The Phantom: Code Breaker

Chapter 3: The Audacity

"So that is why they are being attacked, huh..." Markus said under his breath while chewing his bland chewing gum.

Two whole long sleepless days and a sleepless night have passed but the virus whom he named as the D is still doing a huge damage in the internet.

This is for the skin. He repeatedly told himself to keep him moving.

"You kinda piss me off, D." Markus muttered.

"Who's D, Markus?" Louige said scratching his bed hair curled on his temple and his sagged hoodie hanged on his shoulder. He yawned as he faced the kid.

"How's the sleep, Oji-nii?" The kid asked with a fake smile. His eyes looked half open.

"That's not even a sleep. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I see disaster." Louige muttered.

"That's part of growing up. You're already an uncle now, you know." Markus said with a straight face as he was trying to tease Louige. The rest who heard him kept their smiles, biting their lips, looking away.

He stepped forward, leaned next to the kid and said in a whisper, "Do you want to die?!" Louige said on the kid's ear, gripping his shoulder.

Markus straightened up and replied. "No."

"De, who's this D?" he asked again. He stood up and looked around the monitors.

"You know, Oji-nii, it was very hard to talk about something without giving it a name..." Markus tried to explain. "I mean, do we have to call it the virus every time we need to mention it?" the kid pouted. "Even the tiniest microbe is given a name so I gave it one and that is..." he smiled.

"So you gave it a name, and that's D?!" Louige continued. He hit some keys on the table and looked straight to the monitor.

"You didn't even let me finish my sentence again." the kid pouted. "Anyway, I thought of something cool but I agreed with the term your men gave it, the Destroyer." he said with his hands wiping the air.

Louige eyed one of his men and said, "I guess I know who suggested that."

His men's smile suddenly turned cold.

"Anyway, that's its name. But, to shorten it up, I termed it D." Markus continued.

"Nice naming sense." Louige sarcastically said. "Then?"

"We know that The Destroyer is the cruel internet virus we have now that eats every file it passes through and destroys every strong founded fire walls in the Orion system." the kid reached a cookie from the box on his left and munched it three times, finishing the cookie and continued, "It is leaving traces on the damaged file that cultivates a new body, and start the cycle again."

"But why can't we detect it?" Louige asked. His eyes glare with bloodshot red from stress and fatigue.

Markus stared at the box trying to decide whether he'll get another cookie from it or not.

"It is like the old Trojan virus but your programmers can't easily suppress it." Markus reached his hand on the box but stopped midway because Louige raise his voice.

"Just give your answer why we can't take it on!"

Markus felt like he was stung with an 11W current. "It was because of its date and the traces it leaves."

"What do you mean?" a programmer asked him from behind.

All eyes in him.

"You people studied Octtum system, right?" the kid asked as he turned himself from his box of cookie and turned his chair around to see everybody like playing a merry-go-round.