When Wyatt strolled back from his phone call, he was surprised to see that Mirabe was no longer in the living room. "Did Ms. Mirabe leave?" he asked, puzzled.


    James barely nced up from the surveince feed on hisputer before settling back into the couch without a word.


    Curtis, having just heard his team''s report that the scare was a false rm, let out a sigh of relief and pinched the bridge of his nose. "All clear now," he announced.


    "That''s a relief," Wyatt said, visibly rxing. "I thought we were on the brink of a disaster. Who knew Ms. Mirabe was such aputer whiz?"


    He was genuinely impressed.


    Turning to Curtis, Wyatt couldn''t help but tease, "Hey, given Ms. Mirabe''s speed and how she cracked that interference in three seconds, where do you think she''d rank on your hacker leaderboard?"


    Curtis fell silent, deep in thought, before responding.


    Wyatt nudged Curtis''s leg with his foot, chuckling, "She''s got to be better than you, right?"


    Curtis just gave him a look.


    Wyatt, arms crossed, didn''t mind stirring the pot. "We owe Ms. Mirabe big time for stepping in. Not to be mean, but your world ranking at seven... seems a bit overrated. Maybe you need some extra sses?"


    Curtis, expressionless, removed his earpiece and set it down on the ss coffee table with a snap, causing Wyatt to instinctively step back.


    The tension was thick.


    After a moment, Curtis broke the silence, "Given Ms. Mirabe''s decoding speed, she''d easily be in the top three."


    "Top three..." Wyatt murmured. Despite his teasing, he respected Curtis''sputer skills; his seventh-ce ranking was no fluke.


    But Ms. Mirabe had only shown a glimpse of her abilities, and already Curtis was specting she could be in the top three. Wyatt couldn''t even begin to imagine what she was truly capable of.


    "As for other skills, I''m not sure, but cracking that interference on the fly shows she''s got a real knack for system coding," Curtis added thoughtfully.


    Wyatt scratched his head, pondering. "So, does that mean she could already be in the top three or five on your leaderboard?"


    Curtis paused to consider.


    He knew a bit about the top ten, especially those ranked above him. The hackers in fourth, fifth, and sixth ces were well-known programmers internationally.


    But the top three were more mysterious, especially the person at number one, known simply as ''Y'', whoseputer skills were almost freakishly good.


    The challenges on the hacker leaderboard were set by ''Y'', and so far, no one had cracked them, not even those ranked second and third.


    ''Y'' had long dominated the top spot, earning the awe of the entire hackermunity, though no one knew who they were, where they were, or what they did.


    Although Ms. Mirabe had shown remarkable skill today, Curtis remembered a time not so long ago when she hade across him attempting to crack one of the leaderboard challenges and had innocently asked him what the code on his screen meant.