Octagon Project 1: Melody Halloway

~-12-~

Zack chose to stay up for tonight and let Roy sleep off his mission and recruitment from earlier in the day, so to pass time, he sat at the kitchen island counter and watched the TV, hoping that might give at least the slightest bit of information as to what might be going on with this strange new copy-cat organization.

News about strange terrorists that are somehow walking into buildings, blowing it up, and walking out unscratched was on almost every news channel. As much as it sparked Zack's interest, he noticed a little glow from under Mel's room door. He suddenly felt alarmed. What was she doing in there? Silently walking over, he hopped onto his belly and hands in an attempt to see what she was doing. The crack under the door was too low and so he stood back up in frustration and slowly opened the door to find Mel on her bed with a laptop on her lap, the lighting from the screen that displayed across her face changed rapidly. Clearly, she was up to something, and it wasn't good.

"What are you doing?" He asked. Mel didn't move as if she'd heard him come in.

"Getting us information." She replied. Zack moved her nightstand out of the way and crouched next to her, looking at the screen. She was hacking. He saw the hard drive that was plugged into the USB slot and went to take it, but Mel slapped his hand away before proceeding with her work.

"Mel," Zack began in a warning tone.

"I made a copy of the drive I gave to McHall." She told him.

"He has people who can go through that and give us the information we need to solve the mission."

"Filtered information." Mel stated. "And Zack, I was a hacktivist for two years. The people your dad has for the Octagon are a bunch of geeks that decided to get a degree in Computer Intelligence. They don't hack. Why do you think I decrypted the whole thing before giving it to him?"

"How did you... You called him my dad?" Zack asked darkly. Mel shrugged.

"I've done my research on you. Your last name is McHall. I'm not an idiot." She told him, glancing in his direction when the laptop binged and Mel opened up a tab with what looked like the same thing that popped up on the other computer before she shot it and blew it up a few miles out of Jacksonville. "It looks like,"

"Chemical compound equations." Zack finished, eyeing the screen with scrutiny. Mel and Zack looked at each other with slightly more worried expressions. Whatever this agency was planning, it was going to be huge.

By the morning, Mel was still in her room, hacking and 'gathering information' as she called it. Zack had brought her a cup of coffee and an apple to later find the coffee gone, but the apple left untouched. He got the message. Still not recovered enough from last night's event to eat anything. Who could blame her?

Roy, Justin, and Dean were off on another intel mission after dropping Nina off at the Octagon headquarters for McHall to lead her through her initiation. If she made it through, of course. Today was going to be boring for Zack since it seemed that everyone else had something to do. He watched the news for a good three minutes before getting bored and walking off down the hall. He stopped at his bedroom door and looked at the little dark wooden box on his dresser before shaking his head and walking off toward the training room.

Walking over to the corner where three punching bags hung along one wall, Zack stepped up onto the blue padded ground and took what looked like a pair of Bluetooth headphones from his pocket. He put the earbuds into his ears, and the circular piece that sat in the middle of the cord connecting the two earbuds tightened itself at the top back of Zack's neck. He held in a quiet groan at the pinch it created, but it was gone soon enough. Rotating his head a couple of times with his eyes closed, Zack pushed the circular button at the back of his neck and opened his eyes. The room went dark and the gym equipment disappeared. The matted floor beneath him turned to a dark grass and the ceiling turned into a dark, starless night sky. He was back. It had been a while since he decided to do this.