"Well, that didn't go as planned," Jaxx shook his head as he drank water from his insulated tumbler.

We were back at the Green Room with Chino. I told them about what happened with Jacob over dinner. Jaxx also told us with his talk with Leon, which also was not in our favor.

"Not at all," I agreed, pressing my second ice pack on my shoulder. "But the tiny bits of info Jacob said and the long, unsafe walk back here gave me the clarity that was so elusive for the past months. It suddenly dawned on me how this thing would end. The ace of spades is still out there. I think I know who he is."

"Oh, hell, here we go. St. Joseph of Cupertino, I beseech you, helps us with this new 'enlightenment' Ace is talking about," Chino said sarcastically, making air quotes.

"Shut up, you whiny chingk," I rolled my eyes at him. He pitched a half-empty water bottle at me, hitting me squarely at my chest.

"That's rude, confused Indio," he retorted.

"What the hell?" My eyes almost popped out as I gasped. "No, that was rude!"

"Okay, children, that's enough," Jaxx intervened. 

It was not the first theory I threw at them, all of which had loopholes, but isn't that what brainstorming is about? Throwing in ideas and then discussing them to come up with a plan?

He gave me a bored look and a small condescending smile. "Okay, Ace, let's hear it. It's not like we have any alternative anyway."

But I already had a plan. I was pretty sure that this time, it was airtight. I leaned forward and looked at Jaxx hopefully. 

What I was about to ask was going to hurt, but it had to be done. His smile dropped as he turned his head slightly, already regretting that he asked me to talk. He expected the worst would come out of my mouth, and he was not wrong.

"Jaxx, I need you to ask for a favor."

♤

Tuesday morning, I received another resignation letter. This time, it was from Karen. When I asked for her, HR informed me that she had taken an emergency leave starting yesterday afternoon.

Jaxx also went on leave as part of our plan. Chino, who was initially doubtful of my theory and plan, finally came around and agreed to pull some strings and do some dirty work for me, too.

I still could not reach Brigs, and I was more than confident that wherever he was, he was in trouble. The news did not bring up his death yet. But then again, why would they?

I had been restraining myself from going down to IT, but IT came to me in the form of Bart.

"Ace, dude. You need to convince that idiot Joe to stay," he said as he made himself comfortable on the sofa.

"What about Karen? What should I do with her?"

"What about her? Is she resigning, too?"

"Yep. Got her resignation this morning. What's going on down there?" I frowned.

"Aish! Karen, though I like her bubbly personality, just let her go. She's causing too much drama. Did you know she hates Felicity because she's jealous that Joe spends too much time with her? She's a freaking diva, man, and she's not even that hot," he grumbled, shaking his head in disapproval.

"So if she were that hot, it would have been okay?" I raised an eyebrow at his reasoning.

"It would have been okay for a couple of months. But she's been at it for what, two years?" he clucked his tongue. I chuckled.

"I guess you can't blame her if Felicity is acting stupid just to be closer to Jacob," I said jokingly.

"I don't see you acting stupid," he scoffed but changed his mind quickly. "Oh wait, you absolutely are," he laughed. I just stared at him because my mind was too stunned to come up with a witty reply. 

What the hell got him to assume I was interested in Jacob? Didn't he see me as a philandering man? Whatever gave me away?

"But really. I don't know what's going on between you two. Or Joe and Felicity. But it seems he has been satisfied with her work recently. They've been spending a lot of time in his office... alone," he winked. "Much to Karen's displeasure, of course."

I felt that pang of discomfort in my chest. It was the one that came often, but I denied having a word for it. However, in my time procrastinating and soul-searching, I found out and accepted what it was: jealousy.

No, I wasn't jealous of the women, but the thought of Jacob entertaining someone else did not sit well with me. And it must have shown in my face because Bart immediately retracted what he said.

"I'm just kidding about the alone part. I was there a lot of times, and all they talked about was work."

"I didn't ask."

"You didn't have to, and now, you don't have to. Anyway, Karen, don't stop her. Joe, don't let him go. I want him too, but on a strictly professional level. He's all yours, I promise," he raised his right hand in an oath and drew a cross over his throat.

"Bart, you need to see a psychiatrist because I think you're going crazy."

"No, I'm not. But you are," he laughed teasingly.

"He told me about the Gutierrez glitch, you know. We worked on it with Felicity a few days after Christmas. He told me everything, dude, as in everything. I even knew he wanted to tender his resignation before the New Year, but I convinced him otherwise. You were too harsh on him, man," he shook his head, but his face showed nothing but amusement while I kept mine impassive.

"I wasn't harsh. My reaction was normal for someone who had just found out that someone had hacked their system again. That's twice in a year. That doesn't speak well of a data analytics firm, in case you didn't know," I said sarcastically.

"Anyway, so the Gutierrez leak was similar to that of the Echivarria's. Joe told me he thought it might be the same person doing it because the ciphering block chain process, Galois/Counter Mode, and all those AES and TLS point to one set of intended receivers. And he said you found out who the receiver was, too, because you got nosy and helped in decrypting."

