Chapter 35: Greed

Chapter 35: GreedTag leaned back and stretched as he completed his third break in today.

The firewalls that the companies were so proud of had been picked apart so easily by him and his team of six.

Spinning his chair around, he noticed that he was completely alone in the base, well almost completely alone.

All the others had apparently gone out—probably to the game lounge—leaving only Spectra, who was curled up on the couch, fast asleep.

Tag smiled as he stood up and slowly approached her, careful not to wake her up. Getting close enough, he crouched to eye level and studied her quietly.

Her hoodie had slipped slightly off one shoulder, and a strand of hair had fallen across her cheek.

Her fingers were still curled around the edge of the throw pillow she was hugging, as if she’d dozed off mid-rant about something annoying, probably by the most recent hack she thought was going to prove a challenge.

She looked peaceful. That in itself was rare.

Tag tilted his head slightly. Spectra—Isabela—was easily the most talented hacker on the team after him, and sometimes, he even suspected she might be better. She was sharp, methodical, and fast. But more than that, she enjoyed hacking.

Unlike the rest of them who did this for their selfish gains, she did it purely for the fun of it, a fact that could be seen by the smile she had on whenever she was breaking in.

That was one of the reasons why she never really connected with the team, why she never connected with him. They were all doing this for different reasons.



But even with that, she was his gold. One of the reason why the Vigilants were so well known today and also the only woman worthy of standing by his side.

He was about to reach for the blanket tossed over the armrest to drape it over her when his phone suddenly buzzed.

Buzz. Buzz.

The screen lit up with an unknown number, but the encrypted app tag on the top corner told him it was anything but some spam call.

Frowning, he stood up and quietly walked away from the couch before answering.

"Go." He spoke in a low voice, afraid to wake Spectra up.

There was a pause, then came a cold deep, accented voice and unmistakably Russian.

"Is this Tag?"

Tag frowned, first this person somehow got his private contact and now, judging by the tone, the person knew exactly who Tag was.

This instantly placed the person in one of two categories in Tag’s list.

Either the person on the other end was a lot more than his normal customers or a private investigator who somehow discovered him.

The latter of the two was impossible since Tag and his team made sure to erase every single trace of their online presence after every job.

They were digital ghosts so clean even the NSA would need a miracle to find them.

So that left one option.

"Depends on who’s asking," Tag replied, casually but alert now, his fingers already tapping on a nearby console to run a quick scan on the caller’s ID.

There was the faintest pause before the voice replied.

"My name is Dmitri Volkov. I represent certain interests. Ones willing to pay handsomely for your... expertise."

He paused as soon as he heard the name. Tag had been in the hacking business for years now, so of course he had connections in the underworld and there were certain names that should not be messed with at all.

The biggest being Irina Romanova.

Dmitri Volkov, although not common, he was dangerous enough for the people of the underworld to be fearful of his name.



And that same Dmitri was on the opposite end of this call.

Tag’s hand paused, there was no way in hell was he going to risk digging into a name like Dmitri Volkov, even if this was a complete coincidence and this Dmitri was completely different from the one in the rumors.

"I’m listening." He said after taking a deep breath and calming his nerves.

There was another brief pause, one that was definitely intentional, before Dmitri continued in his cold business like tone.

"A system is going public soon. Sentinel. Built by a ghost startup called OmniTech. We want you and your team to test its defenses."

Tag narrowed his eyes.

"You want us to hack it."

"Yes," Dmitri replied. "I want you to bury it Completely and extract every single line of code within and hand it over to us. Publicly, if possible or quietly, if you must."

This caused a frown to appear on Tag’s face. The usual formula for companies releasing a new product was to hype it up as much as possible.

So much so that he was sure he would’ve heard of a cyber security software known as Sentinel, but there was nothing.

If anything, this job smells extremely fishy.

"And you’re sure this... OmniTech isn’t backed by someone like the Feds?" Tag asked in a low voice. "Because launching an attack on a system that well-hidden screams honeypot."

"We know what it isn’t," Dmitri said coolly. "We’re more interested in who it is."

That answer did more than pique Tag’s interest. It confirmed it—Dmitri and whoever he worked for didn’t just want Sentinel broken, they also wanted its creator.

"What’s the payout?" Tag asked.

As hesitant as he was, there was also the undeniable fact that he was greedy. Heck, that was the reason why he spent his entire day breaking into secured systems.

Just for the money.

One of his terminals let out a ding, causing Tag to walk over and check. The ping came from his wallet.

$5,000,000.

Upfront.

His brows lifted.



"That’s a lot of zeroes for a system that hasn’t even hit the market." This raised his suspicion even higher but this was also the most upfront fee he had gotten for any job he had ever done.

"Let’s just say, this OmniTech is a thorn on our side and the man I work for wants it removed." Dmitri answered.

"I see," Tag nodded, there was a part of him that wanted to deny this job but a much bigger and greedier part of him could only think about how much they would make in the end.

He was even willing to put his team in danger if this turned out to be some kind of trap, so he said without any more hesitation.

"We accept."

"Good," Dmitri replied, "then you have a week to complete this job and the remaining ten million will be deposited to your wallet on completion."

Before he ended the call, he added "oh and don’t think you can fail this job and just disappear."

"Because if you do," Dmitri’s voice got dangerously low, "I promise I’ll find you and your team. I’m sure you’ve heard what I can do."

With that, the call ended, leaving Tag staring at his phone’s screen before he clenched it tighter.

He had just sealed his and his team’s fate and there was no going back now.

Turning around, he stared at the still sleeping Spectra before sighing. He didn’t know why he was this nervous, after all, his was the best team of hackers the underworld and dark web had ever seen.

There was no way they’d fail a job such as this, right?