The Black Swan Behind (Beauty of Fire)

206 Kathy’s Big Project

Kathy couldn’t help but snort before chomping back on her potato chips in her lazy sitting style with her legs stretched free, “Yeah.. of course, Poppy. We’re not part of the Black group.” she quipped.

“Actually, Kathy..” Emma mumbled.

Then Rachel immediately grabbed Emma’s shoulder and looked at her with a serious face, “Are you sure you want to say that, Emma? Didn’t you promise that person?”

Emma sighed, “I did. But you know yourself that one of these two girls has to know who the guy she has a crush on really is,”

Hearing Emma’s answer, Rachel let go of her hand. She knew who Emma was referring to.

“Kathy.. The fact is, the leader of the RJC is Marcel Douglas.” Emma said quietly.

“What?” Poppy frowned.

Kathy nodded. Then a second later she realized, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!”

“Wait.. Am I wrong to remember that Marcel Douglas is the real name of PB?” Poppy asked.

.....

“Emma! Are you kidding me?!” Kathy immediately got up and grabbed the girl’s shoulders with a serious face.

Emma took a deep breath and slowly removed Kathy’s hands from her shoulders, “Marcel Douglas is Prince Bold. The guy you like.”

“Darn it..” Kathy covered her mouth with both hands. She was greatly surprised.

“Is that mean that PB is the leader of that huge gangster group? But.. he looks like a genuinely nice guy. That’s so hard to believe,” Poppy muttered.

Emma nodded, “Marcel is indeed a good man. I beg you guys. Please don’t judge Marcel right away. He has a bitter past that I can’t tell. His goal in growing RJC was to protect his grandmother and all the residents of Redvalley Street who was his neighbours..”

“You sure? Oh.. that’s a relief,” Kathy’s body which had been tense, got relaxed again.

“Honestly, Marcel told me not to tell anyone about his true identity. But I had to tell you guys, especially Kathy who heartily likes Marcel. Therefore, please keep this a secret carefully.” Emma said.

“I never said I liked Marcel,” Kathy answered immediately in a rising tone. Then she paused by looking at her friends who were looking at her with apathetic faces, “Is.. that so obvious?”

The three girls nodded.

“Geez.. This is so embarrassing,” Kathy ruffled her hair until it became messier than usual.

“Sorry for making you break your promise, Emma.” Poppy said.

Kathy snapped out of her frustration and looked at Emma, ??”Me too, Emma. I’m also sorry for making you do that. After all, I was the reason you spill out a person’s secrets.”

Emma chuckled as she shook her head, “There’s no need to apologize, girls. I was not openly revealing Marcel’s secret. In fact, I’m still keeping stories about his past. As for Marcel’s real identity, there are already many people who know about it. Examples: Calvin and the rest of Jita Kyoei.”

“Speaking of which, what are we going to do, Emma? Troy said they’re going to attack RJC the day after tomorrow.” Rachel asked.

“Well.. You’re right,” Emma answered. Then she thought for a moment, “They said they would immediately look for Marcel. It looks like we should step into the fight, shouldn’t we?”

“Shall we?” Rachel raised her eyebrows.

“We’ll try to prevent it of course. We’d better explain to Calvin and Jita Kyoei that RJC’s goal of recruiting studio students is for good. Maybe Marcel concerns with his ego too much so he hasn’t been able to explain the reason well. We all know what men are like, right? They’d rather solve problems with muscles than talk.”

“It’s a shockingly serious matter, isn’t it? Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Poppy asked worriedly.

Emma smiled warmly at Poppy, “Don’t worry, Poppy. We’ve had much worse than them.”

Rachel nodded once, “At least our male friends aren’t madmen who would attack indiscriminately.”

“Could I at least help you guys? Well, it should be internet-related of course. The best of my ability.” Kathy asked while shrugging her shoulders.

“Right!” Emma clapped once. Now Kathy knew what Emma’s shadow job was. She didn’t need to hide anything anymore, and of course.. could ask for some help from her computer enthusiast friend on this one. “It so happens that.. there is,”

The four girls ended up inside Kathy’s room. They gathered in front of a computer with a large screen and colourful LED lights.

“Wow.. it looks like someone has just changed the computer equipment,” Emma cleared her throat.

Kathy smiled with her chin up, “That’s me,” she nodded. “This is all thanks to my hard work on the last big project.”

“Now I can see how big the project was,” Emma replied.

