Reborn in 1994: Internet Empire

11 The First Briefing

The trio had ridden on their brand new motorcycles all day. Jules sat in the back of Max’s stunning new cruiser, while Trae rode solo on his equally impressive ride. One they had gotten back to campus, Jules and her father helped the two settle their parking papers. With that, the two had something that they considered to be essential, both to their private life, and their future in hunting down the Wolfpack. They had their first mode of transportation. As soon as they had finished, Max and Trae parked their new bikes in the parking lot just outside of the dorms and headed back inside to their room. Soon, Jules knocked on the room of their door and they let her in. 

“Y’all seemed like you had fun!” Jules said with a smile toward her two friends. 

“Damn, you really had us goin’ Jules!” Trae said, still in a moment of euphoria. “I’ve never had a bike before. I only ever rode on my friends’.”

“Same here! I only ever did that for a delivery job I did back in the day!” Max said, tapping into his predecessor’s precious memories. 

Jules flashed a cocky smile, knowing she had bamboozled them both. 

“Was this your idea, Jules?” Max asked, locking his brand new key onto his keychain.

She shook her head. 

“Nope, this was all daddy’s idea! He was really thankful to you two you know?”

Max smiled back at her, just thankful that she was ok. 

“Well, now we have ridden! No doubt this is gonna be useful in the future,” said Trae, as he lay down in his bottom bunk. 

Jules took a seat in Max’s chair, almost anxious to bring up the topic which was the reason she was invited into their room in the first place. Max took note of this and started off the conversation, which immediately took a more serious turn. 

“Alright, so I’m sure you know why we asked you to come here.”

Jules gulped in anticipation.

“You wanna know about the group that tried to kidnap you, right?” Max said as he turned on Trae’s computer. 

Trae immediately sat up again, also taking on a more serious demeanor. 

“I’ll get straight to the point. First things first, we have to clue you in, Jules. I and Trae are hackers, as you already know. I’ll give you a rundown of how we work, and what we have gathered.”

Jules sat up straight and focused on Max. Trae was listening intently as well. 

“Ok. The internet is sort of like an ocean of information, where we can fish pieces of information from. Every passing moment, that ocean gets bigger and bigger. Naturally, like an ocean, there are places where normal people are barred from fishing. Are you with me so far?”

The two nodded. 

“Now what a hacker does is secretly get into these restricted areas, fish for information, and get back out under the noses of either the owners or the government. Why? Because… well, it’s not exactly the most legal thing to do,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. 

Finally, after taking a while to load, the screen lit up and showed Trae’s lock screen, which was a scantily clad woman. Max and Jules looked at Trae with a judging expression. 

“D-don’t judge me man! I just...like her clothes!” Trae said defensively. 

“What clothes?” Jules said, jokingly.

“Focus guys, come on,” Max said, accessing a save file in Trae’s work folder. 

With a few clicks, he opened up a document, nearly forty pages long with information and snippets of news articles regarding several cases of assault, homicide and suicides. Every page was chock full of summaries, analyses, dates, and locations, all surrounding a mysterious group of individuals involved in these acts of violence. Max turned back towards them after scrolling to an old article regarding an old American militia. The article title was labeled “The Wolfpack.” Jules’ eyes widened as she saw the label. 

“These are the people that me and Trae have speculated attempted to kidnap you, Jules.”

“The Wolfpack? They’re a militia, you say,” she says, reading words that she can see on the screen. 

“Yes, and no,” Max says, as he flips to Trae’s analysis on who the Wolfpack was as an organization. “Trae did some digging, and looked up all of the hits that involve the Wolfpack on your average internet search engine. Hits meaning, matches that is.”

“Completely legal,” Trae added from his bed. 

Max chuckled before continuing his spiel. 

“We developed a program called a bot. A bot does all the manual labor in searching for hits. Where a human would take a few hours to gather a few hundred hits, a bot could have thousands in a snap. So we hacked into the source code and installed the bot somewhere in there, ” he said as he showed the source code.

“Less...legal ehe,” Trae added again.

“So anyway, after the hours that we spent on the bike, the bot has run long enough to give us a lot of data. Pretty tight huh?” Max said, clearly proud of their joint project. 

“Yeah… but who are these people?” Jules asked, getting impatient. 

