Post by CYPHER on Nov 5, 2022 1:58:45 GMT -5
PROLOGUE: h4ck3rth0n.m4v
May, 2022.
Djibouti, Africa.
Click-clack, click-clack.
The sound of fingers meeting keys reverberated around the darkened room.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Rows of nerds sat shoulder to shoulder, hunched over desktop computers and peering into monitors.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Except today they weren’t nerds. They were shredding the label that society had bestowed upon them because they didn’t conform. Because they were too fat. Too skinny. Neck beard. Long nose. Fat lips. Who knows? Whatever it was, they were ostracized for just being who they were.
But not tonight.
Tonight they were superheroes.
They were The Avengers assembled to tackle a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Code became their hammer, Windows 95 became their shield…
Wait.
Windows 95?
Cypher raised an eyebrow at the splash screen of the extremely outdated OS. He wasn’t in the states anymore, he was in Djibouti. The society here was more advanced than the natives on “the island” but not by much. Taking a quick look under the hood, it was clear that they were working with some less than optimal specs. The computer looked like it was from the stone age - a jungle of wires exploding from out of the back of the grimy tower.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Djibouti Hackerthon!”
The voice over a crackly PA came with a strong African accent.
“The instructions will appear on your device shortly. Please direct any questions to the system admin. Remember that any outside help is strictly forbidden.”
Cypher surveyed the room. He was one of the few hackers alone, the rest were all gathered in groups - one or two of them acting as the main “pilots” while the others backed them up. This was a traditional set up for hackathons, and Cypher knew it. He was immediately at a disadvantage, but he didn’t plan to rely on outside help either.
He would try to win on his own.
“But before we begin, a message from our sponsor…”
The MC, an older African man with greying hair, stepped away from the mic and was soon joined by a slick-looking man in a three piece suit. The MC applauded the businessman, encouraging the crowd to as well, but most were too preoccupied with their PCs to notice or care.
The sponsor looked more like he belonged at a CEO’s boardroom meeting than a hackathon. He took centre stage with a swagger which indicated he was comfortable speaking to crowds, and Cypher wondered how much he was being paid to attend a goddamn hackerthon.
“Thank you so much, it’s great to be here in Djibouti for the traditional hackathon! Let’s hear it for Omari and the team!”
As if blind to the previous attempt at rousing any response from the disinterested crowd, he applauded his statement loudly. The only ones who appeared to clap along were the staff, who even then looked like they were being forced to.
“We here at Entity are proud to be the official sponsors of the 2022 Djibouti Hackathon. We’d like to encourage all of you try out of our software, which you can access in the Start menu of all of these machines. Designed to help the older generation understand coding, Entity is an easy to use, easy to manipulate code which we think you’ll all come to appreciate.”
He smiled that fake as fuck smile that bankers kept in their back pocket. The whole thing seemed nonsensical to Cypher. He understood why the software was being used in this situation, since they were on old machines…but as an actual product? Old people coding? Lol, in this guy’s dreams.
“It’s also worth pointing out that this event has attracted some international attention, right over there, than esports pro turned professional wrestler, CYPHER!”
In an instant he felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him. A switch had been flipped, and now there was no way to un-flip it. His back prickled at the uneasy sensation of all the attention being focused on him. Normally he loved the spotlight, but this was different. It was too much, too soon. The sleazy prick on the microphone winked at him, a Cheshire grin plastered on his face. Cypher quickly pulled his hood forward, blocking most of his face from the room, and turned away, back to his PC.
“Annnnnyway, maybe you guys can get an autograph from him later, right now it’s time to start hacking!”
\~\
The first step was always about finding the entry point.
Once you had found that little opening, that one space where perhaps the coder had gotten lazy, or even implemented the second best defence instead of the first, everything else was just performance.
Many musicians say their anxiety peaks right before a performance, but once they’re on stage everything floats away.
For Cypher, all his worries would dissipate once he found his way in. Once he was inside the system, everything in his mind became clearer. Calmer.
From there it was about execution. Exploiting the system to make it work for him without triggering any alarms. The cat and mouse game between the system and its unwelcome occupant.
But he wasn’t renting a second rate instrument to play out his symphony. No, Cypher refused to touch the program Entity had put on the table. As he had promised himself, he would do this on his own, with no help from anyone.
Recently he had felt rusty and uninspired when it came to hacking. These days everyone was so quick to reach for military-grade encryption because they were paranoid about the government being up their ass. And while yes, it encryption could be broken, it was a hell of a lot of time and effort to do it. Time that he hadn’t really had as of late. So the hackathon presented an opportunity to prove that he still had it.
So far?
So good.
Time to make a deposit.
To gift the malware he had so carefully wrapped up to the clueless host, sit back, and watch the magic happen.
Click-clack.
…
ACCESS DENIED
What?
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Each time he was met with an ACCESS DENIED message that shouldn’t have been there. It didn’t make sense. Everything had gone to plan…and yet…
Sweat began to form on his brow. His hands trembled slightly, poised above the gritty Microsoft keyboard as the error message continued to flash on the screen.
Something wasn’t right…
The clock was ticking…
But he was frozen.
And then…
“WE HAVE A WINNER!”
Cypher’s immersion was instantly broken. He turned to see a group celebrating at their station, victorious after hours of hacking.
The staff were there to confirm it, they had reached the goal, and Cypher?
He had failed.
Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Next time, you should try the Entity software…Tyler.”
Cypher whipped around to see the businessman from earlier smirking at him. Smugness oozed out of him, from his slicked back light brown hair and dark red suit right down to his polished loafers and the name-tag which read "Aaron Swartz". He made Cypher feel incredibly uneasy, the way said his name dripped with venom.
Still, he shrugged him off.
“No thanks.”
Cypher quickly grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and brushed past him.
“We could use a sponsorship from someone like you.”
“Not interested.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
Tired of Aaron's shit, Cypher whipped around.
“Bruh, can u leave me the fuck alone? I don’t want anything to do with u or ur cringe software that ur marketing to boomers, k?”
“As I’ve heard, you still have the tendency to act like a child.”
“Stop acting like u know me, u don’t know shit about me. U found my name through a Google search, just like most losers in my Twitch chat.”
Aaron's expression hardened, and Cypher took great pleasure in having wiped that shit-eating grin off of his face.
Now, time to make his exit, gorge himself on Djibouti (food) and get on the next plane outta here.
He had only taken a few steps when something dawned on him. A little thought that had been in the back of his mind but he was unable to reach finally came to the fore.
“This was never a competition…”
“I’m sorry?”
“It was a demonstration.”
Cypher walked over to the PC used by the winning team. Sticking out of one of the USB ports was a red stick with a large stainless steel E on the middle of it.
“The reason I couldn’t access the final objective…
Cypher ripped the USB stick out of the ancient computer.
“Was because to even access it, we had to be using ur program.”
He held the end of the stick up to his eyes. USB 3.1 Gen 1. Contents likely encrypted.
This was some high-level shit.
Cypher looked up at Aaron, who half-smiled at him, as if to say "I can neither confirm, nor deny".
“Sort of smart, but I think I’m gonna be taking this..."
He turned heel and began walking away, expecting the rep to stop him.
But he didn't.
Instead he let him walk away without another word, allowing him to take the flash drive.
...
Then, once Cypher was out of sight, he quickly took out his phone and hit a number under speed dial.
"Hey, it's Aaron."
...
"Yeah, no commitment to sponsorship but he has taken the bait."
...
"I should know in a few hours."
...
"Ok, bye."
/~/
PROLOGUE: 1nt3rv31w.tv
“Thanks so much for making the time, Cypher.”
The Superior Design sat in front of a camera in a small media room. Instead of his traditional black hoodie and jeans, he was wearing a suit and tie. His hair, normally hidden beneath the hood, stood to attention after having been assaulted with moose earlier.
“Uh, yeah, thank you.”
Cypher itched at his tie as he answered, the tight ribbon feeling like a noose around his neck. All of this was the work of Dot. His longtime girlfriend who upon hearing he was having a live TV interview had insisted that he ditch the hoodie and don a suit. From the moment he put it on he had detested the feel of the restricting material on his arms and legs.
Now, sitting in front of a live feed, he felt completely and utterly embarrassed. He hadn’t even wanted to do the stupid interview, but apparently media appearances were “part of his contract”.
CLASSIC OCW BAY BEE!!
“You’ve had an impressive week with some big wins against Veronica Strader in OCW, and Action Wrestling’s Lissie Hope…
Clips from both matches played in quick succession, beginning with his breakthrough victory over Vee Strader at Massacre…
~Veronica returns to her feet, holding her stomach. She sees the commotion and looks on...but, from behind, Dangerous Dan enters the ring. He pops to his feet with the TransAtlantic Title in his grasp. The crowd yells and points. Veronica turns around and BLAST!!! She gets SMASHED in the face by the title!!! She drops to both knees. Dan dives out of the ring, tossing the belt at Belvedere, knocking him back into his chair. He hops the barricade...Chris backs up, hands in the air. CYPHER turns around and he sees Veronica in the same position he left her...he runs, hits the ropes, bounces off and CUTSCENE!!!! Veronica collapses to the mat!!! CYPHER dives on top...Gruff is in for the count~
1!
2!!
3!!!!!
~The bell rings~
Belvedere: Here is your winner….CYPH3R!!!!!
Then his deeply personal destruction of Lissie Hope at XIII…
With a twisted grin, Cypher stands in Lissie’s face again, and in utter defiance, Lissie manages to scream. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU FOR THIS.” Cypher’s smirk distorts into a scowl, and he plants his lead leg, before delivering the huge BOOM HEADSHOT superkick right under her chin!
Nate Nytro: This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen.
Lissie’s head slumps down, and she’s knocked out cold. Cypher unshackles her from the ropes, and she collapses into a heap onto the canvas. Cypher spins her on her back, and makes the pinfall.
1…
2…
3.
The crowd is hushed in absolute silence as Cypher gets to his knees, looking down at the bloody and unconscious Lissie Hope crumbled on the mat.
“So tell us, what’s your secret? How have you managed to go from a, well I didn’t want to say this on air but, a NERD to a wrestler featuring in the main event?”
The reporter’s question caught him off guard. He was hoping for a few slow balls, some easy hit kind of questions first. Like, “Why are you so good?” “Could you teach ME how to wrestle?” “Do you want to have sex later?!”
“Well?”
Crap, he’d been staring off into space, thinking about his answer. There was no time for that on live tv. Fuck, fuck, fuck, just say something!
“Training…you know, lots and lots of, uh, training..”
“That’s interesting, I know you were trained by Rob Langdon, formerly Shadow Demon of NLWF and IWF fame for all those boomers out there…but you’re not so close any more, what happened there? Wouldn’t you need the guidance of a World Champion to become one?”
Cypher gazed into the camera like a deer in the headlights. This bitch had done her research and was trying to tease something controversial out of him.
He would have easily gone in on Rob, talking about all the reasons he had decided to abandon him, but he had promised Dot he wouldn’t say something that could get twisted by the media.
“Rob was a great trainer in my early days, but he has his priorities and I have mine.”
Damnit.
“Well it seems like one of your priorities is in OCW, she accompanied you out for your match at Massacre last week and took a belt shot in the face for it. Tell us, what’s going on with you and Alexandra Calaway?”
He smirked, knowing exactly what she wanted him to say.
“We’re great friends, she’s a hell of a wrestler, in fact this week I think she is gonna absolutely PWN Tony the Spider this week.”
“Come on, you know what I’m really asking here…is there anything going on between you two? There were a string of tweets between the both of you earlier this week that were, let’s just say, revealing.”
Cypher facepalmed.
Of COURSE they would put those tweets on live TV.
The night when he realised that drinking and tweeting didn’t go hand in hand.
Dot had scolded him in the morning, though at first he hadn’t even remembered what he’d tweeted, which made her even more upset.
“We just had a little bit of fun, nothing in that.”
The reporter laughed - one of those condescending, sarcastic kind of “yea bullshit” laughs.
“Well if you say so, don’t know if our viewers are going to see it the same way - but moving on, on Monday Night Massacre you’re taking on The Dirtbag Kid. Now we’ve had some of our viewers call in and say this is basically going to be like Cypher taking on himself, how do you respond to that?”
Then it happened.
After so many questions designed to paint him in a bad light, to make fun of him after a week of breakthrough victories…
Cypher snapped.
“Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up. U know what? I never wanted to come on ur stupid program. All u do is dig shit up from our personal lives so u can ask ill-informed questions. Did u get a degree in looking a Twitter feeds? U whine about shit that doesn’t involve u so much ur probably a Lissie Hope stan. Alexandra and I have a sick as fuck professional relationship, we’re Hackerpocalypse and we’re going straight to the top, u hear me bitch? Yea she took a nasty shot but she can take it. She’s a strong woman, stronger than u. And when u see what I do to the Dirtbag Kid on Monday I hope u broadcast it all over ur pathetic channel, maybe then u’ll actually get some real “viewers”. The fact is ur talking to the next OCW Champion, whether u like it or not. That’s the difference between me and the Dirtbag Kid. I’m a contender, he’s probably a member of my Twitch Chat. So when u ask if we’re similar? I think that says more about u than it does about me.”
Cypher stood there, staring into the camera at the reporter with wild eyes. She looked flustered, stunned that someone actually stood up to her and her bullshit.
“Does that answer ur question?”
He sat down, loosening the tie from his neck, relieving the pressure that had built up over the course of the interview.
“Thanks for joining us, Cypher.”
“Yea, no problem.”
The feed cut off and he was suddenly alone. Cypher let out a loud sigh, and took out his phone. Already the messages and notifications were beginning to pile up, though one name in particular caught his eye.
Entity.
“Very impressive, Tyler...we’re sure Anna would be proud.”
Against his better judgment, he hit the “read more” button.
“Speaking of Anna. We know she’s important to you. That USB you took helped us learn all about her.”
