Twenty-seven minutes later, both Arya and Jin were in the agency.

Arya was on fire when she entered her office but her facial expression changed drastically when she saw what was happening on her monitor.

"What is going on?" Jin asked Jong-il.

"I can't tell exactly," replied an equally confused Jong-il, "I was just checking up on the last minute's updates on the mission reports and all the alarms just went off. All the computers started to cry out loud. I tried to stop them, but she..." Jong-il eyed Arya who was frowning hard seeing something on the screen, "she did something to the system. It just denied all of my access to it."

"Arya?" Jin looked at Arya.

"It was just an experiment." Arya frowned and replied, "I made a program so that if it identifies any pattern on the signal, it will start the emergency alarms!"

"Which signal?" Jin frowned, "still NASA?"

"Hmm." Arya was deep in her thoughts, "but...it is an alien signal. Our computer system shouldn't find any pattern in it." And suddenly her eyes widened, "unless...!"

"Unless?" Jin was curious.

Arya didn't answer, rather she sat on the chair in front of the monitor she was looking into and her fingers got into work in full concentration.

"We should go," Jong-il murmured, "she won't listen to anything right now."

Jin nodded a little and turned around. They should give her some space to work.

Both of them even couldn't walk past the door. Before they go out, Arya's puzzle shout came, "Oh my God!"

Jin paused and looked back. Arya was again on her feet. Her eyes were wide in disbelief.

"What happened?" Jin came back

"Come here quickly! Something impossible happened!" Arya's voice was shaking a little with excitement.

"What?"

But it seemed that Arya didn't hear what he asked. She was muttering, "how is this possible? Am I tripping?"

"Arya!" Jin shook her shoulder a bit, "what did you find?"

Arya looked back at Jin, her eyes were all excited and almost maniacal at the same time if that is even possible.
She moved and touched a part of the screen, "this part...I can read this part! And this time I can understand the meaning too!"

Jin immediately caught the anomaly, "you said it is not possible to read and understand the visual transformation of an audio signal!"

"Exactly!" Arya was frowning, "I am in dark too!"

"What is written here? What do you understand?"

"I don't know that too. There is something hidden in this message in a very complex code. I can just read a few digits in it."

"What type of digits?"

"Date and time. There is a time-delayed command in this code. But I can't tell what is it."

"What date? When?"

"Four days later," Arya looked at the time, "something will happen more or less 90 hours later."

"Is there any way to know what will happen at that time?" Jin's voice was low this time.

"I have to break the code. That is the only way." Arya replied without hesitation.

"How much time will you need?"

"Sorry, Jin." Arya shook her head, "I won't give you hope- I can't break this code. It is way out of my league."

"What do you mean?" Jin frowned, "You have the reputation of being the best code-breaker out there. At least you should try!"

"Jin..." Arya started but Jin again interfered.

"If you can't, I can try to contact Larry in NUMA, you know he has the full control of Venus. Probably he can help."

Jin had a very good relationship with the NUMA. Probably mostly because he has done tons of work with them including saving the life of the director once. Though NUMA stood for National Underwater And Marine research Agency, the actual impact of this seemingly non-profit innocent organization was way beyond that. Needless to say, in some cases, the government seeks the help of this masked agency and its assets in intelligence services over the CIA or FBI. And Venus is the supercomputer under NUMA's command.

Arya shrugged helplessly, "you are not getting it, Jin. I know this code. This is the most complex code ever made in the cyber world. The one and only- there is nothing second to it. Not only Venus but any computer superior to Venus wouldn't still be able to break it. Only ten people in the whole world know its use. Only they can break the code and understand its meaning."

"And you are not one of them?"

Arya laughed, "If only that was possible! I'd be the God of the cyber world for sure!"

Jin again frowned with a little impatience, "you are talking in riddles, if you don't know how to break the code, how are you still reading it?"

"I know one of those ten people. He taught me a few basics about this code. It is a miracle that I recognized these, if these were written differently, I wouldn't even know what these are!"

"Then ask the person who taught you!"

"I don't know where he is now!"

"Finding someone isn't that hard. Give me the details."

"All right," Arya shrugged and leaned over a notepad but before writing, her pencil stopped. She looked back at Jin, her eyes were suddenly shining.

"What?" Jin raised a brow.

"There is a way, Jin!" Arya's voice was excited and she pointed at the monitor, "this is just a program. It will work according to the command with precise time. If we just set the time of the watch 90 hours ahead..."

"Then we can see what will happen 90 hours later right now," Jin looked at Arya with appreciation, "good thinking. Do it."

Arya again sat down with Jin beside her on another chair. She typed something on the keyboard and pressed the "enter" button and let out a breath, "it will take five seconds."

The wait started. Jin kept his eyes on the watch. It seemed like five seconds were like an eternity.

Five

Four

Three

Two

One!

Both of them leaned toward the monitor in excitement. But no, nothing happened. A few more seconds passed, but everything remained the same.

"Strange!" Arya frowned.

"What happened?"

"Nothing. And that is the strange thing. Hmm...smart...very smart!"

"Care to explain?"

"This command. The Program is set in such a way that this simple trick wouldn't work on it. Somebody thought it ahead of time beforehand. Whoever the programmer is- very smart indeed!"

"So we have to wait 90 hours to see what happens?" Jin frowned.

"You think I'll back off this easily?" Arya raised one brow and smiled wickedly. She found something challenging and she was excited like a teenager over her crush, "let me just think."

She remained silent for a few minutes at a stretch, frowning hard while biting her lips.
And at last, she smiled, "I know what to do. Setting the time to 90 hours ahead was a mistake. Not like this- I have to increase the time taking each second into count. I have to let the program think that this amount of time has actually passed."

