Wrench
Nothing.
After a week of scouring the internet and every block between the old Hackerspace and the new one and he had nothing. Even when he touched base with everyone after the third day there was no news as to her whereabouts. Instead he found Josh and Marcus struggling with the worse virus he'd seen in his life. He could barely even get inside. The code to the door changed every thirty seconds and the lights inside turned on and off on their volition.
He tried her phone. Both calling it and pinging it but to no avail. When that failed him he resorted back to what he knew, street knowledge. Starting back at Prime8's old base he traced her footsteps or at least the ones she would have taken. If she'd been jump somewhere between there and their apartment there had to some type of sign.
Their apartment.
God she only been their for five days, less than a week and he had already begun calling it their apartment.
When he first got there a small part of him had been terrified of what he would find. He figured she would be asleep but another part of him told him she was gone. Like gone, gone. Like packed up all her things, scooped up Soviet, and was half way to New York City gone. But when he unlocked the front door the Russian blue trotted up to the door to greet him purring and brushing against his leg.
That had given him a small sense of safety but his heart dropped when he found the bed empty. He tried her phone and got nothing but voicemail.
Maybe Kalla had stopped somewhere on her way home to get something to eat. But as more time passed that became more and more unlikely. It had been nearly three hours since she'd left and she wasn't someone to go in to eat.
Wrench tried to calm himself with a Red Bull but it did nothing to off set his nerves. So he grabbed his computer and sat on the couch scrolling through street cameras in the general area with Soviet purring at his feet. It had only been three hours he told himself. He was overreacting, worrying over nothing. It was a hard sell and he wasn't buying it.
Instead his mind turned towards Defalt. The name had only been vaguely familiar. Wrench was pretty sure he had heard his music before. It wasn't really his style, he preferred classic rock. Something with a guitar riff to it but Horatio had been into EDM style music. He use to play it in the Hackerspace.
But now that he was thinking about it, a memory came to mind. He remembered once working on some project in the Hackerspace. Horatio had been there doing his own thing. Some song was playing and Sis was not having it. He remembered Horatio and Sitara getting into the biggest fight over it. Horatio was claiming that it was good music and that she had to respect the art. But Sis didn't want it playing. He ended up changing it and no more of Defalt's music ever came up on their playlist again. He'd forgotten about it until now because he hadn't really cared about. He could not care less about it.
He did a quick search for him online. It didn't take much to find him, the guy had his own Wikipedia page. Nothing about it hinted at him being a hacker or what his real name was. But he didn't doubt Sis that he was. Being a DJ was the perfect cover in someways and Horatio had been one too so it made sense.
He went further checking his DedSec sources and instantly got hundreds of results. The first few were general warnings sent out to all of the different groups across the country. They more or less blacklisted him and advised against working with him. But as he dug more he began to piece together the story behind it all.
He was from Chicago. Which made sense because so was Kit. He use to work for some company called Dot ConneXion. It was some type of music gallery bringing together young new artists. And by the look of the ticket sales, it paid a comfortable wage. Wrench did some more digging and came across the Chicago DedSec's old website.
Chicago had been the main start up for the DedSec movement almost five years ago. Back then things had been much more open. It's also where the whole "no leaders" rule had been pioneered. The page didn't have much on it, just the mission statement for DedSec and where to contact them if you had information you wanted them to look into.
Wrench sighed pushing away from his desk and computer. He needed to actually do something, not be stuck behind his computer all day.
???
He got the notification almost immediately but he was to busy to check his phone at the time.
"So this is what they bring me?" Alexander Pavlov, leader of the West Coast Russian Mafia laughed. "I expected you to be bigger."
"I expected you to be smarter." He laughed in response. Pavlov gave a short laugh before motioning to one of his men. The guy stepped forward and slammed him against the jaw with his own baton.
"Whose the smart one now?" Pavlov smirked at him. "We knew you were coming."
"Did you? I'm sure your buddies didn't get the message then? Or wait were they the message that I was sending you?" He didn't have to turn to see it coming when the baton struck him again sending his head whipping side ways.
"You think you are some kind of god? You think you are untouchable, heh. Look around you, your my prisoner." Pavlov laughed. "Your buddy Anton, your informer double crossed you. He works for me. No ones coming to your aid, you hear me! No one."
"So why don't you just kill me now and put and end to it, huh?"
"Your time will come soon enough, I promise you that. But until then, Marco, Stilinski, find a nice hole to stash our friend in. And you keep a guard on him."
The two named lackeys stepped forward pulling him from the chair he'd been tied too. They dragged him down the hall of the compound and threw him into an makeshift cell.
"No don't you go get any ideas." Marco laughed banging on the bars.
"Unless you want a taste of your own medicine." The other one joined in producing his taser from a pocket and zapping it towards him. "Pavlov said we could have your toys and I got to say, they are much more disappointing the we thought."
"Even this phone of yours." He looked up at that staring down his "guards". The one called Marco held his phone in his left hand. "They say this is your greatest weapon. It took one of our lackey's 30 minutes to unlock it. And it's nothing, nothing!"
Then your lackey obviously doesn't know what he is doing.
"I'll take first watch, I want to torment our guest a little more."
Ray
"Aiden you pick up your god damn phone this instance, I know you aren't far from it." Ray snapped. This was his second call and his second time being sent to voicemail. "You got some explaining to do you son of a-"
"Ray!" Josh ran up to him. He was practically bouncing in his skin. "We, we need your help this virus is getting out of hand. It's started out as harmless and now it's eating data like no tomorrow. I've tried everything I know."
"Give me a second—holy hell." All the lights in the Hackerspace turned off and they were plunged into complete darkness besides the light of Ray's phone. Above them they could hear a chorus of screams which could only mean the power was out for the whole building.
"What did you do!" Sitara yelled.
"It wasn't me! It was the virus!" Josh said defensively. "I was just trying to-"
"Stop your bitching!" Ray yelled. "Are the servers live?"
"No! The lights are out which means they don't have power." Using his phone Ray managed to navigate his way back down the stairs into the Hackerspace. "Don't you guys have a back up generator?"
"Yeah, his name is Wrench." Sitara said ruefully, her arms were crossed over her chest. "And he's been MIA all week."
"What about Marcus? Where is he?"
"He said he'd be back an hour ago. Something about the Bratva and Auntie Shu Boys. He's been taking anything to do with the Bratva's as personal after...after what happened to Horatio."
"Sis is there any way you can get me more light?"
"We have glow sticks left from Swelter Skelter."
"That will have to do-"
"Guys, check your phones. I don't have any service do you?" Josh said interrupting him.
"I don't."
"Shit." Ray groaned. "What kind of virus did you guys get your hands into? I told you not to plug that drive into our systems."
"I kinda think it was worth it!" Sitara retorted. "Finding out Kit use to work with Defalt is kind of big!"
"Who cares!?" Ray snapped. "You still plugged the thing in!"
"Defalt." He cursed under his breath. He traveled across the country to get away from him and he still managed to screw up his life now. "I know how to shut this thing down. But you guys aren't going to like it."
Wrench
By the time he made it to the Hackerspace they had sorta out most of the virus but the building was dark.
"What kind of virus knows how to target and eat away at the electrical?" Sitara asked him as he worked on the main generator.
"A damn good one." he muttered ripping a handful of fried wires out with a sigh. "I'm going to have to replace all of this."
"How long is that going to take?" Sitara gawked as he pulled more out.
"I don't know...a week? Maybe two. It's not high on priority list right now." He pulled out an electrical box.
"What do you mean? You need to fix this now!" Sitara snapped.
"You have basic power and wifi. That's more than can be said for everyone upstairs. I don't see what your problem is it." Wrench sat and wiped his hands off on his jeans. "Besides, I'm still looking for Kit, not that you care."
"She probably skipped town, why would I care?"
"Because she's one of us. And we just did a hostile takeover of one of Prime8's bases. You don't think maybe they have a bone to pick with us..." his voice trailed off as it dawned on him. "Prime8, Prime8 has her. I got to go."
"Wrench wait!"
He turned around running for the door and nearly collided with Marcus. He was able to side step to avoid him but knocked straight into the man standing behind him.
"You'll never believe who I just saved from a cell in a Bratva's warehouse."
"Aiden Pearce." Wrench blinked in response looking up at the person he'd practically walked through. He only glanced down at him walking by.
"It's been a while, T-Bone." Everyone watched in shock as the two hackers met shaking hands.
"What? Missouri didn't sit well with you?" Ray joked.
"Quinn doesn't sit well with me. And apparently his human trafficking ring ran further than just Chicago."
"That's why you are here?"
"No." Aiden said looking back. "Marcus here has been telling me about how a mutual friend of ours has gone missing. So I'm here to help."
"I know where she is." Wrench piped in. "Prime8 has her."
"Not for long."