“If you want to see her again, come and see us.”
/~/
//:ENT1TY_1.0_C0RRUPT10N
May, 2022.
Djibouti, Africa.
“You don’t need to do this Tyler.”
Alexandra Callaway stood in the doorway of Cypher’s hotel room, arms folded. She was stunning as usual, all glitz and glam in her high heels and sparkly dress.
Earlier he had promised her that he would go to dinner with her - strictly as friends, of course - while they had some downtime in Djibouti.
That had all changed when a series of messages flooded his phone. The messages contained a series of images of his long-lost sister, Anna.
Now Cypher knew this was no longer a game.
An organisation known as Entity had been messing with him for the past month. Constantly taunting him from the shadows, telling him they had something he wanted. What that actually was had been a mystery to him.
Until an hour ago.
When his phone had been assaulted with a barrage of images.
One.
After.
Another.
Of.
Her.
At first they were pics he had already seen. Taken before she disappeared. They illustrated the carefree blonde-haired girl she once was...
Before the innocence in his sister’s eyes was cruelly ripped away by someone or…something.
Initially Cypher wasn’t fazed. Anna’s disappearance had been a story on every major news channel in South Australia. They had shared as many photos as possible to help volunteers know who they were looking for.
Sure, every time he saw her face he felt like there was a nail being drilled into his heart, the tragedy of losing her replaying in his mind all over again, but he’d learnt to deal with it over the past 10 years. He wasn’t exactly proud of that, every time he forced himself to dissociate from the mental trauma he felt soulless, but it was the only way he could move on.
So he wrote it off as just a troll wanting to get a reaction out of him. During his esports career he’d often have to deal with bottom feeders who tried to get a reaction out of him by spamming links to images of Anna in his twitch chat.
But then the pics being sent through became more sinister.
“Alex, I’m sorry, I’m going.”
Cypher finished tying the laces on his black converse and stood up. He moved to brush past her but she caught his arm, her hand gripping him like a vice.
“Then let me come with you.”
He understood the look in her eyes maybe better than she did. He’d seen it already, in one of the final photos to flash up on the screen of his iPhone.
It was of a woman, bound in a car boot and staring at the camera with wide eyes. In her mouth was a gag, tied tightly to prevent her from speaking. Her bloody nose and black eye intimated that she had been roughed up to some degree.
But it wasn’t the fact that both her hair and eye colour matched that of his sister that made him do a double take.
Nor the fact that she looked roughly about the age she would have been had the numerous missing person reports finally resulted in a breakthrough.
No, it was a little blemish on the underside of her chin that drew his attention. A birthmark, not one that he and Anna had shared, but one that made her instantly recognisable.
The photo was fantastic quality, so there was no doubt in his mind that it was her.
It just HAD to be.
The photo was accompanied by a message from Entity.
“Peekaboo, I see you.”
The following message contained an address, directing him to the wharf on the East side of Djibouti.
“Why don’t we make a deal?”
Maybe he was letting his emotions get the better of him. But if Entity were responsible for the disappearance of his sister - something which had often been pinned on him - then he would make them pay. But first he would play along. If they wanted a “sponsorship” in exchange for his sister? Like they had badgered him for at the hackathon?
Then that wasn’t even a question.
And neither was the notion of letting Alexandra come with him. This was bigger than her, and even if they were tag partners, this cross would be his alone to bear, as it had been for the past decade.
He put his arms on her shoulders and spoke directly.
“Listen, Alex, you can barely beat Tony the Spider, I’m not about to throw you into an actual warzone.”
That drew a scowl from his tag partner, and he chuckled.
“I’m kidding, but seriously, you can’t come. It’s Anna, it’s…personal.”
Alexandra met his gaze for a moment, before her expression eventually softened.
“If you’re not back by midnight, I’m raising the alarm, OK?”
He nodded, knowing it would be practical to at least have a failsafe in case anything went wrong…of which he had to concede there was a high possibility.
“Deal.”
Cypher extended his hand, but Alex batted it away, pulling him into a tight hug. It was warm, and inviting, and for a moment his hands hovered above her body, not exactly sure how to react. He wasn’t used to being hugged by other people, period. But the awkwardness slowly melted away, and he returned the hug, holding her close.
They stayed like that for a brief moment, though it felt like it lasted an eternity. Then he reluctantly pulled away.
“Gotta go.”
…
“I know.”
…
“Goodbye.”
/~/
The ice-cool wind threatened to expose Cypher’s messy black hair as he made his way down to the Djibouti docks, hands taking refuge from the cold in his hoodie's front pouch.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the sea now resembled a churning mess of white foam.
He wasn’t in his natural element outside. He’d always appreciated that wrestling events were generally held in indoor stadiums.
Being outside prompted the familiar feeling of anxiety to swell up in my stomach. So exposed, out in the elements, no computer screen to hide behind.
Part of him felt it was intentional that Entity had specifically requested to meet in an exposed area. They wanted to bring him out of my comfort zone, away from a computer.
Disconnected.
Then again, if he couldn’t brave a little bad weather for a chance to rescue Anna, then he really was a lost cause.
Cypher checked his phone.
8pm, on the dot.
He scanned his surroundings. Nothing but a few seagulls, mindlessly squabbling amongst each other over whatever crumbs of food were left scattered around the bitumen. Bird shit coated the dark surface in a layer of white and brown as discarded fast food wrappers ensnared themselves in the rocks which served as a barrier to prevent anyone from accidentally plunging their cars into the deep. All in all it was a miserable place, a landmark to the carelessness of modern civilisation.
Then, the squeal of tires across the gravel.
A black lambo which looked incredibly out of place in the run-down docks made its entrance, sliding to a stop a few feet away from him.
The front door opened and a man of short stature scurried out. Without looking at Cypher, he made his way to the back door and carefully swung it open.
From within emerged a man dressed in a tidy three-piece blue suit, his brown loafers clapping along the filthy bitumen.
Cypher recognised him. It was the same guy who had approached him at the hackathon.
Aaron Swartz.
“Tyler, what a pleasure it is to see you again.”
He extended his hand.
“Where is she?”
Aaron smirked, withdrawing his hand and swiping away imaginary bits of fluff from the shoulders of his suit jacket.
“No need for formalities…some might call that rude.”
“You tell me where she is, I’ll give you whatever sponsorship you want…I just need to know that she’s OK.”
Click!
In an instant, the chauffeur responded to the click of Aaron’s fingers, making his way over to the boot of the limousine.
He opened it, and beckoned Cypher over. His heart began to beat faster as he glanced back at Aaron, who still had that slimy smirk plastered on his face.
Could this be it? After so long, so many sleepless nights wondering where she was…just wanting to know if she was still…
He rounded the corner to see-
Anna?
Nothing.
An object collided with the back of Cypher’s head with the force of a streamer desk slam. The first impact was followed by a second, and this time his head bounced off the vehicle’s bullbar. He felt consciousness slip as he finally came to rest on the pavement, the world slowly slipping to black.
Anna?
Where are you?
/~/
//:ENT1TY_2.0_M3RCY
May, 2022.
Somewhere in Djibouti
The first thing Cypher felt when he came to was the weight of the world pressing down on his skull. He was still woozy from the blows to his head and it took a while for him to get his bearings. Slowly the world came into view as he nursed his sore head. Before him was a computer terminal, a small mechanical keyboard and mouse sitting on a desk. There was little else in the room, except for the chair he was seated on - an uncomfortable steel folding chair.
No way in, or way out, at least from what he could see.
Now having his bearings, he replayed the last moments before he had blacked out in his mind.
The bait.
The switch.
The promise of a reunion shattered in an instant.
His heart sank, knowing that he had been completely fucked over. She wasn’t there, Entity had simply used Anna to lure him in.
And now?
He had a feeling that he was going to be punished.
Suddenly the entire wall to his left flashed to life, the blast of light so bright it forced him to shield his eyes. The wall was actually some kind of LCD screen that had been hidden in plain sight.
Leering at him from a separate room was a man he recognised.
Adam Schwarz, well dressed as ever, was flanked by four other men all in the exact same uniform - buttoned black blazers with red collars.
“Tyler, grand to see you’re finally awake, I trust the trip wasn’t too bumpy?”
Cypher’s blood boiled at the sight of the snide prick. Sure, Entity had won the first round, but he couldn’t let himself be broken, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed.
“Fuck you.”
He spat the words with venom.
Schwarz merely chuckled.
“Manners never were your strong suit, were they? I’m sure your ordeal has been somewhat tiring so far, but it’s far from over I’m afraid.”
The terminal screen on his right blinked to life. It immediately drew his attention, and when he turned to look at it he was greeted with a cursor flashing on a black background.
It was familiar to him. Most hacking setups were simple like this, in contrast to how it was often portrayed in film and by the media.
“We’ve got a job for you, and…not to be cliché, but it’s an offer I’m sure you can’t refuse.”
Cypher looked back to Schwarz and his followers on the giant plasma screen. Aaron smiled his cheshire cat grin before he disappeared and was replaced with a grainy feed of a prison cell. Inside, a woman lay on a bunk bed, staring up at the ceiling. The camera zoomed in..capturing her blonde hair, bruised cheeks, and…
No.
This had to be another trick.
There’s no way that was really Anna.
As if to make a point, the camera continued to zoom in until it focused on the same damn birthmark under her chin.
“If you want to see her again, then you’ll hack what we tell you.”
Cypher’s hands began to shake. He couldn’t take this anymore. His sister was dead, she had died a long time ago, he had convinced himself of that.
He opened his mouth to respond when a shrill scream from the video feed caught his attention. Anna, if it really was her, was now banging on the door in distress.
“Is anyone there?”
“I-I don’t know where I am, please, someone just talk to me!”
“Go on Tyler…talk to her.”
A microphone icon appeared just below the feed on the terminal. It pulsed with a red light, beckoning his cursor to click it.
Cypher tried not to with all the willpower he had left.
This was just another trick.
It had to be.
Right?
Anna continued to pound on the door, tears now flowing down her cheeks.
“Help me!’
“Anna?”
Anna gasped, then sat in stunned silence for a second.
“Tyler?”
…
“Hello, Tyler? Was…was that you?”
…
“Hello?!”
Cypher was trying desperately to talk back to her, but now it didn’t seem like anything he was saying was getting through. The microphone symbol had now vanished, and it didn’t matter what he pressed on the keyboard, it wouldn’t come back.
“Want to talk to her again?”
“Then you’ll do what we tell you.”
/~/
Djibouti.
The backdoor.
He had hopped the fence and made his way to the back of the property, without worrying about trying to bypass the intricate alarm system connected to the entrance. He knew there was no hope at brute forcing this, this was serious shit. These guys weren’t hacking any run-of-the-mill residence. This was a three-storey mansion with multiple locked doors on every level.
His task was to infiltrate the establishment and return with the technology stowed away on the top level. He had been given scant info on what the tech was exactly, but it had something to do with Artificial Intelligence.
In order to free himself, to see his sister again, all he had to do was get in and get out with the package in tow.
That was what Entity had promised him.
And in reality it was his only choice.
The infiltration began with an innocuous knock on the front door by a “postman”. The postie came bearing gifts. They didn’t arouse suspicion because on the face of it they seemed harmless. The youngest removed a toy horse from one of them. Horses were her favourite. Soon it was discarded as she was called in for tea. It lay on the mantlepiece until eventually revealing its true nature. The Trojan program which had been concealed within the horse began quietly building a backdoor…
By the time the family realised what was going on, it was too late.
Instead of trying to fight through every door to get to the top, Cypher was able to gain access to the top level via the route that the Trojan had created for him. The backdoor led to its own route, bypassing the locked doors that would normally block his path.
Traversing the stairs, he was in.
No alarms triggered.
Like the innocuous horse from before he had found his way inside the property, and now, before him, lay the prize.
A small black box resting on a table, bearing a triangular logo with the name “GIDEON SOLUTIONS” underneath.
He frowned, that name sounded somewhat familiar. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now.
Cypher swiped the box, turned to leave, and immediately heard the sound of the backdoor downstairs slamming shut.
The room flashed red as multiple alarms blared all around Cypher.
How could he be so stupid?
He prayed his legs wouldn’t fail him as he abandoned all pretense of sneaking around and fled through the main door.
Why did he always fuck everything up?
The stairs raced by as he flew down them, the alarms assaulting him with a wall of noise.
“Please just let me make it.”
Finally making it to the foot of the stairs he raced toward the door.
BANG
BANG
BANG
Cypher looked back to see four figures behind him. Two adults, clutching a child each, stared back at him with wide, goldfish-like eyes. He only glanced at them for a second but the image of their faces was burnt into his mind. They had no mouths or ears, they had two small holes where their noses should have been. Their skin was grey and pasty, no clothing except for a badge which read “sysadmin”.
Nopeing the fuck out of that, he turned back to the door and reached for the handle. He grabbed it, but a rope wrapped around his feet. They were about to pull him back in when he jumped into the air, freeing himself momentarily from the rope, and smashed his shoulder into the door, brute forcing it down.
Cypher collapsed back into his chair, sweat trickling down his nose. He took a moment just to breathe after the most exhilarating hack of his life.
His heart pounded like a jackhammer in his chest, but the adrenaline and anxiety soon gave way to joy as he double checked the contents of the computer drive to make sure.
The file sat there amongst a bunch of other junk, like a golden needle poking out of a haystack.
"GS.exe".
The only thing that worried him was that he could no longer see Anna on the feed of the prison cell - but the cell door was unlocked.
Cypher stood up, legs shaky for a second, then glared in the direction of the LCD screen which remained blank.
“Come on u fucks, I played ur stupid game, now give her back.”
Still, nothing.
Exhausted physically and mentally, Cypher fell to his knees.
“Please…”
Head bowed, he waited.
…
…
A torrent of artificial light illuminated his face.
