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CHAPTER 79“Where’s who? There’s no one here gentlemen,” Jack replied, standing firm on his feet from the shove.“Bullshit,” One of the men replied.“We saw her run in this direction. Bring her out now before we mess you and your fancy cottage up,” Another one threatened.Jack observed the four men in front of him. He knew he could take on all four of them if worse comes to worst, besides its not like they can kill him.“There’s no need to make threats, I told you there’s no one here but be my guest if you want to check but I must warn you, there will be consequences,” Jack replied.“The fuck do you mean by that? Are you threatening us? Do you want to die?” One of the men challenged Jack angrily.“Tear the place apart, find that bitch and bring her here. The boss needs her alive. I’ll deal with these arrogant fool myself,” the first of the men said.The cottage was still dark since Jack has turned off the lights. It wasn’t pitch black that the men couldn’t see each other because rays o
CHAPTER 80“My academic background is in neuroscience but I’ve had a love for programming and coding since I was a child so it just kind of grew on me till my adulthood. And with the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning, an idea came to my mind two years ago, to develop a self taught artificial intelligence that could completely replicate human behaviour and our thought patterns, almost becoming like a human itself.”Jack scoffed. “Is that even possible? Robots are robots. People coded them. They can never think for themselves.”“You are right. I can’t quite make them think like humans but they will be the closest thing to the power and extent of human thought.”“How?” Jack asked. His interest was already piqued and the businessman side of his persona was already calculating potential ways that he could make profit off of this if it turned out to be legit.“Through my background in neuroscience. We humans are creatures of habit and all my software needs to do is le
CHAPTER 81“You both shouldn’t have put yourself out there like that, openly ridiculing him,” the thumb said to the smith brothers. “You worry too much. There’s no way he can think or even know that we are behind this. You said the money is untraceable right?” Laurel replied.“Yeah pretty much I guess,” The thumb replied.“You guess? What does that even mean? Can the money be traced or not?” Gregory asked in an alarmed tone, his voice slightly raised.They didn’t want anything traced back to them at all, not necessarily because they were scared of what Jack could do to them but they had openly ridiculed him in front of millions across the country and if it so happens that people find out they were behind the scandal, it would tarnish their image completely and they could face a lot of years behind bars.“Relax okay? If it’s online, it means it can be traced. I just put a lot of misleading prints to cover the actual transfer prints of the money. It would take a genius smarter than me t
CHAPTER 82“Are you sure you can do this?” Jack asked Alicia once they got back to his office from the cottage that day. Mildred was against it and even Jack himself was reluctant but like Alicia said, there was no harm in trying.“Have a little faith. I’ll do my best,” Alicia replied confidently.This wasn’t her first rodeo. She had done stuff like this in the past for fun previously. From the young age of five, she could already build and develop complex models that some self acclaimed geniuses couldn’t.She was always drawn to computers and coding and programming but her parents wanted their only daughter to be a neurologist which Alicia had no choice but to study with equal passion but she never let go of her love for the software programming and hacking world.“Alright,” Jack replied. “Give it your best shot.”Alicia started her work, tapping away on the keyboard frantically. She initially thought it was going to be a piece of cake but it turned out to be way harder than she expec
CHAPTER 83“For real?” Mildred’s eyes widened with excitement. She stared keenly at the computer screen and she could see the digits clearly written on it.She grabbed Alicia and hugged her tightly, planting kisses on her cheek. “I knew it. I knew you could do it.”“I’m pretty sure you didn’t,” Jack replied and they all laughed heartily.“It’s fine, the good thing is we found the money,” Alicia replied.“So what’s the next step? Can you recover it?” Jack asked keenly. His hopes were up. Even though it took Alicia a while and it cost him a lot of resources, it was the first glimmer of light in their otherwise bleak situation.“Let me try. It’s not going to be easy. Whoever’s behind this should already know I found the money and they’ll be looking to move it out as soon as possible and if the person behind the hack was to move the money and cover it in a layer of networks like they did before, the money may become damn near impossible to find.”“So then we have to hurry and move it out t
CHAPTER 84“We have a huge problem guys,” Middle finger announced after taking the network offline immediately again. They were at a stalemate. If he left the network online too long to fix the block Alicia had put on it, he was giving her just enough time for her to transfer the money out.“What problem? What the hell is it this time?” Laurel asked. His annoyance was palpable and he was itching to let out some steam.“They put an access block on the network when I took it offline and if I try to fix it, that gives them enough time to wipe the money out,” The middle finger replied solemnly. He thought he was a master of the game but whoever was on the other side was proving to be more than a formidable opponent. His ass was literally being handed to him.“I thought you guys were the best at this. Your reputation is starting to look like something built on the back of a PR stunt,” Gregory replied snidely.“Give us some credit man. This isn’t the first or second time we’re working togeth
CHAPTER 85“Welcome Mr. Bolton, I was actually planning to come and see you concerning your piece. Since you rescheduled our last meeting, we’ve been unable to get a hold of you but I understand. I mean, everyone knows what happened,” Bernice Banton, the CEO of Floves magazine said to Jack when Jack arrived at her office.Jack scoffed before he frowned deeply. Why was Bernice talking as if she cared about what happened when there was every likely possibility that she was behind it or at least had a hand in it.“Sure, it’s the same reason I’m here to see you. That day you sent that lady, what was the real intention?” Jack’s tone was icy and his face was stone cold. No one needed to tell the lady before him that he was upset but she thought it was his usual look.“To cover your story. Your meteoric rise to success in the city and how you were able to surmount such huge obstacles that would definitely cripple a lot of people.”“Hmmm……I see. The lady you sent to my office that day, where i
CHAPTER 86While Jack was busy talking to Bernice Banton and trying to get information about her company’s new owners from her, Alicia was busy trying to run a facial recognition of Pinkie on the government database to identify who she was but everytime she put the picture up, it automatically got deleted from the system.After many tries, she got frustrated and decided to try the dark web. A place she hadn’t been in years. She knew that whoever was smart and resourceful enough to build a virus that automatically removes their picture online, across a global database was no ordinary person and she only hoped to find some cue on the dark web.She logged in and after a tireless effort, she finally got one name, White Finger, but that was all. Was the lady called white finger? Did she do a job for someone called white finger? What was her association with White finger? Was it even a person, a group or just an acronym? Alicia had all the questions but none of the answers.She wasn’t conver