Shattered Relations | Aru Shah AU |

VI

ARU
Aru and Aiden opened the door to Mini rapidly scrolling through something on her laptop, and Brynne and Rudy were squinting at newspapers. 

"Did you find anything?" Aru asked, as Aiden pulled out the resume. 

"I think so..." Mini said, glaring at the laptop screen. 

Mini pulled her laptop toward the others, and turned the screen toward them. 

"So, I surfed through the Internet for anything connected to a hand symbol. Only graphics pulled up, obviously, and a hand is a pretty generic symbol, but, after some searching... I found myself on an encrypted website." 

Brynne stared. "Is that safe?" 

"We're chasing a murderer! Nothing about this is safe." Mini protested. 

"...Fair enough, I guess." Brynne sighed.

"What happened next?" Rudy asked. 

"I managed to barely bypass it through a VPN, and, after a half an hour of struggling, I managed to get onto the website." 

"Is... that a canal?" Aiden asked, frowning at the picture on the screen. 

"Exactly. I don't know what they were doing, but it seems that they were renting out canals to treat the water, and use it for their company. People who used the canal had to pay a toll. Then, I found reports online that households and small towns located were suffering from different diseases. I think they're related." 

Aiden shoved the paper towards the others. 

"Shakhuni's resumé." he said. 

"See, the years for 2016 to 2021 are unaccounted for. Where could he have gone?" 

Mini raked her hand through her hair, and said, slowly, "You don't think--" 

Before she could complete her sentence, her computer screen froze. 

"The heck?" She frowned, and tapped the trackpad. Nothing good happened.

 Pixelated boxes appeared on the screen, distorting the page. 

"What's happening?" Aru asked. 

"I--I don't know--" Mini began. 

The screen turned black, before green, pixelated words appeared on the screen. 

Your search is a mistake. 

"Mini, what's going on?" 

"This isn't supposed to be happening!" she yelled. "I'm supposed to be the only hacker here!" 

"THAT'S NOT COMFORTING." Brynne said.

We're after you. We saw the boy's car. We know what it looks like. We know your IP address. You weren't supposed to look for us. Now suffer the consequences your useless search bore.

"IP address..." Mini muttered. "Thanks for that." 

She typed out something rapidly, and text scrolled down the screen, before the cursor blinked before the word: Blocked.

Mini groaned, and slammed her fist against the table. 

"That's... not good." Rudy said, burying his face in his hands.

"They've hacked into my laptop! They can probably see us through the camera right now!" she shrieked, and with that cheerful pronouncement, Mini slammed it shut. 

"This is worse than before." Brynne pulled out a chair, and sank into it. 

"I know." Aiden sighed. 

"Wait. They said they saw 'the boy's' car. Presumably, that's Aiden. That means one of the people who saw you on the way to Shakhuni's house was a part of this... gang." 

"That's nice. Any person we see in our day-to-day lives could very well be an assassin hired to end our beautiful lives. Truly brilliant." Aru said, sarcastically.

"But this narrows our search! Only a few people saw us go into 371!" Aiden said.

"Who?" Aru asked, frowning. 

"The guard..." Aiden said, quietly, as realization dawned on his face. "He was suspicious." 

"Maybe, but that's not enough to confront him." Aru sighed.

"What do we do now?" 

Aru sighed. "We continue searching. This time, using a different laptop." 

"Mini, what do you remember from the page?" Rudy asked, anxiously. 

Mini's brow furrowed as she thought. "The picture... it had a sign, which said, 'Bruswick Canal'." 

"That? That's in Georgia!" Aru said. 

"I think the main question is how one rents out a canal." Aiden said. 

Mini shrugged. "No idea how. One sec," she pulled out her phone, and typed out something. 

"Well, canals aren't copyrighted, exactly, so one can copyright it in their name, I guess. Like that dude who bought real estate on the moon." 

"So... it's technically, extorting money from canal users?" Aru asked, tapping her fingers against the table. 

"Yes... but I still don't get why." Mini sighed. 

"And the reports of diseases?" 

Mini pulled up news reports on her phone. "They're all pretty generic, the family names are anonymous, of course. But, the locations are all around the canal." 

Aru squinted, the name 'Brunswick' tickling a memory at the back of her brain... the canal too, until she involuntarily let out a gasp. 

"What?" Aiden asked. 

"My sister... she lived in Brunswick." 

Aiden's eyes widened, as Rudy said, slowly, "You have a sister?" 

Aru dragged out a chair, and sank into it, processing her thoughts. "Last year... she disappeared." 

The silence grew thick and uncomfortable, sympathy radiating off the others. Aiden's eyes flitted from her to the others, so he cleared his throat, and said, "Shah, but how is that related to this?" 

Aru stayed silent, her glare boring holes in the wooden table. "I don't know... she was acting kinda suspicious in the weeks before she... you know. Ugh. I don't know." 

 Aiden's fingers curled in on themselves. He wanted to tread lightly. But she knew what he would say. She just didn't want him to say it. 

"Shah, you don't think she could be connected to this entire thing?" 

She had the sinking feeling that he was right.