The Beginning of The End

Dive a little deeper

Scarlett

When the answer is right in front of you but you can't see what it is you get frustrated. I have never been good at spotting things that are in plain sight. My knowledge has always been limited but I know how to ask the right questions in order to get the answers I need. I have always thought that I would make a good journalist because I knew the important questions and I was always prying for more information but when you weren't speaking to someone you couldn't ask questions to anyone but yourself. And when the thing you have been looking for is stored in amongst a riddle you need to rely on your knowledge and skills to help you out. Throughout everything I have been through I have learnt a lot and added to my knowledge. If I have gained anything from this experience then it would be that. But back when my knowledge was limited getting to the position I am in today seemed an impossible task.

***

We spent the next few days searching for clues in the riddles on the website. Ella was certain that there were hidden links in amongst the pages of words. She sent a virus into the website to track any activity on the site and hoped that it would lead us to scientific reports. Alex was helping Adrian sort through the government site. So far they had uncovered much more than we had but still nothing that helped us to solve our problems.

It was quite funny watching the two of them trying to beat each other by finding more important information. So far Adrian was winning - he knew how to pull the site apart, as the two of them had said the other day they were professionals in the trade, and he had been studying the site for a while before we even knew it existed.

But Alex was very smart his computer skills were even better than I realised. He picked up the trade quite easily and was trying to hold his own. He was also able to answer questions that either Ella or I had about the scientific language that was on our site.

"You found that link yet?" Adrian's eyes were glued to his computer screen and he didn't even look at us as he spoke.

"No the Trojan horse shows no recent activity on the site and I can find no hidden or broken links on the only page we have found so far." Ella was busy messing with the computer screen.

I was leaning back against the desk chair and staring at the computer screen still seeing nothing other than meaningless words. The others were all busy with the sites. Alex paid no attention to me when I tried to speak to him. He was too busy trying to catch up with Adrian. Their competitive nature kept them glued to their seats even after Ella and I had given up in frustration.

"Keep trying we should be able to c***k it. We haven't failed yet and this won't be our first time." Adrian was cocky as ever.

"Maybe you should have a look." Ella typed in a mixture of random letters into a program I didn't recognise. She had used it often in the past days but I still had no idea what it actually did. The empty beep was the reply as it had been every other time we tried it. "I thought I had it that time."

I looked up at the screen; my eyes focused on the word 'experimental' which littered the article. Well, their experiments had failed. Not only that they had gone drastically wrong and now a bunch of teenagers were left trying to work out what had gone wrong. We had got further than anyone would have expected - who would have guessed that a couple of 15-year-old Americans could hack a government site and access official scientific research and even if we hadn't quite managed to find the answers yet, we knew we had given it our best try and had got further than any would have suspected we would.

But that made failure an even worse fate.

"Have you tried the random access code or the advanced search?" Adrian had finally dragged himself away from his prized possession - his laptop.

"Do you think I would forget simple things like that?" I didn't even know things like that existed.

"Still coming up blank?"

It wasn't really a question but Ella answered anyway. "What do you think?"

"Just checking. We have to make sure we haven't missed anything. I am sure the answer is written in plain sight." Once again I glanced at the computer screen. Still, it was the word 'experimental' that jumped out at me. I heard it whispered in my mind over and over again. Whispered in a voice I didn't recognise. My mind filled with images of the word written on the computer screen. I tried to push them aside.

"Well, what do you suggest?" Ella looked lost as she ran through the same checks that we had done multiple times today already.

"Can I try something?" I hadn't meant to speak but the idea suddenly came to me. I had no idea what I was doing when it came to computer hacking but staring at the computer screen it suddenly felt like I had been doing it for years - I knew exactly what to do.

Adrian nodded after one look at the glazed over look that had appeared on my face when I stared at the screen. Ella pushed the mouse and keyboard in my direction.

I hesitated for only a second. My hand hovered over the mouse as I searched for every place that contained the word 'experimental', highlighting them systematically before I had to turn to the Americans who were watching me with keen eyes.

"How do you open a link?" After a slight pause, I added as quietly as possible. "If there is one."

Adrian leaned over my shoulder and pressed a few keys. His movements were fast and difficult to follow. I was no closer to understanding how computer hacking worked.

Obediently the words I had highlighted turned a blue colour similar to a link in a word document.

"A multi-positioned link. Who would have guessed?" Ella looked at me as shocked as I was that it had worked.

"How did you know about that then?" Adrian's expression was as cocky as if he had been the one to discover it.

I suddenly felt quite shy. "You just said that it would be right in front of our eyes and that was the only word I kept looking at," I spoke to the floor thinking that what I was saying sounded stupid.

"That was a stroke of genius." Ella looked thrilled. In her eyes were wide. This was everything we had spent the last days working on in a series of links.

"I didn't even know if it would work." I knew it was the case but hearing it out loud I realised that it had been a sceptical idea when I didn't really know what I was doing.

"But it did work." Hearing it still seemed farfetched and I still had to continue staring at the computer screen or I knew I wouldn't be able to believe what everyone was saying. "Now we can properly find the information we need." Adrian grinned at me, his standard cocky grin stretched across his face.

"It just came to me." I had to admit the truth. I had heard Adrian's words as I looked at the words on the screen and then I knew what to do. It was as if someone had whispered instructions in my ear.

"I know." Adrian met my eyes as he spoke, greeting me with his overconfident stare.

Alex was still in shock and had very little until he collected his thoughts from where they had scattered to. "I thought you said that you knew nothing about computers." His smile was warm and his attitude relaxed. Too much time around Adrian was starting to rub off on him. "No excuses to get me to do you ICT work when we go back to school."

It was hard to joke when we were in the middle of such a crisis but right now those problems seemed miles away. But the problems were still there niggling at the back of my mind. They wouldn't go away. But I tried to smile. This was an achievement though and it came with a small rush that we were slightly closer to answering the questions that played in my mind.

"Come on then, let's see what else we can find with the new links." Ella was still excited as we clicked on the first link and opened the scientific website. As we had expected a detailed account of experiments and the results of various tests flashed up on the screen. Each link was details of a different experiment that happened between January 1992, when the project started, and a few weeks ago when the last test had been carried out.

Each account was organised into the same layout and was written in the same standard tone. I imagine the person writing it speaking in Standard English as everyone who ever was on TV once had, with no accent and wearing a lab coat. I imagine the scientist would be a stereotype of a brit, old-fashioned Englishman. The scientist had really underestimated the effects of their research. They were stuck up people who believed that they knew best because they could do anything they wanted as part of their research and the government was supporting them.

It was easy to tell that part of the problem was that the scientists were too big-headed to see that what they were doing could go so drastically wrong and cause so many problems. But that was only the start of the problems. From the accounts, we could see how the problems started right at the beginning of the 17-year project with twisted motives and a lack of control that caused the death of an innocent 10-year-old girl. This backed up the government reports and claims and showed how the problems were so out of control that it would take ages to sort through them.

But in Stanville the time was ticking and we didn't know how long was left on the clock.