He looked up to see Adam grinning ear to ear.
“Well done, Tyler. You’ve won our mercy, and of course…the object of your desire.”
Metal hinges grunted and groaned as what had previously just been a part of a wall swung open.
Pushing back his hood, Cypher met the eyes of his sister. She was dressed much like him, a black hoodie framed her bruised and fearful face. She looked traumatized, but those troubled eyes lit up when she saw him.
Anna Norrie rushed into the arms of her brother, the embrace taking them both to the floor.
Tears came, flowing freely, as the two siblings were finally reunited after 10 years.
“Is this real?”
…
“I hope so.”
/~/
//:ENT1TY_2.5_PUN1SHM3NT
February, 2010
Deep Creek Conservation Park, South Australia
Four figures are traversing a hiking trail, their small bodies leaving long shadows in their wake. The afternoon sun is beating down on them as they follow the narrow path bordered by bushes and rocks. They are led by a boy wearing a black hoodie, an article of clothing which seems out of place on a warm summer’s day in Australia. The others are dressed more suitably for the weather. Flanking him are two other boys stomping down the trail in shorts and t-shirts, their chests puffed out and eyes glimmering with excitement.
“Guys wait up!”
Trailing behind the three boys is a girl, panting heavily as she tries to keep up with them. Her blonde hair is tied back in a ponytail which bops from side to side as she moves. Her overalls are stained with sweat She wipes sweat off of her brow once she finally makes it to the pack.
The eldest of the three boys, wearing a yellow shirt and khaki shorts, turns up his nose at her.
“Anna you’re sooo slow.”
“No, you guys are going too fast.”
“Sure, that’s exactly what a girl would say.”
The sarcastic remark comes from a boy wearing a Port Adelaide Power AFL guernsey. His freckled cheeks are twisted in a sneer. Anna pouts and looks over at the black hoodie boy, waiting for some kind of intervention. Instead, he simply continues to stare away into the distance.
“Ty, tell them to stop being mean.”
Her brother folds his arms. His voice is tinged with annoyance when he speaks.
“Can we just keep going?”
Silence over the group. Tyler turns away and continues to walk down the hillside. Shrugging, the rude boys take after him, leaving Anna in their wake. What they don’t see as they turn around is the look of pain and anger on her face. They weren’t even looking back to see if she would join them.
Did they even care?
The whole journey she had been berated, made fun of, and constantly left behind. The one person who she thought she could trust to always have her back had abandoned her in favour of his asshole buddies.
Not long ago she couldn't imagine Tyler treating her like this, but the truth was as they had grown older together, the less and less he had resembled the big brother she remembered.
Fine.
If he didn’t care about her, then she would find her own way.
She didn’t need them.
She didn’t need anyone.
/~/
May, 2022
Somewhere in Djibouti
Cypher gripped Anna close to him, savoring a moment he didn’t want to end. His sister had long haunted his mind over the past 12 years. As much as he was able to blank it out during his day-to-day life, at night when he closed his eyes she would be there. Asking him over and over…
Why?
Why not me?
Then his friends would appear, faces twisted into a collective sneer.
Why?
Why choose us?
Now, even as he lay here with his arms around her, those thoughts were swimming around in his mind again. Even though he had found Anna, he still felt guilty that he had let her be taken by whatever had held her captive over the last dozen or so years.
They finally broke their embrace, and for the first time Cypher took a moment to take in her appearance. Despite the bruises and slightly smudged makeup, she still had a lot of that natural beauty he could recall from their youth.
But at the same time as he was admiring her, he couldn’t help but feel like her eyes were piercing through him. A reminder that her suffering was directly tied to him.
He swallowed, willing himself to speak.
“Anna, I’m sorry.”
She half-smiled, reaching out with a hand to wipe away a salty tear from my cheek.
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have been so stupid, I just didn’t realise you hadn’t come with us and when I did I tried to find you but-
Anna pinched my face, like she had done so many times when we were little, to interrupt my rambling.
“It's OK, you’re here now Cypher, and that’s what matters.”
He froze.
“Cypher”?
That didn’t make sense.
She had only ever known him as Tyler.
His spine tingled with dread as he realised something weird was going on with her face.
Her makeup was slowly but surely being wiped away with each tear that streamed down her face…but it was more than makeup. Her actual face was being distorted by the liquid seeping from her eyes. The way the “tears” were leaking in sort of a spreading motion made him feel even more uneasy.
“What’s wrong?”
Without thinking, Cypher raised his hand and pinched her cheek, just as she had done. The texture was soft and slick…but soon gave way to something cold and metallic.
He jerked his hand away.
Where his fingers had pressed against her “skin”, they had revealed a metal surface underneath.
This wasn’t Anna.
This was a lie.
“Ehh, I guess the crying feature could still use a little work.”
Aaron Schwarz nonchalantly waltzed through the door leading out of Cypher’s prison. He stood there, gloating, as the robo-Anna kept staring at him with cold, unblinking eyes.
“What the fuck did u do?!”
Cypher brushed past the cheap imitation of his sister and lunged at Aaron, but his progress was immediately halted by an arm slipping around his neck. In an instant his world turned upside down and he was slammed head first into the ground. His lights were almost knocked completely out on impact, but somehow he clinged to consciousness.
Breathing heavily, he looked up to see robo-Anna smiling down at him, the makeup which had concealed her true form now all but gone. Her grip around his neck was unnaturally strong, stronger than any chin-lock he’d ever been put in while in the ring.
He struggled in her arms as Aaron leaned down to his level.
“Pretty believable huh? We’re really stepping it up in our Artificial Intelligence department, so thanks for being my little test dummy Tyler…only a few kinks to work out.”
Seething, Cypher spat directly into Aaron’s face.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Wrong answer…Anna?”
Robo-Anna instantly wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled Cypher into the air. He hung there a moment before his skull slammed into the cold floor beneath. The jarring impact sent a wave of pain through his head, and again he felt groggy.
As he tried to remain cognisant, he could only think about one thing.
Artificial Intelligence.
If Anna was an AI…then the technology he had recovered from Gideon Solutions had to be related…
Blood had begun to pool in his nose and was now slipping back down into his throat, making it difficult to speak.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Ohh Tyler, there’s so much that I want to tell you. I want to tell you about all our wonderful plans for expanding our AI capabilities now that you’ve so kindly delivered to our doorstep. I want to tell you how we’re going to make the world a better place, but this has never been about us…
“It’s been about you.”
Aaron pulled a remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. The LCD screen on the wall next to them blinked to life. Previously it had been a feed of Adam and his lackeys, but now it had changed.
It was Cypher’s Twitter feed.
However, it was different - he hadn’t been in control of it for however long he’d been trapped in Entity’s possession for.
So someone else was controlling what was posted and how he interacted with his friends.
“See while we had you working hard for us I decided to introduce your peers to the real Tyler. Not the one who hides behind the Cypher name, but the boy who abandoned his sister and left her for dead.”
Tweets from his profile flashed on the screen, all under the name “Tyler Norrie” rather than his usual “CYPH3R” tag.
“I”m sorry Anna, I failed you.”
“It stands true. Cypher is, was, and will always be a cunt.”
“Cypher is dead. Long live Tyler Norrie.”
“Cypher is gone. Why do you want him back so badly? He’s a horrible person. A fake. A voyeur who violates privacy without a care.”
Then there were the responses…
“What is this? Where’s the l33t speak? Who the fuck is Tyler?”
“This version of you is cringe.”
"I want my Cyphie back!"
A few moments of silence passed before Aaron spoke.
“See Tyler, all these “friends” of yours? They hate who you really are. You have deluded them into liking you through your Cypher persona.”
Cypher opened his mouth to respond but closed it just as quickly. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say that this was all bullshit, to call out Aaron for being a deceiving prick…but at the same time, he never forced anyone to say those things.
“The problem is you don’t make friends Tyler, you manufacture them.”
The screen blinked and changed to an image of his tweet leaking Emma’s nude photo.
“I was going to tweet about this next, what do you think?”
Aaron’s finger hovered above the remote.
Cypher bowed his head.
There was nothing he could do.
Then the room exploded into light.
The sound of gunfire reverberated off the walls of the tiny room, and Cypher felt AI Anna’s grip around his waist loosen.
The next thing he knew he was being carted out of the room on top of someone’s shoulders. Everything seemed to happen so fast, more than his scrambled brains could process.
Then his head began to finally succumb to the weight pressing down on it, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
/~/
//:ENT1TY_3.0_AP0C4LYPS3
Three weeks later
Tyler Norrie scratched and clawed his way through the shrubs and bushes that populated the dense landscape before him. His bare hands grasped at the sticks and stones, seeking some kind of purchase but never truly being able to find it. Still, he moved onward, knees scratched and bloody from the constant contact with the dried out flora. He pursed his dry lips together and they cracked immediately, causing the iron taste of his own lifeblood to fill his throat.
Tyler’s dried out esophagus wasn’t ready to accept the offering, and so he hacked loudly, sending a torrent of bloody bile onto the ground ahead of him. But he didn’t care, because that wasn’t the only thing ahead of him.
So was she.
Her back was to him, the sun illuminating her just enough that he could catch a glimpse of the hidden beauty from side-on. She was sitting on the edge of a cliff, legs dangling over the side. Blonde hair trailing in the light wind that brushed over her shoulders.
He knew it was her, and if he was going to do one thing before he let the elements take him, it was letting her know he was here.
Finally after what felt like days of heaving his body over the scorched earth, he made it.
Tyler reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn’t react, so he hacked out the last of the bile in his throat, and tried to speak.
“Anna…”
He managed one word, it was all he could say before he felt his throat close over entirely. He began to gasp for air, feeling like he was drowning in the hazy air surrounding them.
Then Anna turned to face him…except it wasn’t Anna.
At least not as he remembered her.
A mess of cogs and wires stared back at him, the normal features of a face barely distinguishable. Then, two slits appeared at top of the metallic surface, and a third at the bottom.
And it spoke.
“It's OK, you’re here now Cypher, and that’s what matters.”
Cypher lurched forward, coughing and spluttering. He reached up and touched his face, trying to ground himself in reality after the third nightmare of his sister this week. His fingers came away wet. Cypher glanced over at Dot. She was still fast asleep, offering no point of refuge. Not like she would be anyway. They hadn’t talked about Anna since he’d got back home. He hadn’t offered to, and she hadn’t asked.
Initially he didn’t want to talk about it.
Now he felt like he was slowly sinking into the ground in a tomb of his own making.
Sleep wasn’t an option…but neither was staying awake.
Cypher flopped back down onto the bed, as he did he felt something round and hard underneath his pillow. Frowning, he reached back and rummaged underneath. He already knew what it was by the time his hand had closed around it and pulled it out. Before he could think to stop himself, the pill was sliding down his throat.
“Just to fall asleep” he told himself.
“I just need it to fall asleep.”
/~/
“Where is he?”
“Y’know…in his room.”
“How long?”
“Couple weeks.”
“No like, how long has he..”
“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Least most of the time ‘e’s bin in there.”
…
“God damn it Tyler.”
“Ya want me ta’ give yas some private time?”
Thaddeus Duke, at this time having just inked the deal that would make him majority owner of OCW, paused.
Looking typically suave in his business attire, he was in direct contrast to Dot, sporting a leopard print hat and Led Zep tee. But her nonchalant attitude is absent, instead she anxiously chews her lip, eyes darting from the door to Thad and back.
“You don’t think it would be better for you to be there too?”
“We just had a fight, don’t think it’d be wise.”
“Right, see you on the other side then.”
Thad opened the door and stepped through as Dot made herself scarce. The man he had not long ago dragged from near death looked like he was on a trip right back there.
Cypher’s face was ghost white, his eyes seeming to bulge even bigger than they ever had before. He looked like he had been sweating buckets…and in spite of all that?
The mf was smiling.
In fact he barely noticed Thad walk in. He was staring up at the ceiling, like Sahara was up there naked or some shit.
“Tyler?”
Cypher’s eyes slowly but surely dragged themselves away from the roof and over to Thad.
“Thaddy!”
It was like he spoke the word in slow motion, accentuating each syllable.
“How you feeling?”
“I’m great buddy, where’s your hot girlfriend?”
“Not on the roof.”
“...Wha?”
“Listen to me, Tyler.”
Thad grabbed his friends arm and squeezed it, trying to appeal to his better judgment despite his somewhat euphoric state.
“I didn’t save your life just so you could piss it away with pills.”
Cypher’s jaw dropped open, the harsh and direct words like a slap to the face.
“I-
“Where are they?”
“Where are what?”
“Don’t fuck around.”
Thad instantly zeroed in on the drawer next to Cypher on the bedside table, and began rooting around inside. Before Cypher could stop him, he’d pulled out the orange container and was moving towards the slightly open window.
“NO!”
But it was too late.
The pills rained down onto the sidewalk below.
Cypher could only watch, his movements far too slow in his drug-addled state.
Thad turned back to him.
“I just bought OCW, you’re getting a TransAtlantic title shot at Reformation. Take some time to get through the withdrawals, but once that’s over?
Making his way to the door, Thad casually looked back at his stunned friend.
“You best be ready.”
/~/
[Dial Tone]
“Hello?”
“Alex?”
“My God, are you OK? Why didn’t you call me sooner?!”
“I’ve been…distracted.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“It felt like I was.”
…
“What happened? Where did you go?”
…
“What did they do to you?”
“I didn’t call you to talk about that.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Because I wanted to, is that a fucking crime?”
…
“Sorry, I’ve been on edge lately.”
“You’ve been on edge?!”
“I’ve been worried sick about you, Tyler, for weeks - and you don’t even think to call?”
“There’s been worse shit to worry about than informing you, OK? I’ve literally gone through hell in these last few days, I wasn’t exactly keeping up with who I’d called and when.”
“Then talk to me, I’m here for you.”
