"Trapped in the Dark"

A few weeks later, March came, and it was a Thursday, a night before the research conference. The Head Scientist of D.M. Cadre Dr. Logan, together with two other laboratory heads, were already in the Sovereign States of Krizeldt where the conference would take place. Dr. Jaia would arrive on the same day as the event since it was just the same country as her laboratory. Sanya got a later ticket, and Sanno took a day-off for her. She and Sanno stood in front of the airport.

Sanya looked at Sanno with puppy eyes, "Sannooo…" Sanya uttered, "Can I bring you with me? Come with me to the conference, please?"

She pouted, and Sanno just chuckled. "Sanya, I'm just a mutant caretaker, and you're the future head scientist… I can't go with you," he hugged her tightly, and whispered near her ear, "I'll miss you." Sanno knew inside of him, that it wasn't empty words. He knew he would miss her, but he also knew that he shouldn't. He suppressed his growing feelings towards her, afraid that it would be out of control, and afraid that it would hinder his mission.

Sanya hugged him tightly as if she didn't want to let go, "I'll miss you more, Sanno." Ever since the intimate night at Margaux City, Sanya has been touchy with him whenever they meet. But even though she had been giving subtle hints that she badly wanted to repeat that night, Sanno remained calm, afraid of committing that mistake again. It made Sanya a bit sad, but she positively thought of it that Sanno was just taking things slow for both of them.

After they said their parting messages, Sanya entered the airport and waved goodbye to him.

Sanno went inside his car in the parking lot, took his laptop, and connected to a call. "It's time."

It was a group call, where his hacker friends were connected, as well as Lovely who was monitoring the live videos in Sanno's room.

"Did you fake the status of the generators?" Sanno asked Joshua, one of the hackers.

Joshua checked his laptop. "Yeah, I did." He was stationed in a fast-food chain near Newton Grand Tower.

"Miranda, you there?"

"Yes, Sanno. I'm ready to breach their security," Miranda replied while fixing her headphones. She's in her house in Sambridge City.

"Okay, and you should leave the door of room B3-R10 open," Sanno told her, as he typed in some codes to his laptop. "Emil, get ready to distract them."

"Yes, Sanno." he replied, as he readied another laptop for faster execution of his commands. He's staying at a hotel in Makylee City.

The tactic was to scatter the other hackers to different areas. Because Sanno and his team had a high-tech signal amplifier, they could connect to the internet faster than an average person, which they would need to make the mission successful. They should make Sanno appear to never have left the airport, and he would be using Sanya as an alibi, in case Paul Azirean and his team track their signals. But that is if they had more skilled personnel than them.

"I'm going to turn off their electricity now," and Sanno clicked the ENTER button.

Meanwhile, in room B4-L13…

Lia was preparing to go. It was already ten in the evening, and she didn't notice the time. She and Aesop had a good time in the kitchen, and they learned a lot of dishes together as they followed the recipes on the tablet. She sat down on the floor near the shoe rack to tie her pink rubbershoes.

"Why don't you sleep here?" Aesop asked her. "It's always fun having you here."

"Ae, I would love to spend more time with you, but today is a Thursday," she finished tying her shoes. "I'm going home at dawn."

"Ah… Too bad… Time flies too fast when I'm with you, Lia," Aesop said, and sighed in disappointment.

Lia stood up, "There, I'm done! Bye Ae, see you on the weekend!" She waved at him.

"Hmm… Yeah, see you," Aesop said, and seeing that Lia was about to go, he turned his back on her, walked away, and flapped his wings.

Lia was about to go to the contraption to let it scan her official I.D., but suddenly, the lights went off, and it was too dark.

Aesop stopped his tracks and quickly turned around, but since it was dark, he couldn't see how far Lia was.

"Ae?" she said, as she tried to walk towards him. "Ae, where are you?"

"I'm here," Aesop said, as he listened closely to the direction of Lia's voice.

"Ae, keep talking," She said while following his voice.

"Lia, don't move, I'll go there."

"Aeeeeeeeeee!" Lia shouted. As soon as she did, she felt his warm body on her back, and his arms around her.

In the security room, everyone was shocked that the generator didn't turn on. It was a specialized generator, in which its energy was acquired from sunlight. Now that it's night time, they had no way to replenish it.

"What happened? I thought that the energy's full?" Paul Azirean worriedly said. It was another failure, and as the head of the security team, he would be blamed.

"Sir, it was full this morning," one of his staff said, "We always check its status."

"Then why-" Paul suddenly realized. They were always monitoring the generator. It's weird to have a blackout at this time, where renewable energy is always available. Perhaps, it's another hacker! "I think we've been hacked! Go to the generator room and check the gauge! Now!"

"Yes, sir!"

"You," He pointed at his subordinate. "Try to turn on the main computer. We need to check the CCTVs immediately."

"Yes, sir, I'm on it!"

In the airport parking lot…

"Looks like he had already figured it out," Sanno told them. He thought that it wasn't impossible for Paul to think that fast, after all, he's Gwyn's older brother, and Gwyn is good at solving these kinds of problems. He was thankful that it was her brother whom he's dealing with and not her, otherwise, there's a chance that he would be caught.

"Are we going to do it?" Emil asked Sanno. He had already made the necessary preparations for their next plan, and it was just a click away.

"Yeah, please do."