BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CLICK ON

24 FEBRUARY, WEDNESDAY, NIGHT

Ki's social media channel was the most active, probably because he was the most sociable. There was already a map location post of the artisan ice-cream patisserie store. Ki had commented, "Thank you to the beautiful lady I met here today."

And it had 800 likes.

And a bunch of comments about how someone knew this place! Or how someone had always wanted to try it.

Which was dumb. Were there 800 people just waiting to press the like button just as Ki's post went online?

According to his channel, Ki frequented many fine establishments. He also often spent nights out with rather beautiful and famous women.

This included Madam Silvia on a couple of occasions, which I suppose were for dinners after she helped us with our school play. Not all the pictures were uploaded by Ki. He was just tagged. But he was always smiling perfectly in all his pictures.

The photos that Ki posted himself were usually taken with other men, like at the gym with Flynn and Hank, or Beer BBQ with Dave and the guys. I think he's trying to make sure it didn't look like he was out with women all the time, but he wasn't fooling anyone.

Ki was a player and all women should beware of his beautiful smile and sexy footsteps or whatever it was that made them love him.

Harvey's social media account also had a solid four digit following. It's not like Ki's... But Harvey didn't date models and actresses on a weekly basis, so he didn't get as much exposure. Most of his followers were from New Leaf Academy or wherever his band had played.

His posts focused on school events and achievements, notable mentions of his beta experiences (like his speeches at school, his work alongside Beta Gerald on Sunday mornings, he even had something posted in memory of Grandpa Alpha), and of course there was music video reposts of the very fast guitar variety he favored, and like Devin in the Lorent Academy, Harvey would be tagged in many a candid photo taken by random girls in his school.

Unlike Ki, Harvey wasn't always smiling in his photos, instead, he looked coolly nonchalant, as if he hadn't realized he was being photographed. And no matter how many photos tagged him, he continued seemingly blissfully unaware of this intrusion in his daily school life.

The girls in his school liked to post pictures of their student president and caption it as "So cool!"

I read it in a Carly voice, the way Carly liked to gasp, "Oh, Harvey!" Hahahaha.

Harvey's profile picture was also in his beta suit and his usual wry smile. He was leaning against his truck, because they were married. Lol. Hahaha. But I hadn't seen Ben's yet.

Ben's channel had a lot of photos of the lambo, now that was true love. If not the lambo, then it would be reposted videos of band performances. There was also a video of him speeding - on his guitar. Lol. Of course he wouldn't post a video speeding in his lambo. He wasn't that stupid, either that, or he sped so often, it wasn't actually a thing to post about. His profile page said he was Night Leaf's young beta, and Moon Bell's youngest beta. His profile shot was of him in the beta suit, leaning against the lambo. Of course.

And his quote was "Not to be confused with BenX."

I puzzled over that nickname for a while. And then I asked Google "Who BenX" and of course I didn't find anything that meant anything in particular. Maybe my search words were wrong.

So I typed "who is not to be confused with BenX"

And then a pop up window opened and asked me, "Are you here to challenge me?" I clicked yes, half expecting that I would be downloading a virus, but I'm just going to blame this on Boo.

The pop up window now asked for the password, which I randomly typed "ilovemylambo" because it came to mind.

And it was wrong. So I tried to think very hard...if I were Ben, then my password would also have numbers and symbols because Ben was a geek like that.

But wait, if this was a password Ben had to give someone else to use, then it would be something that also showed off how big his brain was.

I clicked on "forgot password"

And the pop up said, "3474.8"

Which made zero sense to me.

{Sam! Are you on my hack site?} Ben sounded panic.

{Oh hi, Ben.} I answered, {What's the password?}

{What's the diameter of the moon?}

Which didn't make any sense, {How would I know? I guess it depends on whether it's a full moon?}

{F***. I'll be over in a sec. Don't do anything.}

Next thing I knew, Ben came crashing into my room. He didn't even knock.

"You're challenging me on a phone?"

He snatched the phone out of my hands and started typing and then he promptly gave up and shut down my phone and sighed, "Sorry, Sam. I'll get you a new phone. This one's infected."

"Infected by what?" I asked. It was fine a moment ago, "It's because I clicked on the pop up right?"

"Yes?" Ben tried lying and then he dropped to sit on the side of my bed, "No. How did you even get that far?"

"I was just wondering what BenX was." I said.

"Ben10, Sam. The X is read as 10. It's in Roman numerals."

See, I told you Ben would have included numbers.

Ben shook his head, "But how did you figure out the entrance to my hack site?"

It turned out that BenX (Read Ben 10) was some crazy hacker who you needed to challenge to communicate with.

All you had to do was type the correct phrase into your search bar and it would call up the hack site. From there, you had 3 minutes to hack into the site because it would take about 3 minutes for the site's automated hacking system to download and delete all your devices' content and force shut your device.

"What?" I flared.

"Don't worry, it's harmless." Ben said, "Everyone keeps their data back up on a cloud, and the system will only attack local data."

How was that harmless?

"I'll get you a new phone." Ben promised.

"Yeah? With whose money?" First Bell with the hospital machines, now Ben with my phone - did these guys think money grew on trees?

(Answer = No, or Bell wouldn't have set fire on them, would he?)

And Ben grinned and then told me quite proudly about how he'd pay for it, because should the visitor manage to hack into his site, he'd either receive a challenge or a job. Either one would require him to hack something for rather large payoffs.

"You're looking at the hacker god." Ben boasted.

"Does your dad know..." And then I realized how stupid that question was and changed it to, "Do Harvey and Ki know?"

Ben grinned, "A little. I told them it's an online game."

Which my wolf recognized as a half truth.

"It started as a game. I just wanted to try it cos of that movie... I found a discord group and you know, it turned out I was pretty good at it..."

I wonder what would have happened if he found the common rogue community instead.

Why? First Bell, now Ben... I was starting to wonder what Ki and Harvey would not write on their social media profile.

Now that I thought about it, Ki had not mentioned himself cooking. You know how Janice's channel posted all the stuff she had ever baked, right? Ki had not posted a single photo of any of the masterpieces he had ever made.

And Harvey's social media life... Actually, Harvey's entire beta life, what was he hiding under all those layers of perfect?

"Ben, you're going to end up in jail if you don't stop." I told him.

"You can't put a minor in jail." He answered, "Don't worry. I'll stop before I'm 16. It'll be like BenX never existed."

You know what they say, this year's BenX is next year's death god.

No, you're right, nobody said that. But that's because nobody else was stuck with Ben X as her beta, and the death god as her Luna.

How did that song that was playing on Harvey's feed go?

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

And then I had a light bulb moment. Tell me, who can outsmart a death god?

"You need anything else, Sam?" Ben had pocketed my phone to go but stopped at my door.

"Yup. Actually, I need your help." I grinned.

"Yeah, what?" Ben turned around.

"You know I put Bell on lockdown right?"

Death God VS Hacker God. I can't say for sure I'd win, but at least I've evened out the playing field.

If Bell thought he could simply pull the wool over my eyes and keep running crazy circles around me, he's going to have to think again. Actually, scrap that, I wasn't even going to give him a chance to think again. I was going to save the world, and I was going to save Bell too, and we're going to live happily ever after- whether he likes it or not.