"And what is that you discovered?" I don't want to sound so eager, but my curiosity has got the best of me.

"Someone logged into our connection point, and we were able to log their data. Now pay attention because this is where it gets interesting." The girl straightens up in her chair and signals me to look at the screen before continuing. "You see that right here? ABVPyKOjZZ. It looks like a serial number—and at first, I thought it was—but the problem is that I have never encountered one like that; all letters and no numbers at all. I looked it up, but I got nothing. I thought we had reached a dead end, until a few days ago."

"Wait. We had a breakthrough?" Kai says incredulously.

"That we definitely had. I maintained the connection and waited for new data to be imported. Nothing happened, honestly, but something else piqued my interest. Do you know what that could be?"

"What was it?" I ask like an impatient child urging their mother to finish her tale.

"Whoever was connected to our access point started poking around, trying to find our location, any open files. I had to act fast. I raised up my security and threw myself into finding where their signal was coming from."

"Did you manage to find out?" I inquire.

The girl gives Kai a knowing look. "It originated from an area outside the city. Even though I can't say exactly where, that area is almost empty, except one building."

"The Cyclone headquarters," Kai suggests, and the girl nods.

The stay silent, deep in thought. A few seconds pass until the name finally rings a bell.

"Are you talking about the biggest technology company of the country?" I ask them in disbelief. "I thought it was shut down years ago."

"It was. That's what makes it strange," the girl says.

"I don't understand. Where's the point in all that? Okay, you found someone who still has tech in his hands. So what?"

"Don't you get it? We are not talking about a human. Their ability to analyse data, save them, manipulate them in such speed, that's surreal! I'm starting to believe his theory," she admits begrudgingly, glancing at Kai.

"What theory?" I turn to him with a frown on my face.

He looks me straight in the eye and says, "That the leader of our nation isn't an actual person. It's a computer plugged into a mainframe."