Chapter 3: 3 - Hey Geeky!
"Men, minions arriving in two minutes. Exit through the south. Meet at the corner." From their monitors, Dragon spotted two cars heading towards the warehouse.
Green Day: "Wilco(1)."
Blue Bear started up the van and slowly maneuvered towards the south end of the street. Within minutes, everyone successfully got into the van. As the team drove away, they took a detour to change vehicles and split up. Dragon and Firebird took the female target to NIA, while Silver Spoon, Green Day and Blue Bear went straight to their base, holding securely the storage device with the goal of studying it inside out, before turning it over to the government.
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NIA
01:32H
Dragon parked their car at the NIA headquarters. Before getting out, Dragon and Firebird made sure to hide their faces using a human skin mask. Dragon's identity was a very complex one, and he could not risk exposing the whole team even when dealing with the government. They also made sure to cover the woman with a thick blanket and then Dragon carried her up carefully.
As soon as they reached the entrance, medical professionals started to walk towards them, looking anxiously at the pale-looking and blood-covered Shania Cray. Dragon put her down on the medical stretcher.
Behind these nurses and doctors, came Mr. Flinch, the head of NIA. He usually hires Dragon and his team for complicated missions as he was more confident of Dragon's capability (and resources, of course). He also has personal reasons for doing so.
Contrary to his name, one would not flinch at the sight of him, nor the man was always flinching. Rather, he had warm brown eyes that would glow whenever the sun hits his face. With a dimple on his left cheek, he gives off a very approachable personality.
Together with Mr. Flinch, there was an elderly couple who wore expressions of shock, fear, and heartbroken. Aside from these emotions, the old man, however could not hide his self-blame at what could have possibly happened to his daughter, Shania. The woman then started to breakdown in tears as she saw the condition of their daughter.
Flinch ordered everyone, "Take Miss Cray to the lab immediately. You have my go-ahead to use it for her treatment."
As they left, Flinch turned to the remaining people and briefly introduced everyone.
"General Cray, Mrs. Cray, this man here is called Dragon. He and his team were the ones who rescued your daughter tonight." Mr. Flinch started. "Dragon, this is General Eugene Cray of the Defense Force and his wife, Mrs. Freida Cray."
Dragon offered a handshake to the couple, "I am honored to meet you, Sir. Don't worry much about your daughter. She's a strong woman, and a fighter."
The Cray couple accepted the offered handshake, both expresssing their thanks for rescuing their daughter.
Flinch did not forget to boast his position. "Of course. As NIA, we pride ourselves in utmost confidentiality. Rest assured, your daughter will definitely be safe here."
"Yes, that is also what I'm worried about. We don't want the public to know what really happened to her and I'm thankful that you offered the lab. It is very risky if her whereabouts were exposed." Mrs. Cray stopped sobbing and spoke for the first time.
Firebird remained silent during all these chatter.
Flinch continued, "General, Mrs. Cray, you may want to accompany your daughter in there. I'll make sure to drop by later."
"Yes. Thank you again, gentlemen." Mrs. Cray pulled on her husband to leave for the lab.
Turning to the other two men, Mr. Flinch crisply told them, "Follow me to my office."
He led them to an elevator and punched in his personal code to access it. Try as he might however, he was not able to hide the keys he punched in from Dragon's hawk-sharp eyes. Of course, from the time that Dragon was working with NIA, Dragon had known his security access code but did not have a reason to use it "unofficially."
Soon, the elevator led them all up to Mr. Flinch's executive office. The room was designed minimally, with sleek modern furnitures of white, silver and black.
The whole office occupied half of the 36th floor, the highest in the building. The floor to ceiling windows provided a bright and spacious workplace with a panoramic view of the city's Administrative District.
Mr. Flinch ordered his secretary to prepare coffee and water for everyone as they all sat at the sofa in the middle of the room. Once settled, he then turned to Dragon to ask, "The hard drive, did you manage to get it too?"
"Yes, my team is currently running tests on it. We'll send you a report by the end of the day."
They then proceeded to discuss their post-mission security measures and further details on Shania Cray case. A couple of hours later, soon as Dragon and Firebird left NIA headquarters, Flinch was left alone in his office. He walked towards the windows with a deep pensive look, his usual warm face devoid of emotions.
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Dragon's Base
02:09H
While Dragon and Firebird were at the NIA, the rest were bustling about at their base. Well, all except Silver Spoon who was rythmically snoring on the sofa. His left hand that was holding an almost empty bottle of beer was dangling on the side.
Blue Bear has just finished copying and downloading the contents of the storage drive they recovered from the mission. He plugged it out of his computer and gave it to Green Day for hardware inspection.
He found a file containing names, numbers, currencies and dates of various transactions. On the list were a few generals, politicians, and even private business men. What seemed to be off, however, was a handful of transactions under a codename. A codename that sounded familiar to him.
Meanwhile, Green Day started pulling apart the device and dissecting each parts. He was checking every small pieces for clues and whatnots, taking extra care that he might not trigger any explosives alarm. After all, being a weapons specialist, he knows anything can be mechanized as a weapon.
A while later, Green Day found a QR code(2) too small almost the size of a fingernail. He grabbed his customized QR code scanner, and had it scanned.
"Hey Geeky! Say, what do you think we'll find out from this?" Holding out the device, he turned to Blue Bear.
"You know, as gay as you are, you sure are fond of nicknames." Blue Bear retorted, walking towards Green Day's workstation. When he arrived, he gasped. "What the heck?!"
The remote computer that the scanner was connected to blinked continuously and all its media files started to get corrupted, until all that was left was a blue screen. It was a good thing that the computer was not connected to their local network. Otherwise, all their computers would have been destroyed by now.
The screen turned static for a second, then a recorded video started playing.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
miss_elai
miss_elai (1) Wilco - Marines procedure words, used to say: message understood and "Will Comply."
(2) Quick Response code
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone