"Hm?"

Gunther took his feet off his desk and sat upright to read the newest public chat message. It was from the Keeper. Something about server instability. 

"NERVE, eh," he muttered, opening a new browser tab and searching the name, limiting it to News sources and sorting it by Most Recent. He knew about NERVE. At this point, though, who didn't? They were becoming more of a threat every day, especially since the government was on the edge of offering a steady source of income. Black hat hackers and cyber criminals who weren't doing so well were changing sides and using their connections to make a good bit of money from turning in those who were once allies. He had to admit, it was an excellent system. The government was making an enormous long-term investment in cyber security by essentially recruiting the bad guys to do what they couldn't.

It could have made a half-decent plot for a movie.

Of course, their plans were not without consequence, as the most recent news article reported the murder of am ex-hacker NERVE operative. A mysterious message had been left on the body. Some kind of cipher. The news outlet had provided a scan of it and Gunther took the liberty of downloading it to check out later on. A thought occurred to him, and he brought up the active registry of NERVE operatives, something he kept updated both from public records and snooping through the deep web. There was an informal whistle-blower protection service offered to hackers-turned-NERVE that prevented their real name and ID from appearing in the public registry, but even the best hackers couldn't maintain a double lifestyle and "missing" cyber criminals could have changed jobs. Gunther took a moment to highlight the dead man's name and scratch it off the list. One more down.

Down?...

Gunther refreshed the page. The chatroom was still down. Guess Keeper_3 was being a little extra thorough. He opened the thin notebook on his desk and wrote himself a note to check in with a certain vulture. Maybe there was a whole new market opening up. Satisfied for now, he locked his laptop, pulled on a hoodie and snatched a dog leash from a hook by his door, giving the metal clip a little jingle. Zero was at his bedroom door in a second, sitting and thumping his tail loudly on the ground. 

"You want to take a walk?"

The shepherd barked in return, generating a small grin from the German. He clipped the leash on and slipped into a pair of sneakers. Guess the chat could wait for now.