Schooled, page 4
Silence fell over the room. I don’t think they expected to get a choice. Mrs. H didn’t speak up, so she must’ve been okay with my tactics.
“Winning will look good on all of our college apps,” Jessie said.
“And the money will help too, so we might as well,” Dean said. His teammates nodded and murmured in agreement.
“Okay, then.” I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I’d won over some of them and hopefully I’d get the rest quickly. “I brought in some encryption puzzles that I designed. At the heart of each of these is a text file, so it’s like what you’ve already built. I’ve got six, and they get progressively harder. Let’s see what you can do with these.”
I pulled my laptop out so I could drop what I’d created onto the network for the team to access. “I think you should work together like you would at the competition. And if you’ve got questions, I’ll be here.”
“We’ve got ninety minutes left,” Mrs. H said from her desk, “so take seventy to work on these and we’ll review with the rest of the time.”
The team seemed to have a strategy in place already. Two of the guys and one of the girls were at keyboards while the other five were split up behind them. One wheeled a whiteboard over so they could write things out.
After fifteen minutes a horn sounded, which signaled that they’d cracked one. Some of them jumped, which forced me to suppress a laugh.
“Sorry. The sound of a goal score seemed appropriate.”
That got grins from some of them before they went back to work. I was glad they’d gotten the first one so quickly. Mrs. H had been right about their skill level, and I pulled together my test modules based on that. The first one was slightly more difficult than what I’d cracked from them so there was hope. This teaching thing might be okay after all.
The team settled back into their work, and I made a secure connection so I could check in on some TOS stuff. I’d had some ideas for how to augment the bots I’d already deployed, and I wanted to get those out. The major objective for the bots involved evading security and tracking down the file. Whoever had the encrypted key wasn’t likely to put it somewhere unprotected. We needed to not only look for signs of a transfer but to peek behind firewalls to see if we could find it.
That was tricky business. The bot had to be stealth and do its job. The ultimate problem Lorenzo and I talked this morning about was what could happen if copies were made. In theory, the file couldn’t be copied without proper authorization. Since it’d already been removed from the laptop, it seemed a safe assumption that the thieves could’ve overridden other security features as well.
Another “goal” sounded and this time several of the students cheered.
“How’d you do that?” Jessie asked. “It changed while we worked. Like it knew it was under attack.”
I closed the laptop and looked at them while Mrs. H got up and went behind them, looking at their screens. “Self-defense is a tool that’s often used. Some of them are breakable, as you saw. Of course, the more you make the security react in unpredictable ways, the more difficult it is to break. It also means you can’t leave too obvious of a backdoor like some coders want to do.”
“But you left a backdoor in the first one,” said one of the girls. It was a huge fail that I didn’t get their names before I started. “It’s how we got in.”
“Exactly. It’s not the smartest programming move, but it’s always worth looking for.” Time ticked down, but I wanted to push them forward.
“This is great,” Mrs. H. said. “Try to get one more done before we break for questions and decide how we want to spend the next few days.”
They got right back to work and I loved their eagerness. We’d moved past the initial awkwardness. Hopefully they saw I was really just a geek like they were.
They couldn’t get the third puzzle done before the time expired. There were no signs of defeat among the team, though.
“Can we work on these for Friday?” asked the girl who’d called out the backdoor.
“It’d be cool to start the next meeting with all six unlocked. You can always ask me questions too. Catch me in the hall or email. Maybe think about what you see in these files that you can apply to what you’re creating too.”
“Could we win with what we built?” Jessie asked.
What was the right answer? “Maybe.” I shrugged. “Mrs. H thought you had a solid entry. There are a lot of similarities between that first file I gave you and what you designed. You guys cracked that quick. We need to evolve what you’ll submit so it’s stronger, more like other samples I made you.”
“We should totally do something that morphs,” one of the guys who’d yet to speak said.
I grinned that I had them interested. Now I had to guide them on how to build something like it, or even better.
“We cracked his code,” Cullen said. “We should dig into it to see how it works.”
The team agreed with him. They were going down the right path without me saying anything. Maybe I was doing this right.
“So, um, listen,” I said, bringing their attention back, “I messed up when we started. Can you please tell me your names? I know Cullen, Jessie, and Dean.”
In short order I had the rest of the names. The other guys—Ryouta, Lars, and Nat—and the other girls—Alice and Li.
“Cool. Thanks. Good luck with getting the rest open by Friday.”
None of them left the room. Instead they went back to their screens and worked. Impressive. I packed my stuff because I needed to get home to finish the bot upgrade and do my homework. I still needed to talk to Dad too.
I walked up to Cullen where he worked at a whiteboard. “Hey, man, got a sec?”
“Yeah, sure.” He capped the marker and pointed at the door and I nodded. “Back in a minute, guys.”
“How are you?” I asked once we were in the hall. “Things good?”
Cullen’s dad had hired someone to change court records to make it appear he had custody of his son. Cullen had come to me to fix it, but I didn’t want to add a second illegal hack. Ultimately Mom had TOS fix it. Since he was a freshman, we didn’t cross paths often, so I wanted to catch up.
