Chapter Text
The door swung open and Mark burst in.
He slid to a stop and stumbled, then leaned on his knees, panting.
“Did you get it?” Serah hissed, storming up to mark.
Mark nodded, before Lucas walked over and took the memory file from his hand, inspecting it.
“Are you sure we won't get caught?” Harly questioned.
Sarah took the file from Lucas, who made a feeble attempt to take it back.
“We won't, and if we do, it was Marks idea-” she shot him a glare.
“What, why me?” mark shouted at Serah, who was already making her way to the computer.
“Do you really need to ask me that?” she grinned. She waved her hand at his form, he had a scar on the bridge of his nose, on his right eyebrow and his left upper arm. Serah clearly knew where they all came from, countless fights he had in high school. He was a better kid now, something in the last year snapped for him and he decided he wanted to spend his life in computer engineering.
Serah typed something on the computer, everyone went silent and huddled over the box. The screen lit up, a background that screamed 80’s family desktop.
Lucas spoke up, leaning in to get a better view. “So, are you sure that this will make us have better marks?”
She nodded, her brows furrowing as she typed something else.
“Are you going to put in?” Harly spoke, ever impatient. The disc was lying on the desk as Serah's hands flew over the keyboard.
“Stop being a nag-” a browser popped up on the screen and she let out an amused grunt, before she picked up the file and slid it into the computer.
She slid it in, a new tab opened over the old one. The stark difference in the two tabs caught the group by surprise. The original one had that stark old-school tab look, blue banner, and red ‘X’ button; however, the new one was transparent, and neon yellow lining and text.
‘Downloading solver...’
“Is that normal? What's a solver? Why is it yellow?” Lucas started questioning her relentlessly. Lucas was reaching for the mouse just for his hand to be swatted away by Serah.
‘Download complete....’
‘Installing solver...’
‘hello :]’
-
They had bumped into each other, seemingly innocent, except, ghost had just heard her conspiring like a Disney villain.
Professor Jude stood in front of Ghost, she was quite tall, almost able to look directly at him without looking up, but not quite.
“Are you ok, Ghost?” she questioned, as if she was innocently checking up on the man.
He didn't say anything at first, assessing her, and any risks.
“I'm fine.” ghost crossed his arms across his chest.
“Good.” she grinned, “I'll be off now”
Before she could walk off, Ghost caught her wrist.
“Hay-!” her head shot ghosts way, a hint of glare slipping through. Although, she was clearly trying to keep up her mask.
“I know you're up to something, professor.” he said, like he was demanding an answer, he tugged on her arm but Jude pulled back harder, freeing herself from his grasp.
Ghost had expected her to flee from the confrontation, he had that effect on people, evidently, but to his surprise she faced him, stepping forward.
“Ya know, you don't know shit,” she retorted, her accent thickening as her agitation grew. She poked a finger to his chest, he stepped back, making her lift her hand.
“I don't know what you heard, but whatever evil plans you think I'm plotting-” she hissed, glaring at him through his mask. “you're wrong.”
Ghost wanted an answer out of her, anything really, but she had already stormed off, leaving him glaring at the spot the professor used to be.
-
Jude’s desk phone rang, and she leaned over the desk to pick it up. Her grasp was strong. Like she was mad at the object itself, but that was hardly the case.
“Do you have the location yet brother?” she pleaded.
“Yeah, yeah I do Judds” the boy said, he sounded younger than her, maybe fresh out of college, possibly younger.
“Thank the gods” she let out an exasperated sigh, “can you send it to me?”
“Mhm, sending now.” there's a moment of silence when a ding came from her computer.
She moved to her seat and sat at the desk, holding the phone in the crook of her neck.
“Really? A college? Are you sure this is right?” she said, typing a few things into her computer.
“Yeah, Cybercrest University, it's a university for computer scientists. Smart bunch they must be-”
“that's not the point, what are they doing sending out large scale Electromagnetic Pulses?”
Theres silence on the other end for a moment.
“How would I know? Could you send your military buddies to check it out?” he asked hopefully.
“They aren’t my buddies, they hired me...” she hissed “but I can get them to check it out... I don't think this is worth missing out on”
“Righto, call you back judds?”
“Cheers brother-” she puts the phone down, letting out a sigh. She rubbed her forehead, she had a splitting headache from reading all day, what she needed was a cup of tea.