Page 3 of Hacking His Code

I thought I was being smart, collecting evidence, bouncing signals, cleaning my trail, and delivering a cache of evidence that was anonymously sent to various agencies.

SPOILER ALERT:I got caught.

A huge investigation was conducted. They talked to my parents, my school, my teachers—everyone. It became a national headline. Since I was a minor, my name was never released, but I got expelled from school all the same, and a juvenile record to boot.

That was six years ago. I’m smarter now, and if I stay away from FBI and CIA hotspots, I could make good money doing low-level hacking. Rich women seeking a better divorce payout would pay well enough, and who knows, maybe I could squeeze a few jobs in over the next two days and make enough to at least get the university off my ass.

I scan forums for hours and set up a few shell accounts. I put together a list of potential clients ranging from an heiress who didn’t demand a prenup when she married her boy toy, to a twenty-one-year-old whose eight-five-year-old husband died and is now having to fight his family for her part of the estate.

A message pops onto my screen.

That’s weird.

Chicken Dinner:I need you to retrieve a jpeg file from a server and post it to a Chatter account. If you successfully complete the mission in thirty minutes, twenty-five-thousand dollars will be wired to you. Shall I send over the information?

I blink, trying to see if I’ve gone insane, and when I realize my eyes are working, I know it can only mean one thing.

Oh-my-GOD—I’ve been caught.

My first instinct is to press the power button and be done with hacking altogether, but I’m paralyzed, unable to move, unable to even breathe.

My brain attempts all kinds of logic until it finally reaches some state of reasonability.

I’ve done nothing wrong…yet.

Chicken Dinner is no police officer, and if the police were to hire me this way, they wouldn’t be able to charge me due to entrapment laws. Not only that, but I doubt the FBI spends their time monitoring my computer activity.

Chicken Dinner:Twenty-seven minutes and counting.

Shit!

This one hack could solve my big problem. I could complete the mission, get paid, forward the balance of my tuition to my school, and get my degree before my mom passes.

I have to risk it.

Ari:send the info

Less than a minute later, a clickable link pops up, and I download a file to my system.

The job is surprisingly easy, or at least it is for me. Some would consider it advanced. Five years ago, I could have done it in fifteen minutes flat. Now, I’m coming in at twenty-eight minutes with zero room for error.

Retrieving the image from the server wasn’t too hard, but hacking the Chatter account had me nervous for a minute.

My fingers fly over the keyboard, racing to get a ChitChat up to post in. The picture is surprisingly innocuous: two little girls, one behind a computer, the other dressed as a princess. They look identical.

Enter.

Done.

Twelve seconds to spare.

Chicken Dinner:Winner, Winner! Now, you wait.

Wait?My stomach twists in knots, suddenly sure this was a bad idea.

Ideally, I would have demanded half my fee up front, but with the timer going, I thought it best to collect on the backend. And it appears Chicken Dinner might be stalling.

I exhale an angry breath, flex my fingers, and begin typing a scathing message into the text box, telling Mr. Dinner that if he doesn’t pay up, he’s going to find himself hacked out of a house and home.