010
Rogue
Kyungsoo trying to sharpen up her technique on using a pistol to shoot left Miran’s nerves jangling. He’d been incredibly patient about it – to the point that Ryeowook had started teasing him and saying that he wanted the same level of personal contact and attention (Kyungsoo had looked for a moment like he wanted to shoot him instead of the target and, to Miran’s huge disappointment, had let go of her elbows and stepped back from correcting her stance). Miran didn’t actually know how much she’d improved or whether her natural ability had been somewhat compromised by her boss’s proximity, but as soon as she thought she could get away with it, she had challenged the two men to a rifle competition. Kyungsoo was significantly better than Ryeowook, but that was because Ryeowook had never really bothered with training.
“I’m a decent shot on the pistol,” he claimed as he missed the final target and Kyungsoo prodded him with the of his rifle and then hid the weapon behind his back, straight-faced and innocent.
Miran seized on a chance she’d missed earlier. “What’s your best distance?”
Kyungsoo’s posture straightened almost imperceptibly as he glanced first at Ryeowook and then at Miran. Ryeowook seemed oblivious, though.
“Twenty yards, I guess. Why?”
“Can you hit accurately from twenty-five?” Kyungsoo asked before Miran could. Ryeowook shrugged.
“I guess. Why, are you challenging me?”
To Miran’s shock, a cheeky grin spread across Kyungsoo’s face and he lifted an eyebrow. “Miran can judge. Let’s go shred Hyeri’s favourite target.”
“Don’t vent your ual frustration on some poor straw man.”
Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and Miran nearly choked. Even after too much to drink, she hadn’t seen him this playful before. It was devastatingly adorable.
It transpired that both could hit the target from twenty-five yards, but neither could get the bullet accurately where they wanted it. Miran watched them both carefully for signs that they were faking, but found none. She probably wanted a proper weapons analyser to help her with something like that, though, as she only had amateur knowledge of whether to tell if somebody was faking how well they could shoot.
The computers and database were still offline the next day, though it was expected. Security cameras were running again – and had been doing since the previous day, though on live feed only – and Kim Junmyeon and a man working in his cell called Kim Minseok were apparently responsible for ensuring that there was a temporary database from that morning to store everything on, including employees scanning themselves in and out of the building, which had also been completely messed up by the Trojan.
“It really affected the entire system,” Chanyeol commented, absolutely fascinated by the kaleidoscope still playing on his computer as Miran sipped at coffee and tried to erase the sleepy smile Kyungsoo had given her that morning after she’d sacrificed her first cup of coffee as he’d looked like he’d needed it much more than she did. “So, what can we work with for the time being?”
“You’re the data analyst,” Soojung pointed out, already nose deep in files. “You tell us.”
Miran caught the attention of both of them before Chanyeol could say anything by putting the memory stick Yixing had given her down on the round table they were all sitting around.
Chanyeol looked at it and then at the computer. “Er… computers currently not in use.”
“I know.” Miran grimaced. “I tried it out on my laptop at home.”
Soojung put Kim Jonghyun’s file aside. “So what’s on it?”
“Everything Oh Sehun told me would be on it.”
They both blinked at her.
“It took me all night to hack even with the codes that Oh Sehun supplied us with, so don’t be surprised if I just conk out on you at some point during the day. I can see all the files on there and none of them are malware or anything suspicious – all that needs to happen is this little baby needs to be plugged into a computer in the Zephroon HQ and we’ll have access to the entire database.”
Soojung and Chanyeol both looked blankly at the memorystick for a few more moments.
“Well,” said Chanyeol. “They either have serious trust issues on that side if that exists, because it means that the database is partitioned—”
“Ours is too,” Soojung pointed out.
“—Or their hackers are just terrible.”
“Not the time for jokes, Chanyeol.”
“Sorry.”
“I also attempted to hack our own database,” Miran continued. “I didn’t get very much time on it because I was mostly focussed on the memory stick, but the rogue shut themselves out from it with the virus. It looks like data’s probably being wiped.”
“Helpful,” Chanyeol said dryly. Miran shot him an unimpressed look. “Sorry, sorry, not the time for jokes, got it.”
“Wait a second,” Soojung cut in. “You said the red one got nicked – then how come you have it?”
Miran grimaced again. “They were obviously swapped. Yixing gave it back to me yesterday saying it was mine, no further explanation. I didn’t get the opportunity to ask him because he had the rest of the day off and apparently he clocked in unwell today.”
Chanyeol mumbled something about that looking fishy.
“When do you reckon they were swapped?” Soojung asked. Miran shrugged.
“Probably the only way I’m going to be able to tell is by fingerprints. I can ask Jongdae to take them, but we won’t get results on that until the computers are back online for comparison points. As far as I know, the only people whose fingerprints it should have are mine, Oh Sehun’s, Sooyoung’s and Yugyeom’s.” She paused. “Possibly other people who were in the interrogation room, too, which doesn’t really help, but I can’t see a reason for it being passed around a lot of people. I think Sooyoung was one of the ones who searched Sehun.”
“Was it swapped before you got it?” Soojung suggested.
“That’s very unlikely,” Chanyeol pointed out. “The mole would have had to have known.”
“It’s a possibility, but still unlikely.” Miran hesitated and then sipped at her coffee. “Everybody in t
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