Chapter 82: The Offer

------A couple weeks ago-------"Guys?" Bypass called out.

"What now?" Silk asked.

He then turned his screen for everyone to see. A red line of text appeared at the top of his coding software’s window:

{Unauthorized signal detected.}

"We’re being hacked."

"...What the hell?" Silk muttered. "We scrubbed everything, didn’t we?"

Before the team could scramble to counter whatever attack was happening, all their monitors switched and displayed a chibi animated character with black hair and blue eyes wearing a suit.

{Well hello Vigilants,} it said with a large grin on its face.

The room fell into stunned silence as the chibi character waved at them.

{You all did great, really. It was an impressive display of skill. You performed a clean breach, duplicated the code, and that little kill switch? How really impressive.}

Tag took a slow, shaky step toward Bypass’s monitor. "That’s... not possible," he said, voice low. "How the hell did you—?"

{It was quite simple really,} it explained, {what do you think would happen when you break into a house whose owner left the door open... on purpose?}

"Oh, I know," Zero raised his hand as if he was a diligent student in a classroom.

{Yes, Zero?} The avatar deliberately slowly called out his name, informing them that he knew their names or at least their codenames.

"Umm—" before Zero could answer, Silk cut him off, "who the hell are you, and how do you know his name?"

{I slipped into your system without any of you noticing—do you really think finding your codenames was the hard part?} the chibi avatar replied, wearing a mockingly disappointed expression, as if he’d expected a smarter question.

"What do you want with us?" Tag asked, a serious expression on his face.

{I came to offer you a deal, but before that,}

the avatar straightened its little tie as it stood up, {sit back and watch us present the future will you.}

______

The team of five watched in shock as Lillian successfully presented the software and the reaction of the crowd.

They watched how easily their name was used to boost the credibility of their software.

And they didn’t like it, not one bit.

Tag turned to his monitor where the avatar was being displayed, on its face was a huge, satisfied, grin.

{Fascinating, isn’t it?} The avatar spoke, {a software capable of even turning the hacking attempts of the brightest tech minds in the underworld into just another attempt to learn from.}

"Cut the crap," Silk stated, "what the hell do you want?"

{I was getting to that,} The avatar said and they all quietly waited in anticipation for his next words.

{First, an introduction.} The avatar hopped off the cube it sat on and seemed to walk a bit closer, {I am OmniTech, founder, Owner and CEO of OmniTech Corp, the company who’s product you tried hacking.}

"What now?" Tag asked, "are you here for revenge? To hand us off to the cops?"

{Quite the contract, Tag} OmniTech responded, {as I said, I’m here to offer you a deal, more specifically, I want to hire you.}

"Why would you want to hire the same group that just tried hacking you?" Bypass was the one who asked, "and what makes you think we’ll just accept?"

{Oh you will accept alright,} OmniTech said with a grin, {not if you want survive the consequences of failing Dmitri Volkov.}

The entire team froze at his words, not only did he know how to counter and hack them, he also knew who commission the job.

OmniTech was dangerous.

But Spectra, who caught his previous words asked, "what do you mean by survive the consequences?"

{Ah that,} He said before turning to Tag, {should I tell them or do you want to?}

There was a frown on Tag’s face. This OmniTech person knew a little too much... Well, definitely not a little but Tag didn’t like that fact one bit.

"Tell us what?" Nico interrupted his thoughts and he turned back to see the entire team’s eyes on him.

"I-I..." He wanted to say, but the words were stuck in his throat, so OmniTech did the honors.

{Well, your dear leader took the last job knowing fully well that you lives would be in danger if you failed,}

Those words earned him a glare from Tag but he had something else to worry about right now.

"Is that true?" Spectra quietly asked.

Stiffly, Tag turned to her, his mind scrambling for an explanation but ended up blank so all that could come out was, "I-I"

"IS THAT TRUE?" She asked, sounding a lot angrier this time.

"Yes, but—" her angry tone made his heart skip a beat, he had never heard nor expected her to get this mad and he wanted to explain himself so bad but Spectra was not having it.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Spectra asked, her anger evident on her face, "were you so greedy that you’d choose money over the lives of your team?"

"I expected this from someone like Silk but —" she was cut off mid sentence by him.

"I didn’t think we’d fail, damnit," Tag snapped, his voice cracking under the pressure. "I weighed the risks. We’ve pulled harder jobs before. I thought—"

"You thought wrong," Spectra cut in, venom in her tone. "You gambled with our lives without even telling us."

"You know what?" She slammed her laptop shut, stuffing it into her backpack, "I’m done."

"You’re what?" Tag’s voice cracked, disbelief washing over his face.

"I said I’m done!" Spectra snapped, slinging the strap of her backpack over her shoulder. "I signed up to hack, not to be some pawn in a mobster’s game of Russian roulette."

"Spectra, wait—" Tag reached a hand out, but she jerked away.

He was a bit hurt by her pulling away but just swallowed it up and said, "c-can’t we just... I dunno, work this out? We’re a team, right? W-we don’t break apart like this."

Spectra’s laugh was a bit bitter. "A team? Teams don’t keep secrets that could get everyone killed."

With that she headed towards the elevator and out the gaming lounge where their base was.

Tag, on the other hand, just stood there for a good while. Today was supposed to be a good day, a day of good new and the day he’d finally ask Spectra out.

But everything was falling apart and forget asking her out, Spectra had just walked away from the team.

He turned to his team who were silently looking at him, disappointed, especially Nico.

Even the usually hyperactive Zero was unusually quiet, with Nico still patting his head.

"G-guys it’s not —" he was cut off again but this time by Nico who turned to OmniTech.

"I’m guessing you have a way out for us?" She calmly asked.

OmniTech’s avatar adjusted its virtual tie, that same smug grin never leaving its little animated face.

{Clever one, aren’t you, Nico? Yes. I do.}

The team looked at him attentively, even the usually sleeping Juno was awake and Tag willingly swallowed any anger he held for OmniTech...for now.

{It’s simple, really.} The avatar’s grin widened, seeing them all focus on him, step one of Spectra acquisition was completed, the Vigilants were just an added bonus, {you work for me and I protect you from Dmitri, sounds fair?}

"And what exactly would we be doing for you?" Tag asked, a frown on his face.

{Anything I ask,} OmniTech said with a smile.

The room immediately fell into silence after those words.