"What is this? You were quite confident a mont ago when you said you were going to win the prize money, so why aren’t you saying anything now?"
"Could it be you’re feeling intimidated now that you’ve realized you stand no chance of getting the prize money?"
Laura’s teammates jeered with a snort when several seconds went by with Kelsie not giving Laura an answer.
Kelsie simply ignored them as she was too busy composing a short text ssage for her children’s nanny.
When Laura saw how focused she was, she snorted inwardly, concluding she was feigning ignorance so as not to be embarrassed.
Then she leaned back on her seat and waved the conversation aside dismissively.
"She must be embarrassed to repeat what she said just so minutes okay, but that’s okay. We’re already more than five minutes down. I’ll start attempting task now."
The room fell silent instantly, leaving only the sound of clacking keyboard filling the air.
However, it only ca from a few keyboards.
Ninety percent of the contestants had given up on the task as soon as they saw it while the remaining ten percent loved the challenge.
While those who had given up on the task were gritting their teeth in contempt of themselves and sighing every now and then, those who had Serbian Howard and Laura Sutton as theit team leaders were stress-free.
anwhile, the first girl who had joined Kelsie on her team was the only one who logged into her computer and was attempting the task.
The other three people on her team had long given up on the task as well.
As soon as she sent the text ssage, Kelsie went ahead to play the gas she found on the computer while keeping her eyes on the ti.
This task would take her nothing less than 10 minutes to finish. If she started and finished so soon, she was sure to draw a lot of attention.
However, the timid girl on the team was visibly stressing out.
She raised her eyes to look at Kelsie and then her teammates, asking in a trembling voice, "Are we just going to sit by while others attempt the task?"
The person closest to her turned and flashed her a smug smile.
"What’s your na?"
"Zoe. Zoe Derruci."
The girl slung a hand cross her shoulder and smiled again.
"Zoe, there are certain tasks people should never attempt if they don’t know anything about it."
Zoe Derruci lowered her eyes to the floor and retorted in a low tone, "If we don’t know anything about it, isn’t that the more reason to attempt?"
The girl chuckled and shook her head calmly, "I wish it worked that way, Zoe. But you see, tasks like this, if you start attempting to reverse engineer it, won’t take you hours. It’ll take you days."
"Given how slow you seem, it’ll probably take you weeks to figure it out. It’ll also leave you ntally drained and even more jumpy."
Another person patted Zoe consolingly on the shoulder.
"Look, in situation like this, there’s no need to do anything. The fact that we’re part of the contest already earns us rit amongst our fellow hackers."
Zoe Derruci wasn’t convinced and bit down on her lower lip.
"But we have to do sothing. We can’t just sit on our hands and wait for the ti to elapse, right?"
"That is exactly what we will do because to be very honest with you, I don’t know a thing about what we’re supposed to do and I’m ntally not capable of attempting it." The last teammate, who had his eyes pinned on his phone, butted in without pausing to look up at her,
Seeing they were serious about not participating, Zoe Derruci turned to look at Kelsie who was still playing gas on her computer.
"Team leader, you don’t agree with them, right? We still have ti. But if we do nothing, we will surely be kicked out for being useless."
The room was quiet enough for everyone to hear their conversation.
Laura’s teammates who had been looking for an opportunity to insult Kelsie further, saw their chance and imdiately took it.
"Tsk! I was looking forward to hacking your computers just to teach you bunch a lesson. Too bad I won’t be able to since you’ll be kicked out after this task."
"It’s la really. Why join the task if you’re so hopeless?"
"She was so sharp-tongued earlier, but now that she’s t with real action she can’t bring herself to say anything? Once she gets kicked out, I’ll be the first to stomp down on her."
Kelsie and her teammates simply ignored them and continued lazying around.
Zoe glanced at her teammates hopelessly before she went to sit beside Kelsie.
Hearing that she was an amateur, coupled with her lack of hostility compared to everyone else made Kelsie seem approachable to Zoe.
She pushed up the rim of her glasses and stared into Kelsie’s face.
"Is it true you really don’t know anything about hacking?"
Kelsie paused and glanced at her.
"Why?"
At the sudden eye contact, Zoe’s timid eyes instantly darted across everywhere else that didn’t have Kelsie’s face in it as she retorted.
"I an, if you really did brag that you’ll go ho with the prize, shouldn’t you at least make an effort to win it?"
"Laura Sutton is a formidable figure, so even though everyone knows you’re no match against her, you should at least put so work into this task."
"If you don’t, her teammates will never let you hear anything else after today. They’ll rub it in your face until you completely lose your self-esteem. I’ve seen it happen one too many tis."
The corners of Kelsie’s lips curled into a small smile hearing her and she glanced at the tir again to see they they didn’t have much ti left.
She leaned forward and pulled Zoe’s chair closer, positioning it to shield her from the view of the others.
Then she angled both their computers to the side, concealing their hands from view.
Feigning ignorance to the confusion in Zoe’s eyes, Kelsie cracked her knuckles for a few seconds before placing her hand on the keyboard in front of her.
"Alright then, let’s attempt it."
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