They all watched the exchange, some curious, some amused and some, like Park, confused. He had no idea Remi and Drake were anything but asset and handler. He’d rarely seen them speak in class. But whatever Remi was mad about seemed personal.
They seemed polar opposites in every way. Drake was every bit the rich, spoiled psychopath he was raised to be. Remi was a sweet, quiet, sensitive kid despite being raised by wealthy parents. Of course, he was neurotypical. Maybe that was the difference.
It was why Archer and Mac had been sure the two would work together. But they’d also insisted on matching Payton and Gift so…Park questioned their judgment.
“Why do we think her being an influencer matters?” Jay asked. “If anything, doesn’t it make it even weirder that she ended up dead in a trailer park? How does a kid’s game help our case?”
Dove looked at him like he was an idiot. “Because it’s another piece of the puzzle.”
“The police reports didn’t say anything about sponsors. Maybe they ruled that out as a possible motive?” Diego asked, feet kicked up on the desk, holding his phone in his hand likehewas playing a game online. Diego had a habit of looking uninterested in almost everything, but Park knew if he asked him a single thing about the discussion at hand, he’d have no problem answering.
“Or maybe they never even bothered,” Luca said. “We should still look into it, right?”
“Can we ask West to look into it?” Gift asked.
West taught cyber-security to both the handlers and the assets. Or, more specifically, he taught them how to work around cyber-security. He was a black hat hacker recruited by the FBI straight out of high school after he successfully hacked several unhackable government websites simply to say he was there. He was kind of an asshole but the same could be said for most of the staff.
“Park said we’re not allowed to get help from the teachers,” Payton pointed out, a strange look on his face.
Park opened his mouth to say there had been a slight change of plans but Remi beat him, saying, “I can do it.”
“Do what?” Mos asked, looking at Remi like he was insignificant.
Remi met Mos’s gaze and held it. His voice was surprisingly confident as he said, “I can look into the game.”
“Look into it, how?” Drake asked.
Remi rolled his eyes, pulling his laptop from his bag and booting it up. “I can hack it. I can access users, IP addresses, credit card information. I can dissect the code one strand at a time. I can do anything you want. What do you need?”
“We don’t know what we need. We don’t even know if this is a massive dead end,” Dove reminded, irritation leaching into her tone as she picked at a non-existent flaw in her talon-like nails.
Before Park could remind everyone to take a breath, Luca looked up from his phone. “What’s with the pixelated tornado?” he asked.
“Isn’t it a logo or whatever?” Lennon asked.
Luca shook his head. “You didn’t notice? When you Google the game, it shows a cartoon Ferris wheel and a rollercoaster as their logo. So, why the symbol?”
“It’s a code,” Mos said. “Or I guess more like a flag or signpost.”
They all looked at him. “How do you know that?” Lennox asked.
Mos grimaced, but then seemed to catch himself, giving Lennon a withering look. “Because I’ve seen it used before.”
“You’ve seen this symbol before?” Gift asked, eyes wide.
Mos shook his head. “No, but something like it. It wasn’t a kids’ game where the whole idea centered around chatting. It was one of those games where you could play through straight to mission or you could just hang out in the game doing side quests.”
“Sandbox games,” Remi said, already typing away on his keyboard.
“What kind of games?” Diego asked, frowning.
“Sandbox games,” Remi stated again, a tiny bit of irritation creeping into his voice.
“Never heard of them,” Morgan said.
Remi fixed her with a flat stare. “Oh, no, you definitely have. Roblox? Minecraft? Second Life? All sandbox games.”
Payton stared at Remi like he had two heads. “Have you always known this or did they take you for some kind of software update?”
