Celaena - The Lost Princess

6. Exceptional

Ian Kingsley pov

I rub my face tiredly, my mind is worked up since morning incident. I'm tired thinking about that girl, I don't know what makes her so special but my mind doesn't stop showing me her images. That first meeting is playing on repeat mode in my mind. I can't concentrate on anything.

I sigh and rest my head on table and close my eyes. I've got so many things to take care, programming team selection has began, I don't need to be there for initial selection since Ryan can take care of that. But my presence is required for round two. We have only 2 spots on the team and I need best of the lot and those who can endure my harshness. I don't want weeping willow's on my team, I'm not someone who would sit comforting all those at distress, that's why we have student counselor. I look upto the clock to check time it shows 2.50pm.

My phone starts beeping violently, I don't remember setting up any alarm and I don't let anyone touch my phone so why is it beeping?? I pick up the phone try to unlock it by pressing my thumb on fingerprint scanner. And phone goes silent but doesn't get unlocked, confused I stare at the screen to see it go complete black. And then words start to appear.

SOMEONE had the audacity to hack my phone and send me message through it. My blood starts to boil, they better have an escape plan or else they are going to be begging for forgiveness. I fist my hand and bang on the table with anger and frustration running through my body.

I stare at the message, it's in Morse code!!! It's making me loose all my shit, I pick nearest damn thing I can get my hands on and throw it to the wall. It was water bottle, it crashed into the wall splashing water all over. When I get my hands on this damn person it's gonna be him thrown against the wall. How dare he hack my phone?? I clench my jaw and I'm shaking with anger. No no no, I need to get my anger in control, I shouldn't be so careless, I shouldn't think of hurting people, I'm not the same person I was before.

I take breath 'in, one, out'
'in, one, two, out'
'in, one, two, three, out'
I continue to take few more deep breaths and calm my nerves.

Now that my mind's clear I decipher the message. It reads "would you do the honour of visiting programming lab 2, professor". My nerves are somewhat calm now. I mean if the person who hacked my phone is asking me to go into a room inside college then it can't be someone from outside or it can't be of someone from my family either.

I take a deep breath and leave my office and walk towards lab 2 where our team team selection is going on. I would be pretty damn impressed if it's a student but they don't need to know that, it'll only boost their ego. As I walk towards lab 2, I can hear lot of commotion happening inside the lab. I hurry and push the door and I hear a robotic voice say

"Bingo" "Right on time professor"

I'm stunned. I can see lots faces staring at me like they've seen ghost. Ryan's standing infront of the room looking at me with same expression. I school my feature and walk towards Ryan. He's still staring at me like I'm a dead man walking.

I call him "Ryan" he still not budging. I shake his shoulder calling him loudly. He shakes his head like he's trying to break the trance he's been in and looks at me puzzled, he open his mouth to say something then closes and repeats it. He looks like a fish out of water.

I look towards Thomas who is still looks shocked. Then I scan the crowd I can see lots of people with same expression. I turn back my attention to Ryan and ask "What's wrong Ryan? What's happening here?" He looks at me and clears his throat and asks me "May I know why are you here? I mean you weren't supposed to be present at preliminary test" and furrows his eyebrows in confusion. I look at him and say "someone hacked my phone and asked me to come here" I can hear gasps from around me, Ryan goes pale and wide eyed. He gulps and turns towards the crowd and back to me.

I ask him "are you going to explain what's happening here?" He nods and starts explaining "we were conducting preliminary selection process just like we discussed. I explained them their task and let them work on it" gulps "and no one could crack security system for 10+ minutes, so I asked Thomas to check, but he couldn't login to team computer even as admin cause there was an anonymous extra security wall set up, which wasn't ours" he looks down at the floor embarrassed and continues "I went to check on the computer and connected my phone, at same time my phone connected to all the speaker here and started countdown and as the countdown ended you entered the room"

I'm impressed, whoever did this is the one I have been looking for. I ask him "what was their task?"
He explains "it was to hack into out team system and get information about last year's team which are encrypted, within 5 minutes"
"Is that it?" I ask him
"I-um I asked them to add their own element of surprise to impress us" he says looking embarrassed and guilty.
I walk towards team's computer and start working on it. Like he said this security wall is good but it crumbles the minute I started working on it, on its own. I frown and check who has accessed it in past 30 minutes. I can see few names Ryan's name Thomas's name and then a name catches my whole attention I gulp and read

"Liarah Nightshade"

I think I said that out loud cause I can hear murmuring going around. I stand straight and scan the crowd for particular black hair, pale skinned girl. My eyes lands on a furthest corner from my place, there she's sitting with a book on hand and attention entirely on that book. I check the time she accessed the system it shows 2.45pm. I turn towards Ryan and ask him "when did they start task?" He says "at 2.40pm sir"
My eyes land on the open register and I can see Liarah's name at the bottom, I ask him "what's that register for?" He says "it's for the candidates to register about equipments they borrowed from the team"

I check the register to see Liarah's name infront of data cable, time's also written on the register on the right side and it reads 2.42pm. She took 2-3 minutes to hack the system and then build a security wall to keep everyone else out then proceeded to hack Ryan's phone as well as mine to make up for surprising part.

I'm beyond impressed. But I'm pretty sure people around here has not yet figured who did this. I turn around to face the crowd with a small smile on my face "I've already got one member for the team, congratulations 'Miss Liarah Nightshade' and welcome to the team" I say looking directly at her. She shrunk into her seat as I called out her name, I'm confused at her behaviour but then I remembered Mrs. Smith telling she doesn't like attention.

Students are searching frantically for Liarah since they have no idea about who she is, I can see Ryan's also trying to figure out who this person is. I sigh and say "Everyone's dismissed, I'll put up a shortlisted names on the noticeboard outside this class. Thank you"

Now my gaze is fixed on black haired girl at the back filling her bag so she can go unnoticed with the crowd. I can see Ryan still searching for Liarah, he can keep looking. My attention is back to Liarah, she's moving fast and she reached the front desk to deposit data cable and sign.

As she retreats from the table I say "stay" Her body suddenly tensed and she stood frozen in her place but there isn't a single change in her expression, it's still blank. I see Ryan go wide eye as he figured out that she is Liarah Nightshade. To say he's suprised would be an understatement. He didn't think she would be able to pull this stunt.

After everyone's out I turn towards her and ask "how?" She just stares, I ask her again showing my phone "how did you do this?"
She takes out her phone and types something and slides it inside her pocket, then gets back to staring.

I raise my eye brow and exactly same time my phone as well as Ryan's phone beeps. I check my phone to see it's normal again no blank screen or any other type of anomaly. I look back to her to see she's checking her time and looks up then does 2 finger salute and walks out of the classroom.

We 3 stand there staring at the door. Thomas is first one to break silence "what was that?" "I've never seen someone do all those things in less than 10 minutes" Ryan looks speechless. Thomas continues " Ryan didn't you have your own security wall protecting your phone?" Ryan nods, he's still not able to form words. "She's damn good, I mean who would think of hacking professor's phone" " I must agree she has guts, I wouldn't even dream of doing what she did in 10 minutes, she's truly exceptional"

He's right, he would never dream of doing something which isn't considered ethical. And he would probably get a panic attack if I ever unleash my anger on him. But now I have Liarah, since she on my team I'll get to meet her more often which means more chance of figuring her out. I'm looking forward to work with her... The EXCEPTIONAL one.