When I Hacked the Snow Prince

14. Harddisk crash

"Let's stop, Aaron. It's already 8:40. C'mon, let's go have breakfast now," I say whilst forcefully removing Aaron's hands from his laptop and closing the tabs.

"Wait! Five more minutes. Let's finish that design," Aaron whines. I just ignore him and shut down the laptop, causing him to leave a sigh.

Aaron didn't have football practice today. So we decided to work on our video game for some time before class. We both came to school at 7 and had been sitting here in the common room, working on the game until now. Aaron got so immersed that he doesn't want us to stop now, even if there is only twenty minutes for the bell and we haven't had our breakfast yet.

"C'mon now, we are gonna be late to class," I say whilst quickly placing his laptop in his bag and zipping it up before giving it to him. Then I hurriedly grab my own bag and sling it on my shoulder before grabbing his hand and rushing in direction of the canteen.

I receive a lot of stares from people, especially girls as I run down the corridor dragging Aaron along with me. I just ignore it. If I don't run now, then I'm gonna be so late and I don't wanna be noticed by teachers for being late. But I know I'm being sketched by all of Aaron's fan girls right now.

We reach the Canteen, panting- I mean, just me. I couldn't even hear Aaron breathing- only to see Ty and Brent sitting at a table, having breakfast. Both of them instantly notice us and both of them glare at our intertwined fingers. Aaron quickly leaves my hand and walks in direction of the counter. I follow him after smiling at Ty and Brent. Both don't return a smile.

There were only a few people at the counter. So, we quickly get our food. As we turn around with our plates, there is only Ty sitting at that table. Brent has already left. "C'mon, let's go sit with him," I say to Aaron and walk in direction of Ty's table.

I thought Ty would protest about Aaron sitting with us. But he only glares at Aaron as he moves the chair opposite him and slowly slumps down whilst checking out his reaction.

Ty tilts his head to me and speaks with a blank expression, "Why you came early today?"

"We thought to work on our video game for an hour before class," I reply.

"oh..so you'll be coming early every day?" he asks.

"Yeah, when Aaron doesn't have football practice."

"So, how is its work going? Did you already make anything?" he asks.

"Actually we just started," I say whilst hurriedly munching on my sandwich. Very soon I'm coughing, choking on it. Ty proceeds to pour a glass of water for me, but Aaron already opens my milkshake bottle and holds it in front of my face whilst patting my head.

"Are you okay?" he asks with concern, reaching the mouth of the bottle to my lips, causing me to curse inwardly. Because Ty is glaring daggers at us. Anyway, I nod my head, leaning in and gulping down the milkshake.

"Eat slowly, Carrie," Aaron says and pats my head once again before placing the bottle aside. I smile at him whilst murmuring a 'thanks'. I wanted to know if Ty was getting jealous or if he was simply angry.

"Can I drink this?" Aaron then asks, picking up my milkshake bottle again, totally surprising me. I guess he too is on the mission of making Ty Jealous.

I nod my head and side-eye Ty to see his reaction as Aaron starts sipping on my drink. Ty is now frowning hard at Aaron, his eyebrows scrunched up and his ears a deep pink. Aaron goes ahead, crossing all the safe limits, raising a challenging eyebrow at Ty before going back to eagerly sipping on my milkshake bottle. But nothing happens like I expected. Ty just looks down and sits staring at his plate, controlling his temper.

Suddenly Ty flinches and then looks up scowling at Aaron. Aaron mumbles a sorry, causing me to frown at him.

The next second, a stray foot hit my leg. It's none else than Aaron's as he is the only one sitting opposite me. So, Aaron probably hit Ty's leg earlier and that's why he flinched.

Aaron takes out his phone from his pocket and hands it to me after tapping on something. I couldn't help but frown. It was actually a meme, something supposed to be funny.

"It's hilarious, right?" he asks and starts laughing.

Oh God, this guy is exceeding all limits. He is getting Ty mad soon. I tilt my head to look at my brother and catch him trying to peek at Aaron's phone screen. He quickly looks away on getting caught.

"Yeah..this is hilarious," I fake a laugh and hand the phone back to Aaron whilst muttering 'Enough, stop it.'

"I'm done. Bye," Suddenly Ty says and gets up from his seat.

"oh you already finished?" I ask.

"Yeah," he nods, grabbing his bag.

"Wait!" Aaron says, making Ty raise an eyebrow at him. "Er...we've biology first hour. Can you reserve a seat for me?" he asks, looking at Ty with big doe eyes.

Wait! what? He didn't just ask that!

Ty shoots a glare at him. "No!" he scoffs and walks away slinging his bag on his shoulder.

"Aren't you taking it a bit too fast?" I say once Ty disappears from our sight.

He chuckles shaking his head. "I don't think following him behind for one year, just to talk to him was fast. And since the situations are in favor of me right now, I think it's time I finally did something."

"So you decided to use me to make him jealous?" I ask him with a serious expression on my face. Surprised, he stares at me with parted lips.

"I'm sorry. I-I thought you were fine with it," he stammers.

