Ved & Lexx
Lexx was decent with computers, but Ved was clearly in completely different league. Figuring out what Lexx had done in the past few months would be childs play for him. What was most interesting is that he was only able to track down his activities up to a few months ago. Just after the Gray Bomb Dropping. What he had done before was a mystery since all his belongings including his old PC had been destroyed or left in Grayshire. He knew as much as how to make his past activities untraceable, since then making sure to only create new accounts with completely different usernames. A fresh start in cyberspace. And he had to, in order to remain hidden from the government. Despite this, one mere old account name would be enough to reveal everything he had done before the incident.
Most of the history indicated research on certain individuals. Two things stood out the most out of all the gathered information. The people that Lexx had investigated were related to the events that transpired in Grayshire. The second thing that stood out was about some of the people that had been investigated. They appeared to have some small but clear involvement in the project regarding the town of Grayshire. And records indicated they were all dead, their bodies being found mutilated, often beyond recognition.
The last webpage he had open was the one about the JTech news.
[Who are you?] Lexx typed.
This person he was talking to had some connection with what happened. So much he was sure of. It made sense to him. Why would he leave these clues particularly here? Lexx’s mind was now racing, thinking of the possibilities of who this person might be.
Maybe someone that worked on the bomb? He doubted it. Why would that person make himself traceable and leave hints in the town the bomb was used on. The fact that he might be the masked man that appeared on the screens in Times Square crossed his mind. But there was no way he could be sure of it.
Ved’s eyes flickered reflections of images, news articles, and low quality, eyewitness videos of several events that had occurred over the last few months, all of which relate to the Grayshire incident. Or, as he and other online hacktivists referred to it, G-Day. As the images and articles, as well as search results of certain individuals flashed in his right eye, images and articles of a cross-referencing on the same people flashed in his left. Several of them had been presumed to be involved in G-day, at least by deep underground political conspiracy websites. As the search in his left eye continued, gruesome images of mutilated bodies began to appear as he approached more recent hits, each one killed similarly. A mutant was on the other end of this chat, he knew it completely.
He lifted up his mask, only to position a mobile voice modulator into place over his mouth, then slid back down his Mask. Tapping a few fingers on his keyboard, he activated the live-stream function of the chat room, displaying his masked face and glowing blue eyes.
"I am, Anonymous."His hoarse voice reverberated through the vocal mod, causing it to come out in a deep, fluctuating tone, with a single hint of rasp. His fingers continued to move across the keyboard, shutting down every single one of his loops. This conversation would be completely, and absolutely, private.
Lexx didn't expect this turn into a face to face conversation. And even though he considered it, he didn't really expect the person behind this to indeed be the one that appeared on the screens in Times Square. He found it rather amusing that he had decided to introduce himself as Anonymous, considering his stunt in Times Square.
"So tell me. What is the reason behind the symbols you left here in Grayshire?" He paused for a moment but then quickly continued without allowing the masked person to respond.
"But wait, let me take an educated guess first. You're gathering people like me, who were here in Grayshire on the day that happened."Ved chuckled softly, looking down a bit and biting his lip behind his mask.
"I'm doing more than gathering. I'm organizing."He replied gently, his fingers twitching slightly below the camera, as not to display his true nervousness.
Lexx was unsure whether he wanted to be a part of such an organization. Then again the masked man hadn't asked him to join yet. For now, only information on people responsible for what happened in Grayshire interested him.
"You know who is responsible for what occurred here?", he looked around him observing the abandoned buildings and then turned his laptop to show the man where he was, since he was unaware that Ved had already pinpointed his location.
Ved smiled a bit from behind the mask, then replied slowly, for dramatic effect.
"I am afraid, that Is privileged information."Lexx considered his words for a moment. He was about to tell the masked man that he had no use for him in that case as he remembered seeing the news about JTech and knew he had at least one more lead. But something about him peeked his curiosity.
"Your intentions with this so-called organization you are establishing, is that privileged information too?" he asked with lingering satire in his voice.
Lexx thought they might have something In common if this figure was also after the Gray Bombing perpetrators.
Ved laughed softly, before reaching under his mask and removing his vocal manipulator, revealing his true voice, a light, yet incredibly hoarse and raspy sound, like it was almost painful for him to speak.
"I would like to meet you in person, I will meet you at your apartment tomorrow evening. Would you prefer Chinese Take-Out, or Pizza?" He asked softly, adjusting the hood of his Jacket and zipping it up further.
Lexx grinned and huffed out in amusement at the response he received and the food suggestion.
"I'd rather we meet someplace else." He wasn't comfortable telling people he had just met where he lived, as he was still unaware that by checking his history the masked man pretty much already knew where he lived. Lexx sent him a bookmark of a location in central park back in New York. The place was one of the quieter areas in central park so he knew they'd be able to converse there, in private. It was also fairly far away from any surveillance.
"If you still want to bring some food, I'll go with Pizza."Just as he was about to finish his conversation, he could hear a phone ringing in the distance.
"I think we might have an uninvited guest." Lexx said as he glanced at the corner of the street. Once he looked back at his laptop the chat room had been closed and the video stream had been cut. Proceeding to close his laptop he then placed it back in his backpack while still leaving it on. He then stood up and went towards the direction from where the cellphone noise had originated.
Curious, are we?, he thought. As he was approaching the corner he disappeared in a flash of black dust and reappeared at the location from where the sound came behind the corner hoping to take whoever was there by surprise. Nothing. Nobody was there. Despite it he knew it wasn’t his imagination. Someone had been there moments ago. Lexx continued looking around, eyeing every building in the vicinity looking for signs of movement. Still nothing. After another half minute of just standing there watching and listening for any signs of movement Lexx gave up and went back to the bench, reopening his laptop once he was there. He tried to access the chat again but the chat room was empty. Proceeding to close the window that contained the chat room Lexx reopened the news page on JTech one more time and skimmed through it focusing on remembering the crucial details like the Daniel Moth’s name, how he looked, and the address of the JTech building with the penthouse in which he had locked himself. He then closed his laptop and repacked it as he was now preparing to leave.