"Possible?" Jin asked shortly.

"I need to write down a sub-program. That will replace the built-in clock in the computer," Arya explained, "that will be an accelerated clock which will move the 90 hours very fast. I'll isolate the program of the signal from everything else and bypass it with my clock. That's how that signal program won't get any time-related data from anywhere else except the clock I made. So it will think that 90 hours have passed."

"Can't understand all those technical words." Jin shook his head, "just tell me if you can encode the command or not."

"There is a big possibility," Arya agreed, "I am confident."

"How much time will you be needing to write the sub-program?"

"Not much. Half an hour will do. You can go on with your work in your office. I'll call you if the program is ready."

But Jin didn't show any sign of getting up. There was a strange attraction in this hide and seek game. He can't just go back without seeing the result.

He remained seated beside Arya and Jong-il excused himself out of the room while Arya was on her work.
She was making up a storm on the keyboard. She was fast as a machine while writing. Her eyes were fixed on the monitor which was bringing up strange and complex codes in the screen. It seemed like she didn't even need to think about what she should write.

Jin was calmly watching her and he couldn't but admire her. She was indeed a genius in her field.

Suddenly he came out of his daze in Arya's call.

"It's done."

Jin looked at the watch. Though Arya said she needed half an hour, she finished it within half of the time she asked for, "seventeen minutes! Good job!"

Arya smiled sheepishly, "didn't think it will be this easy before I started."

"Can we start the experiment now?"

"One minute!" Arya checked something and nodded, "yes, everything is set."

"Then start your clock."

Arya shook her head and pressed enter button.
A digital clock appeared on the screen showing the real real-time and date.
Soon after pressing enter, the time started to increase at immense speed. The seconds and minutes increased so fast that the digits were almost invisible on the clock.

"It will take twenty seconds to reach the target time," Arya commented confidently.

The time and date moved in the blink of an eye. Arya was checking on the timing keeping an eye on the watch and nodded, "five...four...three...two...one...now!"

Nobody was prepared for what happened after. The timing of the clock halted reaching a definite time and all the hell broke just then.

Everything floating on the screen vanished first and was replaced with strange lines and geometric figures with constantly changing patterns.

Arya instantly frowned and Jin got the wind seeing her face- something is wrong!

He didn't get the time to ask anything. Arya jumped out of her seat and ran towards the other computers. All the monitors were showing the same results.

"Oh god!" Arya was helplessly tugging on her hair.

Jin didn't get the chance to ask anything. He stopped and frowned hard hearing the ominous music coming from the soundbox. Looking back, he saw the monitor was again cleaned and the patterns were replaced by a single sentence,

YOU ARE DOOMED!

And matching the red sentence on the screen- an eerie laughter came out of the speaker that immediately brought goosebumps to Jin's body.

And the very next second, the CPU near his feet had a small explosion and the monitors turned black losing the input. Looking around, Jin understood that it wasn't a single explosion. Every CPU had an explosion in unison that it was impossible to differentiate the sound.

He smelt something burnt and immediately after that, all the CPU burst into sparks, all the machinery inside them was exploding with a horrible sound all at once.
The whole computer wing was being destroyed in front of Jin's eyes.

Arya was stunned in her place at the suddenness of the situation. Her empty eyes were blankly staring at the smoking and sparkling computers.

But Jin didn't lose his mind. His body reacted within seconds and he shouted at her, "Arya! Power connection! Cut the power connection for all the computers!"

Arya moved this time and sprinted after Jin and went to the opposite side of the desks and consoles. But they stopped in their tracks seeing the commotion in front. All the insulations of the electric chords melted down with immense heat revealing the copper wires inside. Not only they'll get an electric shock if they touch it, but also they'll burn their hands doing this.

"Main switch! Where is it?"

"Besides the elevator. On the landing of the stairs," Arya replied.

Jin didn't wait to hear more. He sprinted out of the office. The fire alarm went off and the sprinkler activated before he even took a few steps toward the elevator.

People who were working late night shifts on interiors started to run around panicking in sudden commotions. Other floors must be in the same condition. The agency operators were not running, but stunned for sure. Nobody was prepared for this shit. Jin heard Jong-il shouting- he was following the emergency procedure protocol line by line and mobilizing agents to secure important files and equipment.

Jin didn't spare another second. By the time he came out of the door to go to the stairwell at the end of the corridor beside the elevator, he was soaked like a wet cat. Reaching the switch box, he opened the lid, and wiping his hand inside his pocket, he pulled out the circuit breaker. The terrible ominous sound of the alarm went off immediately.

Jin came back to the office. Entering the computer wing- he saw Arya standing in the middle of the burnt computers and pool forming on the floor helplessly with a somber expression. Jong-il and a few other operators were standing by her side.

"Sorry, Jin," Arya spoke in a down tone, "I couldn't save anything. Everything is gone."

"But how did it happen?" Jin himself was startled too, "the way everything started to explode- it isn't possible without a short circuit. Isn't there any system to prevent such accidents in this building?"

"There is. I checked the security system myself before booking the floor," Jong-il said confidently.

"Then why didn't it work?" Jin frowned at Jong-il. He can't take it if it happened due to any mismanagement.

"Cause it wasn't any normal short circuit," Arya said slowly, "the command hidden inside that audio signal, Jin...that one did all this."

"What!" Jin frowned at looked at Arya.

Arya inhaled sharply before opening her mouth again, "It's... it's a computer virus, Jin. The most dangerous virus I have ever seen in my life!"