It started with a phone call.

Well no, that actually wasn't true. It started with a dream.

Not like a dream to be successful or to have a family, no an actual dream. Your dreams aren't fluid, you can have several dreams a night during the REM stage of sleeping, there's also no set time in your subconscious telling you how long a dream can feel. Demigod dreams are normally the most horrific, filled with monsters, death and war. She new personally how these dreams felt, and she despised the countless nights where she had woken up in a cold sweat from a vivid nightmare of a past experience.

Those were some of the nights where she eventually cried herself back to sleep. It wasn't because of the dream though, they were more likely than not to leave her sleepless, disheveled and paranoid. She found herself with tears slowly dripping down her face on those nights in retaliation to the coldness of the bed. Under the heavy comforter it was warm, but she never felt so cold. It followed her, the cold chill, left her feeling hollow, she just wanted to feel warm.

So yeah, demigod dreams suck. The nightmare she had experienced wasn't much better. It left her disheveled for sure, but something that made it worse for a child of Athena was present, the nightmare had left her confused. She hated not knowing something, not understanding why, it took away from the feeling of security she got from thinking everything made sense, that it had a pattern and the science wasn't above her. This dream, it made her unease grow with frustration that just circled around to more confusion. Wherever she connected the dots, things didn't make sense, didn't add up like it should. That left her with two conclusions, either she was wrong, or she didn't have enough variables.

Well first off, not many things could make her confused, that was a feat of the gods. The dream itself wasn't exactly confusing either, would make her mind twist was the reason she was having the dream. Dreams aren't definite, they can happen at random, but it most likely correlates with something going on in your life. A dream is an act of symbolism, people that are discovering themselves and the difficulty of going through it may dream of a maze or labyrinth, a symbol of the journey and the overall goal of finding something. A person that is losing their true identity due to social standards or constant integration of what others think can dream of having a mask placed on their face and not being able to tear it off, more of a warning. A girl struggling with self image might see a mirror, and the person that stares back at them is not them, maybe who they think they are, maybe who they want to be. A loss of a loved one may trigger ashes and dust to fill your night, or it could be them leaving, receding into the distance, losing them in a crowd.

So she wasn't confused about what in the dream, she understood what normal dreams meant even if it wasn't just another normal dream. What she was confused about was the fact she dreamed about Batman. Over the weeks since his death, all she seemed to see during the night was the love of her life letting go. Whether it was from him releasing his grip on her hand and falling into an ominous crevasse that she didn't want to name or her feeling the bed dip down next to her and hearing the words 'I love you' whispered in her ear before he disappeared forever. She didn't know what horrific nightmare was worse.

After so much despair in the middle of the night, the dream was welcome with open arms, but she was still confused. In the dream, the gotham night was fighting someone she couldn't place a name on. It was so vivid, the clash of a batarang against a crowbar. The man that Batman was fighting was certainly skilled, yet exceptionally strange. He had a completely white face like his skin was bleached and red lipstick configured to look like he had a permanent smile on each cheek. His hair was bright green and he wore a suit, who fights in a suit? It is completely idiotic, the restriction would give the oppsion an inconceivable advantage. It didn't seem to make a difference in the fight anyway. She could tell by the way he talked about about a son, a robin, the way it made Batman react with a narrow of eyes, that the he was more about worming his way into a mind other than physical skill.

The fight ended after a moment, him pinned to the table smiling widely and Batman holding him there by his lapel. She also realized that the man was mentally ill, the way his eyes shone with glee in front his own pain is a look she had seen more than she would have liked to. The man continued to speak freely about death, the death of someone important. Than the subject changed to a rule, a rule that Batman actively wanted to break. The anger in the Gotham Knights eyes was something she recognized immediately, something she felt every single day. Loss.

She was beginning to think this much more important than a piece of symbolism that correlated strongly with her life events. The dream ended with Batman basically growling out a response that was on the lines of 'If you kill a killer, the amount of killers in the world stays the same'. She watched in fascination as Batman knocked him out and only moments later did she find herself staring at the bedroom ceiling.

That dream was by no means normal, but demigod dreams never were.

Sunlight streamed into the room through a window beside the bed, bathing the room in warm morning light. At least the small stuffy apartment was warm, it had that gong for it. Maybe moving off of her long lost brothers metaphorical couch was a step in the way of getting her life back together, maybe it was a step back into the intricate murk of her mind. She blinked owlishly, her eyes adjusting to the newfound light. Her muscles stiff from approximately 13 hours of inactivity.