“Yeah, man. We’ve got a restraining order against Dad, and he goes to trial in March. He’s got one of those ankle bracelets, so he can only go so many places right now.”
“That’s good. It’s cool but unexpected to see you here.”
“After all that went down, I wanted to learn more about computers, so I signed up for Mrs. H’s beginners course. She moved me into the intermediate class after a few days and asked me to join the team. She says I see patterns in a way that makes this easier for me somehow. I don’t totally get it, but some of it does seem easy.” He chuckled. “But some of it seems really hard too. Jessie says I’m helping them, though, so that’s cool.”
I nodded and clapped him on the back. “A natural. Nice. That’s how I started too. Some of it seemed so obvious, and then I enjoyed figuring out new stuff. I’ll let you get back. I just wanted to say hi.”
He nodded. “Later, man. See you Friday.”
Seven
“So you’re a teacher now?” Mitch asked as he, Eddie, and I wrapped up our work for the night on our history project. We’d practically become the three musketeers since we were together so much. Mitch was my best friend for years and my team captain. Luckily, when Eddie and I became a couple last year, he fit in perfectly with the friendship I’d already had. It probably helped that Mitch had a girlfriend, Iris, who hung out with us a lot too.
“I prefer to think of it like a coach. Mrs. H has taught them the basics over the past few months. I’m there to hone their skills. It’s sorta like how we have specific coaches that work with the forwards, the defense, and the goalie.”
Mitch nodded. “It’s scary how much is in that brain of yours. When you’re rich and running your own company, try not to forget about the rest of us.”
“Maybe I’ll just be a hockey player and keep the tech stuff for a hobby.” I never liked talking about the future or my skills. It wasn’t comfortable since my situation differed so much from my friends.
“Or you’ll do both, and I’m gonna be right there. I won’t let you forget about me.” Eddie leaned over from his perch on the bed to me in my desk chair and kissed me. It was hot how he had to stretch his already long body to reach me.
“Could you two adopt me, then?” Mitch asked, looking between us. That question would’ve been awkward from anyone but him.
“Why?” I asked. “If any of us are going to the big time, it’s you.”
College scouts had circled around Mitch all season in an effort to snag him. He gave an “aw shucks” look, which made me think he disliked talking about the future as much as I did.
Our phones all buzzed at the same time, which never happened. Before I could grab mine off the desk, they buzzed again, twice in rapid succession.
“What the hell is happening?” Mitch pulled his phone from his jeans. “Oh man,” he said while he scrolled. “Did you guys get this stuff from Wes Lockly?”
Eddie looked stunned. “Did he blast the entire school?”
I said nothing as I read the email with the subject “I’m not a nice guy.” There was no way Wes did this. Why would he incriminate himself with details of what he’d done to Dean and apparently other students over the past couple of months? I scanned the long and detailed message, which included the beating we’d saved Dean from the other day. Thankfully Eddie and I weren’t mentioned.
“I knew he was a bully, but I had no idea he harassed so many people.” Mitch looked up from the phone. “Didn’t he try to beat you up freshman year when he found out you were gay?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly while my brain worked to process all this. Not only was the email strange, but so were the extra vibrations our phones gave when it arrived. “Until he figured out I could defend myself.”
“You should’ve seen him take Wes on the other day.” Eddie animatedly moved his hands as if he were pulling someone’s arm back. “He was badass.”
“He’s a hockey player, of course he’s badass,” Mitch said. “And how come I’m just hearing about this?”
“Because it was nothing. We heard a commotion and broke it up.”
“Still, I like to know when my best friend is being a hero.”
“Hardly heroic.” I tossed my phone on the desk. “We were in the right place to stop Wes before he hurt that guy. Oh, and get this, that guy is on the comp-sci team.”
“Did he thank you since he ran off while we held off Wes?” Eddie pocketed his phone. I was glad we moved on from the email.
“Nope. If Dean recognized me, he said nothing. In fact he’s one of the guys not too happy I was there.”
“All right, I gotta get going,” Mitch said as he packed up. “We’re gonna work on this more tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Works for me,” Eddie added.
Mitch wheeled his chair back to where it hung out in front of my desk, alongside two others.
“See you tomorrow.” Mitch fist-bumped with Eddie. “Later, Mr. Badass.” He fist-bumped me too.
“I’ll walk down with you. I need to scavenge the kitchen. You want anything?” I looked to Eddie. “I’m thinking Nutter Butters.”
“That works.”
“Sure, pull out the food when I’m leaving.” Mitch pretended to sulk.
“Come on, you goofball. You can have cookies for the road.” We bounded down the stairs to the kitchen. It was quiet with the sliding doors to Mom and Dad’s office closed. Dad must still be working, and John might still be in there too since it wasn’t crazy late.
“You coulda kicked me out earlier, you know, so you and Eddie could do whatever.” Mitch took a handful of cookies from the package I put on the counter. He immediately stuffed two in his mouth.
“No worries. We needed to do that work, plus he’s gonna help me with some physics.”
“Uh-huh.” Mitch winked and I shook my head even though I hoped there would be less studying and more something else. “Physics. I’ll catch you in the morning.”
