Page 2 of Hacking His Code

Father left shortly after Mother’s terminal diagnosis, finding a trailer trash girlfriend with a young son and a drinking problem. What little money Mom took from the divorce went towards her treatment. Of course, she insisted that was silly. Why waste our resources on her when I had tuition to pay? So I lied and told her I had a full-ride scholarship.

Then, things got worse. She couldn’t afford the apartment we’d lived in for eighteen years, so I had to find another. I went apartment hunting and moved into a one-bedroom just last week. She’s set to move in next month.

She couldn’t even afford to die in the place she had called home for more than half her life.

It’s so unfair.

Now, I’m drowning in debt with destroyed credit and little hope that I’ll ever climb my way out of this monstrous black hole I’ve dug for myself. But I have to get that degree.

For her.

“I’ll call back in a few days,” Angela says, irritated. “Take care.”

I exhale a ragged breath as I try to formulate a plan. How do I stay in school with no money, terrible credit, and a mountain of debt?

Of course, there are the obvious answers. Stripping would bring in some easy cash, but unfortunately, I came to that conclusion rather late, and there’s no way I can manage to bring in over twenty-thousand dollars in five days, even if I stripped from sunrise to sunset.

I’ve been donating plasma for two years now, but they’ve recently cut reimbursement rates. I’d consider selling a kidney, but that’s illegal. I’ve even filled out an egg donation form, but so far, there have been no takers. I have no friends to beg for money because my ability to forge lasting friendships has greatly deteriorated under the stress load I’ve been shouldering.

My gaze travels over to my computer terminal. The one I haven’t touched in years.

You promised you’d never do that again.

That’s not entirely true, I reason. I promised I’d never hack a government system, but I never said anything about hacking private enterprises.

I know I’m just trying to logic myself into a bad decision—one I could go to jail for.

I exhale slowly, taking a seat at my desk—not my main one, the other one. The one that got me into so much trouble.

I shouldn’t have moved it over, but for some reason, I can’t part with it. It calls to me every now and then, and the pull has never been this strong.

I boot up the computer, and because it’s been six years since I last hit the power button, it’s slow, which only edges me closer to panic.

You’re breaking a promise.

I’m doomed to break one promise or another with the hole I’ve dug for myself, and if I’m careful, no one will ever find out.

I type into the mainframe until I find myself on the dark web.

Hello, old friend.

It doesn’t take long to familiarize myself with the screens. The ease at how I slip into my past self causes a caustic feeling of dread to bloom inside me.

Growing up, my family lived paycheck to paycheck, struggling to gain a foothold in the world. I was singled out and tested in grade school, and they determined that I was all kinds of smart. Because of my big brain, I got to go away to camps for free as well as attend expensive schools, all bills paid.

At fourteen, I was slipping in and out of places on the web I shouldn’t have been for fun. I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong until a teacher clued me in. I smiled, thanked her for the insight, and never crossed that line on school grounds again.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson. My new hobby was fun, exciting, and WAY too tempting for me to stay away from.

I got better, learning new skills, and I joined chats with people who shared my interest.

That was a mistake.

If I had just gone on having fun, I wouldn’t have been caught, but real life took hold, forcing my eyes open.

One of the hackers I was acquainted with worked at a police department. He was frustrated because the stuff he found on who he called ‘the worst of the worst’ couldn’t lead to an arrest because of how it was acquired. At the time, I was fifteen, but they didn’t know that, and they posted things that burned into my brain, alerting me to the seedy underbelly of the world that I had only been vaguely aware of.

There was a network of traffickers that traded drugs…and other commodities. I was angry, at the police, at the world, at everyone.