“I’ve got a shot at a singles title at Reformation.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, TransAtlantic Championship. Dangerous Dan. One on one. Thad’s gonna announce it.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
…
“I guess that’s it for our tag team.”
“I thought we could still be partners.”
“I can’t sit here and wait around forever, Tyler.”
“I’ve given up a lot just to stick by your side, but I don’t know if I can keep doing that…waiting for you to commit to us. Waiting for you to pick up the phone, and call me.”
“You’re serious? You’re seriously going to bail on me, just because I got a title shot? I thought you’d be happy for me Alex, I really fucking did.”
“I am Tyler. I am so proud of you. But the truth is you’re leaving me in the dust for a singles opportunity, and you’re expecting me to be OK with that.”
“I’m not.”
...
“What do you want then? A title shot? Fine, when I win the damn thing you can be first in line - you happy now?”
“Now you’re gonna patronize me? I’m not some dumb broad, I'm a lioness. I don’t need your handouts. If I’m going to have a title shot, it’s going to be one I earned, not one you’re giving me because you look down on me.”
“I’m trying to show you that this means more to me than a title shot. That I actually care about Hacker Apocalypse.”
“It shouldn’t, you’re going to go and win that title and I’m going to be proud of you. But right now, I don’t fit into your life, so I’m moving on.”
“Screw you then, I don’t need your bullshit. If you can’t deal with me getting a title shot, then you can stay mad.”
“Go back to Paramount where you belong, bitch.”
[Call disconnected]
/~/
0perat1on_k1ll_ent1ty_[1/2]
July, 2022
San Francisco, California
Cypher twirled the USB stick in his hand, spinning it like one of those fidget spinners that everyone was obsessed about for two seconds way back when. Despite its movement the small rectangular device felt more like an undetonated mine just waiting for a fool to step on it.
It was the last piece of Entity that remained. The shadowy organization which had forced him to relive childhood trauma had now all but disappeared from his life.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it. He had often obsessed about the Artificial Intelligence they had tried to pass off as his sister.
What killed him the most is that they had succeeded at first.
The AI was so lifelike that he had genuinely believed it was Anna…until the cracks began to show.
That definitely led to many late nights for him, but soon the sadness gave away to frustration and then…disgust.
Disgust that he had done their dirty work as a hacker-for-hire. That he had let them play him at his own game. In the ring he’d been racking up win after win, but in his private life?
He felt like he was drowning.
His eyes turned to Dot. The blonde-haired vixen lay next to him, soundly asleep. Talking to her about the situation had helped. He’d found comfort in her arms, the reassurance she offered that one day he would find her. It just wasn’t going to be that day.
But he was yet to find a way to truly deal with the trauma on his own.
Then again…
His eyes returned to the USB in his hand.
Maybe he could channel his pain into something useful.
CYPH3R slipped out of the bed and, taking care not to wake Dot, slowly but swiftly made his way down the hall and into his computer room.
The room was a home inside of a home for him. Though it wasn’t like this was technically his home, it was a small rental in San Francisco underneath a bowling alley.
What? He’s on OCW money.
The flashing RGB lights illuminated CYPH3R’s pale face as his gaming rig came to life. He hesitated for a moment as he held the USB just above the port on the top of his tower.
The last time this stick had been inside a computer was in Djibouti. A hackathon masquerading as a competition when really it was a means to an end for Entity to showcase their technology.
The winning team in the competition had been given an extra leg up because they accepted Entity’s offer to test out their latest tech.
Knowing now that they had progressed to creating incredibly realistic AI’s, he was filled with both excitement and dread as he finally plugged the USB into his computer.
Do you want to scan and fix Removable Drive (E:)?
-> Continue without scanning
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:)
[entitydata]
[entityprograms]
[entityfiles]
[entityinfo]
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> User Accounts
-> Change User Account Control Settings
Program Files -> Properties -> Security Tab
Advanced -> Owner -> Edit
-> Replace Owner
-> Apply.
CYPH3R rebooted his PC, allowing the changed ownership settings to come into effect, then went back into the USB drive.
He navigated back to the E: drive, and this time he was able to access the folders held within…
…and found nothing.
Well, not nothing, there were certainly files inside, but nothing of note. No notes or programs that related to their AI endeavours at all, instead there were just files which appeared to serve as a loophole in the hackathon challenge. The coding was basic, rudimentary, something that CYPH3R could have created himself.
Of course you could have, you’re used to doing their dirty work, aren’t you?
He tried to block out the nasty thought as he reluctantly closed the window.
Start -> Power -> Shut Down
His cursor hovered over the words for a moment, his finger poised atop the left mouse button. Then, letting out a loud sigh, he pressed it down.
Start -> Search -> cmd
cmd: “chkdsk E: /f"
“3GB of total space.
5GB in 48704 files.
0KB in bad sectors.
96KB in use by the system.”
CYPH3R frowned.
There’s no way the files and programs he’d seen before could be taking up all that space.
Something didn’t add up…
It was time to dig a little deeper.
cmd: “srchdsk E: /f
“Searching…
0000 files located of 48704 files…
1239 files located of 48704 files…
2874 files located of 48704 files…
CYPH3R could feel the anticipation building in his stomach as the number continued to rise…
48704 files located of 48704 files…
30000 deleted files located…
Done.
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:)
[entitydata]
[entityprograms]
[entityfiles]
[entityinfo]
[deleted files]
His heart beating out of chest, CYPH3R took a deep breath, steadied himself, then moused over the deleted files folder…
And clicked.
…
“Oh my fucking God.”
In that moment, he regretted ever holding onto the USB. He regretted plugging it into his computer and he certainly regretted diving deep into its depths to recover the deleted files.
There were many things he had seen during his hacking days, stuff on the Deep Web that would make even the most hardened of 4chan users turn up their noses in disgust.
But this…
This was worse than anything he had ever seen.
Not necessarily because it was the most gory or disgusting.
Because it was the most disturbing.
Shit that would get you in jail for just possessing, let alone creating.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
In a panic, he yanked the stick out of his PC and threw it in the bin - though it more or less slipped out of his hand, which was now slick with sweat.
CYPH3R leaned back in his chair and tried to regulate his breathing, which had grown fast and shallow.
He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the side of his hoodie.
Deep breath.
In…
And out.
In…
And out.
“Are you going to let them get away with that?”
The thought burst through the protective bubble he created around himself. Before he could stop them, even more came through.
“The great CYPH3R, reduced to Entity’s Bitch Boy.”
He peaked out from between his hands, gazing down at the flash drive laying amongst the tissues in his wastebin.
“CYPH3R Entity wins again.”
Before he could stop himself, he had pulled out the drive and shoved it back into his PC. His cursor flew across the screen.
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:) -> deletedfiles
-> IMG29713 -> Properties -> Security -> Group or Usernames
[System]
[Administrators]
[Gerald: DESKTOP-EN29TI76TY\Gerald]
CYPH3R bulbous eyes lit up. A sigh of relief released from his lips, the pent up anxiety slowly fading away.
“Game over.”
/~/
0peration_k1ll_ent1ty_[2/2]
/~/
"Have you ever slipped into someone else’s brain?
Taken a trip through their subconscious to see what was hiding there - all the thoughts that pop into their mind but don’t ever come out of their mouth?
The secrets they hold inside because of the havoc they could wreak if they got out?
No?
Well, have you ever looked at someone’s search history?
Maybe it was unintentional. You sat down next to a friend as they went to type in an url beginning with the letter “P” and…oopsie!
Or it was more targeted, deliberate than that. You’re a mother who likes to keep tabs on what their son is looking at when they use the family computer.
Perhaps you were a friend of a friend who left their laptop unlocked, so you jumped on and decided to post a Facebook status on their profile.
Any of these scenarios technically could constitute a violation of privacy, but what attracts us to take these actions, whether intentional or not, is it allows us a peek into the mind of another.
Without the advent of technology this wouldn’t be possible - but now it happens on almost a daily basis. The FBI, CIB, Government et ceterea are about allowed to read the minds of residents as they see fit - be it a soccer mom or a guy one bad day away from hopping onto the subway with a bomb strapped to his chest.
See I get the question “why do you hack” a fair bit nowadays. Fans especially, they wonder why I would continue to do it when I’m a successful and extremely talented wrestler.
I intended to leave that part of me behind when I started wrestling. But then…I let my emotions get the better of me. I was hurt, and wanted revenge.
I acted rashly, going against everything I had ever been taught about hacking. In leaking the images of my ex girlfriend's bare body onto social media I left a trail leading right back to me. I was no better than that friend who “hacked” your Facebook, in fact I was probably worse. No encryption, no alias, I was right there on the fabled Twitter timeline saying “Why yes officer, I am breaking the law.”
Now everyday I feel like my time is running out. I can hear the tick…tick…tick as I type this, the minute hand moving ever closer to my eventual doom. I left the tracks, not like it’d be hard for anyone to join the dots.
But before that happens, I got one last thing I gotta do. See these Entity fucks tried to ruin my life, they used my sister for bait and played me at my own game. I can’t let them get away with that.
I guess it’s bad news for them that blackmailing me to hack for them actually reminded me why I love that shit so much. Stepping into someone else’s shoes and understanding what makes them tick, learning their hopes, their fears, their interests and their hidden shame.
Shit’s like crack to me.
Before you judge what I’m about to do?
Just remember you’ve all done it too."
/~/
If Gideon Solutions was a two-storey suburban home with outdoor and indoor security systems, then Entity HQ was a skyscraper that seemed to stretch impossibly high.
For CYPH3R, it was breathtaking. Easily the most daunting structure that he’d ever tried to penetrate, its rock-solid defenses automatically disqualified most wannabe hackers from ever getting in.
Even moderately skilled hacksters would have scoffed at the prospect. But fortunately for him?
He had a card.
CYPH3R looked down at the business card in his hand. The name “GERALD PAY” leaps off the off-white background at him. The black, embossed font with Silian Grail lettering truly is something to behold…not that any of that means anything to a dude who spends most of his time typing in 11pt Arial in Google Docs.
He approaches the front entrance and catches a glimpse of himself in the glass of the revolving door. The pale face and dark-ringed eyes stared back at him, framed by his black hoodie.
His memory jogged and he quickly pulled the card back out, this time running his finger along the typeline.
CYPH3R watched as his own features twisted and contorted in the glass to match that of the Entity employee. His hoodie disappeared, revealing his messy hair that soon too vanished. His head was left bald, his eyes shrunken to normal size, and his eyebrows bigger and bushier than he’d ever seen them.
A wave of nausea ran through him as he saw himself not as CYPH3R, but as Gerald Pay. The things this man had committed made his stomach churn…but he knew it was necessary. To beat Entity, he had to become one of them. Like Entity's leader, Aaron Schwarz had done to his sister, he would integrate himself into the system.
“Move it, Gerald.”
An Entity drone brushed past him, nearly causing him to lose balance. Steadying himself, and swearing an oath to hack that guy’s PC later, he stepped into the belly of the beast.
/~/
CYPH3R piled into an elevator with a bunch of other suits. He felt somehow both in place and out of place at the same time. Though they were likely his co-workers, he was a sore thumb. His rotund waste and suspenders contrasted with their clean-cut navy suits.
Swiping the business card in the slot reader next to the floor numbers, he then jabbed the button for floor 35. Immediately the slot reader beeped loudly and the other douchebags in the lift began to chuckle.
“No way they’d let your ass get near an AI, you’d probably take it home so you could finally get some action!”
More laughter, but he wasn’t focused on them…
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The suits began to slink their way past him…
Now or never.
Just before the last guy moved past him to exit, CYPH3R slammed his index into the “close doors” button. They slammed shut, and his co-worker practically headbutted the door. He recoiled, clutching his forehead which was now sporting a large red lump.
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Oh gosh I’m so sorry, a-are you OK?”
CYPH3R reached out and grabbed him on the sides, as if he was making sure he was alright. The suit shoved him away, cursed him again, then opened the doors He sneered as he joined the rest of his buddies, but CYPH3R just waved goodbye as the doors closed.
Then?
He whipped out the guy’s card and slid it through the reader.
This time when he selected floor 35, the elevator immediately began to rise, taking him exactly where he wanted to go.
[...]
[How did you get those credentials?]
[I’m a hacker, it’s what I do.]
[But they’re going to realise soon.]
[That’s not going to be my problem.]
[...What?]
[...]
After exiting the lift and traversing a winding corridor, CYPH3R found his way to a sliding door with a card reader next to it. Beyond the glass lay a series of AIs, clumped together on either side of the room in two rows. In the middle lay a desk which was conspicuously vacant.
This had to be it.
The production room.
Even better, an unattended production room.
He slid the card through the scanner and was pleasantly surprised when the entrance opened up for him. A strong metallic smell invaded his nostrils as he walked through the entryway. He shivered when moments before he’d been sweating.
The eyes on the hyper-realistic bodies of the AI seemed to follow him as he moved closer and closer to the desk in the centre of the room. Subconsciously he avoided their gaze, focusing in on the computer before him. Sliding into the white desk chair, he got to work.
[...]
[What are you doing?]
[The technology they're using to construct more of these lifelike AI's...]
[Yeah?]
[Wait, you worked for them too?]
[Not without them manipulating me.]
[So you know how these things work?]
[More than that, I know how to break them.]
[What happens then?]
[It's simple.]
[Tonight?]
[Entity dies.]
May, 2022.
Djibouti, Africa.
Click-clack, click-clack.
The sound of fingers meeting keys reverberated around the darkened room.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Rows of nerds sat shoulder to shoulder, hunched over desktop computers and peering into monitors.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Except today they weren’t nerds. They were shredding the label that society had bestowed upon them because they didn’t conform. Because they were too fat. Too skinny. Neck beard. Long nose. Fat lips. Who knows? Whatever it was, they were ostracized for just being who they were.
But not tonight.
Tonight they were superheroes.
