Unbroken

Chapter 19

"Max, now you owe me one dude on that sound board I got for you." Nino ribbed at his old classmate.

"Exactly, besides, this is for Marinette and Adrien." Alya added.

Max sat in front of his laptop at their kitchen table and looked at the two of them over his screen, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"That may well be." The tech genius said. "But that doesn't change the fact that what you are asking me to do is highly illegal."

Markov then lit up beside him. "That is correct. Under the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990 the penalty for unauthorised access to computer material is a minimum of two years jail and up to ten years for more serious offences."

Alya rolled her eyes. "Look, I know that it's not strictly legal, but the airline wouldn't tell me anything! They said it's against the rules to give the names of passengers or what flights they are on."

It had been over a week since Adrien and Félix had arrived in London. While the cousins were going to dig up what they could on Gabriel, Adrien had entrusted Alya with the search for his wife. The investigative reporter vowed she would have her location within a few days, but rapidly hit a snag when the airlines told her it was against their privacy policy to give information on passengers. Alya even took the train from London to Paris to go to the airport herself, only to be told the same thing.

Time was of the essence now as Gabriel had been making calls to Félix demanding Adrien return to Paris at once. Félix had fobbed him off, but Gabriel was becoming impatient, and so was Félix. The more time that passed, the more opportunity Gabriel had to hide evidence.

With limited options, Alya rang their old classmate, Max, who was living in London too. Max had recently taken up a teaching position at Oxford university, having completed an excelled IT program and he wasn't in a hurry to jeopardise that.

Looking at Alya with a resigned look, Max flexed his fingers across the keyboard. "Just so you know, I'm only doing this because Marinette is Ladybug." He said flatly.

"Dude, when did you figure that out?" Nino said in surprise. Max gave a knowing look to Markov who was the one to respond.

"The major upgrade Max installed at the end of Lycèe unexpectedly allowed me to see past the quantum masking of the superheroes. Knowing Marinette was Ladybug meant there was a 99% chance that Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir."

"And you didn't say anything!" Alya screeched at Max. "You knew those two had been dancing around each other for years!"

Max shook his head slowly, ignoring her high pitched questioning of his motives. "Alix told me not to. It was an accident Markov was even able to recognise Ladybug as Marinette and she happened to be there at the time with me and Kim. Fortunately, Kim was practicing his diving and didn't hear anything and Alix said it would be important for the future to keep quiet about it."

Alya grumbled under her breath. Alya knew about Alix and the Rabbit Miraculous from an incident that happened a few years earlier and understood that Bunnix wasn't someone to mess with.

"Then I wish she would show up now and give us some insight." Alya mumbled, folding her arms.

"Who else do you know about?" Nino asked.

"Everyone." Max replied nonchalantly. "But I don't think that is relevant to the situation at hand, Carapace." Max chuckled with Markov at dropping Nino's superhero name, leaving the stunned DJ to gawk at his less than impressed girlfriend.

"Okay, fine." She said, waving her hand. "Let's focus back on this then. Now there were three flights the morning Marinette left. Munich, Shanghai and New York. Now I don't think Marinette knows anyone in Germany, but she does have an Uncle in Shanghai."