When Tony heard the news, he furrowed his brows. “Nelly , where did you lose your laptop? Where is it?”
Reluctantly, Nelly admitted, “Midnight fang pack .”
A trace of worry flickered across Tony ‘s eyes as he continued to look at Nelly . “Is there anything in your laptop?”
“No, I didn’t leave anything. I have the habit of erasing all traces of activities on the laptop whenever I go out or whenever I’m outside, but I’m worried that someone would be able to restore all the activities,” answered Nelly .
Tony thought it over. He knew better than to rule out the possibility of someone doing so.
If someone managed to restore all activities from the laptop, Nelly ‘s identity would be exposed. At that thought, he shot up from his seat. “I’ll settle it now.”
Nelly ‘s eyes followed his movements. “It’s not so urgent that you’d have to do it now.”
“No, every single minute is beyond precious,” replied Tony before turning around to face Nelly
and Ben . “You guys go ahead and eat first. I’ll be back soon.” With that being said, Tony dashed up the stairs.
Staring at his silhouette, Nelly could not help the pride and relief bubbling in her chest. Tony has grown. He’s getting better at protecting and caring for others.
“Here you go, Nelly .” Just then, Ben broke the silence as he added more food to her plate. The corners of her lips lifted as Nelly turned to look at Ben .
“Ben .” “Hm?”
“Have you ever thought about what you’re going to do when you grow up?” Nelly asked all of a sudden.
Ben pondered over the question seriously. After a while, he looked straight into her eyes. “I want to protect all of you.”
Nelly was taken aback slightly before breaking into a warm smile. “Ben , I appreciate your intentions, but I hope that you can take care of yourself in the future. What I meant when I asked you what you want to do is whether or not you have a specific area of knowledge that you would like to pursue. Tony had figured out the path he wanted to take, but what about you?”
At the mention of that topic, Ben frowned before shaking his head. “I haven’t thought about it.” Nelly nodded in response. “That’s o-”
“Thalia said I can consider going into STEM.” Nelly was dumbfounded. “STEM?”
“Remember the album that I sketched? Thalia saw it the other day and became very agitated. She said I could continue developing my skills in that area,” Ben answered.
Nelly had always known about Ben ‘s habit of drawing. She had given them a few glances but had never really thought much about it. All of his drawings and sketches consisted of firearms. Before that day, Nelly had thought that Ben ‘s interest in weapons was a mere childish hobby.
However, if Thalia had such a peculiar response to the drawings, things might not be as simple as she had originally thought.
“Thalia said that?” Nelly asked again.
Ben bobbed his head.
Nelly looked at Ben in confusion. “What did you draw?”
“Nothing much. When I was watching a movie some time ago, a weapon in the movie caught my attention. I thought its shooting range was too small, so I drew a similar model. But I believe that the one I drew would be a lot more advanced, whether it’s the range or the precision.”
Nelly sized him up. She was starting to think that Ben had been an underestimated genius that went unnoticed.
After pondering for a brief moment, Nelly turned to look at Ben . “Do you have it with you?”
Ben nodded. “Yeah. Thalia told me to keep it safe and not lose it. Otherwise, it could cause trouble.”
His words managed to piqued Nelly ‘s curiosity even more.
The fact that Thalia had said made such a comment meant that she had been shocked by whatever she had seen.
“Let’s go to your room later. I want to take a look at it.” Ben nodded without thinking much of it. “Okay.”
“Let’s eat.” Nelly looked pointedly at the food on the table. Ben nodded in response.
Just as the two of them were eating, Tony descended the stairs.
Approaching the table, he took a seat and began putting food on his plate. “Settled?” Nelly asked, prompting a nod from Tony .
Nelly eyed Tony up and down before lowering her head to eat and pretending to ask nonchalantly, “Was it difficult?”
“No…” As the word left his mouth, Tony paused and raised his head to meet Nelly ‘s gaze. Nelly was looking at him too.
“I mean, yes!” Tony nodded. “It was a little difficult. I spent a lot of effort on it!”
Rolling her eyes at him, Nelly smiled knowingly.
From the looks of it, Tony ‘s skills were no longer inferior to hers.
In retrospect, Nelly realized that he had been allowing her to win all the friendly competitions they had.
At the revelation, Nelly hummed to herself. Truly a filial son. There was nothing else she could say about it.
“Let’s find some time to have another competition,” announced Nelly . “Uh… Do we have to?” Tony gazed up at her.
“Why not?”
“It’s not like I can win against you in any of the competitions. Wouldn’t I just be setting myself up for embarrassment if I agreed?” Tony reasoned.
“Then give me everything you got!”
Tony merely hummed in response before continue eating.
It was rare for the three of them to be enveloped in a serene atmosphere.