They were The Avengers assembled to tackle a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Code became their hammer, Windows 95 became their shield…
Wait.
Windows 95?
Cypher raised an eyebrow at the splash screen of the extremely outdated OS. He wasn’t in the states anymore, he was in Djibouti. The society here was more advanced than the natives on “the island” but not by much. Taking a quick look under the hood, it was clear that they were working with some less than optimal specs. The computer looked like it was from the stone age - a jungle of wires exploding from out of the back of the grimy tower.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Djibouti Hackerthon!”
The voice over a crackly PA came with a strong African accent.
“The instructions will appear on your device shortly. Please direct any questions to the system admin. Remember that any outside help is strictly forbidden.”
Cypher surveyed the room. He was one of the few hackers alone, the rest were all gathered in groups - one or two of them acting as the main “pilots” while the others backed them up. This was a traditional set up for hackathons, and Cypher knew it. He was immediately at a disadvantage, but he didn’t plan to rely on outside help either.
He would try to win on his own.
“But before we begin, a message from our sponsor…”
The MC, an older African man with greying hair, stepped away from the mic and was soon joined by a slick-looking man in a three piece suit. The MC applauded the businessman, encouraging the crowd to as well, but most were too preoccupied with their PCs to notice or care.
The sponsor looked more like he belonged at a CEO’s boardroom meeting than a hackathon. He took centre stage with a swagger which indicated he was comfortable speaking to crowds, and Cypher wondered how much he was being paid to attend a goddamn hackerthon.
“Thank you so much, it’s great to be here in Djibouti for the traditional hackathon! Let’s hear it for Omari and the team!”
As if blind to the previous attempt at rousing any response from the disinterested crowd, he applauded his statement loudly. The only ones who appeared to clap along were the staff, who even then looked like they were being forced to.
“We here at Entity are proud to be the official sponsors of the 2022 Djibouti Hackathon. We’d like to encourage all of you try out of our software, which you can access in the Start menu of all of these machines. Designed to help the older generation understand coding, Entity is an easy to use, easy to manipulate code which we think you’ll all come to appreciate.”
He smiled that fake as fuck smile that bankers kept in their back pocket. The whole thing seemed nonsensical to Cypher. He understood why the software was being used in this situation, since they were on old machines…but as an actual product? Old people coding? Lol, in this guy’s dreams.
“It’s also worth pointing out that this event has attracted some international attention, right over there, than esports pro turned professional wrestler, CYPHER!”
In an instant he felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him. A switch had been flipped, and now there was no way to un-flip it. His back prickled at the uneasy sensation of all the attention being focused on him. Normally he loved the spotlight, but this was different. It was too much, too soon. The sleazy prick on the microphone winked at him, a Cheshire grin plastered on his face. Cypher quickly pulled his hood forward, blocking most of his face from the room, and turned away, back to his PC.
“Annnnnyway, maybe you guys can get an autograph from him later, right now it’s time to start hacking!”
\~\
The first step was always about finding the entry point.
Once you had found that little opening, that one space where perhaps the coder had gotten lazy, or even implemented the second best defence instead of the first, everything else was just performance.
Many musicians say their anxiety peaks right before a performance, but once they’re on stage everything floats away.
For Cypher, all his worries would dissipate once he found his way in. Once he was inside the system, everything in his mind became clearer. Calmer.
From there it was about execution. Exploiting the system to make it work for him without triggering any alarms. The cat and mouse game between the system and its unwelcome occupant.
But he wasn’t renting a second rate instrument to play out his symphony. No, Cypher refused to touch the program Entity had put on the table. As he had promised himself, he would do this on his own, with no help from anyone.
Recently he had felt rusty and uninspired when it came to hacking. These days everyone was so quick to reach for military-grade encryption because they were paranoid about the government being up their ass. And while yes, it encryption could be broken, it was a hell of a lot of time and effort to do it. Time that he hadn’t really had as of late. So the hackathon presented an opportunity to prove that he still had it.
So far?
So good.
Time to make a deposit.
To gift the malware he had so carefully wrapped up to the clueless host, sit back, and watch the magic happen.
Click-clack.
…
ACCESS DENIED
What?
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Each time he was met with an ACCESS DENIED message that shouldn’t have been there. It didn’t make sense. Everything had gone to plan…and yet…
Sweat began to form on his brow. His hands trembled slightly, poised above the gritty Microsoft keyboard as the error message continued to flash on the screen.
Something wasn’t right…
The clock was ticking…
But he was frozen.
And then…
“WE HAVE A WINNER!”
Cypher’s immersion was instantly broken. He turned to see a group celebrating at their station, victorious after hours of hacking.
The staff were there to confirm it, they had reached the goal, and Cypher?
He had failed.
Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Next time, you should try the Entity software…Tyler.”
Cypher whipped around to see the businessman from earlier smirking at him. Smugness oozed out of him, from his slicked back light brown hair and dark red suit right down to his polished loafers and the name-tag which read "Aaron Swartz". He made Cypher feel incredibly uneasy, the way said his name dripped with venom.
Still, he shrugged him off.
“No thanks.”
Cypher quickly grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and brushed past him.
“We could use a sponsorship from someone like you.”
“Not interested.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
Tired of Aaron's shit, Cypher whipped around.
“Bruh, can u leave me the fuck alone? I don’t want anything to do with u or ur cringe software that ur marketing to boomers, k?”
“As I’ve heard, you still have the tendency to act like a child.”
“Stop acting like u know me, u don’t know shit about me. U found my name through a Google search, just like most losers in my Twitch chat.”
Aaron's expression hardened, and Cypher took great pleasure in having wiped that shit-eating grin off of his face.
Now, time to make his exit, gorge himself on Djibouti (food) and get on the next plane outta here.
He had only taken a few steps when something dawned on him. A little thought that had been in the back of his mind but he was unable to reach finally came to the fore.
“This was never a competition…”
“I’m sorry?”
“It was a demonstration.”
Cypher walked over to the PC used by the winning team. Sticking out of one of the USB ports was a red stick with a large stainless steel E on the middle of it.
“The reason I couldn’t access the final objective…
Cypher ripped the USB stick out of the ancient computer.
“Was because to even access it, we had to be using ur program.”
He held the end of the stick up to his eyes. USB 3.1 Gen 1. Contents likely encrypted.
This was some high-level shit.
Cypher looked up at Aaron, who half-smiled at him, as if to say "I can neither confirm, nor deny".
“Sort of smart, but I think I’m gonna be taking this..."
He turned heel and began walking away, expecting the rep to stop him.
But he didn't.
Instead he let him walk away without another word, allowing him to take the flash drive.
...
Then, once Cypher was out of sight, he quickly took out his phone and hit a number under speed dial.
"Hey, it's Aaron."
...
"Yeah, no commitment to sponsorship but he has taken the bait."
...
"I should know in a few hours."
...
"Ok, bye."
/~/
PROLOGUE: 1nt3rv31w.tv
“Thanks so much for making the time, Cypher.”
The Superior Design sat in front of a camera in a small media room. Instead of his traditional black hoodie and jeans, he was wearing a suit and tie. His hair, normally hidden beneath the hood, stood to attention after having been assaulted with moose earlier.
“Uh, yeah, thank you.”
Cypher itched at his tie as he answered, the tight ribbon feeling like a noose around his neck. All of this was the work of Dot. His longtime girlfriend who upon hearing he was having a live TV interview had insisted that he ditch the hoodie and don a suit. From the moment he put it on he had detested the feel of the restricting material on his arms and legs.
Now, sitting in front of a live feed, he felt completely and utterly embarrassed. He hadn’t even wanted to do the stupid interview, but apparently media appearances were “part of his contract”.
CLASSIC OCW BAY BEE!!
“You’ve had an impressive week with some big wins against Veronica Strader in OCW, and Action Wrestling’s Lissie Hope…
Clips from both matches played in quick succession, beginning with his breakthrough victory over Vee Strader at Massacre…
~Veronica returns to her feet, holding her stomach. She sees the commotion and looks on...but, from behind, Dangerous Dan enters the ring. He pops to his feet with the TransAtlantic Title in his grasp. The crowd yells and points. Veronica turns around and BLAST!!! She gets SMASHED in the face by the title!!! She drops to both knees. Dan dives out of the ring, tossing the belt at Belvedere, knocking him back into his chair. He hops the barricade...Chris backs up, hands in the air. CYPHER turns around and he sees Veronica in the same position he left her...he runs, hits the ropes, bounces off and CUTSCENE!!!! Veronica collapses to the mat!!! CYPHER dives on top...Gruff is in for the count~
1!
2!!
3!!!!!
~The bell rings~
Belvedere: Here is your winner….CYPH3R!!!!!
Then his deeply personal destruction of Lissie Hope at XIII…
With a twisted grin, Cypher stands in Lissie’s face again, and in utter defiance, Lissie manages to scream. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU FOR THIS.” Cypher’s smirk distorts into a scowl, and he plants his lead leg, before delivering the huge BOOM HEADSHOT superkick right under her chin!
Nate Nytro: This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen.
Lissie’s head slumps down, and she’s knocked out cold. Cypher unshackles her from the ropes, and she collapses into a heap onto the canvas. Cypher spins her on her back, and makes the pinfall.
1…
2…
3.
The crowd is hushed in absolute silence as Cypher gets to his knees, looking down at the bloody and unconscious Lissie Hope crumbled on the mat.
“So tell us, what’s your secret? How have you managed to go from a, well I didn’t want to say this on air but, a NERD to a wrestler featuring in the main event?”
The reporter’s question caught him off guard. He was hoping for a few slow balls, some easy hit kind of questions first. Like, “Why are you so good?” “Could you teach ME how to wrestle?” “Do you want to have sex later?!”
“Well?”
Crap, he’d been staring off into space, thinking about his answer. There was no time for that on live tv. Fuck, fuck, fuck, just say something!
“Training…you know, lots and lots of, uh, training..”
“That’s interesting, I know you were trained by Rob Langdon, formerly Shadow Demon of NLWF and IWF fame for all those boomers out there…but you’re not so close any more, what happened there? Wouldn’t you need the guidance of a World Champion to become one?”
Cypher gazed into the camera like a deer in the headlights. This bitch had done her research and was trying to tease something controversial out of him.
He would have easily gone in on Rob, talking about all the reasons he had decided to abandon him, but he had promised Dot he wouldn’t say something that could get twisted by the media.
“Rob was a great trainer in my early days, but he has his priorities and I have mine.”
Damnit.
“Well it seems like one of your priorities is in OCW, she accompanied you out for your match at Massacre last week and took a belt shot in the face for it. Tell us, what’s going on with you and Alexandra Calaway?”
He smirked, knowing exactly what she wanted him to say.
“We’re great friends, she’s a hell of a wrestler, in fact this week I think she is gonna absolutely PWN Tony the Spider this week.”
“Come on, you know what I’m really asking here…is there anything going on between you two? There were a string of tweets between the both of you earlier this week that were, let’s just say, revealing.”
Cypher facepalmed.
Of COURSE they would put those tweets on live TV.
The night when he realised that drinking and tweeting didn’t go hand in hand.
Dot had scolded him in the morning, though at first he hadn’t even remembered what he’d tweeted, which made her even more upset.
“We just had a little bit of fun, nothing in that.”
The reporter laughed - one of those condescending, sarcastic kind of “yea bullshit” laughs.
“Well if you say so, don’t know if our viewers are going to see it the same way - but moving on, on Monday Night Massacre you’re taking on The Dirtbag Kid. Now we’ve had some of our viewers call in and say this is basically going to be like Cypher taking on himself, how do you respond to that?”
Then it happened.
After so many questions designed to paint him in a bad light, to make fun of him after a week of breakthrough victories…
Cypher snapped.
“Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up. U know what? I never wanted to come on ur stupid program. All u do is dig shit up from our personal lives so u can ask ill-informed questions. Did u get a degree in looking a Twitter feeds? U whine about shit that doesn’t involve u so much ur probably a Lissie Hope stan. Alexandra and I have a sick as fuck professional relationship, we’re Hackerpocalypse and we’re going straight to the top, u hear me bitch? Yea she took a nasty shot but she can take it. She’s a strong woman, stronger than u. And when u see what I do to the Dirtbag Kid on Monday I hope u broadcast it all over ur pathetic channel, maybe then u’ll actually get some real “viewers”. The fact is ur talking to the next OCW Champion, whether u like it or not. That’s the difference between me and the Dirtbag Kid. I’m a contender, he’s probably a member of my Twitch Chat. So when u ask if we’re similar? I think that says more about u than it does about me.”
Cypher stood there, staring into the camera at the reporter with wild eyes. She looked flustered, stunned that someone actually stood up to her and her bullshit.
“Does that answer ur question?”
He sat down, loosening the tie from his neck, relieving the pressure that had built up over the course of the interview.
“Thanks for joining us, Cypher.”
“Yea, no problem.”
The feed cut off and he was suddenly alone. Cypher let out a loud sigh, and took out his phone. Already the messages and notifications were beginning to pile up, though one name in particular caught his eye.
Entity.
“Very impressive, Tyler...we’re sure Anna would be proud.”
Against his better judgment, he hit the “read more” button.
“Speaking of Anna. We know she’s important to you. That USB you took helped us learn all about her.”
“If you want to see her again, come and see us.”
/~/
//:ENT1TY_1.0_C0RRUPT10N
May, 2022.
Djibouti, Africa.
“You don’t need to do this Tyler.”
Alexandra Callaway stood in the doorway of Cypher’s hotel room, arms folded. She was stunning as usual, all glitz and glam in her high heels and sparkly dress.
Earlier he had promised her that he would go to dinner with her - strictly as friends, of course - while they had some downtime in Djibouti.
That had all changed when a series of messages flooded his phone. The messages contained a series of images of his long-lost sister, Anna.
Now Cypher knew this was no longer a game.