“Your computer is awesome, Kathy. But, don’t you want to clear up your desk a bit?” Poppy asked with a pathetic laugh. Her clear eyes stared at the large, eyes-hurting messy table. It was full of various papers, food and drink trash, and other objects. “Wouldn’t your mom get mad to see this?”

Kathy shook her head nonchalantly, “She hasn’t seen it yet. That’s why I’m still safe from nagging.” then she sighed, “My desk usually isn’t this messy. Since I got a lot of projects and college assignments lately, I don’t have time to clean it up. Well.. it doesn’t bother me too much anyway,”

“Gosh.. I can’t stand to see this,” Poppy muttered with a tired shake of her head. “Kathy, can I clean this up? At least I can be a little more useful here,”

“You want to?” Kathy looked at Poppy with a questioning face. Then Poppy nodded innocently. “Very well then. Of course, I would thank you if you are willing to bother doing that.” she shrugged.

Then, Poppy was busy cleaning up Kathy’s desk, which looked like a crashed plane. While next to her: Emma, ??Rachel and Kathy started to talk about what Emma had planned.

“What do you need, Emma?” Kathy asked as moving her computer chair left and right.

“I need your help to hack the messenger application used by Calvin and Jita Kyoei, as well as Marcel and his group members. Do you think you can do that?” Emma asked.

“Well.. Hacking such a well-known phone application is not an easy matter. Do you think I can find out beforehand what are you planning to do? So I perhaps could find an easier way,” Kathy replied.

Emma nodded once, “It’s likely that war between RJC and Jita Kyoei is unavoidable. The only way to prevent that from happening, or at least slow it down is to disrupt their communication process. According to what I’ve learned from the map Jita Kyoei made, they would attack RJC’s base from some point. Because of that, their group must be split into several teams. And as for Marcel, since he was the leader, he would put himself in a safe position first. However, he would still control the situation by channelling orders to his men.”

“Oh..” Kathy nodded, “So I just need to mess up their communication, right? It doesn’t have to be hacking into the Messenger app. Hijacking their respective accounts on that app would be enough.”

“But what if they call by the cellular network?” Rachel suddenly had a thought.

“There’s no need to worry about that. I can handle everything. But that means, while it’s happening, I have to stay on guard here,” Kathy said.

“You’re right. Then, do you have time for it?” Emma asked.

Kathy smiled crookedly, “Of course I do. I will always set aside time for things like this. Haha..”

Emma smiled, “Glad to hear that. Then, what do you need to do it? I’ll try to provide it for you.”

“Do you guys have their phone number or their social media account?” Kathy asked.

“I have Marcel and Calvin’s numbers. But I don’t have any of Jita Kyoei’s numbers.” Emma answered.

“Oh, I have it,” Poppy immediately walked over to the bed and took her cell phone there, “I asked for Troy Roner’s number when I consulted him about becoming an assistant instructor.”

“What a coincidence,” Kathy said, “All right! It’s all I need. Our data is complete.” she smiled widely as she rubbed her palms.

Rachel, who was sitting on the edge of the bed behind their chair, glanced at the few sheets of paper that Poppy had placed on the bed when she was about to take out her cell phone. Rachel’s smile suddenly turned into a confused face. She took the papers.

Poppy, who had finished giving Kathy Troy’s number, returned to the bed to pick up the paper she had unconsciously left. But she found that the papers had disappeared and had passed into Rachel’s hands. Seeing Rachel’s confused face, Poppy then asked her, “Is there something wrong with those papers, Rachel?”

Rachel nodded quickly, “This.. Isn’t this a picture of Oscar Chopper?”

Hearing Rachel’s words, Emma immediately turned around, “Oscar Chopper?” she approached the tall girl, “What’s with Oscar Chopper?”

“Look,” Rachel showed the papers to the girl standing in front of her. “Isn’t this a photo of that cowardly man?”

Emma immediately took the paper and screened it. Her face instantly also looked surprised, “Yes it is,”

What Emma and Rachel saw on the paper was a screenshot of someone’s social media homepage which was split into several sheets of paper with different contents. And one of the contents was evidence of an uploaded photo of a man standing in front of an orange Ferrari. The person in the picture was believed by Emma and Rachel to be Oscar Chopper.

“Who is Oscar Chopper?” Poppy asked curiously.

Kathy, who had been busy fiddling with her computer, eventually snorted and turned her chair around to face her noisy friends, “What’s going on?”

“Kathy! Why did you keep this?” Emma quickly showed the papers to Kathy.

The green-eyed girl looked at the papers after sliding the minus glasses on her nose bridge, “Oh.. This is my work material for my last project.”