I couldn't maintain the serious look anymore, seeing Aaron so nervous. I break out laughing and his expression relieves.

"You had me startled for a moment," he laughs. Soon we both are laughing, looking at each other, earning stares from the few people at other tables.

"Oh, eat fast! We need to go to the lab and plug in our laptops before going to class," I say finally controlling my laughter.

"Can you go alone? I've first hour with Ty. Let me go see whether I can get a seat near him."

"Hmm okay," I sigh and start quickly munching on the rest of my sandwich. I finish my plate first and then head in direction of the lab with both of our laptops.

I step inside the computer lab to see a girl sitting at a desk with a laptop in front of her, her back facing me. But I soon realize it's none else than Isabella.

"Hey, Isabella" I call her.

She turns around and looks at me with teary eyes. Oh! What's wrong?

"What happened? Why are you crying ?" I ask.

She wipes her eyes quickly. "I- I have a journalism presentation first hour. I had worked on the project for more than 1 week. But now suddenly my laptop isn't working. And I don't have my project copied on a pen drive or anything," she says and lets out a sob.

"Oh hey..don't cry. Let me see your laptop," I say and hurry to her. "What actually happened to it?" I ask whilst trying to boot the laptop.

"I came here early to prepare for the presentation. Then I left my laptop here for charging and went to have breakfast. When I came back..", she sobs. "It isn't working. The screen turned blue and it showed an error message and then it went off. Now I can't switch it on and it's making weird sounds," she says, her lips trembling. "My project is gone.."

"It had a hard disk crash. That's why it's not booting," I say whilst checking the laptop for any external damage. There isn't any visible physical damage.

"That's what Brent said. He said he'd come and check. He is somewhat good with computers. Don't know whether he'd be able to fix it before the bell."

"Okay, do you want me to try to recover your files before Brent comes?" I ask.

"You...you can repair it ?" she asks, looking at me hopefully.

"Let me see. I don't think I will be able to recover your whole contents quickly. But maybe I can recover your project," I say and turn her laptop upside down after closing it. "I need to open its hard case. Can you grab that toolbox," I point to our Computer lab's tool bag sitting on the shelf a little away from us. Isabella nods and gets up from her seat, rushing to the shelf.

She hurries back and hands the toolbox to me. "Your drive has physically crashed. That is why this whirring noise. No logical failure. But how it happened? Did it fall or something? How much time you charged it yesterday?" I ask taking the spudger from the box to open the case.

"I only charged it enough. I suspect someone purposefully did it. Crystal had been here with me last hour. And she is also presenting the project next hour. She might be the one who crashed my laptop," Isabella says whilst wiping her face, furiously.

"Who is Crystal?" I ask opening the case and proceeding to unplug the cables.

"She hates me. She always tries to do something to ruin my projects and assignments," she says clenching her fist.

Isabella watches anxiously as I unplug the cables, then plug them back and go into her Computer's BIOS. Her cables had been loose. So I guess it's fixed now and I can boot up the laptop. I check the motherboard too before closing the case. Thankfully the laptop boots as I press the power button.

"Wow Caroline! You did it!" She squeals in happiness.

"Wait! Your data might be lost. Let me see whether I can recover them," I say. "What's your password?"

"Ahmm..Chickensoup20," she says awkwardly. I chuckle at her and type down her password.

"Oh my God!! My project file is gone!", she cries. "All my photos and wallpapers!"

"Wait a minute! I can recover it," I say and start the process of recovery. Isabella watches nervously as I go to the data recovery service and start loading her files back.

"Hey Izzy, what are you guys doing?" Brent asks hurrying into the lab.

"Caroline is trying to retrieve my files. She already booted my laptop," Isabella replies.

"Oh..!" Brent exclaims and comes beside me, staring at the laptop screen in utter surprise. "What are you doing?" He asks me with scrunched eyebrows. I just ignore him and continue my work. "How did she boot it?" He then turns and asks Isabella. She starts explaining the whole thing to him and he listens to her whilst carefully observing my actions.

Within five minutes, I load most of Isabella's files back. I couldn't retrieve a few of them. It was taking too much time and the loading was too slow.

"Here, your project and most of the files are loaded. Happy?" I say closing the downloading icon and turning the laptop to Isabella.

"Oh..thanks a lot, Caroline! Thanks for helping me out. This project is so important to me. I thought I lost it. Thank you so much," She says smiling widely.

"It's okay, no problem," I smile back at her and right then the bell rings.

"Oh! I'm gonna be late to class," I shriek and rush to plug my and Aaron's laptop on the charger. Isabella proceeds to help me take my laptop out of my bag.

"Izzy, I'll help her. Go to your class before you get late," Brent says and comes for my help.

"Yeah, you better rush now. You can bring your laptop back to me later to recover the rest of the files. And Good luck with your presentation," I say whilst plugging my laptop into the charger. Brent helps me with Aaron's.

"Oh, okay, thanks a lot, Caroline," she smiles and happily hurries out of the lab with her laptop. I grab my bag and mumble a 'thanks' to Brent before rushing in direction of my first hour, history.