The only sounds that came from the tiny apartment that Charlie Knight owned was the furious sound of clicking and typing, the muted blare of sounds through headphones barley registered beyond his own hearing range as he focused on the game at hand. Those bastards were kidding themselves if they thought he’d let them take objective B without a bitter fight. Minutes passed as he focused intently on the game occasionally barking commands down the microphone as he pushed his team to work together and destroy the enemy ruthlessly. Eventually the game timer ran dry and he grinned and leaned back in his chair as his team was victorious, his own name at the top of the leaderboard next to the MVP award.
Still smirking he quit the game and brought up his desktop before he pulled the headphone cord free and slapped on some music, ignoring the messenger icon that indicated he had received several notifications whilst gaming. Instead he diverted his focus to the tray of paraphernalia and rolling provisions and set about crafting himself a smoke. It only took him a brief time before he snatched up the lighter and sparked up, inhaling deeply before letting out a large plume of smoke before he finally diverted his attention back to his desktop.
With a few quick clicks he opened several different windows and began to read his messages. The first was a notification from a program he’d made months and months ago alerting him to a new fourth generation Suzuki Hayabusa sports bike , one of the fastest street bikes in the world – the newest model with all the bells and whistles freshly imported from Japan. He stared at the picture longingly for a few moments more as he exhaled another plume of smoke. He entered a few command lines and moments later a streetmap popped open with its location and a couple of pictures of the showroom that it would soon be delivered to. His grain faded as he leafed through the pages of security that the place had, some serious hardware, software and not to mention the many security guards that would be posted about the place.
He glanced across at the mysterious business card that had arrived, slipped under his door in the middle of the night. Trust Dedsec the most sophisticated group of hackers on the planet to physically deliver a piece of paper as opposed to some sort of computer message. He imagined how great it would be to turn up to the ‘recruitment event’ driving something like that… it would certainly make an impression if he managed to pull off another serious hack on top of a physical infiltration and theft. The more he thought about it the more he considered trying to break into their systems remotely that very moment, but in the end decided that it would be easier if he managed to get himself admin access to ctOS first.
Forcing his attention away from the picture he opened his other messages and leafed through them one by one. A few from girls he’d… spent time with, a few various messages from his contacts through the web and a single message that grabbed his attention. It was from Kotori, another local hacker like himself who just happened to be his best friend. He’d tried to call her last night the moment he’d discovered the card slipped under his door, but she hadn’t answered and he hadn’t been able to track her down. The message simply read “12 Holland Park, Kensington – 11:00pm”, from his experience that was her way of asking him to meet her, likely some party or rave happening there. A few quick searches later and his suspicions were confirmed. He found a few messages on social media of several people talking about a party that would be taking place, some rich asshole whose parents were out of the country.
He glanced down at the time, seeing that if he wanted to get to Kensington for 11:00 pm he’d have to set off soon. He took a few more moments to close and secure his system as he finished his smoke and sighed as he gathered the effort required to start getting ready. Altogether it took him less than twenty minutes to shower, get dressed and get ready. He finished by donning on a black and white striped cap as he snatched up his keys, checking his pockets to make sure he had everything else. Satisfied he did he moved into what passed as the kitchen and went through a small doorway into what passed as a cupboard/boiler room of sorts. Dominating the centre of the room was a rather wonderful smelling leafy plant sat nicely under a little growlight. He took a few moments to water it from a bottle and examine the leaves and stem to make sure all was healthy and well before he turned his attention to the corner of the room.
He crouched down and pulled on a loose floorboard to reveal an old safe, spending a few moments to twist the dial back and forth as he entered the combination and pulled the heavy metal door open to reveal the contents. There was a large wad of notes, a bale of marijuana and a memory stick within the safe though he ignored the latter two as he reached for the cash. He retrieved a considerable chunk of the notes before tossing the remainder back and closing the door.
Minutes later Charlie had left the apartment and was walking down the street with his hood pulled up as he shivered at the change in temperature. It was definitely cold this time of year he thought as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. Before long he had made his way to the nearest tube station and made his way down into the underground pushing through the crowds as he hopped on one of the trains. He pulled out his phone and amused himself with the profiler as he waited, scanning through the immense amount of unprotected data that each person gave off. As always he found himself gravitating towards the prettier people on the tube, scanning a particularly smoking hot blonde he paused and grinned to himself as he found a ‘home-video’ of her that she’d sent to someone in Canada. He shook his head in disbelief at how oblivious people could be as in a few clicks he downloaded it to his PC at home. Before he arrived at his destination he’d found several other interesting tidbits from those who were also on the train, amongst them there was a man who was blackmailing the CEO of a manufacturing company and a woman who was having an affair with her husband’s female secretary as well as a large amount of assorted private personal data. Again he smirked to himself as he hopped off at his destination, before he made his way through the station towards the address Kotori had given him.