The apartment was bare. It was like a dull method of solitary confinement, anchoring her in bed with chains of her own will. The only things she had was one suitcase full of clothes and a photo album from her house that she refused to go back into. All she heard in the room was her own little steady puffs of air, nothing else, not even movements in the sheets. It was too quiet.

How long had it been since she had spoken?

A long, drawn out sigh escaped her lips. As long as she was in this bed, nothing was being done, she wasn't making any sort of difference. In her previous years she would have gone insane with the silence, on a level she was losing it right now. So why wouldn't her legs swing off the bed in the motion she had practiced for almost 20 years?

A familiar chime ripped her from her thoughts. Her head turned to view her cell phone screen lit up on the bedside table. The generic tone making her want to close her eyes and fall right back asleep. Sighing, her arm searched blindly for the cursed device and answered with something close to anger. Strange thing the human mind, looks like she couldn't find a middle ground between the silence and conversation.

"Chase." was the even word solely uttered out of her mouth.

"Mrs. Chase, this is your assistant Jade. I'm sorry for disturbing you but there has been a breach in security in the firm's sever." Now she wanted to bang her head repeatedly against the pillow.

"That's nearly impossible, or server bounces off of 300 IP addresses every minute. Can you access what information they uncovered?" Her hand was now on her forehead, massaging the temples in preparation for the extreme migraine she was about to have.

"I would have to get a tech consultant. From where I stand, it looks like they had assess to architectural blueprints." She bit her lip.

"I'll be there in approximately 2 hours, pick me up in JFK. Have tech analyze the breach and what ever you do, do not let anything escape beyond the firm." She barked throwing the covers off her legs. This was going to be a long day.

Her black heels clicked against the marble floor if the JFK airport, crowds of travelers filling in from the plane. Under no circumstance would she ever enjoy the heels. The tan pantsuit was a maybe, but the heels would forever be her enemy.

She readjusted her jacket, trying not to let the layers of a mixture of unease and anger show through her facial expression. Trying to not let anything show. Her wild blonde hair was gelled back into a high bun, anything else would have took too long.

She scanned the crowd for her secretary, Jade, who was a lean Vietnamese woman in her mid 20's. Mentally preparing herself to deal with the cantankerous human population even more than asking for peanuts on the flight, she dug an earpiece out of her back and stuck it into place. She had 14 missed calls.

"This is Chase, report on case Delta 535." She ordered into her ear, trying to ignore the commotion all around her.

"Mrs. Chase, at 4:28 AM we were alerted of a possible security threat within our systems." The head of security responded immediately.

"Has tech specified the information the hacker had access to?" She questioned quite alarmed.

"Yes, they have, but it was only the plans to one location."

"Send me the entire file immediately."

"Affirmative." She disconnected and her pace seemed to quicken.

Who would have the power to hack an entire system and only access one file?

No. The greater question was why.

She found Jade waiting anxiously at the gate, almost nervous. Jade was never nervous, she was the perfect worker, cool under pressure and had authority with a cold hard stare. It was a great feature for handling interns. Now however, the ways her hands fiddled with the edge of her clip board and she taped her foot against the marble ground. She was fidgeting, she never fidgeted.

She knows something dangerous.

"Mrs Chase." Her voice was slightly higher in tone, eyes briefly moving down into the left as to think of something she did. She then came back to forced eye contact, sign of regret or lying.

"Jade." She kept her tone even, not even narrowing her eyes at her assistants behavior. "How's Lian?"

The dark haired girl's eyes flicked up in surprise, not often did she indulge small talk. In fact she hadn't had much of a reason to talk at all. It might have been out of character but there was a strange look in her assistants eyes. If she hadn't learned to determine the meaning of certain body language and physical actions in a mixture with hidden interrogation the would have never noticed.

"She's great. Just started walking." Her smile seemed to be strained, something else was occupying her mind. Her irises flickered to the bottom left of her eyes again, thinking of something she did.

"What have you found on the security breach." Another bought of forced eye contact. Jade would have never had to force eye contact, it was almost like she was acting differently on purpose. What did she know?

"Tech has determined that a skilled hacker has gotten access to a file under the code name Infinity. Even we can't access it without your biometric approval." In her defense, she didn't let her eyes wider at that information. She scanned the face of her assistant, looking for any ticks and tells of lying. There wasn't any.

Oh how she wished there was.

"Jade, call the FBI and get me to the company immediately." She growled out. She didn't need this stressful experience.

