Script

After Noah and Laila ended their phone call, Noah tried to finish up the few things he had still planned for his hour, while Laila let Maria in on what she had discussed with Noah.

Once she had heard everything that Laila had to say, Maria responded by saying, "I see. So, finally we are going to take some actual action. I am curious to what this will mean for us but I know that I am already feeling excited that we get to take care of that sorry excuse for a man."

Laila chuckled, "Still unable to say his name, hmm?" Maria shrugs her shoulders and says, "I'll use his name when he learns to be a decent human being. Until then, my words are already too kind."

Laila shakes her head as she laughs at Maria's words. Though she herself wasn't much of a fan of Jake, especially considering her past with him, she has never felt the need to avoid his name as much as Maria did. She has such a strong aversion for him. If Laila didn't know any better, she would think that Maria had been in a relationship with him and been cheated on by him, instead of her.

After the jokes had been made, Maria asked about how and when they planned on getting into Jake's phone. To which Laila shared her elaborate plan. "Well, I figured, he is presenting the solution to our platters for us on a silver platter. He plans on coming here tomorrow and the pictures he showed me, give me a perfect reason to be upset and in need of a shoulder to cry on. I figured I would distract him and get his phone away from him, while you do the deed of plugging the device in his phone and get the bug in place."

Maria was in awe of how easily Laila's attitude and reaction to this whole ordeal had changed. Where she let it get her worried and down just days before, she was now taking charge and pushing back. And Maria for one, loved it. She responded coolly, "Though I am not sure how you will get it done exactly, if you think you can pull it off, I am all for it. I won't say no to breaking into Jake's phone and fishing through his dirty little secrets. In fact, it would be my pleasure."

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As the two of them were getting excited over what they planned to do tomorrow to get into Jake's phone, Steve and Noah were about to get busy with the data that they had retrieved of Olivia's phone. In terms of their operation, Olivia's phone was their patient zero and was bound to provide us with information needed to destroy the source of this pesky infection.

Steve had finished doing what he needed to do and had returned to Noah's office, where they had agreed to meet. When he walked in, Noah was still bent over his laptop and absentmindedly said 'Come in' after Steve had already let himself inside. He took a seat across from his friend and waited for him to finish what he was doing as well.

When Noah stopped typing and looked up from his screen, he appeared to be slightly surprised to find Steve sitting across from him, despite having let him in himself. In a slightly confused tone Noah asked, "When did you get here? Did you already finish what you planned on doing?"

Steve chuckled and said, "Yeah, I did. We agreed on one hour and one hour has passed. I contacted my buddy who works for the secret services and asked if he couldn't get us someone for a few days to watch you and the missus. He would pull some strings and get back to me later in the day. If he can't lend us one of his people, I have someone I know who still owes me a favour and would also be perfect for the job."

Noah nodded and was not surprised that Steve had managed to get something like this done in just an hour. He then asked, "Why not just get that guy in the first place, if he is indeed also perfect for the job." Steve looked away a bit as he said, "Well...He does things in a bit of an, how should I say it, an unorthodox way. But no worries. He gets the job done. Considering on how short notice we need someone, someone with his level of skill is hard to come by. So, we should overlook some of the small things. But I'll keep you updated on that."

Then he went to proceed to list the other things he had done in his hour of prep-time. "Other than that, I also went to check up on Anthony and Rebecca, and they are still working on the footage. So, while they are skimming through that, I had a script run through the data we have collected so far from Olivia. By making the algorithm of the script search for a small list of words in the large pile of data, we can find messages or other types of data that contain those words and might be relevant for us. Once we go through that first selection of the data, we can see if the script works or needs some tweaking or if there are other words we want to add to the list."

This time Noah was surprised and impressed by what Steve had accomplished to do in that short amount of time. "Wauw, quick thinking Steve. That should save us a lot of time and effort. Glad you thought of such a smart thing to do. My mind has been way to preoccupied today to spend any time on working efficient. I was just looking at getting things done. The more we can focus on only the important sets of data, the easier it will be to form a plan with the information we uncover. Let me just send out one final email and then my undivided attention is yours and Olivia's."

Steve chuckled at how his friend can be so brilliant one day and so out of it the next. But he decided not to tease Noah with it and just said, "Fine by me. Take your time". After that, Noah's eyes turned back to his screen and Steve grabbed his tablet to do the same and have a quick look at the preliminary data his script had gathered. Almost immediately his eye fell on an interesting piece of information and he grabbed his phone from his pocket to take action, while Noah was still busy finishing up what he needed to do.

With the clock ticking, Steve had uncovered something that would speed up their process by a lot, which would be a most welcome surprise for Noah once was done writing that email. But for now Steve could not wait for his approval in taking action, as in this phase they needed to strike while the iron is hot. It is not guaranteed that the information was not yet dated as he was reading it. Their odds would certainly not be improving with the more time they wasted on waiting to consult one another. So, that would be the first thing that Steve wanted to discuss with Noah. The need and the approval to make decisions on the spot without one another when the data asks for it. As seconds spent on needless discussions, was time that could be spent planning their next move.