Indigo (NaNoWriMo13)

Chapter 17 - Virtually a Secret

---

Chapter 17 - Virtually a Secret

---

Alone in his computer lab except for his machines and his music, Kione pursed his lips in thought.

“Now,” he said to himself, steepling his fingers under his chin. “Why do you hide from me, little folders?”

He could see the folders -- parts of them, anyway. All thirteen of the damn things. The sneaky bastards had taken him hours to locate, and no fancy encryption lock hiding their asses from him was about to stonewall him out.

The encryption pieces flashed across the screen again, the enlarged, ancient pixels rotating and shifting constantly under his stare. Somewhere in them was a code, the code he needed to apply to the rest of the pixels.

The concept was simple enough until you realised there were millions of the things and more than a hundred decoys.

And that applying the wrong one would result in the thing spawning an orange fuelled electronic that would probably eat him and spit him back out the other end to the Elites after its homing beacon activated.

Kione gave an exasperated sigh. “Seriously, who uses pixel encryptions anymore, most annoying things.”

The song stopped, leading into another that completely killed his groove. Kione shot his player an annoyed look before flicking a speck of orange colour in it. The offending tune stopped abruptly and moved into a much more appropriate piece.

Problem solved, Kione turned back to the keyboard.

If I applied the colour then ran it through the next parallels of... that might work.

His fingers tapped the keys in time to the beat and the rhythm soon took over the rest of his body. His shoulders and head moved of their own accord, lips mouthing the words without a second thought.

Divide by the fifty-second numerals as they pass by the blue, then the red... the pattern repeats by the purples, excluding green ones beside yellows... aaaaand there you are you beautiful thing!

His colour identified the code and his brain confirmed it. With several swift keystrokes, it was applied.  To his satisfaction, the pixels began to solve themselves, disappearing from the screen entirely to reveal the folders beneath.

Kione leant back in his chair, flexing his fingers as they vanished.

“I’m a geniu-- Awh, come on!”

Each of the thirteen folders had a new encryption on them, and every single one of them was different. Other than the title names and a brief, few word description of the contents, Kione was no closer to finding out exactly what the Elites were hiding in this database that wasn’t supposed to exist.

“Damn, they really don’t want anyone reading this stuff,” muttered Kione.

Kione tried a few basic commands. Just in case. Not to any surprise, all came up blank.

Can’t just be easy for once. Hours just finding this, another hour breaking that pixel code, why can’t they just forget to block a probe or something easy!

He stared at the thirteen new encryptions for a few seconds before deciding someone else was going to share his pain.

He pressed his palm to the flat panel under his desk.

“Call Jordan, secure line.”

It took four and a half seconds for the call to go through, at which point Jordan’s face appeared on the screen looking as if he’d just rolled out of bed.