Her heels clicked against the tiles once more, almost running. It just had to be THAT file, that one file that was important to her entire career. Whoever held the plans to that building was now a national security threat. Jade followed behind at the same speed with her hand pressed against her earpiece no doubt calling the FBI.

"Maim!" She glanced to her assistant. "They want to know what was in the file."

She took a raged breath and stared at her with so much intensity.

"Blueprints to some of the most important buildings in the world."

She paced the floor of the conference room, her footsteps echoing off the metal walls of the most secure room in her building. The whole area was sound proof, the walls padded and lined thick with led. No outside electronics were allowed in and before you entered, you had to be scanned for metal before you got anywhere near the entrance.

That was the only reassurance she could find at the moment, the room was secure.

She didn't see the need to equip members of the board onto the matter. Most of them were geniuses, highly intelligent and capable, others were educated in the art of making business. If she brought the wrong people in, views would clash at any moment and compromises would have to be made. Nothing would ever get done. She also couldn't count on the fact that all of her partners were loyal.

She closed her eyes tight and stood still, she just had to think, why was it so hard to think?

The FBI was sending a team of agents over to investigate the matter, but she didn't need a team of agents to know that this breach in security could potentially be an act intended for crime. Hell, this could be an act of terrorism. She slid into the head seat at the end of the conference table, analyzing the screen as if it had failed her. She had trust in her security, it had 15 nearly impenetrable fire walls built up on the main server with encrypted access codes. Then the system had individual access codes and a biometrics scan for each individual document. She had important projects and designs on the system.

What unsettled her was that you could barely detect any trace of hacking. Most people would use a straight up front attack, breaking down fire walls with forceful viruses and coding, they would have never gotten through. When a hacked breaks into a system they always leave a trace, a certain way to break in or a traceable program. This hacker, he or she was skilled, skilled enough and smart enough to use multiple methods and somehow got access to her biometric scan. That was a feat in of itself.

The team began to file into the room and she glanced up from her computer to acknowledge their existence. From the pattern of controlled and methodically but quickly breaking the program from the inside like a disease she could tell the person was intelligent and knowledgeable in not only computer science but some form of history like strategy, or as a hobby. She glanced up from the computer a minute later and locked eyes with the obvious leader of the team. She signed and stood from her chair, she didn't like explaining things.

"Hello, my name is Annabeth Chase. I'm the owner if this firm, Acropolis Industries." She held out her hand to the blond man, his grip firm and strong. A good sign of authority.

"I am Dean Strekly, the administrator for the team." she nodded to him in recognition and made eye contact with the rest of the member of the team. 6 in total.

"Thank you for being here, I could use all the help I can get. It seems to be quite the mess and I would like to get it over with as quickly as possible." Before she could say anything in following another voice piped up behind the man.

"So, how did this happen." Her eyes ran across the man for a moment, taking him in. He had long brown hair and deep forest green eyes, she would go as far as to say scrawny, but he was lean. His eyes caught her off guard though, she could tell everyone in the room was intelligent in their own field, but he seemed to be comprehending everything at light speed.

"At 04:28, the main server had a breach in security. The hacker, who is unidentified at the moment, gained access to a file under the name of Infinity." She began, pulling up the documents on the holographic table with a swipe of her hands.

The members of the group viewed the contents of the file in semi states of shock and understanding. Above the table, the team viewed a 3D view of hundreds of images. She swiped up above the table and the image shot upward revealing even more. The Parthenon. The Empire State building. The Effiel Tower. Taj Mahal. Burj Khalifa. The world most know buildings were all there.

"Also known as the infinity program. For some of the most skilled and ambitious architects to find a way to make these buildings and monuments last forever." She grabbed the middle of her arm and closed her eyes as she stared at the buildings. It was one of the most important things to her.

She had always desired to build something that would last a millennium. To have your legacy settled in the ground for centuries on end making people gawk in wonder at art set in stone. It wasn't even the desire to be known, she wanted to be there, planted in the ground forever. It was her fatal flaw, but she drew the line at endangering others. Her dream may someday be self destructive, but if a single person lost their life she wouldn't ever be able to forgive herself.

"Each document has notes by some of the most experienced people in the architectural field, weak points and structural deficiencies. This information could be potentially dangerous to ever has the will to cause mass destruction. Detailed enough to let the White House come crumbling down with a single pipe bomb." She finished.

The occupants of the room blinked processing the information. Words like mass destruction and phrases that have to do with destroying the mansion that our president lives in we're quite dismaying. Who wouldn't be intimidated by the prospect of potentially hundreds of people dying?