An organisation known as Entity had been messing with him for the past month. Constantly taunting him from the shadows, telling him they had something he wanted. What that actually was had been a mystery to him.
Until an hour ago.
When his phone had been assaulted with a barrage of images.
One.
After.
Another.
Of.
Her.
At first they were pics he had already seen. Taken before she disappeared. They illustrated the carefree blonde-haired girl she once was...
Before the innocence in his sister’s eyes was cruelly ripped away by someone or…something.
Initially Cypher wasn’t fazed. Anna’s disappearance had been a story on every major news channel in South Australia. They had shared as many photos as possible to help volunteers know who they were looking for.
Sure, every time he saw her face he felt like there was a nail being drilled into his heart, the tragedy of losing her replaying in his mind all over again, but he’d learnt to deal with it over the past 10 years. He wasn’t exactly proud of that, every time he forced himself to dissociate from the mental trauma he felt soulless, but it was the only way he could move on.
So he wrote it off as just a troll wanting to get a reaction out of him. During his esports career he’d often have to deal with bottom feeders who tried to get a reaction out of him by spamming links to images of Anna in his twitch chat.
But then the pics being sent through became more sinister.
“Alex, I’m sorry, I’m going.”
Cypher finished tying the laces on his black converse and stood up. He moved to brush past her but she caught his arm, her hand gripping him like a vice.
“Then let me come with you.”
He understood the look in her eyes maybe better than she did. He’d seen it already, in one of the final photos to flash up on the screen of his iPhone.
It was of a woman, bound in a car boot and staring at the camera with wide eyes. In her mouth was a gag, tied tightly to prevent her from speaking. Her bloody nose and black eye intimated that she had been roughed up to some degree.
But it wasn’t the fact that both her hair and eye colour matched that of his sister that made him do a double take.
Nor the fact that she looked roughly about the age she would have been had the numerous missing person reports finally resulted in a breakthrough.
No, it was a little blemish on the underside of her chin that drew his attention. A birthmark, not one that he and Anna had shared, but one that made her instantly recognisable.
The photo was fantastic quality, so there was no doubt in his mind that it was her.
It just HAD to be.
The photo was accompanied by a message from Entity.
“Peekaboo, I see you.”
The following message contained an address, directing him to the wharf on the East side of Djibouti.
“Why don’t we make a deal?”
Maybe he was letting his emotions get the better of him. But if Entity were responsible for the disappearance of his sister - something which had often been pinned on him - then he would make them pay. But first he would play along. If they wanted a “sponsorship” in exchange for his sister? Like they had badgered him for at the hackathon?
Then that wasn’t even a question.
And neither was the notion of letting Alexandra come with him. This was bigger than her, and even if they were tag partners, this cross would be his alone to bear, as it had been for the past decade.
He put his arms on her shoulders and spoke directly.
“Listen, Alex, you can barely beat Tony the Spider, I’m not about to throw you into an actual warzone.”
That drew a scowl from his tag partner, and he chuckled.
“I’m kidding, but seriously, you can’t come. It’s Anna, it’s…personal.”
Alexandra met his gaze for a moment, before her expression eventually softened.
“If you’re not back by midnight, I’m raising the alarm, OK?”
He nodded, knowing it would be practical to at least have a failsafe in case anything went wrong…of which he had to concede there was a high possibility.
“Deal.”
Cypher extended his hand, but Alex batted it away, pulling him into a tight hug. It was warm, and inviting, and for a moment his hands hovered above her body, not exactly sure how to react. He wasn’t used to being hugged by other people, period. But the awkwardness slowly melted away, and he returned the hug, holding her close.
They stayed like that for a brief moment, though it felt like it lasted an eternity. Then he reluctantly pulled away.
“Gotta go.”
…
“I know.”
…
“Goodbye.”
/~/
The ice-cool wind threatened to expose Cypher’s messy black hair as he made his way down to the Djibouti docks, hands taking refuge from the cold in his hoodie's front pouch.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the sea now resembled a churning mess of white foam.
He wasn’t in his natural element outside. He’d always appreciated that wrestling events were generally held in indoor stadiums.
Being outside prompted the familiar feeling of anxiety to swell up in my stomach. So exposed, out in the elements, no computer screen to hide behind.
Part of him felt it was intentional that Entity had specifically requested to meet in an exposed area. They wanted to bring him out of my comfort zone, away from a computer.
Disconnected.
Then again, if he couldn’t brave a little bad weather for a chance to rescue Anna, then he really was a lost cause.
Cypher checked his phone.
8pm, on the dot.
He scanned his surroundings. Nothing but a few seagulls, mindlessly squabbling amongst each other over whatever crumbs of food were left scattered around the bitumen. Bird shit coated the dark surface in a layer of white and brown as discarded fast food wrappers ensnared themselves in the rocks which served as a barrier to prevent anyone from accidentally plunging their cars into the deep. All in all it was a miserable place, a landmark to the carelessness of modern civilisation.
Then, the squeal of tires across the gravel.
A black lambo which looked incredibly out of place in the run-down docks made its entrance, sliding to a stop a few feet away from him.
The front door opened and a man of short stature scurried out. Without looking at Cypher, he made his way to the back door and carefully swung it open.
From within emerged a man dressed in a tidy three-piece blue suit, his brown loafers clapping along the filthy bitumen.
Cypher recognised him. It was the same guy who had approached him at the hackathon.
Aaron Swartz.
“Tyler, what a pleasure it is to see you again.”
He extended his hand.
“Where is she?”
Aaron smirked, withdrawing his hand and swiping away imaginary bits of fluff from the shoulders of his suit jacket.
“No need for formalities…some might call that rude.”
“You tell me where she is, I’ll give you whatever sponsorship you want…I just need to know that she’s OK.”
Click!
In an instant, the chauffeur responded to the click of Aaron’s fingers, making his way over to the boot of the limousine.
He opened it, and beckoned Cypher over. His heart began to beat faster as he glanced back at Aaron, who still had that slimy smirk plastered on his face.
Could this be it? After so long, so many sleepless nights wondering where she was…just wanting to know if she was still…
He rounded the corner to see-
Anna?
Nothing.
An object collided with the back of Cypher’s head with the force of a streamer desk slam. The first impact was followed by a second, and this time his head bounced off the vehicle’s bullbar. He felt consciousness slip as he finally came to rest on the pavement, the world slowly slipping to black.
Anna?
Where are you?
/~/
//:ENT1TY_2.0_M3RCY
May, 2022.
Somewhere in Djibouti
The first thing Cypher felt when he came to was the weight of the world pressing down on his skull. He was still woozy from the blows to his head and it took a while for him to get his bearings. Slowly the world came into view as he nursed his sore head. Before him was a computer terminal, a small mechanical keyboard and mouse sitting on a desk. There was little else in the room, except for the chair he was seated on - an uncomfortable steel folding chair.
No way in, or way out, at least from what he could see.
Now having his bearings, he replayed the last moments before he had blacked out in his mind.
The bait.
The switch.
The promise of a reunion shattered in an instant.
His heart sank, knowing that he had been completely fucked over. She wasn’t there, Entity had simply used Anna to lure him in.
And now?
He had a feeling that he was going to be punished.
Suddenly the entire wall to his left flashed to life, the blast of light so bright it forced him to shield his eyes. The wall was actually some kind of LCD screen that had been hidden in plain sight.
Leering at him from a separate room was a man he recognised.
Adam Schwarz, well dressed as ever, was flanked by four other men all in the exact same uniform - buttoned black blazers with red collars.
“Tyler, grand to see you’re finally awake, I trust the trip wasn’t too bumpy?”
Cypher’s blood boiled at the sight of the snide prick. Sure, Entity had won the first round, but he couldn’t let himself be broken, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed.
“Fuck you.”
He spat the words with venom.
Schwarz merely chuckled.
“Manners never were your strong suit, were they? I’m sure your ordeal has been somewhat tiring so far, but it’s far from over I’m afraid.”
The terminal screen on his right blinked to life. It immediately drew his attention, and when he turned to look at it he was greeted with a cursor flashing on a black background.
It was familiar to him. Most hacking setups were simple like this, in contrast to how it was often portrayed in film and by the media.
“We’ve got a job for you, and…not to be cliché, but it’s an offer I’m sure you can’t refuse.”
Cypher looked back to Schwarz and his followers on the giant plasma screen. Aaron smiled his cheshire cat grin before he disappeared and was replaced with a grainy feed of a prison cell. Inside, a woman lay on a bunk bed, staring up at the ceiling. The camera zoomed in..capturing her blonde hair, bruised cheeks, and…
No.
This had to be another trick.
There’s no way that was really Anna.
As if to make a point, the camera continued to zoom in until it focused on the same damn birthmark under her chin.
“If you want to see her again, then you’ll hack what we tell you.”
Cypher’s hands began to shake. He couldn’t take this anymore. His sister was dead, she had died a long time ago, he had convinced himself of that.
He opened his mouth to respond when a shrill scream from the video feed caught his attention. Anna, if it really was her, was now banging on the door in distress.
“Is anyone there?”
“I-I don’t know where I am, please, someone just talk to me!”
“Go on Tyler…talk to her.”
A microphone icon appeared just below the feed on the terminal. It pulsed with a red light, beckoning his cursor to click it.
Cypher tried not to with all the willpower he had left.
This was just another trick.
It had to be.
Right?
Anna continued to pound on the door, tears now flowing down her cheeks.
“Help me!’
“Anna?”
Anna gasped, then sat in stunned silence for a second.
“Tyler?”
…
“Hello, Tyler? Was…was that you?”
…
“Hello?!”
Cypher was trying desperately to talk back to her, but now it didn’t seem like anything he was saying was getting through. The microphone symbol had now vanished, and it didn’t matter what he pressed on the keyboard, it wouldn’t come back.
“Want to talk to her again?”
“Then you’ll do what we tell you.”
/~/
Djibouti.
The backdoor.
He had hopped the fence and made his way to the back of the property, without worrying about trying to bypass the intricate alarm system connected to the entrance. He knew there was no hope at brute forcing this, this was serious shit. These guys weren’t hacking any run-of-the-mill residence. This was a three-storey mansion with multiple locked doors on every level.
His task was to infiltrate the establishment and return with the technology stowed away on the top level. He had been given scant info on what the tech was exactly, but it had something to do with Artificial Intelligence.
In order to free himself, to see his sister again, all he had to do was get in and get out with the package in tow.
That was what Entity had promised him.
And in reality it was his only choice.
The infiltration began with an innocuous knock on the front door by a “postman”. The postie came bearing gifts. They didn’t arouse suspicion because on the face of it they seemed harmless. The youngest removed a toy horse from one of them. Horses were her favourite. Soon it was discarded as she was called in for tea. It lay on the mantlepiece until eventually revealing its true nature. The Trojan program which had been concealed within the horse began quietly building a backdoor…
By the time the family realised what was going on, it was too late.
Instead of trying to fight through every door to get to the top, Cypher was able to gain access to the top level via the route that the Trojan had created for him. The backdoor led to its own route, bypassing the locked doors that would normally block his path.
Traversing the stairs, he was in.
No alarms triggered.
Like the innocuous horse from before he had found his way inside the property, and now, before him, lay the prize.
A small black box resting on a table, bearing a triangular logo with the name “GIDEON SOLUTIONS” underneath.
He frowned, that name sounded somewhat familiar. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now.
Cypher swiped the box, turned to leave, and immediately heard the sound of the backdoor downstairs slamming shut.
The room flashed red as multiple alarms blared all around Cypher.
How could he be so stupid?
He prayed his legs wouldn’t fail him as he abandoned all pretense of sneaking around and fled through the main door.
Why did he always fuck everything up?
The stairs raced by as he flew down them, the alarms assaulting him with a wall of noise.
“Please just let me make it.”
Finally making it to the foot of the stairs he raced toward the door.
BANG
BANG
BANG
Cypher looked back to see four figures behind him. Two adults, clutching a child each, stared back at him with wide, goldfish-like eyes. He only glanced at them for a second but the image of their faces was burnt into his mind. They had no mouths or ears, they had two small holes where their noses should have been. Their skin was grey and pasty, no clothing except for a badge which read “sysadmin”.
Nopeing the fuck out of that, he turned back to the door and reached for the handle. He grabbed it, but a rope wrapped around his feet. They were about to pull him back in when he jumped into the air, freeing himself momentarily from the rope, and smashed his shoulder into the door, brute forcing it down.
Cypher collapsed back into his chair, sweat trickling down his nose. He took a moment just to breathe after the most exhilarating hack of his life.
His heart pounded like a jackhammer in his chest, but the adrenaline and anxiety soon gave way to joy as he double checked the contents of the computer drive to make sure.
The file sat there amongst a bunch of other junk, like a golden needle poking out of a haystack.
"GS.exe".
The only thing that worried him was that he could no longer see Anna on the feed of the prison cell - but the cell door was unlocked.
Cypher stood up, legs shaky for a second, then glared in the direction of the LCD screen which remained blank.
“Come on u fucks, I played ur stupid game, now give her back.”
Still, nothing.
Exhausted physically and mentally, Cypher fell to his knees.
“Please…”
Head bowed, he waited.
…
…
A torrent of artificial light illuminated his face.
He looked up to see Adam grinning ear to ear.
“Well done, Tyler. You’ve won our mercy, and of course…the object of your desire.”
Metal hinges grunted and groaned as what had previously just been a part of a wall swung open.
Pushing back his hood, Cypher met the eyes of his sister. She was dressed much like him, a black hoodie framed her bruised and fearful face. She looked traumatized, but those troubled eyes lit up when she saw him.
Anna Norrie rushed into the arms of her brother, the embrace taking them both to the floor.
Tears came, flowing freely, as the two siblings were finally reunited after 10 years.
“Is this real?”
…
“I hope so.”
/~/
//:ENT1TY_2.5_PUN1SHM3NT
February, 2010
Deep Creek Conservation Park, South Australia
Four figures are traversing a hiking trail, their small bodies leaving long shadows in their wake. The afternoon sun is beating down on them as they follow the narrow path bordered by bushes and rocks. They are led by a boy wearing a black hoodie, an article of clothing which seems out of place on a warm summer’s day in Australia. The others are dressed more suitably for the weather. Flanking him are two other boys stomping down the trail in shorts and t-shirts, their chests puffed out and eyes glimmering with excitement.
“Guys wait up!”
Trailing behind the three boys is a girl, panting heavily as she tries to keep up with them. Her blonde hair is tied back in a ponytail which bops from side to side as she moves. Her overalls are stained with sweat She wipes sweat off of her brow once she finally makes it to the pack.
The eldest of the three boys, wearing a yellow shirt and khaki shorts, turns up his nose at her.
“Anna you’re sooo slow.”
“No, you guys are going too fast.”
“Sure, that’s exactly what a girl would say.”
The sarcastic remark comes from a boy wearing a Port Adelaide Power AFL guernsey. His freckled cheeks are twisted in a sneer. Anna pouts and looks over at the black hoodie boy, waiting for some kind of intervention. Instead, he simply continues to stare away into the distance.
“Ty, tell them to stop being mean.”
Her brother folds his arms. His voice is tinged with annoyance when he speaks.
“Can we just keep going?”
Silence over the group. Tyler turns away and continues to walk down the hillside. Shrugging, the rude boys take after him, leaving Anna in their wake. What they don’t see as they turn around is the look of pain and anger on her face. They weren’t even looking back to see if she would join them.
Did they even care?
The whole journey she had been berated, made fun of, and constantly left behind. The one person who she thought she could trust to always have her back had abandoned her in favour of his asshole buddies.
Not long ago she couldn't imagine Tyler treating her like this, but the truth was as they had grown older together, the less and less he had resembled the big brother she remembered.
Fine.
If he didn’t care about her, then she would find her own way.
She didn’t need them.
She didn’t need anyone.
/~/
May, 2022
Somewhere in Djibouti
Cypher gripped Anna close to him, savoring a moment he didn’t want to end. His sister had long haunted his mind over the past 12 years. As much as he was able to blank it out during his day-to-day life, at night when he closed his eyes she would be there. Asking him over and over…
Why?
Why not me?
Then his friends would appear, faces twisted into a collective sneer.
Why?
Why choose us?
Now, even as he lay here with his arms around her, those thoughts were swimming around in his mind again. Even though he had found Anna, he still felt guilty that he had let her be taken by whatever had held her captive over the last dozen or so years.
They finally broke their embrace, and for the first time Cypher took a moment to take in her appearance. Despite the bruises and slightly smudged makeup, she still had a lot of that natural beauty he could recall from their youth.
But at the same time as he was admiring her, he couldn’t help but feel like her eyes were piercing through him. A reminder that her suffering was directly tied to him.
He swallowed, willing himself to speak.
“Anna, I’m sorry.”
She half-smiled, reaching out with a hand to wipe away a salty tear from my cheek.
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have been so stupid, I just didn’t realise you hadn’t come with us and when I did I tried to find you but-
Anna pinched my face, like she had done so many times when we were little, to interrupt my rambling.
“It's OK, you’re here now Cypher, and that’s what matters.”
He froze.
“Cypher”?
That didn’t make sense.
She had only ever known him as Tyler.
His spine tingled with dread as he realised something weird was going on with her face.
Her makeup was slowly but surely being wiped away with each tear that streamed down her face…but it was more than makeup. Her actual face was being distorted by the liquid seeping from her eyes. The way the “tears” were leaking in sort of a spreading motion made him feel even more uneasy.
“What’s wrong?”
Without thinking, Cypher raised his hand and pinched her cheek, just as she had done. The texture was soft and slick…but soon gave way to something cold and metallic.
He jerked his hand away.
Where his fingers had pressed against her “skin”, they had revealed a metal surface underneath.
This wasn’t Anna.
This was a lie.
“Ehh, I guess the crying feature could still use a little work.”
Aaron Schwarz nonchalantly waltzed through the door leading out of Cypher’s prison. He stood there, gloating, as the robo-Anna kept staring at him with cold, unblinking eyes.
“What the fuck did u do?!”
Cypher brushed past the cheap imitation of his sister and lunged at Aaron, but his progress was immediately halted by an arm slipping around his neck. In an instant his world turned upside down and he was slammed head first into the ground. His lights were almost knocked completely out on impact, but somehow he clinged to consciousness.
Breathing heavily, he looked up to see robo-Anna smiling down at him, the makeup which had concealed her true form now all but gone. Her grip around his neck was unnaturally strong, stronger than any chin-lock he’d ever been put in while in the ring.
He struggled in her arms as Aaron leaned down to his level.
“Pretty believable huh? We’re really stepping it up in our Artificial Intelligence department, so thanks for being my little test dummy Tyler…only a few kinks to work out.”
Seething, Cypher spat directly into Aaron’s face.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Wrong answer…Anna?”
Robo-Anna instantly wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled Cypher into the air. He hung there a moment before his skull slammed into the cold floor beneath. The jarring impact sent a wave of pain through his head, and again he felt groggy.
As he tried to remain cognisant, he could only think about one thing.
Artificial Intelligence.
If Anna was an AI…then the technology he had recovered from Gideon Solutions had to be related…
Blood had begun to pool in his nose and was now slipping back down into his throat, making it difficult to speak.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Ohh Tyler, there’s so much that I want to tell you. I want to tell you about all our wonderful plans for expanding our AI capabilities now that you’ve so kindly delivered to our doorstep. I want to tell you how we’re going to make the world a better place, but this has never been about us…
“It’s been about you.”
Aaron pulled a remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. The LCD screen on the wall next to them blinked to life. Previously it had been a feed of Adam and his lackeys, but now it had changed.
It was Cypher’s Twitter feed.
However, it was different - he hadn’t been in control of it for however long he’d been trapped in Entity’s possession for.
So someone else was controlling what was posted and how he interacted with his friends.
“See while we had you working hard for us I decided to introduce your peers to the real Tyler. Not the one who hides behind the Cypher name, but the boy who abandoned his sister and left her for dead.”
Tweets from his profile flashed on the screen, all under the name “Tyler Norrie” rather than his usual “CYPH3R” tag.
“I”m sorry Anna, I failed you.”
“It stands true. Cypher is, was, and will always be a cunt.”
“Cypher is dead. Long live Tyler Norrie.”
“Cypher is gone. Why do you want him back so badly? He’s a horrible person. A fake. A voyeur who violates privacy without a care.”
Then there were the responses…
“What is this? Where’s the l33t speak? Who the fuck is Tyler?”
“This version of you is cringe.”
"I want my Cyphie back!"
A few moments of silence passed before Aaron spoke.
“See Tyler, all these “friends” of yours? They hate who you really are. You have deluded them into liking you through your Cypher persona.”
Cypher opened his mouth to respond but closed it just as quickly. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say that this was all bullshit, to call out Aaron for being a deceiving prick…but at the same time, he never forced anyone to say those things.
“The problem is you don’t make friends Tyler, you manufacture them.”
The screen blinked and changed to an image of his tweet leaking Emma’s nude photo.
“I was going to tweet about this next, what do you think?”
Aaron’s finger hovered above the remote.
Cypher bowed his head.
There was nothing he could do.
Then the room exploded into light.
The sound of gunfire reverberated off the walls of the tiny room, and Cypher felt AI Anna’s grip around his waist loosen.
The next thing he knew he was being carted out of the room on top of someone’s shoulders. Everything seemed to happen so fast, more than his scrambled brains could process.
Then his head began to finally succumb to the weight pressing down on it, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
/~/
//:ENT1TY_3.0_AP0C4LYPS3
Three weeks later
Tyler Norrie scratched and clawed his way through the shrubs and bushes that populated the dense landscape before him. His bare hands grasped at the sticks and stones, seeking some kind of purchase but never truly being able to find it. Still, he moved onward, knees scratched and bloody from the constant contact with the dried out flora. He pursed his dry lips together and they cracked immediately, causing the iron taste of his own lifeblood to fill his throat.
Tyler’s dried out esophagus wasn’t ready to accept the offering, and so he hacked loudly, sending a torrent of bloody bile onto the ground ahead of him. But he didn’t care, because that wasn’t the only thing ahead of him.
So was she.
Her back was to him, the sun illuminating her just enough that he could catch a glimpse of the hidden beauty from side-on. She was sitting on the edge of a cliff, legs dangling over the side. Blonde hair trailing in the light wind that brushed over her shoulders.
He knew it was her, and if he was going to do one thing before he let the elements take him, it was letting her know he was here.
Finally after what felt like days of heaving his body over the scorched earth, he made it.
Tyler reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn’t react, so he hacked out the last of the bile in his throat, and tried to speak.
“Anna…”
He managed one word, it was all he could say before he felt his throat close over entirely. He began to gasp for air, feeling like he was drowning in the hazy air surrounding them.
Then Anna turned to face him…except it wasn’t Anna.
At least not as he remembered her.
A mess of cogs and wires stared back at him, the normal features of a face barely distinguishable. Then, two slits appeared at top of the metallic surface, and a third at the bottom.
And it spoke.
“It's OK, you’re here now Cypher, and that’s what matters.”
Cypher lurched forward, coughing and spluttering. He reached up and touched his face, trying to ground himself in reality after the third nightmare of his sister this week. His fingers came away wet. Cypher glanced over at Dot. She was still fast asleep, offering no point of refuge. Not like she would be anyway. They hadn’t talked about Anna since he’d got back home. He hadn’t offered to, and she hadn’t asked.
Initially he didn’t want to talk about it.
Now he felt like he was slowly sinking into the ground in a tomb of his own making.
Sleep wasn’t an option…but neither was staying awake.
Cypher flopped back down onto the bed, as he did he felt something round and hard underneath his pillow. Frowning, he reached back and rummaged underneath. He already knew what it was by the time his hand had closed around it and pulled it out. Before he could think to stop himself, the pill was sliding down his throat.
“Just to fall asleep” he told himself.
“I just need it to fall asleep.”
/~/
“Where is he?”
“Y’know…in his room.”
“How long?”
“Couple weeks.”
“No like, how long has he..”
“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Least most of the time ‘e’s bin in there.”
…
“God damn it Tyler.”
“Ya want me ta’ give yas some private time?”
Thaddeus Duke, at this time having just inked the deal that would make him majority owner of OCW, paused.
Looking typically suave in his business attire, he was in direct contrast to Dot, sporting a leopard print hat and Led Zep tee. But her nonchalant attitude is absent, instead she anxiously chews her lip, eyes darting from the door to Thad and back.
“You don’t think it would be better for you to be there too?”
“We just had a fight, don’t think it’d be wise.”
“Right, see you on the other side then.”
Thad opened the door and stepped through as Dot made herself scarce. The man he had not long ago dragged from near death looked like he was on a trip right back there.
Cypher’s face was ghost white, his eyes seeming to bulge even bigger than they ever had before. He looked like he had been sweating buckets…and in spite of all that?
The mf was smiling.
In fact he barely noticed Thad walk in. He was staring up at the ceiling, like Sahara was up there naked or some shit.
“Tyler?”
Cypher’s eyes slowly but surely dragged themselves away from the roof and over to Thad.
“Thaddy!”
It was like he spoke the word in slow motion, accentuating each syllable.
“How you feeling?”
“I’m great buddy, where’s your hot girlfriend?”
“Not on the roof.”
“...Wha?”
“Listen to me, Tyler.”
Thad grabbed his friends arm and squeezed it, trying to appeal to his better judgment despite his somewhat euphoric state.
“I didn’t save your life just so you could piss it away with pills.”
Cypher’s jaw dropped open, the harsh and direct words like a slap to the face.
“I-
“Where are they?”
“Where are what?”
“Don’t fuck around.”
Thad instantly zeroed in on the drawer next to Cypher on the bedside table, and began rooting around inside. Before Cypher could stop him, he’d pulled out the orange container and was moving towards the slightly open window.
“NO!”
But it was too late.
The pills rained down onto the sidewalk below.
Cypher could only watch, his movements far too slow in his drug-addled state.
Thad turned back to him.
“I just bought OCW, you’re getting a TransAtlantic title shot at Reformation. Take some time to get through the withdrawals, but once that’s over?
Making his way to the door, Thad casually looked back at his stunned friend.
“You best be ready.”
/~/
[Dial Tone]
“Hello?”
“Alex?”
“My God, are you OK? Why didn’t you call me sooner?!”
“I’ve been…distracted.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“It felt like I was.”
…
“What happened? Where did you go?”
…
“What did they do to you?”
“I didn’t call you to talk about that.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Because I wanted to, is that a fucking crime?”
…
“Sorry, I’ve been on edge lately.”
“You’ve been on edge?!”
“I’ve been worried sick about you, Tyler, for weeks - and you don’t even think to call?”
“There’s been worse shit to worry about than informing you, OK? I’ve literally gone through hell in these last few days, I wasn’t exactly keeping up with who I’d called and when.”
“Then talk to me, I’m here for you.”
“I’ve got a shot at a singles title at Reformation.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, TransAtlantic Championship. Dangerous Dan. One on one. Thad’s gonna announce it.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
…
“I guess that’s it for our tag team.”
“I thought we could still be partners.”
“I can’t sit here and wait around forever, Tyler.”
“I’ve given up a lot just to stick by your side, but I don’t know if I can keep doing that…waiting for you to commit to us. Waiting for you to pick up the phone, and call me.”
“You’re serious? You’re seriously going to bail on me, just because I got a title shot? I thought you’d be happy for me Alex, I really fucking did.”
“I am Tyler. I am so proud of you. But the truth is you’re leaving me in the dust for a singles opportunity, and you’re expecting me to be OK with that.”
