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Phillip Coulson wasn’t the type of man who got worried, or if he was he showed it with threats of tasing; however, the development of someone hacking into the system of SHIELD who wasn’t Tony Stark, JARVIS, or Skye made him worry slightly. Especially with the disappearance of Darcy Lewis roughly around the same time, and her work with Dr. Foster. It was a strange sensation that coiled in his gut, one of apprehension that something was about to change, and that of curiosity.Coulson remembered New Mexico and how Darcy had shown no competency with computers beyond the basics, even though she had a laptop that was heavily encrypted to the point that not even the best of SHIELD’s IT department could get past them. It made him wonder at the time who would have done such a thing for her and why she would need it. Another thing that didn’t add up about one Darcy Lewis is that for as dumb as she played to be Coulson would occasionally see a glimpse of someone who was a genius on par with Tony Stark. Usually it would be late at night when Jane Foster was asleep and Darcy was still awake filing, or supposed to be filing, she would stand up, stretch, walk over to the board and look at it. On occasion fixing the mathematical equations, or so it seemed to Coulson but he wasn’t all that sure; however, Foster or Selvig never seemed to notice when they went back to work.Since they didn’t notice and Darcy took care to do the corrections when they were asleep Coulson figured that she didn’t want them to know for some reason and so kept it to himself. Now that he looked back on it, it didn’t make much sense to keep the fact that she was smarter than she appeared to herself unless she was trying to lie low. If that was the case then he was going to need to do some better digging considering the information that he had gotten about her when he did the cursory background check had little to no pertinent details about her life and why she might need to keep her head down. Now that Coulson had a general area to start with he went about starting his search to learn about one Darcy Lewis.-.-.-.-.-It had been several hours with a lot of dead ends, and still no relevant information about Darcy Lewis, if that was actually her real name, and considering the lack of information about her, Phil wouldn’t put it past her to say it wasn’t, when he was interrupted by a phone call. “Coulson speaking,” he answered after seeing who was calling.“Hey boss, it’s Skye. Look I was in the database looking through old files that weren’t classified to study and I noticed that there was a breach in the system. I checked it out, because why would anyone need to breach the system unless they weren’t part of it and I found a hacker. They left a small unobtrusive worm with strict instructions to look for a CIA operative named Max and once the information was found to send it back to the programmer before deleting itself. The worm itself is not malicious in nature but it is definitely different than other worms that are used in a system.” Skye explained quickly.“Explain what you mean by that,” Coulson stated, intrigued despite himself.“When a hacker inputs a worm into a system it is, normally, to find out any and all information within that system so that they can use the information for their own purposes. All information is fair game when planting a worm. For a worm to have specific instructions to look for information only pertaining to one thing, such as this Max person, then the person who put it into the system isn’t interested in any other information. However, what really caught my eye is the coding for the worm itself. The last time I saw coding this clean was several years back when I first got into hacking. “The signature that is left in the code itself is from an expert hacker named code master. Though it was alphanumeric with an underscore, but that’s not important, anyway, the point is that this hacker hasn’t been all that active in a couple of years. Occasionally we, as in the hackers, would see signs on occasion that they were still out there but that was about it. Code master has never been caught. So the fact that I even noticed this breach that led me to them is a miracle.” Skye said softly, reverence coating her voice showing that she looked up to this hacker.“Can you follow the hacker’s path and find out where they are?”“No sir, I already tried, I think that whoever code master is they called backup for this hack, because while I watched them place the worm in our systems someone was watching me and I couldn’t get them off my tail. I did try though, however, every time I thought I would get anywhere I was led to a proxy server. Code master never got caught for one good reason; they can cover their tracks very well. I wish I could give you better news boss.” Skye said, the apology coating her words.“You did your best and that’s all I can expect, just keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn’t try to get any other information, even if it is in the non-classified section. Thank you for letting me know Skye.” Coulson said, already logging into the secure server where all classified information was kept.“No problem sir,” Skye replied before hanging up and looking more deeply into the code for the worm.-.-.-.-.-“Coulson” stated a voice that was very well known to the man who was just called.“Director Fury, how may I help you?” Coulson asked politely but distractedly, he was still searching through files for someone named Max.“I was informed that you are looking for someone going by the name of Max, may I inquire as to why?” Fury asked which came out more as an order.“No particular reason, just that I had heard something in passing regarding a person named Max and figured I’d look into them. Why?” “Because the information that you are looking for will not be found in our data banks, there are only two people who could really tell you about Max, at least pertinent information regarding him. Now tell me the real reason you are looking into Max and I might set you up to meet one of these people.” Fury stated, staring directly into Coulson’s eyes to show that lying would be a bad idea, no matter that Coulson was one of his best agents.“Someone is looking for Max, they planted a small worm with a direct set of orders to look for information about Max and only Max. I want to know who Max is so that I can figure out why they want that information, and whether or not he might need protection. I figured that it would be the best to research information regarding him this way,” Coulson explained shortly, he didn’t like being kept in the dark about anything.Director Fury hummed a little under his breath as he considered his agent, debating on whether or not to give him the information that he is searching for. “Fine grab your go bag, you’ll be there for a couple of days.” Was all he said before stalking out of the room and barking orders at some of the people loitering in the hallway.-.-.-.-Skeye did keep him informed about the breach and that when the hacker left the network they shored up the breach better than it had been when they got passed it. Skeye also decided to mention that the hacker was better than her in many ways, and that they left a note in the system for Coulson before handing it over to the man who looked genuinely amused at it before he reached for a lighter in his desk and set it on fire. Skeye felt a bit uneasy with the stare that was leveled on her once the note was finished burning when Coulson opened his mouth and started to speak, “You read the note?” At her nod, Coulson seemed to grimace a bit, “Tell no one what you read in that note. I know who the hacker was, and if they are looking for information containing Max then I will make sure to put it into the system as soon as I have it. You said that the worm has set parameters?” Once again Skeye nodded. “Good that means she isn't looking for other sensitive information, only the information that will clear the names of a few good men, men that I hope to recruit some day, or hope to if Tony Stark doesn't get to them first. It's going to be a bidding war if he does.” Skeye hid a smile at the exasperation that covered Coulson's tone at the thought of Tony Stark. While Skeye might like the man's technology and devil may care attitude for the cameras she had a feeling that the man himself drove Coulson to have quite a few of the gray hairs on the mans head. Figuring that she had been excused Skeye quickly said her good bye's and left her boss's office and returned to her small cubicle to keep an eye on the worm and make sure no one destroyed it, placing a small bit of code to into it's parameters to let the originator know that Coulson received the note and that they should hopefully have information about the man that they were looking for soon.