The Hacker (1) Prologue- The boy sat bathed in the light from his computer screen. He did not mind the low lighting of the room. His figuring had been someone would be able to see him from the window. Being caught was not an option because he could not spend decades upon decades rotting in prison for a simple hacking project. He cracked his knuckles. Carefully he placed his fingers on the keyboard. Beside him sat an identification card of a grinning man partially bald man. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parsons,” he said while looking at the picture. He hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand. It was not his intention to have to steal the keycard from his close friend’s father. But that was the means he had to execute to achieve his ends. Maybe it would be worth it. He would win favor with his friends. They had seemed to start drifting from him since he had started to hang out with his newer friends. So this was the way he chose to regain the interest of his old friends. He would hack into NASA. It would be so simple. He sighed and booted up his Internet server. He connected and moved into his Telnet program, which he used to execute his online role-playing games. Easily he moved by placing the correct IP address into the application. All was going well until the application asked him for his sign-in name and password. He gulped. What would a middle-aged balding man use as his password? Normally, they have nothing. No real friends. No real hobbies. Only careers, wives and children. He snapped his fingers. That made perfect sense. Middle aged men love nothing more then their children! More importantly daughters, teenage daughters. As luck would have it, he was friends with Parsons’ teen-age daughter, Ashley. He grinned at the computer as he readied himself to type the name into the password box. Bling! His body jumped and he tensed, half expectant to hear accompanying sirens screaming in the distance. Rather, it was an instant message sent by his friend with a simple, ‘hey.’ He chuckled to himself. Perhaps it was his own fearful stupidity or that the message was from Ashley, the daughter of Anthony Parsons. He responded by explaining his given situation at the time. While carefully omitting the story of her father’s stolen keycard. Her responses of quiet concern but overall reluctance to let him be left him in a state of peace. It seemed as though his new friends had the ability to calm him. They also seemed to care about him more then the one who were forcing him to hack into NASA. Or rather, ignoring him until he did. No one could force him to do anything. He was too opinionated. He exited the instant message window and returned to NASA page. With a sigh, he looked at the screen. It read: “If you are not authorized to be here then exit this site now. You will face no legal action. If you are authorized, please enter your user name and password here.” He moved his blonde hair from his eyes and sighed for a second time. Maybe he should listen to Ashley and not enter the site. But his friends…they had been there since freshman year. He needed them, even though he wasn’t sure if they needed him. He shook his head. There was a long way he had come and now there was no turning back. He was so desperate to get his old friends back he had stolen Mr. Parsons’ keycard. He could always just give it back. No…he was here and he was going to do what he had set out to accomplish. Reluctantly, he pressed the enter key. The security site popped up. “Please enter name and password.” With no more second thoughts he entered: “Parsons, Anthony. Password: Ashley.” Chapter 1 She stood in front of the mirror carefully fixing her brown hair. She had spent hours carefully curling every strand of hair. If it did not look quite like the others, back into the curling iron it went. She did not care if she went bald in twenty years. She wouldn’t be in high school then. She would be somewhere, married to some important rich man, or so she planned. She pursed her lips. “Good morning beautiful,” she said. Of course she looked perfect. For her, everything had to be perfect. That’s who she was. If her uniform was not carefully pressed she would often scream at her mother using words she later regretted. She did not regret these words out of guilt but rather she did not particularly enjoy being grounded. “Ashley, dearest, you’re going to miss the bus!” Mrs. Parsons called up to her daughter. Ashley pouted her thin lips into the mirror and shrugged. Who cared if she was late? She could always ask her mother to drive her. It’s not as though she had anything better to do. All her mom did was stay at home and take care of the baby, who was rather unwanted in Ashley’s eyes. Her brother just came one day, probably about a year ago. Her parents had called him Jacob. What an awful name, but it suited an awful child. He would howl at night causing Ashley to loose much needed sleep. How she hated going to school with dark blue circles underneath her eyes, because it made her so unattractive. She studied herself in the mirror, finally deciding she was cute and her large brown eyes suited her thin face quite well. “Ashley!!” Her mother’s voice cut through the tranquil atmosphere of the powder blue bathroom. She rolled her eyes extravagantly and moved to exit the bathroom. “I’m not driving you today!! You’ll walk and I don’t care how cold it is!” “Shit,” Ashley muttered to herself as she noticed she was still dressed in her pastel pink pajamas. She grabbed the green plaid uniform and quickly changed. In a moment, she was looking as perfect as she did everyday. One more time she checked all the essentials. Hair, nails, and perfectly pleated uniform. She skipped down the dimly lit stairwell and, without even saying goodbye to her mother, left the house. Anthony Parsons woke with a start when the door slammed. He looked about the room in tired stupor. Moaning to himself, he glanced at his clock. Shit, it was 7:45. Why the hell hadn’t his alarm gone off? He leapt out of bed and quickly moved to his closet. The sunlight filtered through the open window. He grimaced as the bird sang. He hated the mornings and driving for an hour to a low paying government job. How did this happen? He was voted most successful in his high school class. Flipping through his assortment of chocolate brown slacks, he sighed. They were all the same. His right hand slid over a pair of light grey. Maybe all he needed was a touch of spice to add a little variety to his life. For the first time in years, he would wear grey and not brown. He sighed, like anyone would ever notice if he were to change. Remorsefully, he changed and shaved. When he was done, he went down stairs. He entered the kitchen through the white archway and met his wife. “Good morning, Marie,” he said, barely noticing her existence. “Good morning dear,” she called. He had convinced himself she had forgotten his name long ago. When she would talk to him he was “dear” or “honey,” never Anthony. She hadn’t called him that since they had children. Sometimes he thought it was so she could forget about what she had given up to be with him. Everything. She had lost everything to be with him. Her father had disowned her for marrying someone who worked in the government. Anthony could never understand why. Ever since they had children, there was never any time for just them. He wished he could give her, the life she could have had back. That’s what they had planned to do when Ashley went to college, move into a tiny cottage on the Jersey shore. Just the two of them and what could be stolen from her college fund. That was until the baby came along. Since Jacob had been born, they had talked less and less. Never even fighting, just staring with dull and vacant eyes across the dinner table while Ashley hummed music and the baby cried. “Are you okay?” his wife asked him. He blinked, dumbfounded, “Yeah, I guess I just lost my train of thought. Did Ashley leave yet?” She nodded. “I heard the door slam, as usual. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me. Aren’t you late?” “Yes, I better be going. Do you have my lunch?” She handed him the brown paper bag that was carefully creased at the top. He moved to kiss her, but she shifted her weight and stepped away. Pained by her reaction, he could do nothing more then turn and leave through the door in the kitchen. Mike was halfway to school before he realized that he had forgotten his school bag. Who cared anyway? It seemed as though he might not graduate in the spring. But none of that mattered to him. He always thought school was just nothing more then a waste of his time. He sighed and pushed his accelerator further into the ground. He figured that if a cop caught him, it didn’t matter. Another two hundred-dollar driving ticket wouldn’t be as bad as the most recent news his parents had found out. With much searching and dismay, they had uncovered the fact that their son was homosexual. The news had sent his mother to her room in tears and his father storming out of the house. He didn’t want to tell them but they asked. The clock on his dashboard read 8:00. If he didn’t get to school soon, he would be late. Maybe he should do eighty and not just seventy-five. The engine whirred as it gained speed. He didn’t know how his aging Honda could actually stay together at these speeds. It would whir and growl almost as though it were falling apart. More times then not, he thought it was. He entered the school parking lot only a few minutes after eight, pulled into space 209 and bolted for the door. Not sooner had he gotten through the door, then the nearest nun bellowed, ‘Mr. Matthews, good to see you again. Late as ever and out of uniform, I see.’ ‘Sister Lucinda, I’m not late yet,’ he explained while tucking in his shirt. ‘And I’m not out of uniform.’ ‘Of course, you’re not,’ the grotesque nun winked with her good eye. She resembled something of a weathered gargoyle, short and fat. Her ears appeared to be the fins, which are often carved into the side of the head. Her eyes, deep set and far apart, were hard to look at. She had some sort of problem, where she would look the left when she was actually staring down her victim’s throat. Mike cringed. ‘You teenagers think you are all so great. You think that with your baby blue eyes and your blonde hair, you can make all the girls swoon.’ She motioned towards Mike as he chuckled. ‘I’ve got my-,’ she was abruptly cut off when the bell rang. ‘Pardon me sister, I need to get to class,’ he said as he walked past the nun. She could do nothing more then glare because for once the senior had been on time for school. Next time, she promised herself. Next time she would get that annoying brat who followed her around asking where her habit went. Why couldn’t he just accept the fact that nuns could now choose to display their faith or to conceal it? With a smirk, she pulled a demerit slip out of her pocket. Maybe she could play the bad nun. What should Mike be guilty of today? Defiance? She decided it was too good for the creep she was dealing with. Finally she chose gross insubordination worth twenty demerits. Michael Matthews would be rotting in detention for weeks. It was almost worth a chuckle, she decided as she passed the demerit slip along to the vice-principal. Chapter Two- The first two periods of the day went by fast for Mike. Maybe that was because he was doing what he loved. First and second period, he had his music classes. That was the only time of the day he really go to express who he truly was. If only the school’s academic criteria was based only on music. Then maybe he would graduate. Then maybe he wouldn’t have to study for hours on end, only to fail a test. He glanced at the boy across the table from him. The tall, thin blond boy who looked as though he might break off in the middle. Mike noticed the boy was staring at a girl across the cafeteria, a sophomore. ‘Bill, why do you bother staring at her like that? It’s over?’ ‘What do you mean?’ the boy turned and looked at Mike, both pitiful and pathetic. He seemed so vulnerable in that moment that the slightest insult would send him, ready to commit suicide. Mike sighed. ‘You guys are friends, right?’ Bill nodded eagerly. ‘Then why do you two never talk in school?’ ‘I guess it’s because she doesn’t want to. Me being, you know. Who I am and all…’ his voice trailed off, in a sort of half-hearted lamentation. ‘Just because she’s popular doesn’t mean she can’t be your friend. If she truly was your friend, then she would be more then happy to achieve popularity.’ Mike turned back to his sandwich. He had placed it in the bottom of his backpack as usual. The result was an interesting mix of bread particles, scattered with bits of ham and cheese. There was not much else he would do other then eat the horrid thing, so he bit into it. The bland taste did not seem to bother him. His mom had very been much of a cook either. ‘We’re friends outside of school. We talk all of the time on the Internet. She tells me how much she cares about me and wishes it were all-different!’ Bill interjected. Mike rolled his eyes, his usual response to any comment Bill threw out involving Ashley. He wasn’t sure quite when the two had become friends. He was a senior and the other two were sophomores. But he knew that Ashley lived two houses down from Bill. He had never known where Bill lived. Bill had mentioned a green house and Ashley living in a red one. If Mike ever listened to anything, he deserved a prize. With a half full mouth, Mike asked, ‘I know you’ve told me about a million times before but how did you two stop talking?’ Bill grinned, he was anxious to talk about his friends other then Mike. Sadly, all he had was Ashley. Pulling nervously he began his story, ‘I moved onto Temple Street, probably when I was four or so. It was in the spring and by summer no one had decided to be my friend. But my mom and Ashley’s mom had become good friends so I was invited to her birthday party. We complimented each other really well. What ever the one was thinking we know it. Even know…she’s thinking about her makeup…’ Mike checked, sure enough, Ashley was reapplying her lip liner. ‘Yeah, but how come she won’t talk to you in school?’ The smile melted from Bill’s face. His brown eyes seemed to grow distant and fearful. He sighed, ‘Well, we were best friends all through grade school. When we hit eighth grade everything between us changed. Well, I didn’t but she did. She just wasn’t the same since she started hanging out with girls…she discovered make-up and that’s all she is. A pretty little powder puff, not my best friend.’ ‘Then why do you hang on?’ Mike asked, out of genuine interest. ‘I know she’ll change,’ he said before getting up and running towards the bathroom. Mike was almost certain he had seen tears. She fluffed her hair again, while staring in the mirror. It was the third time she had checked it in the past five minutes. On her left, she noticed a green flash of a sweater running out of the cafeteria. She shrugged; it was probably some loser anyway. ‘Did you just notice that?’ her friend Kristi asked. ‘Notice what?’ ‘That weird guy that just went running past. He’s been staring at you all period and now it looks like he’s crying. Maybe he’s stalking you? Maybe he’s going to kill little flowers and put them in your locker? Maybe he wants to do to you what he did to the flowers!’ she laughed haughtily as the other girls as the table chose to follow her lead. Ashley sighed. Bill had never been too savvy around girls, especially her. It pained her to see him stare at her, with those big puppy-dog eyes. The glances were downright pathetic; usually all she would do was glare back at him. But today she hadn’t noticed him staring. Something had probably happened, maybe a family trouble or something. He’d tell her on the Internet, as always. She let her eyes roll towards the ceiling and fired back, ‘Isn’t your locker in that direction?’ Bill pushed his way into the bathroom. It had been years since he had displayed that much emotion, period, much less in public. He rubbed his eyes and attempted to use his deep breathing to help the tears subsided. ‘Yuck,’ he said, the foul stench of toilet cleansers burned his lungs. Maybe that would be a good excuse to cry. He decided not to and swallowed all of his pain into the pit of his stomach. A sigh escaped him because there was nothing he could do. His best friend was a girl who ignored him in school because he wasn’t cool enough. His only other friend was a senior who, in turn, had no one else. Why had his old friends deserted them? Had they not found his exploits in the NASA database fascinating? Did they not find it interesting that he could manipulate the positions of hundreds of satellites and take a thousand pictures? His plan had backfired. Suddenly he heard the door to the bathroom fly open. A few voices floated, inaudible. He dove into the nearest stall and shut the door. Slumping in the corner, he drew his knees to his chest. To be seen crying by a group of high school boys was death. Especially when Bill was a sophomore and he was certain these could be seniors. ‘Can you believe the Schwieker kid hacked into NASA?’ one of the voices said, it sounded almost like his ex-friend Bob. The two had a fight over the summer when they both thought themselves to be the supreme hacker. Of course, Bob not only won the contest but the group of friends the two had gathered. This left Bill alone, with the exception of Mike, the first person to civilly say hi to him at the beginning of the year. Bill glued himself to Mike. ‘It’s a crock. A load of shit. Schwieker was just trying to get us back. He has no friends, of course he would lie. He never learned that if you attack the leader with false claims then you suffer the consequences. He’s just lucky we never made his life a living hell,’ one of them said. A few of them started to chuckle. A sob arose from Bill, but he caught it in his throat. He waited through what seemed like years for the group to finish their business and leave. Soon after, he broke down and wept.
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Copyright © 2001 Naomi Reid |