Chapter 4

When Hestia entered the Gymnasium, her nose was hit with different scents. First, she smelled the forest, a fresh scent soothing her nostrils clearly saying that it's a scent of a man and the next thing she smelled is the horrid smell of a body drenched in sweat— this time, multiple bodies drenched in sweat. The combination of the smells made Hestia's nose wrinkle in confusion. She just grabbed her handkerchief and covered her nose.

To avoid any unwanted attention, she walked beside the benchers and observed the athletes training. She also paid attention to the layout of the building, marking any dark places and perfect spots to place a cctv or bugs. At the same time, she searched for her target: Aaron Torento. A tall guy with an average built of the body, has golden blonde hair and blue eyes and a slightly tan skin. His sport is track n' field. With the information she has, she focused her attention on the students who are running inside the gymnasium. She saw three students training for track n' field and two of them has golden blonde hair, and because they are running, it is hard to see which one has blue eyes.

She stayed in a spot near the running athletes where it will be easy for her to catch who has blue eyes thanks to her sharp eyesight but not near enough to attract attention. She can't stay in a dark spot which more preferable but chose not to because that will mostly catch attention. She's not wearing her S.C. bandana and she may look like a stalker if she did.

'This is better than attracting trouble.' She thought to herself as she caught her target. "Gotcha Torento." She mumbled to herself as she confirmed who her target is.

Target spotted, next, knowing the target's routine for easier surveillance. Hestia thought of many options but only two proved to be more effective, yet each has its own downside.

1. Because she's not wearing her bandana, she can just approach the target and present herself as a member of Mass Media club and is doing an interview to one trainee per sport. If she choose this option, it will be easy to know the target's routine as her question will be for the said 'interview' therefore avoiding suspicion or the feeling of creepiness for the other party. The downside is, the target will absolutely question how she got inside since she's not an authorized personnel or part of the S.C. to have permission to enter. Of course, Hestia could just lie that she got permission from the President or from the Auditor since she knew both of them, but the real downside is that, she doesn't have any indication that she really is from the Mass Media club or even just a pen and paper to list down her supposed questions and their answers. This will be suspicious to Aaron Torento because he is always a subject in the school's newspaper.

2. Instead of pretending to be a Mass Media member, she could just wait for everyone to leave and when there's no one around, she could just put some bugs and surveillance camera around the building including the locker rooms. This would be better than the first option but needless to say, it also has a downside. One is that, it won't be easy putting bugs and surveillance cameras because she has to get first the materials inside her locker and that would be suspicious if there is any student passing by. Second, she has to be the one putting them and she had many things to consider while putting it like the location, range, and how well can the bugs transmit signal from one another and to her device. Third, she has to connect them all together and to her device so she could observe the target in real time as well as keeping a record of everything. And lastly, it's a lot of work doing all those. It may last her until midnight just putting those bugs on the places she marked earlier.

And for the sake of making progress without putting her identity in danger— she chose the second option. She made a mental note of the places to put the bugs and left the building, continuing her studies and duties for the Student Council.

After the class hours, she waited at the council room; it is better than wandering the hallways like a school ghost. "Aren't you going home Miss Leblanc?" Damian asked as he approached the door. Of course, Damian would love to stay with Hestia but then again, being a son of a successful toy making company, he lived in strict rules. "No Pres. I prefer to do my homework here." Hestia lied with a poker face as she pretended to solve an equation in math. Damian, sensing that Hestia is uninterested on having a company, said goodbye and left.

Once Hestia heard the doors close, she waited for ten seconds before proceeding on her task. In the spy world, the 'ten second rule' is a must when the agent is going to perform a task or when giving top secret information; the 'ten second rule' is simple: when someone unwanted left the room, wait for ten second before going on you task, because the unwanted person might still be near the door or might come back to get something and gives a risk of you getting caught. This is pretty normal on the spy world.

Hestia immediately set up her laptop and some devices that she will need while arranging the bugs. After she saw the President's car drove off, she hurriedly went to her locker to get the bugs and headed to the gymnasium, luckily the school head janitor: Mr. Ben, went home early, now, no one will really catch Hestia. She first set listening bugs beneath the front row benches and under the player's bench. Then, she carry on putting some CCTV. She first put the CCTV's on the corners of the gymnasium, even though her CCTV's are much smaller in comparison to a normal CCTV, it's high quality so four of them is enough to monitor the whole building, but just in case and to further analyze the target and to exactly know his routine, she put a CCTV near where Aaron is training and in the locker area.

'This is not peeping, it's for the mission.' Hestia reminded herself while putting the last bug in the locker area. After that, she also placed some bugs inside and outside the school. The school already have CCTVs around but not listening devices, and finally, all she have to do is connect all those CCTVs and bugs into her laptop and Apple Watch so she can observe Aaron in real-time, at the same time, record everything; she also need to connect to the school's CCTV through the maintenance office, although, it'll be an easy task due to her great hacking skills.

The minute she is done from all those work and hacking, she is ready to go home. She left the Student Council room and headed to her locker and put back the tools she used, when footsteps echoed through the hallway. This made Hestia's heart beat fast, she's panicking. She made sure that no one is inside or outside the school before doing her task, who could own those footsteps?

'Is it another spy? Some bodyguard sent by one of the student's parent? A janitor? But Mr. Ben already went home. Could it be a faculty staff? But I checked every room and confirmed that no one is inside.' Hestia profusely thought as she ready herself for some action. The footsteps sounded closer and closer, she grabbed her stun pen in her pocket and then— a male student appeared from the corner and headed to the locker area, specifically to the locker near Hestia. Hestia was taken aback, all of those panic and precaution for nothing, again.

She didn't noticed that she was staring at the boy for a long time, so the boy thought that he needed to introduce himself since he thought that Hestia likes him.

"Um, miss, are you ok?" He first asked. Hestia snapped back to reality and responded to him. "No, I— I'm fine, just tired." She shook her head and closed her locker.

"Its way past school hours, may I ask why?" He said.

"I could ask you the same." Hestia retorted and they both laughed. She was about to say good bye but then the boy handed his hand out and said, "Anyway, I'm Arthur Camelton Beckett, you can call me Arthur. I'm the president of the New Technology Club, we produce and introduce new kind of technologies to the school and to the world."

"Hestia, Hestia Leblanc." She introduced herself and made a hand shake with Arthur when—

'Wait, Arthur? Arthur Beckett? As in the 'White Hacker' that the ISO tried to find and arrest for so long?!'

Arthur Camelton Beckett, also known as the 'White Hacker'. He is known in the ISO because he supplies the ISO with information however— no matter how much security update the ISO's system do, he still manages to hack through their system and steal some information. He mostly steals information about the agents and spies mission but is never interested in personal info of every employee. Even though the info he gave helped the agency tremendously, the info he stole still affected some missions leading to the mission getting sabotage, the targets escaping and the agency suffering from casualties. He's like a non-official cover double agent and a neutral party.

'To thin that the 'White Hacker' is only a student, amazes me, and puts me in danger.' Hestia thought to herself as she stared to Arthur's innocent smile.