****
Charlie had arrived at the place a little after 11pm to discover that it was indeed as he’d discovered one of London’s most luxurious properties filled with youngsters who were partying the weekend away. He’d made his way in pushing into the throng, the bottom floor filled with people and mess, open bottles, unattended drinks along with various bits of rubbish that had started to accumulate. He moved past a bottle of vodka that someone had left on the side and so he snatched it up and took a deep swig as he made his way through. It only took him a few minutes to find Kotori, the young woman sat on the landing to the second floor with her legs dangling through the banisters as she passed a joint back and forth with a neon-green headed girl, occasionally sending little bits of ash raining down on the uncaring throng below.
He jumped the stairs two at a time, avoiding a passed out guy and sidestepping a rather loudly gesturing girl who was spilling her drink everywhere before they noticed him. “Knight!” beamed Kotori as she jumped up and pulled him into a rough embrace “What took you?”
He could smell the booze on her already and the rather enthusiastic greeting told him that she’d already had a few. He returned her smile as he took another sizable gulp of vodka and shrugged “Nothing much, found a vid on the tube you’d like.” He hesitated for a moment as he looked at the other girl and shot her a flirtatious wink.
“What’d you need me for K?” he asked as he turned his attention back to her.
“Geeze” she breathed out as she watched the girl she was with blush slightly and wink back at him “Not to steal my date if that’s what you’re thinking.” With that she moved back to the girl and planted a kiss on her lips before she said “Go have some fun. I’ll find you in a bizzle”. The girl made her way past her and Knight, again he made sure to catch her eye as she did before he turned back to Kotori with another smirk.
“Okay funny guy” she began grabbing his hand and pulling him along the landing as she continued “You wanna know what I need you for, here”. She pushed open the door at the end of the landing to see that it opened into a huge lavish study, rows of bookcases leading to a large mahogany desk and sleek black desktop computer before she finished “There” pointing to it.
His attention was already peeked as he moved into the room and sat at the desk in the large leather-bound chair before he span around a few times and put the bottle of vodka on the desk and folded his arms and put on a mock frown. She laughed as she watched him before she explained “Sooo, feel like hacking into the Imperial college’s database for me? It’s just that I’ve sorta told someone that I’d sorta be able to do it…”
She smiled as sweetly as she could muster and blinked her deep brown eyes at him a few times before she added “Pleeeeeease”.
He sighed and pulled out his laptop before putting it on the table as he shot her a genuine look of irritation “Fine, but you have to stop this” he said shortly “you know this kinda work I’d normally be charging more than a pretty penny for”.
“Thanks a mill” she said sighing in relief “Natalie Flimbrook, I need you to change her results to from shit to good”
“Which results?” he asked.
“All of them” she replied sheepishly.
“Best get busy then” he said as he started to type away. He paused for a second and looked at her expectantly – it took her a few moments before she twigged and started to roll another joint before he continued. It would take him some time, maybe an hour at the most. It would have been impossible had he not been directly linked to an administrative faculty account, even more so he would have refused outright if anyone else had asked him on the spot like this. But of course Kotori was his exception, she always was. She was a nice girl, talented too. Of course no-where near as skilled as he was but of course who was in this world?
***
It’d taken him an hour and three minutes, but he’d done it. As he ran the last line of code to erase his presence from the system logs he stood and triumphantly held his hand aloft as he remarked smugly “Another successful abuse of the educational system”.
Kotori gave him a rather full throttle high-five before she thanked him again “Knight, seriously, thank you so much for this one. I totally owe you one.”
He picked up the vodka and examined her for a moment. She was filled with emotions, her face crinkled in joy and that cute smile plastered across her face like she’d slept with a hanger in her mouth. He always wanted to help her. “You owe me five now actually K” he corrected her with another grin before he took several large gulps of vodka before he removed the bottle from his lips as he shuddered at the overpowering taste of the spirit. “Now let’s go find that pretty girl of yours, and let’s tear this party a new one shall we?”
“Too fucking right” she replied as they made their way back out onto the hallway into the loud symphony of blaring music and the chatter of the partygoers. Things looked to be in full swing as they both lent against the banister and watched what was happening for a few moments. He spotted a group of people who had turned the two luxury sofas into some kind of tepee draped with blankets and another group playing some kind of drinking game that involved hand gestures and apparently lots of yelling amongst the general crowd.
“Where’s the generous host?” he shouted at her through the noise.
“I think he’s passed out in the kitchen” she yelled back with a goofy grin as his eyes lit up.
The rest of the night they spent doing shots, Kotori with the neon-green haired girl (who he soon learnt was Natalie Flimbrook herself) whilst they danced together, he spent the time amusing himself talking to the legions of other partygoers (specifically the girls) as he drank and smoked more and more. Before he knew it everything started to become a bit of a blur and the last thing he remembered from the night was someone suggesting they turn the front room into a volleyball court, an idea that he yelled his wholehearted support for as he removed his shirt.
