Stealing Ruby

Neon Virus

"Cody?" I hear the voice coming from my ear piece, but ignore it. "Cody?" Take off the maids outfit, I stuff it into the nearest trash bin. "Cody!" I wince at the volume. I swear, if he blows out my ear drum . . .

"What?" I demand. "How'd it go in there? Were you able to watch the project?" I let out a frustrated sigh. "No. There was someone in there at the time. I thought you said they left?" I can almost see Nick wince. Nick was our techie, and he claimed he saw all of those girls leave, but I guess he forgot to mention that one stayed behind. That's two big mistake floor just this hit. First he some how wasn't able to hack into the hotel computer and reserve the room for them, claiming he didn't have the right computer to hack into it, but it was an obvious bluff. I mean, how hard could it be to hack a hotel? He'd hacked into so many servers, unbreakable services even, but said he couldn't hack a stupid hotel. And now this? He would be receiving quite an ear full about this later.

Nick started to say something, but I didn't want to hear it. I took the ear piece out and stuffed it into my pocket, making my way to the car. As I approach the white van, the back doors swing open. I climb in and look around at my companions. Butch, a dark skinned, extremely muscular kid, seems to hold back a chuckle. "So," he asks, "how was being a cleaning lady? Did you get any good tips?" I glare at him. Butch is the muscle of the team. I swear, he was dropped into a radio active pool when he was a baby and grew two times the size of any other normal guy. Only seventeen and he was already bigger then most extreme resellers, and he's still growing!
"It went quite well, thanks for asking. I think I have a real career ahead of me." I say with fake excitement.

"Oh, Cody," crow calls from the front, "loosen up a little, why don't ya'." We had all forgotten Crow's real name, but this one seemed to soit him just fine. He was a little on the scrawny side and always seemed to have pail skin, even if you lay him in the sun all day. His hair was, you guessed it, raven black. He shot me a smirk. Crow was many things to the team. He was the pick pocket, the guy with 'connections', the get away driver, and team provider. If you needed information, a team, or some gear, he's your guy.

"Stick to driving and leave the sarcasm to the ones who know how to use it." That comment came from Mark, or as we call him, hood. He is the one who gets the target and gets out. This includes air vent crawling, laser dodging, knocking out the occasional guard, deactivating cameras and all of those types of things. You know, those people on tv that wear all black and look like ninjas. Yeah, that's pretty much Hood for you. He is around normal hight and has a good build. Not to broad, not to small. His eyes are bright blue and his sandy blond hair always seems to be in a mess. Most girls instant grow a crush on him at first sight for his looks, and he knows it. He's, well, I think the best words to describe it is cocky. When he's not in vents or jumping through laser mazes, he's flirting.

I look around. Today we are missing three people from our usual team. They had 'previous arrangements' they had to take care of. In other words, another heist. But they did promise to come help later on.

After about fifteen minutes, we pull up to Nick's Garage. Okay, it's not really a garage, only a small, plain looking one story house, but Nick made us use the name. I storm inside the house. "Nick!" I yell. I here a crash in the back room. Nick comes running out, his thick glasses falling off his nose. Nick is an extremely pail kid, mainly because of the lack of sun light. He never went out side unless absolutely necessary. Acne popping out all over his face and shaggy brown hair stuck up in random places. In other words, he looked like a dork, but looks can be deceiving. He is one of the smartest kids I know and can do wonders with computers. I only give him a cold glare before turning and walking into the kitchen. The kitchen is where we eat, hang out, and plan a heist. It had a large table, a smallish counter, a decent size fridge, and connected to the 'family room' where we had a couple of couches and a big tv installed. I stand in front of the table and wait for everyone to file in.

I look at my team. "Report." I say. Butcher simply places a key on the table. It's the ruby key, our target. Crow claps his hands. "Well, I guess that wraps it up. Let's eat." He starts to turn around, but I raise my hand, signalling him to wait. "Let me hear it." I say. Hood raises an eyebrow at me. "What do you mean? Weren't you watching?" I glare at Nick. "No, I wasn't. The plan didn't go quite as planned." I say in an icy voice.

"What do you mean?" Hood asks. I turn to him. "The room was not completely vacated, contrary to what I was told." I give Nick a meaningful look. He's wise enough to not meet my eyes. There's on awkward silence, then Butch cuts in. "Well, who was there?"

"It was- you know, I never did catch her name." I think about it for a moment, but no name comes to mind. "Her?" Hood asks with a raised eyebrow. I wave him off. "It was some girl. You know, one of the ones that rented the room before us."

"Was it the hot one?" Hood asks. Crow snorts. "Which one is that? They ask looked good to me." I hear Butch mutter something. "What was that?" I ask. "They do looked like air head brats to me." He says. I nod my head. "Right you are. I bet their dear daddy-kins bought them that room." Everyone chuckles at that. I turn to Nick. "Hey, would you mind downloading this hard drive onto the tv? I swiped it off the girl in the room." Nick raises an eyebrow. "Why?" I shrug. "I thought it might have something interesting on it." In truth, I was hoping it was her collection of gravity falls episodes, but the others didn't need to know that.
Nick walks over to his computer and hooks a cord to the tv. This enables us to see images from the computer sceen the large tv. I expect something to pop up right away, but nothing happens. "Well?" I ask after about a minute of Nick typing away. "I'm trying to get in." He says. "What do you mean, trying to get in? It's a hard drive, an easy hack for you." I say mater of factly. "You'd think." Nick mutters and continues to type away.

After another minute comes and goes, I am really starting to wonder if Nick is losing his touch. I was about to ask when Nick jump up and and yells. He grabs for the computer cord, but before he can do anything the lights go off. All of them. Every single thing that has to do with electricity just shuts down instantly.

I open my mouth to ask what happened when I notice a green glow coming from Nick's computer. I slide over to it and look at the screen. It shows a neon green smiley face sticking it's tongue out, mocking me. I turn to Nick.
"What just happened?" I ask. Nick shakes his head. "I don't know. One moment I thought I had it, and next this drive is sending a virus to the computer. I tried to stop it, but it was so fast." He looks around his now dark house with empty, lost eyes as if his whole life just shut down. Which is pretty accurate. "I've never seen anything like it before. The codes, the vastness of it all. It was like it was playing with my mind, forcing me through this maze of inscriptions, then just . . . Nothing."

All the guys look around, as if expecting something else to happen spontaneously. I look at the screen with the neon face on it. Only one thought plays in my mind as I stare at the screen.

Who was that girl?