Chapter 1468: Let them come at us

Meanwhile...

"How is it?" Penny asked, arms crossed as she stood among her guests, watching the event from the railing.

Yugi, standing beside her, shook his head. "There’s nothing I can do at the moment."

"..." Penny kept her mouth shut, though a big smile spread across her face as she turned to the group. "My dearest guests, I’ll be stepping away for a while. Please do enjoy the event."

With that, Penny turned, her smile vanishing almost immediately. As she walked off, Atlas, who was among the guest arched a brow while following his sister’s figure with his gaze.

Meanwhile, Teddy and Hayley quickly followed their boss.

"Hayley, stay here," she ordered, stopping Hayley in her tracks.

Hayley lowered her head without a word, stealing a glance at Penny’s expression. Noticing the whispered exchanges between Penny and Yugi, she could sense something was off. Penny wouldn’t wear that face if everything were fine.

Hayley turned on her heel, forcing a smile, knowing she had to fill in for Penny and keep the guests entertained. But as she approached the group, she stopped near Patricia and Shawn.

"Follow her," she said to Patricia, causing the latter’s brows to rise. "It’s better if one of you stays here."

"Huh?" Patricia blinked, confused, as Hayley walked past. She glanced at Shawn, who simply shrugged.

"I don’t know what’s going on," he said.

Despite the confusion, Patricia eventually followed after Penny. Meanwhile, Shawn followed Hayley for some answers as it seemed there’s a switch in partners now.

"Hayley," he said, stopping beside her, keeping just enough distance from the guests to avoid being overheard, "what’s going on?"

"I don’t know," Hayley sighed. "But it can’t be good. Otherwise, the boss wouldn’t be getting involved personally."

After working at Prime Group for a few days, Hayley had learned something important: Yugi’s role wasn’t just running his own department — he handled a lot of small issues as well. But if something was beyond his control, Penny would step in.

The same rule applied to her secretaries. If they could solve a problem, they would. If not, they had to escalate it to her. Since Yugi got Penny involved, it was surely big enough of a problem for Penny to be involved.

"For now, let’s just make sure no one notices anything’s wrong," she said, giving Shawn a knowing look.

"Uh..." Shawn, not exactly a social butterfly, forced a smile. "I’ll do my best."

---

"I already asked someone to look into it," Yugi said as he walked with Penny, this time not bothering to whisper—the event was loud enough to mask them. "But I just heard from headquarters: without full activation, it’s hard to determine what kind of virus it is."

Patricia, catching up behind them with Teddy, overheard Yugi’s words.

"What’s going on?" she asked Teddy quietly.

"What are you doing here?" Teddy furrowed his brows, knowing Penny didn’t call for her.

"I was told to follow."

"By who?"

"Hayley."

Teddy opened his mouth but then paused and changed his mind. "Just stay quiet and observe. Keep your ears and eyes open."

Even Teddy didn’t know exactly what was happening. But from what he was hearing, he was starting to piece things together. Despite the blurry lines, he could say it was bad. Very bad.

"But one thing I’m sure of," Yugi continued, "bugs have been planted here."

At that, Penny stopped in her tracks and turned to him. He met her gaze and nodded. "Someone on-site planted it. And we’re not just looking at the players—staff too."

"We don’t have time for that," she said, resuming her pace. "Where’s the office?"

"This way." Yugi jogged ahead to lead them while Penny, Patricia, and Teddy followed. He noticed Patricia trailing behind but didn’t question it.

Soon, the four entered a room where a few Prime Group tech experts were already working. As the door opened, everyone turned to look.

"Show me," Penny ordered, striding toward an employee seated at a computer.

"This, Boss," the man replied, fingers flying across the keyboard. "We found this while running security checks before the event. It shouldn’t be here. But the second we tried to remove it, our whole system crashed."

He gestured to another computer and Penny’s gaze followed.

"Did you try troubleshooting?" she asked.

"We did," another answered. "But it’s no use. It’s attacking both the software and the hardware—it overheats just from being turned on."

A tense silence followed before Penny’s eyes shifted to Yugi.

"I tried," Yugi said quickly, knowing what she was about to ask. "Same results. There’s nothing else I can do. We’d have to replace the parts. But even then, I’m not sure it’s safe."

"Miss Penny," another team member added, "whoever did this knows what they’re doing. This was planned."

"Without that bug, we could run diagnostics. But it only appeared today."

"It’s been here for days," Penny muttered. "It’s just that no one noticed until now. It’s probably concealed properly."

Yugi nodded, arriving at the same conclusion. The bug was the heart of the problem. And since every device—from the computers to the TV screens—was networked, it was a serious threat.

"They’ve managed to slow its spread to other devices," Yugi added. "But we still don’t know what this virus is capable of until it activates."

His team nodded in agreement.

"But Boss," one of them spoke up, "we can’t wait to find out. It might be designed to disrupt the event."

"We’ve gathered the world’s best hackers here," another said, sounding defeated. "Even with the contracts and extra security, we can’t guarantee one of them didn’t plant this."

"They’re going to sabotage the event."

Teddy and Patricia exchanged uneasy glances, their faces marked by concern as they looked at Penny.

Penny stood silent, lost in thought. Then, she looked up and scanned the room.

"This isn’t an attack on the event," she said firmly. "It’s an attack on the Prime Group."

"What?"

"Leave the bug alone for now," she said, not bothering to elaborate. "Let them come at us."

"But Penny—" Yugi took a step forward but paused as she met his gaze. After a beat, he swallowed his next words. "Then... what do we do next? Let them come at us, then what?"

Everyone looked at her, waiting—her secretaries included. Even Patricia and Teddy could sense how serious this was. If what she said was true, then the Prime Group would be in serious trouble because many of the people in this event were highly respectable and couldn’t afford disappointing them.

Penny took a deep breath, her eyes sharp with resolve. "Prepare the launch for Citadel."