"Yeah. You can't imagine how pissed off I was when I found out Jacob and Felicity were doing what they were doing."

"What were they doing?" his eyebrows knitted.

"I thought he told you?" I asked.

"He told me that he found someone from the office pulling the same stunt as the Echivarria. You know, a rat putting in a RAT and having a third-party black hat hacker do the rest of the work.

"It could not have been him, you idiot. He wasn't here when we got the Echivarria case and started working on it. He came in at the tail end when you already deciphered and blocked the hacker, and all he had to do was cut his hair, shave his beard, look cute, and report it to the client."

"So what were he and Felicity doing all this time? Were they stopping the information transfer?"

"Of course! What else did you think they were doing?" he asked incredulously.

"Then why didn't they do it in just one go? Why prolong the agony and let the breach continue when they knew what was happening?"

"Because they still did not know who it was!" he said exasperatedly as if the reason was as obvious as a tarantula sitting on one's face.

"If they just stopped it and did not catch the rat, it would happen again. They had to make the person believe that they were working on it but were too stupid to figure it out, making them think they were too good for them schmucks.

"By doing that, the hacker did not strengthen the encryptions anymore. What they did was they mimicked what the hacker was doing. They sent the idiot to a parallel dimension, thinking that they were still sending valuable data to wherever, when in fact, they were all being intercepted."

At that moment, I did not want to hear any more of what Bart was saying. I wished for it to be a lie. I wanted Bart to say that he was joking because it seems there was a pail of ice-cold water hanging over my head, tilting dangerously, waiting for the right moment to tip over and soak me.

"And here's the best bit: he installed a RAT in the hacker's system and gave access to his red hat gang and even baby hackers. It was a free-for-all exercise, and the green hats were having a field day trying to get past the security measures and planting their own malicious bots. Now that's what I call swag," he smirked and leaned back as he explained what they have been doing to stop the leak.

"Oh. My. God." I covered my eyes with one hand and let the freezing water and the shame pour over me. I prayed for it to wash away my atrocious behavior and bewilderingly wrong judgment too, but that was impossible.

"They fooled you, too, didn't they? Joe is a first-class fucking brilliant red hat, I almost fell in love with him. He and Felicity make an excellent team. I like how their brains work. Really a big turn-on. And Felicity's very pretty. Only, she's batting for the same team. But don't tell her I told you that—only Joe and I know. And now you do," he finished. Finally. Finally, I can continue to curse myself.

My head was swimming. There was just too much information that needed to be processed and re-hashed and diverted. I was the hotshot security analyst, but I fell right into that. Son of a fucking gun!

How could I have missed that? How dense, and dumb, and simpleminded was I to even be a white hat?

You were so fixated on pinning the blame on Jacob that you did not give him a chance to explain. That's how, you blubbering fool!

No wonder he could not wait to leave! No wonder he wanted to kick me out of the gym as quickly as possible. If I were in his shoe, I probably would have already beaten the stupid, stubborn, unreasonable, thick-skulled Ace who was walking around with a stick up his ass.

"So if it wasn't them, then...." I stopped talking. Bart dropped his coffee with a resounding crash and splash. We both stared at each other as realization dawned on us.

"Shit!"

♤  ♡  ♧   ♢

Glossary of Terms:

RAT – Remote Access Tool or Remote Access Trojan; a type of malware that can be operated even by an unskilled hacker wherein, once installed, the attacker gains control of the system.

Black hat hackers are the evil guys who want to use their technical skills to defraud and blackmail others. They have the expertise and knowledge to break into computer networks without the owners' permission, exploit, and bypass security protocols.

White hat hacker – a computer security expert, aka, ethical hacker.

White Hat hackers are considered the good guys. They work with companies to improve their clients' at either the system or the network level or finding vulnerabilities and exploits that could be used by a malicious or unauthorized user. The hope is that once a vulnerability or exploit is discovered by a White Hat, the company will mitigate the risk. (Thomas Wilhelm, in Professional Penetration Testing, 2010)

Red hat hacker - Much like white hat hackers, red hat hackers also want to save the world from evil hackers. But they choose extreme and sometimes illegal routes to achieve their goals. Red hats are the types of hackers who often choose to take aggressive steps to stop black hat hackers. They're known to launch full-scale attacks to bring down the bad guys' servers and destroy their resources.

Green hat hackers - These are the "newbies" in the world of hacking. Green hat hackers are not aware of the security mechanism and the inner workings of the web, but they are keen learners and determined (and even desperate) to elevate their position in the hacker community. Although their intention is not necessarily to cause harm, they may do so while "playing" with various malware and attack techniques.

As a result, green hat hackers can also be harmful because they often are not aware of the consequences of their actions — or, worst, how to fix them.

· Hacker definitions from Sectigostore.com blog (except for white hat hacker). Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with them, nor am I promoting them in any way. I need to acknowledge that they wrote the definition, not me.