Ground Zero by EndMaster R

Confronting Xavier won’t do any good; even if he is guilty he’s just going to deny it. Possibly even antagonize him to hacking you a lot sooner. You figure maybe you should alert the Shelter about the situation and get a better understanding of its workings. You’ve been spending so much time with Becky that you’ve been neglecting other matters.

“Shelter, can you tell me a little bit more about your systems? Could you easily be hacked?”
“Hacked sir? Well it is possible, but highly unlikely as I have been equipped with the latest protection programs, some of it even military in origin. Are you worried someone is going to try to hack me?”
“Kind of. I don’t know. Paul’s shelter failed, and I just got this feeling it wasn’t completely due to shoddy workmanship.”
“Well I do remember you telling me that his wasn’t opening up. Not all these shelters were built as well as me. There were budget cutbacks during the construction of these you know.”
“I suppose.”
“You seem distressed sir. I’ll tell you what, it’s going a little bit out of my programming as outright spying and monitoring other shelters isn’t really part of the GZS terms of agreement, but I’ll do it. First signs of anyone trying to get anywhere NEAR my systems or anything else suspicious I’ll alert you immediately and bring the elevator down for a hasty escape in case everything goes wrong.”
“Well that does make me feel better, thanks.”
“You’re welcome sir, I might suggest you read up on your electronics, you may need them. I will inform you of anything that wasn’t covered in my manual, or if you have any extra questions.”

A few weeks pass as you take the Shelter’s advice and start studying up. You’re spending less time with Becky, but it can’t be helped. When you do talk to her, you tell her she should do the same thing you’re doing. She thinks you’re being overly paranoid though, and despite your closeness, she’s still skeptical that you have a shelter that talks to you on a regular basis. (The only one who ever really believed you on that was Paul) She also thinks you’re trying to tell her what to do, rather than looking out for her. You’re starting to look like the “Strict Dad” rather than the “Fun Dad” now. Things between you become a little strained and a couple more months pass and Becky and you aren’t really together anymore. You notice Xavier talks to Becky a little more now, but it doesn’t really seem serious. Miranda also attempts to talk to Becky more seeing that you’re out of the picture, but Becky still doesn’t seem interested in her. Meanwhile Mark unsuccessfully makes advances towards Miranda.

It seems like everyone is chasing someone else that isn’t interested, except you, who inadvertently discarded intimacy in favor of security and survival…though not entirely, you did look into this supposed hacker business in an effort to protect not just you, but Becky as well because you did like her. You just wish she would’ve listened to you.

Meanwhile you’re keeping an eye on the situation and asking the Shelter for security updates, which still says it doesn’t detect anything. You wonder if you were wrong and you just fucked up the only relationship you possibly had a chance at in what’s left of this world…

Another year passes...

Mark stops logging on for two months which is strange, because he always made an effort to get online whenever possible even when he was in the middle of fixing something. You know he also thought he was “getting somewhere” with Miranda as well.
Everyone doesn’t say too much about it. While it’s possible he’s just lost network connection and can’t access the rest of you, it’s a given that probably the worst has happened.

Normally after losing Becky to your previous paranoia, you’d be willing to chalk it up to normal shelter failure this time especially since he had a lot of problems anyway, but fortunately your Shelter was doing some deeper inspection into the situation.

“Sir, I have some vital information I think you should know about. I’m sorry it took me so long, but the hacker went to great lengths to cover their tracks.”
“Hacker? You mean there is one then?”
“Yes, I temporarily diverted some of my own power to Job24’s shelter and started accessing the systems there. It was obviously hacked upon direct inspection; some of the programs were completely fried particularly the food and water dispensers.”
“Wait, you can do that?”
“I’m not supposed to sir, but I know you’ve been worrying about this and since the shelter was already technically offline, the agreement doesn’t say I can’t monitor it.”
“Wait so Mark? Is he still alive?”
“Afraid not sir. I detected no life signs. Humans can’t go two months without water.”
“No, of course they can’t…so who’s the hacker?”
“Don’t know sir, like I said they did a very good job of covering their tracks, I do know it isn’t RockerChick20, which only leaves Shadow21 or MissKitty25. From what I’ve detected BOTH of their shelters are showing irregularities, so both of them have been modifying their shelter’s systems for whatever purpose. I suppose it’s possible both of them have been hacking.”
“Oh thanks Shelter, that makes me feel better!”
“I wasn’t my intention to cause you more distress; just stating the possibilities sir…maybe you could directly confront one of them privately. While you have their attention, I can do more inspection and know for certain. Both of them have already broken their terms of agreement by modifying their shelters, so they aren’t under GZS protection contract anymore. I can do whatever you want to either of them.”