoiding the authorities with success, and they were about to close the case and stop the hunt, but thanks to this moron, the hunt for Haxe had intensified. Nothing he could do to stop it, but if anything, he could at least get some measure of revenge by exposing this imposter before his own luck runs out. And they say hackers aren’t petty…

First, however, he needed to find out who Zura99 was, and how to contact her…