Rogue Read Online Free PDF

were. There was one small ray of hope. Not long before his disappearance Otto had told her that he had felt an uncanny sensation when he had used his abilities, almost like someone else was in his head, giving him additional strength when he needed it most. Laura couldn’t help but hope that it was some lingering echo of H.I.V.E.mind that lived on inside him. Otto would probably have told her that she was just being stupid, of course, but it did at least offer some small comfort.
    Suddenly something caught Laura’s eye and she quickly tapped a series of commands into the tablet.
    ‘Professor,’ she said, still staring at the display, ‘I think I’ve got something here.’
    Professor Pike carefully put down the disconnected components that he had been examining and walked over to Laura.
    ‘What is it, Miss Brand?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, I was comparing the processor load timeline with the network storage capacity graph and . . . well . . . see for yourself,’ Laura said, handing the display to him.
    ‘I really don’t see what . . . Hold on a minute,’ the Professor said, pulling his glasses down from the top of his head and looking more carefully at the screen. ‘There’s a correlation.’
    ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Each of the activity peaks exactly matches a dramatic drop in server storage capacity. Something’s eating disc space.’
    ‘Very clever,’ the Professor said with a smile. ‘I was just about to check that.’
    ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say that somewhere in the network there’s something growing,’ Laura said, looking puzzled. ‘The problem is that I can’t find any data on the network that matches the size of the space that’s being taken up.’
    ‘Yes,’ the Professor said, looking equally confused, ‘but there’s no way that anything could be hidden from us. My clearance level should mean that it’s impossible for any data to remain concealed, especially something as large as this appears to be. Thank you, Miss Brand. This suggests several avenues of potentially useful investigation.’
    ‘Do you want me to dig any deeper?’ Laura said hopefully.
    ‘No, no, you’ve been most helpful, but you should get to your classes,’ the Professor said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can help me with.’
    Laura opened her mouth to protest, but the Professor already had the faraway look on his face that he got when he was mulling over a particularly interesting technical challenge. Better to leave him to it for now and offer her help later, if it was needed. She picked up her backpack and hurried out of the room, heading for the Stealth and Evasion training area. It wouldn’t do to be late. Ms Leon had notoriously little patience for tardiness.
    Laura was so busy thinking about the problem with the school’s systems that she almost walked straight into the two large figures who came round the corner just ahead of her.
    ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’ one of the two huge boys said with a sneer.
    ‘Sorry,’ Laura said quietly, and tried to make her way past. Block and Tackle were two of the most notorious bullies in the school, typical members of the Henchman stream and certainly not people Laura wanted to deal with at that precise moment in time.
    ‘Sorry’s not good enough,’ Block said. ‘Who do you think you are, just wandering around, not looking where you’re going? You could get hurt that way.’
    ‘Look, just leave me alone, OK?’ Laura said impatiently. She and her friends had had more than one run-in with these two and she knew it was unlikely that they’d back off if she just asked them politely.
    ‘You gonna make me?’ Block said, looming towards her, a nasty edge to his voice.
    ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ Laura said, taking a step backwards.
    ‘Trouble? Hah!’ Tackle laughed. ‘Fanchu’s not here to protect you now, and in case you hadn’t noticed, your boyfriend’s missing