BXBX NOVEL Chapter 532 - LOOKING AT PATTERNS
Akira did not respond despite her subtle smile. She did not want to share her thoughts with people she did not know. Furthermore, she needed to be cautious while working in an orthodox branch of the government defence ministry.
If she was not careful, she could fall into a trap.
This precaution was the reason she was not willing to handle her work through the provided CAB system. Furthermore, she used a small trick to conceal her keystrokes as soon as she sat at the workstation.
She did not need to be a genius to know that the CAB monitored their systems rigorously.
"You can go back. I will share the information if I find something." Akira said to the technician.
.The woman looked at Akira again before returning to her workstation. She was a little curious about the small lady who could gain clearance through the minister directly. However, she did not want to think too much about things that did not involve her.
As a new staff member in the department, her status was not good. She could not afford mistakes. And in their trade, mistakes happened when a person started minding other people\'s business. It was better to keep the head down.
"So, what is the 411 on the new girl?" One of the girls near her asked.
"Why is she joining the CAB when she is so heavily pregnant?" A man nearby could also not help his nosiness.
The technician settled on her menial task of reviewing and summarising the information sent to her. She was in charge of compiling the data and writing reports. The task was not complicated, but she was satisfied with her job.
"I did not ask, and she did not tell me anything." She replied.
"You are as boring as ever." The other girl rolled her eyes.
As the small group returned to their work, Akira was digging through the history of the criminals dubbed as Bonnie and Clyde. She had noticed a strange pattern based on the information she got from the report on the CAB\'s finding.
She was familiar with some of the cases attributed to the two people. Of course, it was not unusual for her to have seen some of those scenes because she often did a lot of research for the Immortal Sword Brigade. The thing that bothered her was the underlying nature of the bombing cases.
One of the incidents she remembered was the bombing of a military school. She remembered that case because the incident was reported with a lot of sensationalism on the media. Moreover, at the time, there was a pending case in the Immortal Sword Brigade.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she brought up the case file from that bombing. The school was a reformation institute, but it was politely known as a military school because it emphasized the values of loving the country and practising discipline like the actual army.
However, if one looked deeper, Brownstone Institute was a juvenile delinquent centre.
There was nothing wrong with building a reformation centre if it taught good values and helped in reshaping the minds of lost youths. But that was not the case with Brownstone. The institute was a place where the rich dumped their embarrassing children.
From the student records, Akira could see the pattern. Parents who were absent from their children\'s lives raised problematic children who did crazy things for attention, from shoplifting to setting houses on fire.
Instead of helping their children, these parents paid a lot of money to Brownstone. The money was disguised as tuition fees, but it was hush money to keep the embarrassing secrets of the rich. Unfortunately, things did not end there.
The children in the institute were abused, and there were records of a few deaths. Some were reported as illnesses, but as Akira dug deeper, she suspected that all those deaths were suicides. The constant abuse broke the spirit of the young ones.
According to the recorded information, Brownstone Institute was bombed, and every building was destroyed through a series of sophisticated explosive charges. The school was empty during the period because it was during the winter break.
No fatalities were reported from the occurrence, but videos and files of the practices of the Brownstone Institute were leaked. It was discovered that the place had an inhumane way of treating children. Even though the culprits were not caught, the public did not quibble over it.
Most people who heard the story felt like the bomber had done the children a favour. Some even suspected it was one of the students who blew up the institute.
Of course, the government agencies knew it was not the case because they found out that Bonnie and Clyde took credit for the work. Their focus was naturally the intricacy of the serial bombs as they destroyed the immense school.
Akira brought up the other case linked to Bonnie and Clyde over the years around the world. Not all of them were victimless, but there was a pattern. Before their disappearance, all their cases were targeted at problematic businesses and institutions.
She frowned as she came to a conclusion.
Bonnie and Clyde were probably mercenaries for hire, or they were serial offenders who wanted to punish evildoers. She was more inclined to believe in the latter because of the level of narcissism displayed by the pair.
Every time they blew up anything, they found an opportunity to take credit. That was not the habit of vigilantes.
As for their disappearance, she believed that the two were probably restricted in their movement. It was unlikely that the couple was lying low. Narcissistic offenders rarely stopped acting on their impulses without an external factor.
The only possibility was that they were locked up somewhere and managed to escape from the place lately.
Akira reviewed the reported escapes from prison, but no one was a match. Then, she realised that they might have been held in a place other than a government prison. The best approach was to dig at past affiliations with other mercenaries and find a connection with someone accessible.
Once she knew any past comrades, she could have the CAB question them to find Bonnie and Clyde.
After spending a few months in Supreme City, she was no longer an inflexible government hacker who depended on just accessing stored data. She had learnt a lot from Zhong Feng, so she knew how to look for patterns in mercenary websites to find possible associates.
Her eyes were bright like gems as her fingers moved on the keyboard as if she was playing the most beautiful symphony.
After a long moment, she stopped suddenly like she was doused with a bucket of ice water.
She had identified the main affiliation of Bonnie and Clyde.
It was the Shadow Brotherhood.