“Well, bloody H. I didn’t see that one coming,” Seven stated after reading Kyle’s warning.
“I guess it wasn’t settled. Do you think his warning is a trap?” Aria asked.
“Would a kid know how to play cat and mouse?” Seven asked.
“If the kid is as smart as Byte… then yes,” Ivy said. “I wish Ghost was still here. He’s pretty good at hacking into our cameras.”
“No need. After the Vanessa thing, Ghost showed me and Carter how to access them. Give me a second,” Seven said as he reached for Byte’s laptop.
“Take a screenshot of that message board.” Ivy wanted to make sure they not only had the message, but also where it was posted.
A minute later, the trio watched as Byte snapped her helmet on, jumped on her bike, and left the compound.
“She didn’t seem under duress,” Aria said.
“No. So where is she?”
Neither Seven nor Aria knew how to answer Ivy. Instead, Seven suggested they contact Chaos for help in locating her digitally.
As much as Ivy didn’t want to pull Chaos off their Raptor hunt, she had her own problem, and Ivy wasn’t sure where to begin her search.
“Hey, babe,” Ghost said when he accepted Ivy’s call. “Good to hear from you.”
“It’s not a social call, Justin. We need Chaos’ help. Byte may be missing, and we don’t know how to find her.”
“Hold on,” Ghost said and called out for Chaos to come over. “Go ahead. Tell us what is going on.”
Ivy began with Byte’s distraction that morning, followed by her leaving the compound nearly an hour earlier.
“We also found a dossier for an ATF agent, and not Skylar Hines. I’m not sure if this is related or not, but it does confirm that Byte has something going on that she hadn’t shared with us.”
“Byte has always kept a part of herself locked away. I didn’t know about Chloe or Karma, but it sounds like something Byte would take on. The fact that she turns the criminals over is surprising however, but we can address that later. It’s the Kyle thing that stumps me. We scared him, or at least I thought we had. The fact that he was still working with someone who wanted Byte concerns me. Then the cryptic message.”
“That wasn’t so cryptic,” Seven finished.
“Exactly. What do you need us to do?”
“Chaos, we need to know where Byte went after she left here.”
“Right, give me a second,” Chaos said as they heard the keyboard keys clicking a strong rhythmic sound.
“Okay, I show her leaving a grocery store a couple of minutes after she left the office. She stops and opens a bag of candy and seems to be reading the wrapper.”
“Dove’s bar,” Voodoo said. “She has a ton of them taped to her closet door.”
“Hmm, didn’t know that. Okay, what else, Chaos?”
“Hold on… Okay, she’s heading back toward the office. Wait, I’ve lost her. She’s not at the next streetlight. Let me check the side streets.”
Ivy couldn’t help but drum her fingernails on the table. She hated waiting.
“Okay, she’s not on the side streets; however, her bike is.”
“What do you mean?” Seven asked. “Did she make another stop?”
“Not intentionally. From what I’m seeing, her bike is on its side, like she’d crashed.”
“Oh, my God!” Aria exclaimed.