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was like swimming through murky water – so much irrelevant information that it was hard to find what he was looking for.
    “Is it there?” Jonesey asked at his shoulder. “The original concept maps? Code fragments? My submission email? Anything!”
    “I can’t find it,” Hack replied, shaking his head. “There’s just too much junk.”
    Jonesey groaned in frustration and paced behind him. Hack decided to try a different approach – accessing the vast abyss of trash files collected in the depths of the server’s
memory. Here was material that had been long since deleted, but still existed in fragments waiting to be reassembled – like photographs torn into a million pieces and thrown into the wind
– a practically impossible task for all but the most sophisticated software. Putting them together again was no problem for Hack, however. He cast his mind across the ocean floor of corrupted
data and it sprang back into life before him.
    Then he saw it – a file named Ridge_run_jones shining like the light of a candle amidst the flow. Reaching out, he grabbed it and held it tight, along with a whole load of tagged
files relating to it. The file properties indicated that the last user to access the files was none other than Marlon Good himself. Gotcha! Hack thought triumphantly. This was the evidence
they needed to prove the company’s theft of the original idea. Good had tried to destroy it, but he hadn’t done a thorough enough job – no doubt assuming that no one would ever
get their hands on the server.
    Hack said, “Give me the USB.”
    With shaking fingers, Jonesey removed a 128-gig flash drive from his pocket and placed the metal contact in Hack’s free hand. In an instant, Hack transferred the files from the server,
through his body and into the drive. Then, remembering Hui’s interests, he snatched up a large folder marked Portal War 2 and put that on the portable drive as well.
    “Done,” he said, opening his eyes and tossing the USB drive to Jonesey. He rose from the swivel chair. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
    “Not so fast.”
    Hui had spoken. He stood at the far end of the desk, looking down at the games console. “Is that thing alarmed?” he asked.
    Hack turned his attention to the console for the first time. It was surprisingly thin, had a silver and black casing and no apparent place to insert a games disc. The blue lettering on the top
read PlayStation5 .
    “I don’t believe it,” Jonesey said quietly.
    “It must be a prototype used for game development,” Hack replied. He’d read online that the console wasn’t scheduled for release for another year at least. The
artists’ drawings he’d seen looked completely different to the machine sitting before them, however. Goodware had obviously been allowed access to an early version in order to
facilitate their programming development.
    “I said,” Hui repeated, his voice taking on a harder edge, “is it alarmed?”
    Hack scanned it quickly and detected no attached security devices. He shook his head.
    Hui picked up the console, ripped the HDMI cable from the back and tucked it under his arm. “Let’s go.”
    Hack and Jonesey exchanged glances. Suddenly everything was becoming clear: Hui and his employers weren’t interested in Portal War 2 – that was small fry compared to what he
now had in his hand. A prototype of a next generation console would be worth billions. The technology could be reverse-engineered, cloned and put on the market. Within weeks, cheap copies would be
available in every city around the world and they all knew it. The Triad would make a fortune and all of it would go back into their criminal activities.
    “I’m not going to let you take that,” Hack said, trying to keep the fear from his voice. “It’s stealing.”
    Hui laughed. “That’s very noble, coming from someone who just ripped off Goodware’s central server.”
    “That’s different. We’re just taking what belongs to us!