Mirabe had finally pieced together Nick''s intentions, and her quick temper started bubbling up. She didn''t really get why he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear he was missing a good old-fashioned talking-to from his parents.


    Taking a deep breath, Mirabe quickly whipped up a bit of code and slipped it into the research institute''s system. A few secondster, she pulled up the surveince footage. But, as luck would have it, Nick was nowhere to be found- he seemed to have mastered the art of staying in the cameras'' blind spots.


    Seeing the empty footage, her temper simmered down a bit. Just then, her sneaky little program gged someone trying to hack into the system, and it also caught a signal from amunication device.


    Mirabe couldn''t believe the audacity-these folks were practically begging to be caught. Feeling a headacheing on, she scratched her head, pulled out a pair of headphones from her drawer, and plugged them into herputer. Then she got back to work on herputer with lightning speed.


    Meanwhile, over on the other side, As was busy fiddling with the frequencies to connect themunicator. Suddenly, he heard a beep in his headset, signaling a sessful connection.


    As''s eyes lit up, and he whispered eagerly, "Mr. Nick, everything okay over there? Any trouble?"


    "No trouble yet, but if you keep poking around in the system, who knows."


    As was expecting Nick''s voice, so when he heard a familiar female voice instead, he waspletely thrown off. It took him a hot second to pull himself together. His first instinct was to check if his headset had gone haywire. Could it be a hallucination? How could Miss Mira''s voice possiblye through the headset?


    The tech team nearby noticed As acting strangely and paused their work to look at him. "What''s up, As? Is the connection failing?"


    The headset seemed fine, so As just shrugged it off, "Nah, my ears must be ying tricks. I swear I heard Miss Mira''s voice."


    Mirabe: "


    The technician raised an eyebrow, "You might just be stressed out."


    "Maybe." As put the headset back on, trying to shake it off.


    On the other end, Mirabe closed her eyes with a sigh, not wanting to waste any more time on this. She firmly instructed, "As, shut down yourmunication device and tell your team to stop hacking into the system."


    Hearing her voice again made As almost drop his headset in shock, "M-Miss Mira?"


    The tech team gave As a confused look, "???"


    Mirabe, still focused on her screen, replied coolly, "Tell me your ns."


    Almost instinctively, Asid out their ns for the night.


    "Alright, got it," Mirabe nodded, adding, "Follow my instructions."


    She didn''t wait for As to respond and promptly cut the connection.


    As''s headset went silent once more, but this time he was quick to act. Flipping off themunicator switch, he turned to the bewildered technician, "You can stop trying to hack into the research institute''s system."


    The technician''s eyes widened, "Why?"


    As coughed, not having had the chance to ask, and simply said, "Because Miss Mira said so."