Rogue Read Free Page A

problem,’ Nero said quickly, cutting the Professor off before he could enter into one of his famously long-winded explanations.
    ‘No, quite the contrary. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any intrusion into our systems,’ the Professor agreed.
    ‘Could we have been hacked without the intruder leaving any trace?’ Nero asked.
    ‘No,’ the Professor replied, shaking his head, ‘certainly not from the outside, and though we have some extremely capable hackers within the student body, there is only one pupil who could have done it without leaving any virtual fingerprints, and I think it’s safe to assume that he was not responsible.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Nero replied. ‘So what is causing these disruptions? I am as much of a fan of Tchaikovsky as the next man, but not at three o’clock in the morning.’
    ‘Well, I did discover something rather strange during my investigations,’ the Professor said with a frown. ‘Something is diverting large quantities of processing power away from the school’s central computer core. It’s subtle and intermittent, but there seems to be some sort of rogue process chewing up our computational resources. I’ve done everything I can to track down the source, but at the moment I’m drawing a complete blank.’
    ‘Surely it should be easy to trace?’ Nero asked.
    ‘Normally, yes, but whatever is causing the drain almost seems to be actively concealing itself,’ the Professor replied. ‘It is most puzzling.’
    ‘Keep working on it, please, Professor,’ Nero said. ‘So far this has been an inconvenience, but I fear that it’s only a matter of time before one of these incidents causes serious harm to a student or a member of staff.’
    ‘Of course.’ The Professor nodded.
    Nero turned back to the tablet display on his desk as the Professor left his office. He closed the list of reports of the school’s technical gremlins and opened the file containing updates on the ongoing search for Otto Malpense. There was a frustrating lack of concrete information, and much of what they had discovered was little more than rumour and hearsay. All the indications seemed to be that H.O.P.E., the Hostile Operative Prosecution Executive, were likely to be holding him somewhere, but there was, unfortunately, a gulf between knowing that and finding precisely where he was being held. Nero could not help but worry about what might befall Otto at the hands of Sebastian Trent, the commanding officer of H.O.P.E. and thorn in G.L.O.V.E.’s and Nero’s side for far too long. The only consolation was that Raven was on Trent’s trail and if there was anyone who could track him down, it was her. He closed the file with a small sigh and placed it on his desk just as his communications console started to bleep insistently.
    ‘Yes, what is it?’ Nero said sharply.
    ‘I have an urgent communication from Diabolus Darkdoom,’ came the voice on the other end.
    ‘Put him through,’ Nero said, and a slim video screen slid up out of his desk, which lit up first with the G.L.O.V.E. symbol of a fist smashing down on a cracked globe and then with the face of Diabolus Darkdoom, head of G.L.O.V.E.’s ruling council and one of the few men in the world who Nero considered a friend.
    ‘Diabolus,’ Nero said, ‘what can I do for you?’
    ‘I’m afraid that an extremely urgent situation has arisen,’ Darkdoom replied with a frown. ‘I’ve called an emergency meeting of the ruling council and I need you to attend.’
    ‘I thought that you had decided against the council meeting in the flesh any more,’ Nero said, feeling a sudden prickling sensation of unease.
    ‘True, but in this case it would be best if we all had a face-to-face meeting. Can you get to the Australian facility within the next twenty-four hours?’
    ‘Of course,’ Nero replied.
    ‘Good. I will see you there,’ Darkdoom said. ‘And Max, you’d better bring Natalya.’
    ‘Raven is on assignment at the moment,’ Nero