“Right. So anyway the information that we found on the Wolfpack is that they are an ex militia founded somewhere in the US. They have been hired by the government on several occasions, but have since been cut off. This is due to the increasing numbers of brutality cases charged by the army towards the Wolfpack. The Wolfpack was needlessly violent and would even go out of their way to harm men, women and children as well. Since they were cut off from the government, they were hired by a VIP known by the name of Emily Banner. ”

“The owner of Banner&Bunny? The bookstore chain?” Jules asked skeptically. 

“I can tell why you’re not sold on this completely but let me explain. Banner&Bunny is the largest bookstore chain across the country. However, she has several other companies that she bought from several other VIPs. So these companies are actually owned by her, however they’re still being run by the VIPs she bought them from. So Emily Banner, owner of several multinational companies, needs the security. This is where the Wolfpack comes in,” he said.

“Ok ok, so she is rich and stuff. I get it. But why would she target me?” Jules asked.

“I was getting to that actually. One of the companies she owns is H.H. Motorcycle Co., which she bought from Henri Hendrickson,” he said pointing to a picture of a middle-aged man with white hair. 

Her eyes widened as the gears finally started to turn in her head. 

“You get it now?”

“Yeah, I get it… But we still don’t know if the people who tried to attack me are these same people right?” Jules said, hoping that the situation was not as big as Trae and Max were making it to be. 

“That would normally be the case, yes. But these were the  names of the criminals that were released into the public right? Jon Batam. Martin Vera. And Mark Law. That’s right, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. But they should be in jail now right?” she asked, worriedly. 

“Well, according to this piece of evidence we found, that might not be the case.”

Max pulled up an old article in the year 1899, which showed the Wolfpack members, when they were hailed as heroes in an old campaign that happened in Asia. He zoomed in the text for Jules to see. Her eyes grew in shock as she read the very same names that were mentioned by Max just moments prior. 

“T-they’re the same...” she said, nearly collapsing into her chair. 

“Yeah they are...” Max said, as he gave her time to gather herself. 

After a few moments, she caught her breath, and returned to her regular posture. 

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t realize how deep my situation was...”

“Yeah it’s ok. But we have to be the bearer of bad news Jules. I hope you’re ready to hear it,” he said as his face grew stern. 

With a gulp, she matched his expression. 

“Yes I’m ready.”

Max let out a sigh, and proceeded with his briefing of sorts. 

“Jules, as we speak, they are probably being released, flying below the radar of media attention, and returning to do work for Emily again,”

She hung her head in anxiety, as she heard the news. Tears began to well up in her eyes, as she tried to calm her breathing. Max and Trae looked at her sadly, knowing that they could have done more to have kept her safe from those criminals. However, Max continued his talk. 

“If it makes you feel any better Jules, your father is working with the school to make sure that security is tightened across the campus. Both security guards hired by the school and men hired by your father will be roaming the campus, making sure that they know everyone who comes in or out. So you can rest easy on campus,” Max said as he rested his hand on Jules’ shoulder. 

“Yeah, plus if those three come back, we can knock ‘em out all over again,” Trae said, flexing his right arm and smiling an energetic smile. 

This made Jules lighten up slightly as she let out a small chuckle. 

“Thank you boys, this means a lot,” she said. “But there’s still something that doesn’t sit well with me… I gotta know.”

The boys leaned in in anticipation of what she was about to say.

“So these guys are trying to kidnap me for a ransom. A huge one that could potentially bankrupt my father’s company right? Less competition, I got that. And they are tied to Emily Banner. The evidence is clear. But what I don’t get is why the both of you dug so deep to find out about this secret undercover militia or whatever. No offense, but y’all wouldn’t do that kind of digging just for a friend,”

“Offense is taken, yeah we totally would’ve!” Trae said as he feigned a wave of exaggerated anger. He followed it up with a smile, which made Jules lighten up even more.  

Max laughed at the exchange but continued. 

“Right, of course we did our digging for our own purposes. The reason why is because… well, keep this to yourself because this is kind of only between me and Trae.”

“Right, right, I got it! So tell me,” Jules said as she leaned in.

“We are trying to hunt them down because… well, they killed someone precious to me in the past,” Max said, suddenly becoming solemn. 

Jules and Trae looked over at Max, as he suddenly found himself lost in thought. Memories from his previous life as Matty came rushing back. The feeling of cold steel at his back. The brief pain he felt laying on the floor of his small living room. The wet sensation of blood. And the faint feeling of fading into nothing. However, he pulled himself together and finished his talk. 

“Anyway, yes. There is your answer. This is the reason that me and Trae know a lot about them.”

Jules pondered for a moment, and then looked Max dead in his eyes. 

“Ok… How can I help?”