“I’m not.”
...
“What do you want then? A title shot? Fine, when I win the damn thing you can be first in line - you happy now?”
“Now you’re gonna patronize me? I’m not some dumb broad, I'm a lioness. I don’t need your handouts. If I’m going to have a title shot, it’s going to be one I earned, not one you’re giving me because you look down on me.”
“I’m trying to show you that this means more to me than a title shot. That I actually care about Hacker Apocalypse.”
“It shouldn’t, you’re going to go and win that title and I’m going to be proud of you. But right now, I don’t fit into your life, so I’m moving on.”
“Screw you then, I don’t need your bullshit. If you can’t deal with me getting a title shot, then you can stay mad.”
“Go back to Paramount where you belong, bitch.”
[Call disconnected]
/~/
0perat1on_k1ll_ent1ty_[1/2]
July, 2022
San Francisco, California
Cypher twirled the USB stick in his hand, spinning it like one of those fidget spinners that everyone was obsessed about for two seconds way back when. Despite its movement the small rectangular device felt more like an undetonated mine just waiting for a fool to step on it.
It was the last piece of Entity that remained. The shadowy organization which had forced him to relive childhood trauma had now all but disappeared from his life.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it. He had often obsessed about the Artificial Intelligence they had tried to pass off as his sister.
What killed him the most is that they had succeeded at first.
The AI was so lifelike that he had genuinely believed it was Anna…until the cracks began to show.
That definitely led to many late nights for him, but soon the sadness gave away to frustration and then…disgust.
Disgust that he had done their dirty work as a hacker-for-hire. That he had let them play him at his own game. In the ring he’d been racking up win after win, but in his private life?
He felt like he was drowning.
His eyes turned to Dot. The blonde-haired vixen lay next to him, soundly asleep. Talking to her about the situation had helped. He’d found comfort in her arms, the reassurance she offered that one day he would find her. It just wasn’t going to be that day.
But he was yet to find a way to truly deal with the trauma on his own.
Then again…
His eyes returned to the USB in his hand.
Maybe he could channel his pain into something useful.
CYPH3R slipped out of the bed and, taking care not to wake Dot, slowly but swiftly made his way down the hall and into his computer room.
The room was a home inside of a home for him. Though it wasn’t like this was technically his home, it was a small rental in San Francisco underneath a bowling alley.
What? He’s on OCW money.
The flashing RGB lights illuminated CYPH3R’s pale face as his gaming rig came to life. He hesitated for a moment as he held the USB just above the port on the top of his tower.
The last time this stick had been inside a computer was in Djibouti. A hackathon masquerading as a competition when really it was a means to an end for Entity to showcase their technology.
The winning team in the competition had been given an extra leg up because they accepted Entity’s offer to test out their latest tech.
Knowing now that they had progressed to creating incredibly realistic AI’s, he was filled with both excitement and dread as he finally plugged the USB into his computer.
Do you want to scan and fix Removable Drive (E:)?
-> Continue without scanning
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:)
[entitydata]
[entityprograms]
[entityfiles]
[entityinfo]
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
You don’t have permission to access that folder.
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> User Accounts
-> Change User Account Control Settings
Program Files -> Properties -> Security Tab
Advanced -> Owner -> Edit
-> Replace Owner
-> Apply.
CYPH3R rebooted his PC, allowing the changed ownership settings to come into effect, then went back into the USB drive.
He navigated back to the E: drive, and this time he was able to access the folders held within…
…and found nothing.
Well, not nothing, there were certainly files inside, but nothing of note. No notes or programs that related to their AI endeavours at all, instead there were just files which appeared to serve as a loophole in the hackathon challenge. The coding was basic, rudimentary, something that CYPH3R could have created himself.
Of course you could have, you’re used to doing their dirty work, aren’t you?
He tried to block out the nasty thought as he reluctantly closed the window.
Start -> Power -> Shut Down
His cursor hovered over the words for a moment, his finger poised atop the left mouse button. Then, letting out a loud sigh, he pressed it down.
Start -> Search -> cmd
cmd: “chkdsk E: /f"
“3GB of total space.
5GB in 48704 files.
0KB in bad sectors.
96KB in use by the system.”
CYPH3R frowned.
There’s no way the files and programs he’d seen before could be taking up all that space.
Something didn’t add up…
It was time to dig a little deeper.
cmd: “srchdsk E: /f
“Searching…
0000 files located of 48704 files…
1239 files located of 48704 files…
2874 files located of 48704 files…
CYPH3R could feel the anticipation building in his stomach as the number continued to rise…
48704 files located of 48704 files…
30000 deleted files located…
Done.
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:)
[entitydata]
[entityprograms]
[entityfiles]
[entityinfo]
[deleted files]
His heart beating out of chest, CYPH3R took a deep breath, steadied himself, then moused over the deleted files folder…
And clicked.
…
“Oh my fucking God.”
In that moment, he regretted ever holding onto the USB. He regretted plugging it into his computer and he certainly regretted diving deep into its depths to recover the deleted files.
There were many things he had seen during his hacking days, stuff on the Deep Web that would make even the most hardened of 4chan users turn up their noses in disgust.
But this…
This was worse than anything he had ever seen.
Not necessarily because it was the most gory or disgusting.
Because it was the most disturbing.
Shit that would get you in jail for just possessing, let alone creating.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
In a panic, he yanked the stick out of his PC and threw it in the bin - though it more or less slipped out of his hand, which was now slick with sweat.
CYPH3R leaned back in his chair and tried to regulate his breathing, which had grown fast and shallow.
He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the side of his hoodie.
Deep breath.
In…
And out.
In…
And out.
“Are you going to let them get away with that?”
The thought burst through the protective bubble he created around himself. Before he could stop them, even more came through.
“The great CYPH3R, reduced to Entity’s Bitch Boy.”
He peaked out from between his hands, gazing down at the flash drive laying amongst the tissues in his wastebin.
“
Before he could stop himself, he had pulled out the drive and shoved it back into his PC. His cursor flew across the screen.
This PC -> Removable Drive (E:) -> deletedfiles
-> IMG29713 -> Properties -> Security -> Group or Usernames
[System]
[Administrators]
[Gerald: DESKTOP-EN29TI76TY\Gerald]
CYPH3R bulbous eyes lit up. A sigh of relief released from his lips, the pent up anxiety slowly fading away.
“Game over.”
/~/
0peration_k1ll_ent1ty_[2/2]
[Dial tone]
“Entity, Gerald speaking.”
“Wow.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My b, just surprised it was that easy.”
“Who is this?”
“My name’s not important.”
“Goodbye.”
“I’ve got a USB for you.”
…
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Gerald.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“You do that and I send these pics to every news site in the US with your name, address, and phone number attached.”
…
“You’re lying.”
“Check your email.”
…
[An audible gasp. Shuffling, then footsteps. Door closing.]
“How…how did you-”
“I’m smarter and more talented than you, and I always will be. Plus I don’t look at pictures of that shit in my spare time, cos I’m not a fucking sicko.”
“Listen to me. I am a good man, I’ve never hurt anybody, I just…”
“Save it, trying to convince me you’re not a garbage human being isn’t going to get you out of this, only one thing will.”
“You mean you’ll-
“Yes, if you do what I ask, I’ll delete the photos for good."
“You promise?”
“Of course, and all I want in exchange?”
…
“Your username and password.”
/~/
"Have you ever slipped into someone else’s brain?
Taken a trip through their subconscious to see what was hiding there - all the thoughts that pop into their mind but don’t ever come out of their mouth?
The secrets they hold inside because of the havoc they could wreak if they got out?
No?
Well, have you ever looked at someone’s search history?
Maybe it was unintentional. You sat down next to a friend as they went to type in an url beginning with the letter “P” and…oopsie!
Or it was more targeted, deliberate than that. You’re a mother who likes to keep tabs on what their son is looking at when they use the family computer.
Perhaps you were a friend of a friend who left their laptop unlocked, so you jumped on and decided to post a Facebook status on their profile.
Any of these scenarios technically could constitute a violation of privacy, but what attracts us to take these actions, whether intentional or not, is it allows us a peek into the mind of another.
Without the advent of technology this wouldn’t be possible - but now it happens on almost a daily basis. The FBI, CIB, Government et ceterea are about allowed to read the minds of residents as they see fit - be it a soccer mom or a guy one bad day away from hopping onto the subway with a bomb strapped to his chest.
See I get the question “why do you hack” a fair bit nowadays. Fans especially, they wonder why I would continue to do it when I’m a successful and extremely talented wrestler.
I intended to leave that part of me behind when I started wrestling. But then…I let my emotions get the better of me. I was hurt, and wanted revenge.
I acted rashly, going against everything I had ever been taught about hacking. In leaking the images of my ex girlfriend's bare body onto social media I left a trail leading right back to me. I was no better than that friend who “hacked” your Facebook, in fact I was probably worse. No encryption, no alias, I was right there on the fabled Twitter timeline saying “Why yes officer, I am breaking the law.”
Now everyday I feel like my time is running out. I can hear the tick…tick…tick as I type this, the minute hand moving ever closer to my eventual doom. I left the tracks, not like it’d be hard for anyone to join the dots.
But before that happens, I got one last thing I gotta do. See these Entity fucks tried to ruin my life, they used my sister for bait and played me at my own game. I can’t let them get away with that.
I guess it’s bad news for them that blackmailing me to hack for them actually reminded me why I love that shit so much. Stepping into someone else’s shoes and understanding what makes them tick, learning their hopes, their fears, their interests and their hidden shame.
Shit’s like crack to me.
Before you judge what I’m about to do?
Just remember you’ve all done it too."
/~/
If Gideon Solutions was a two-storey suburban home with outdoor and indoor security systems, then Entity HQ was a skyscraper that seemed to stretch impossibly high.
For CYPH3R, it was breathtaking. Easily the most daunting structure that he’d ever tried to penetrate, its rock-solid defenses automatically disqualified most wannabe hackers from ever getting in.
Even moderately skilled hacksters would have scoffed at the prospect. But fortunately for him?
He had a card.
CYPH3R looked down at the business card in his hand. The name “GERALD PAY” leaps off the off-white background at him. The black, embossed font with Silian Grail lettering truly is something to behold…not that any of that means anything to a dude who spends most of his time typing in 11pt Arial in Google Docs.
He approaches the front entrance and catches a glimpse of himself in the glass of the revolving door. The pale face and dark-ringed eyes stared back at him, framed by his black hoodie.
His memory jogged and he quickly pulled the card back out, this time running his finger along the typeline.
CYPH3R watched as his own features twisted and contorted in the glass to match that of the Entity employee. His hoodie disappeared, revealing his messy hair that soon too vanished. His head was left bald, his eyes shrunken to normal size, and his eyebrows bigger and bushier than he’d ever seen them.
A wave of nausea ran through him as he saw himself not as CYPH3R, but as Gerald Pay. The things this man had committed made his stomach churn…but he knew it was necessary. To beat Entity, he had to become one of them. Like Entity's leader, Aaron Schwarz had done to his sister, he would integrate himself into the system.
“Move it, Gerald.”
An Entity drone brushed past him, nearly causing him to lose balance. Steadying himself, and swearing an oath to hack that guy’s PC later, he stepped into the belly of the beast.
/~/
CYPH3R piled into an elevator with a bunch of other suits. He felt somehow both in place and out of place at the same time. Though they were likely his co-workers, he was a sore thumb. His rotund waste and suspenders contrasted with their clean-cut navy suits.
Swiping the business card in the slot reader next to the floor numbers, he then jabbed the button for floor 35. Immediately the slot reader beeped loudly and the other douchebags in the lift began to chuckle.
“No way they’d let your ass get near an AI, you’d probably take it home so you could finally get some action!”
More laughter, but he wasn’t focused on them…
[...]
[You said you had access.]
[N-not to that area…I just work on the surface-level stuff.]
[Are you serious? That might have been important to know, dumbass. Now I look suspicious as hell.]
[Oh just shut the fuck up.]
[...]
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The suits began to slink their way past him…
Now or never.
Just before the last guy moved past him to exit, CYPH3R slammed his index into the “close doors” button. They slammed shut, and his co-worker practically headbutted the door. He recoiled, clutching his forehead which was now sporting a large red lump.
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Oh gosh I’m so sorry, a-are you OK?”
CYPH3R reached out and grabbed him on the sides, as if he was making sure he was alright. The suit shoved him away, cursed him again, then opened the doors He sneered as he joined the rest of his buddies, but CYPH3R just waved goodbye as the doors closed.
Then?
He whipped out the guy’s card and slid it through the reader.
This time when he selected floor 35, the elevator immediately began to rise, taking him exactly where he wanted to go.
[...]
[How did you get those credentials?]
[I’m a hacker, it’s what I do.]
[But they’re going to realise soon.]
[That’s not going to be my problem.]
[...What?]
[...]
After exiting the lift and traversing a winding corridor, CYPH3R found his way to a sliding door with a card reader next to it. Beyond the glass lay a series of AIs, clumped together on either side of the room in two rows. In the middle lay a desk which was conspicuously vacant.
This had to be it.
The production room.
Even better, an unattended production room.
He slid the card through the scanner and was pleasantly surprised when the entrance opened up for him. A strong metallic smell invaded his nostrils as he walked through the entryway. He shivered when moments before he’d been sweating.
The eyes on the hyper-realistic bodies of the AI seemed to follow him as he moved closer and closer to the desk in the centre of the room. Subconsciously he avoided their gaze, focusing in on the computer before him. Sliding into the white desk chair, he got to work.
[...]
[What are you doing?]
[The technology they're using to construct more of these lifelike AI's...]
[Yeah?]
[Wait, you worked for them too?]
[Not without them manipulating me.]
[So you know how these things work?]
[More than that, I know how to break them.]
[What happens then?]
[It's simple.]
[Tonight?]
[Entity dies.]