“Yup. Bright and early as usual.” We fist-bumped again before he was gone out the front door.
Once he left, I went back through the kitchen, grabbed the cookies, and headed upstairs.
Before I got to my room, I heard the ping of my computer indicating access denied. I quickened my pace and found Eddie in my chair, at my keyboard.
“What’re you doing?” I managed to ask calmly. I didn’t like anyone at my computer unless I specifically put it in safe mode. He hadn’t gotten in, but still. Why was he there?
“I wanted to print some stuff to go over.” He pulled a thumb drive from the side of the monitor and showed it to me.
“We can plug your laptop into a monitor so we can just read a screen.” I grabbed his laptop from the bed and pulled out a spare cord to make the connection.
“That works.” He pocketed the thumb drive and pulled a chair around so we could see the screen. We spent the next hour going over the very boring topic of heat transfer.
I was lucky to have a boyfriend with science smarts. It doesn’t click for my brain. He’d gotten me through chemistry and now he was doing the same in the Intro to Physics course.
Once we were done at the computer, we got situated, sprawled on my bed, with our books open. Instead of getting down to work and making me explain the recent lectures, he looked at me with concern. “You okay? Every now and then, you’ve been somewhere else tonight. I don’t think it’s work, though, because you don’t have the ‘I’m solving a problem’ look.”
Keys dominated my thoughts tonight, as she had been all week. I suppose I got too caught up in that and hadn’t realized it. I decided to go for some partial truth. “One of my mentors from one of my clients died suddenly. We worked together often and she’d actually become more than a mentor. She was a friend—”
He put his arm across my back and pulled me to him. “I’m sorry. When did it happen?”
“I only found out today.” Okay, I lied, but I wanted to include Eddie so he couldn’t think I’d sat on this too long. “Sometimes I end up thinking about it and how quick it happened.”
He held me tighter. I kept it together even though it’d be easy to cry in his arms. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I’m glad you told me.”
“Thanks.” I kissed him and that comforted me. “Let’s get to studying. That would make her happy.”
“Okay, then.” He smiled and made me start talking about what I’d learned.
After a couple hours, where we alternated between studying and making out, I finally had to kick Eddie out so I could do some other things. I needed to check on the bots I’d deployed. I couldn’t put off the talk with Dad any longer either.
“You wanna catch a movie Sunday afternoon?” Eddie asked while we stood by his Jeep in the driveway. John’s car was still there, so he and Dad were at work on something.
I thought for a second. We had a game Friday night and Eddie was swimming Saturday afternoon, which I looked forward to. Sunday should be free unless something came up with TOS.
“If my clients stay quiet, then yes.” My default answer. Eddie looked unsurprised. “Grab a bite after?”
The lights on either side of the garage sparkled in his eyes. “Maybe we won’t actually go to the movie.”
I craned my neck up so I could kiss his lips.
“See you tomorrow,” he said as he got into his Jeep. He rolled his window down so I could stick my head inside and kiss him a few more times.
“Love you.” I pulled out of the window and stepped back as he started the engine.
“Love you too.”
I watched him drive off and waved once to him before he turned off the street.
That ended the normal part of the evening. Hopefully I’d get to sleep before midnight so I’d be fresh for practice. The good thing about the stamina drills was that it gave me more energy overall.
Eight
The office was still closed, so I rapped on the door. I had to get this talk done.
Dad opened the door but not wide enough for me to enter. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Just need to talk before I go to bed.”
“Can you give me ten minutes to wrap up a call?”
“Sure. It’s confidential. You can come up if you want.”
“Okay.” Confusion clouded Dad’s expression. It wasn’t often that John didn’t have clearance for the stuff I talked to Dad and Mom about. But in this case, the loss of Keys remained need-to-know until further notice, and I only had the okay to talk to them. “I’ll be up in a bit.”
He closed the door and I headed upstairs. I tidied up from the study session—chairs went back in their places and cookie crumbs got swept into the trash can.
I used my master power switch to turn on my other computers and monitors. My main terminal still displayed the security warning from Eddie plugging in the thumb drive. I had notifications in place to let me know anytime the system had something unauthorized connected to it, but the additional notice that the drive had a virus on it threw me.
Did Eddie know he had a virus? I pulled up the logs, which had a snapshot of the drive’s contents. The report showed regular files I’d expect to see, but also a trojan designed to transmit the infected computer’s data over the internet. But to where?
What was going on? Eddie had a virus. Weird email sent to my classmates.
I fired off a text to Eddie.
Bring that thumb drive to school tomorrow. My computer says it’s seriously infected. I’ll fix it for you.
While I waited for his reply, I brought up the email that was supposedly from Wes. From the headers it certainly looked like it came from his school account. There was some markup as well that triggered the additional phone notifications. With the lengthy cc list, it looked like all the students got it. The recipients didn’t seem to include any teachers or administrators. Did they get a different version? Or was the intent to embarrass Wes to his classmates? A trace showed the school’s server didn’t send the emails, but the server listed as the originator didn’t seem to exist now.