Just then, Nelly was beginning to miss Donna . It would be nice if she could have joined us. As they were eating, a thought appeared in Nelly ‘s mind. “Oh, right. Where’s Thalia?”
“Not sure.” Tony shook his head. “I haven’t managed to contact her ever since we parted ways the other day.”
Nelly listened without responding.
“What about Spencer? Has he contacted you?” Nelly shook her head.
“From the looks of it, is it possible that the two of them are together?” Tony asked again. “I suppose so.”
Both Nelly and Tony turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?” Tony asked.
“Darknetz has been hacked!” Ben answered. “What?”
Ben ‘s brows drew together. “Let’s continue this conversation later. There is a large number of hackers attacking Darknetz at the moment. Sam is looking for you right now.”
Upon hearing him, Tony patted his pockets, only to find no signs of his phone. “I must have left it in the room earlier.”
“Let’s go online first,” Ben told him.
Tony nodded. Right as he was about to leave, he turned to Nelly . “Nelly …” “Go on,” she calmly said to them.
Hence, the boys wasted no time heading upstairs.
Nelly narrowed her eyes a little as she watched them leave.
She knew that the boys had to walk down their own paths in life eventually, but she never thought that day would come so soon.
At that, a faint smile grew on Nelly ‘s lips.
When they reached the room and when Tony went online, Sam was in the middle of cursing: Tony , if you don’t f*cking get online now, I’m going to go after you!
As he logged in, Tony typed: I’m here. What’s going on?
Sam : Who the hell knows? There’s a large group of people attacking us all of a sudden, and the line of defense is about to break.
Realizing the urgency of the matter, Tony asked no other questions as he began solving the issue. He first set up a firewall. Then, he started counterattacking.
It was almost like a battle as Tony led the hackers of Darknetz to fight against the intruders.
“Do you need my help?” Ben , who was watching from the side, asked. Tony lifted his head to glance at him. “Did you bring your computer?”
Ben gestured toward another unoccupied computer. “I didn’t, but there are computers here.”
Tony spared a glimpse at it. “Forget it. Alpha Dave will know if you use the computers here. With that, he looked back at his computer. “Don’t worry. If I couldn’t deal with these, my experiences would have all been naught.”
As he spoke, he let his fingers fly across the keyboard, tapping away rapidly. After his conversation with Ben , he no longer looked away. Soon, Darknetz began gaining the upper hand.
It was only then Ben let a sigh of relief escape him.
However, the longer he stared at the screen, the deeper his frown became. “Are they hackers from Midnight fang pack ?” Ben suddenly asked.
“You realized?” Tony asked.
“They’re attacking in the same way as they did the last time,” Ben remarked.
Tony , who was still staring at the screen, suddenly seemed much more mature than his age as he said, “It looks like I haven’t tormented them enough yet. How dare they attack Darknetz? I’m going to make their lives a living hell this time!”
Thus, Tony swiftly made it seem like Darknetz was about to fail so that the hackers would bite the bait he had thrown out. Just as the intruders thought that they were winning, he ambushed them with Darknetz’s hackers. Finally, they managed to capture the intruding hackers, and Tony told the group, “Keep them there.”
With that, Tony went to work on something else.
Sam was watching from the side the entire time. We were about to win, so what is Tony up to now?
He could not understand the codes on the screen, so Sam asked with a frown: Tony , what are you doing?
He received no response, so a moment later, he repeated: Tony ? Tony answered: Be quiet for a while.
Sam retorted: What? We’re about to win, so what are you doing right now?
Tony replied: Getting some compensation for the trauma. Sam probed: What do you mean?
Tony responded: You’ll find out in a bit. With that, Tony stopped typing.
Five minutes later, Tony reappeared and strengthened the firewall to stop the intruders from entering the system again.
It seemed like the intruders knew that they had encountered an even more capable hacker, so they stopped their onslaught.
The hackers of Darknetz sighed in relief when the website returned to normal.
Ben rolled his eyes at Tony in response, thinking, It was such a simple thing, but he just had to make it seem so complicated. Oh, but this is Anonymous. I’m worrying for nothing.
Right then, Sam messaged: If you came any later, we wouldn’t have been able to keep the base safe.
Tony reassured: Don’t worry. I’ve set up three layers of protection. Even if they’ve gone past the first two, there’s still one more where the address is a random one.
Sam huffed and messaged: You should have told me that earlier. Tony : Who knew you’d panic so quickly?
Sam : Well, are you going to let them go so easily? Tony questioned: Uh, what else am I supposed to do? Sam answered: This isn’t like you.
Tony : Well, I’ve got to be forgiving sometimes.
Sam was in disbelief as he typed: You? Forgiving? I dare you to tell me what you did earlier.