Curtis knew Mirabe was a whiz when it came to medicine, so her noticing his condition didn''t surprise him. He cleared his throat before replying, "Just got into a bit of a scrap."


    Mirabe just raised an eyebrow at that.


    Feeling a bit uneasy under her gaze, Curtis quickly looked away and changed the topic, "Where''s James?"


    Mirabe nodded towards the kitchen, "Doing the dishes."


    The mention of dishes made Curtis wince slightly. He nced towards the kitchen and sure enough, saw James''s figure hunched over the sink. He quickly looked away again.


    Well, he thought, just another day.


    "Oh, Ms. Mirabe, could you help me check a security setting?" Curtis asked, turning back to her, his tone cautious.


    Mirabe, having some free time, nodded.


    Curtis''s face lit up with a smile, "I''ll go grab myptop." He rushed outside to his car and fetched it.


    When he got back, he booted up hisptop, navigated to a link—the backend monitoring software for the Shepherd family''s businesses in Riverdale—and handed it to Mirabe, "Here it is."


    Mirabe nced at the screen and immediately asked, "The monitoring system''s security settings?"


    "Yep, that''s the one." Curtis was impressed. She hadn''t even started and had already zeroed in on the issue.


    Curtis, known for hisputer geekiness, sat down next to Mirabe. After a brief pause, he added, "I feel like there''s something off with this firewall, but I can''t put my finger on it."


    "Let me take a look," Mirabe said, her fingers dancing lightly over the touchpad. But just as she essed the firstyer of the firewall, she twitched.


    Curtis, focused on the screen, didn''t notice Mirabe''s reaction and e continued, "The system was hacked before, and after I found out, I fixed the program and added two moreyers of firewall."


    Mirabe coughed lightly, thinking that the two extrayers were pretty much useless since there was a hidden Trojan horse he hadn''t spotted.


    "No worries, you did a decent repair job. Most people wouldn''t be able to get through," Mirabe said calmly.


    Curtis scratched his head, feeling like thepliment didn''t quitend.


    But he didn''t dwell on it and kept his eyes glued to theptop, hoping to pick up some tricks from the master.


    l.ne


    Mirabe dove into the firewall settings, her fingers tapping out shortcutmands. Suddenly, the screen went dark, and a ck dialogue box popped up. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and lines of code appeared in the box.


    Before Curtis could make sense of the code, the ck box disappeared.


    Soon after, Mirabe handed theptop back to Curtis, "I''ve fixed some minor vulnerabilities in the firewall for you. Everything else looks good."


    Taking back theptop, Curtis noticed that the previous uneasy feeling about the firewall was gone, and there was an additional super defense mode.


    This defense mode seemed familiar.


    Curtis frowned, trying to remember where he''d seen it before.


    At that moment, James walked out of the kitchen. He approached Mirabe and Curtis, narrowing his eyes.


    Still lost in thought, Curtis didn''t notice James''s gaze until he heard soft cough. Looking up to meet James''s deep, dark eyes, Curtis suddenly tensed and stood up with hisptop, "Uh, James."