15 - Listen Up Nerds

**Ben POV **

It’s been about 15 hours since we came to the Playground. When we arrived in the front, we all went into Jason’s office. Draco had sent us the stats of what happened while we were in the car. We each have our own office on the 2nd floor, but Jason’s is the biggest and we tend to always end up in there.

We have warehouses all over the world, but the Playground compound is one of the most secure properties we have. From the outside, it looks like a military base. It technically was once until we bought it off the US government for pennies. This section has four large industrial warehouses which have our largest interrogation facility, two training facilities and dorms and my lab. We also have a private airstrip and separate airplane hangar. Our entire compound sits on about 250 square miles of undisturbed land. Our main home is on the same property, just on the other side. It’s only about 45 minutes from the house since we own the streets, we go at high speeds. It’s ideal for us. We all tend to stay on the property and Charlie ventures into the city maybe once a week.

My lab is in the next building. I am in charge of the inventions, weapons manufacturing, and all our technological information. My team not only designs and implements most of our weapons trade, but we also monitor and stabilize the tech world. We have the best hackers in the world. The NSA, CIA and Britain’s MI6 think they have the best, but they have amateurs compared to our team. There is a reason we have never been caught and are able to buy the freedoms we have so easily. Everyone has a skeleton or two in their closest, and my team is the best at finding it. Jason and Charlie exploit it and if it doesn’t work, well then Kai and his ninja team are sent in to make a statement. A very loud and colorful statement if you can use your imagination.

We all step inside the soundproof office. It’s all dark wood with brown leather sofas and red and orange accents.

“So what the plan J?” Kai asks as he sits down on the sofa, relaxing into the cushions, his favorite pocketknife twirling in his hand. I follow suit in the matching armchair and Charlie sits on the sofa at the other end next to Kai. Jason leans against the front of the desk.

“Hm. Kai and I will go extract information. Charlie, I need you to go over the books with the accountants to cover the cost of this shit show. We need to make arrangements for the guys who were injured and killed and get in touch with our commanders in Europe to correct the situation and fortify our defenses. Ben, back him up with whatever he needs. Have your team do another cleanup and see if we can find anything else.” Jason was deep in thought while giving us his plan.

“Sure thing,” I stated. “I’ll also personally oversee a whole system check. We will run some tests to see if there are any other compromises or improvements.” I said, pulling out my phone and sending a quick ‘grab the team. It’s time for a cleanup’ to Chris, my number one hacker and 2nd in command. He is a badass and is just as twisted as Kai, except he does damage behind a computer, whereas Kai does physical damage to your face.

“Sounds good. Let’s go!” Jason says with a final tone. Kai’s eyes light up like a kid getting a puppy at Christmas. He practically runs to the door, and they exit to head down to one of the cells.

Charlie takes a few moments on his phone before standing up. I follow him and we exit the office, making sure it is locked. Charlie heads to his office and I make my way downstairs and through the connecting tunnels until I reach my yellow hazard door. I scan my hand, retinal scan and input my password which just so happens to be “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious1” and I hear the familiar click of my favorite door.

I walk inside and the smell of coffee and burning metal fills my nostrils. Ah, home! My playpen is divided into four main groups: Monitoring, ThinkTank, Testing, and Mission Impossible. I have a group of about 20 hackers who take shifts behind huge amounts of monitors. They oversee and help watch all the facilities. It’s not so much security footage as more of the digital footprints. We can access whatever we need in any city we need. They are like our literal eyes and ears. My ThinkTank nerds are exactly that – my super nerds. They help design all of our products, both legal and illegal businesses. They work directly with our highly specialized engineers in our testing section who take the designs and make prototypes.

My Mission Impossible team are my closest friends outside the guys. The Mission Team are also like my managers. They oversee the other teams and help me run the division smoothly. We work both in the legal and illegal sides of our business. They also are trained assassins as well as the best tech guru’s this world has ever seen.

Chris was the only one who has ever beaten my coding. That was almost 15 years ago now. And he found me which no one has ever found me. I’m not called The Ghost on the dark web for nothing. But this mofo is a great guy and like I said, just as twisted as Kai. He has mad skills, and we pay him very well for his services.

“Listen up Nerds!” I shout as I make my way to the center of the room. Those on call are all now giving me their full attention. “As you remember we had a breech in Germany three days ago. Three were killed, 9 injured, 2 are critical. The main doghouse was blown up. $50 mil of our class B weapons were taken. The bosses have three new toys in the dugout. Monitors, I want another full sweep, no binary code left untouched. ThinkTank, I need you to assist. Expand the search to all of Europe. There has to be some chatter. Find it! Testers continue to work on that new body armor for Kai’s team. I want a working model by the end of the week! Mission team, to the control room.” I walk away to the black sliding glass door at the end of the room.

My Mission team is right behind me and once the door is sealed, I tell them I want a complete sweep of all internal systems. There is a traitor in our ranks, and we need to find them, and we get to work.

So here I am, 15 hours later, on my 9th cup of coffee, double checking all the links my Mission team was finding. They pull the information they find suspicious, even if it is minor, and I double check it. Nothing too out of the ordinary. There are a few newer recruits in our European sector that have been dialing similar number batch. I sent a message to our commanders over there to do an inquisition. I copied the guys on the notice.

As I am taking a break, I think about my baby. I wonder what she is doing. So I quickly pulled up the house cameras. Yes, we have hidden cameras all over the house and yes even in her bathroom. Can’t take any chances. We are mafia, we can’t truly trust anyone!

I wait for the cameras to load, then my heart almost stops beating when they finally focus. I didn’t see her at first. I started freaking out inside until I finally saw someone sitting on the floor. I started checking all the cameras and found one with a better view. But that was not Aurora. That was one of the maids, and her hand was cuffed to the bed.

I realized what happened and my heart started racing and my fury was boiling inside. I started checking all the cameras. I saw two guards posted outside her locked door. I checked the parameters and the rest of the house and saw all the stationed guards, but where the fuck was she?

I ordered Chris and Tamera, another one of my Mission team, to help me search for Aurora. Tamera checked all the grounds; Chris and I started checking all the past footage from when we left her.

That’s when I saw it. She tricked the maid and left. She clearly was lucky as it looks like she left during a shift change. We followed her movements and saw she left the house and headed into the woods. The time stamp where she was in the woods was 6 hours ago. Shit! She could be anywhere by now! I don’t see anything from the road cameras.

I rush out of my seat and head straight to the basement. A guard sees me running and opens the door for me. I see Jason cleaning his hands before I blurt out: “Aurora’s escaped!”