The Love Hack

Chapter 9

"Girl! Why are you all smiley?" Mindy asked as soon as Lexi stepped foot into their dorm room. The space now had artwork hung up around the walls, a couple of tall lamps illuminating the interior and a small navy-blue couch. The girls had managed to create the space their own with movie posters and dark blue bedding to match on each of their respective beds.

"What? Me? I'm not." Lexi pulled her lips in to try to stifle the uncontrollable expression on her face.

"Oh, my God. You kissed him again!" Mindy grinned widely.

Lexi instantly furrowed her brows. "What? No! Nothing, um, happened." Then, right when thoughts of the past thirty minutes resurfaced, the corners of her mouth tilted up again.

"Spill. The. Beans! Sit! Spill!" Mindy slapped down beside her on the cotton duvet and Lexi laughed. She quickly sat down and recounted all the events of the evening, earning a few gasps from her best friend in the process. "Okay, wait, so are you in love with him now, or what?"

"What? No. I still hate him. It was just sort of a surprisingly nice, pleasant drive. Also, it kind of gave me more motivation to solve this case! I mean I don't want to have to fail out of his class and miss out on this experience." Lexi took a deep breath in and let it out while Mindy was still eyeing her.

"Alright, I'll pretend I believe that. I mean if he gave you a ride that's got to mean he doesn't hate you. So, I don't believe for a second when he says he'll fail you."

"Yeah, that was weird when he asked me. And it was even weirder when I said okay. Like I don't know what's come over me. You should have heard me when we were arguing back at the Dean's house. I was shaking," Lexi said while lifting her hands in front of her and replicating a tremble. "I have never talked like that to anyone in my life, but he was just pissing me off so much." Lexi huffed and ran a hand through her hair before continuing. "Also, he acts like he's so cool but he's just as weird and nerdy as the rest of us."

Mindy giggled. "Mhmm sure. Whatever you say. I know you want to have a dry hump session with him again."

Lexi gasped and then laughed. "Mindy! We did not dry hump! And anyway, is it even that if you're in a hot tub?"

"Oh, that's a good point actually! I'm not sure. Should we see what Tommy Boy thinks?"

Lexi shook her head while smiling. "Okay, okay, enough about Tommy Boy. I've been wanting to ask, did you and Cole get all the bugs in?"

"Yes! We got it all set up for you to start monitoring. It should be good to go and I can send you the leads list to start uploading to your computer." Mindy paused and her eyes grew wide when it seemed as if she remembered something exciting. "Oh! I made flyers for the house party this weekend! Check it out!" She hopped off the bed and pulled out a bright yellow sheet. "If all looks good, we can start handing them out tomorrow," she said as she passed the slip to Lexi.

"This looks great! Thanks for doing this. I'm kind of nervous about it, but how else are we going to get as many people from our major as we can in one room?"

"Exactly! And I didn't put it on here, but when we hand it out we can secretly tell people there will be alcohol. I'm not sure what college kids drink, but I think I see on TV people having beers?"

"Yeah, and maybe Vodka? I have no clue though. We can go grocery shopping this week and get a bunch of stuff." Lexi got up and began changing out of her clothes before continuing. "Do college kids like s'mores? Maybe we can do a crafts table and have s'mores making things?"

"Oo yes! I like that idea. Everyone loves s'mores!"

The girls continued to chat about the party and the work that was needed. They decided on ordering pizza for dinner before Lexi got to work on setting up the monitoring mechanism on her laptop. She waited for the code to do its work as it scanned through records upon records of data. The blue screen illuminated her concentration face as she quickly tried to assess the next set of code she would need to input once that was done. Yet, she sucked in a breath and dropped all plans when she saw it. "Mind. Come, look at this!"

"What?" Mindy set down the clothes she was folding and moved to hover over Lexi's shoulder. "What am I looking at?" She squinted, presumably trying to decipher the strings of numbers and letters on Lexi's computer screen.

"I think it's a coded message!" Lexi adjusted the glasses she had put on and began typing a code to unlock it. In an instant, the computer dinged and asked Lexi to set up a username.

"Oh! What is that?"

"I've been invited to a remote messaging network." The corners of Lexi's mouth tilted up as she typed in the username 'Bex'.

"Is it safe? What if you enter it and the person who invited you somehow manages to hack you?" Mindy asked with wide eyes.

"No, we're good. This one's set up in a way that doesn't allow any back doors. Plus, I'm covered with my own software." Lexi's smile widened as soon as a black screen popped up and a blue blinking text cursor appeared. "We're in." Both girls squealed loudly when they saw the message appear.

Dash: It's nice to meet you, Bex. I must say, I'm quite impressed with your skills.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God! What should I say back?" Lexi shrieked. Her pulse was going faster than an Intel Core i9 processor.

"Say it's nice to meet you too! And ask him what he likes to do for fun!"

"Mindy, this isn't a dating app! I'm not here to find out how many kids he wants."

"Shoot, you're right!" Mindy bit her lip, seeming deep in thought. "Just say, um, I don't know. Maybe say you're impressed with him too? Like butter him up so he trusts you or something?"

"Oo yes, that's good!"

Bex: It's nice to meet you too, Dash. And same here.

Lexi read over her message after hitting send and decided to clarify.

Bex: Same about your skills. I mean, I'm impressed with your skills.

"Ooh. That was so good!" Mindy hopped up and down for a second. "I can't believe we're talking so casually to a criminal!"

Dash: Thank you. Now, I'll leave you with this – you better watch your back because I'm coming for you.

Dash has left the chat.

Silence hung in the air as both girls sat with jaws hung open, staring at the black screen. They slowly turned toward each other, mouths shifting, and when their eyes met, they both squealed in excitement.

"Wait, this is so fun!" Lexi screamed. "We have contact!"

"Oh, my goodness! And he's coming for us! Eeek I can't wait to tell the others."

"Dash," Lexi said as if trying to feel the name on her tongue. "That's such a cool name. Gosh, I bet he has the best tech. It's so on! Dash is going down!"

"What if he's a she?"

"Oh, good point. Maybe!"

The rest of the evening was spent talking about the message from Dash and Lexi continuing to investigate. She tried multiple times to invite the mysterious contact back into the room, but each time there was no response.

"Do you think they were serious when they said they were coming for me? I mean what can they really do to us?" Lexi said aloud as she was tucked into her covers staring up at the ceiling.

The sounds of sheets moving indicated Mindy had turned over in her bed. "How can they do anything? He or she is just making empty threats, that's all."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Goodnight, Mind. Oops, I mean Wind."

Mindy snickered. "Goodnight, Hannah."

While she knew Mindy was right, Lexi had a hard time sleeping that night. Her thoughts oscillated between the anonymous hacker and the annoyingly handsome Tom. She replayed everything over and over again, tossing and turning as minutes turned to hours. Eventually, she was able to fall asleep to thoughts of Tom and her talking about their favorite movies.

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