"This can never reach the media, " a man with glasses sitting at the other edge of the holographic table spoke up, "There would be international outrage, this could be an act of war."

"What are stats on hackers?" A buff man in a suit asked. She was about to respond when another woman beat her to it.

"74.29 percent are male, but not all hackers have this level of sophisticated technology. I'd say less than 10 percent. Then there's the chance that the hackers is operating out of this country." She smiled thinly at the woman, she possessed great intelligence.

"Yes, while that fact is true, I am not sure how the hacker came to posses the information in the first place. The hacker would also require my biometrics to enter the system, so it's likely that he has interacted with me at some point or tailed me." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"We'll need a list of the participators in the project to start the investigation," the team's administrator concluded and she nodded, releasing a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

Only hours later did she find herself planted in front of a computer in her office. The light illuminated her face revealing a deep threaded scowl caused by the deep anger suddenly building in her chest. All that she had built here, a new life, was being threatened and she refused to sit back and watch it turn to flames. She didn't understand why it had to be that file. That one file that would make or break her. She couldn't find herself ever sitting back and watching her dreams burn, knowing that something could have been done and this danger could become what ended her.

They were all the same, people and monsters. She didn't know how she didn't realize it earlier, they are so similar. The monsters that always seemed to torment her blended into a crowd with magic only cloaking their physical appearance. Physical appearance didn't even matter, yet they were still monsters trying to outrun her and take all she stood for. Now that she knew the true nature of what the people are, she couldn't tell the difference between a monstrosity and the people she interacted with on a daily basis. The line between what is to be human and what it is to have your soul so blackened and shriveled that you would never tell that it once held an ounce of honesty was no longer something she could conceive. She had to concede to what she felt, but weren't the monsters that she fought once human to?

She had studied countless books and techniques to analyze human behavior, finding out what makes people tick. Now that she was here, sitting in front of a computer screen, it had a greater level of difficulty than deciphering speech patterns or seeing the hidden meaning behind micro expressions. What she did know was that whoever hacked her systems, didn't do it for well meaning affairs.

The question she needed to ask was why. Why does someone want to cause mass destruction? Why do people feel the need to do wrong? She couldn't pretend to know what someone was thinking while she was staring at traces of of coding used to break into her hopes and dreams. It could have been anything that drove the speculated man, money, religion, illness. She couldn't come up with any scenarios that would drive a man to destroy something so beautiful. It had to be that file.

She had to stop it. She had to stop whatever could happen because of her program, she couldn't take it if anyone got hurt. Gods know that she had seen enough death and pain before she was an adult.

Scanning over the code once more, she tried to see patterns and number sequences similar to kits sold on the black market. She had never seen something like this before that was made by a human, it was too complex, too sophisticated. Meticulously crafted and designed to break her systems coding and hers alone. She was being singled out, attacked but technological battle was already fought. The coding like the enemy's battle plans, fighting for something she never wanted to give up. A dream.

She was about to slam the laptop shut after another 30 minutes of scanning through the coding. It was well past midnight now, if she had to guess it was around 3am, and her eyelids felt heavier with each passing moment. The moment she was about to shut the computer and try to wash the sleep out her eyes, she saw it. It was in the coding, the entire ghost shell of the program was a message made out of 0's and 1's. Her eyes widened, it was in binary code.

01000010 01100101 01110111 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000011 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001111 01110111 00001100 01101100 01110011 00101110 00001101 00001010 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 01110010 01110101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01000111 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01100100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110000 01100101 01110010 01100011 01101000 00101110 00001101 00001010 01100010 01100101 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00001101 00001010 01010011 01110000 01100101 01100001 01101011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101001 01110011 01110000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100111 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010100 01100001 01101100 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01100100 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01110100 01101000 00101110 00001101 00001010 01010111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101010 01101111 01101001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000 00101110 00001101 00001010 01010111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110011 01110101 01101110 01101100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01110101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101100 00101110 00001101 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000

Her breath hitched as she translated it to English. She didn't know what it meant yet but she would be damned if she didn't figure it out.

Oh look at that.....maybe I could have done this faster. Well it's currently 1:43 and I'm nowhere near about to sleep. Better write something else...

But update! Are you proud of me?

And no, I'm not going to translate the binary code. If you really want to know, you have paste and google. But let's make it a mystery!

Please leave your reviews for the chapter. All of your guys support really helps me totally ignore my ever growing pile of homework.

By birdies!