Cyber Teen Project

Chapter 6-1

Every morning, when Alexander Vandervoss drove into the parking structure of Prezelverse"s northern Munich headquarters, he marveled at how much money it took to build. The main building was in the center of several other circular symmetrical buildings. The parking structures were located below each building so employees didn"t need to brave the harsh winters. Like most technology companies, the buildings were not very tall, the largest being a mere six stories.

Underground paths connected each building so employees didn"t need to go outside to get to the next building. Alexander grimaced as his cell phone rang. He hadn"t even parked his car and the onslaught of calls had begun. He glanced at his watch; it was 7:23 a.m. Most employees showed up for work around eight. Alexander liked to get to the office early so he could get a coffee and check his email, calendar, and plan accordingly. He looked at the phone as he answered.

“Good morning, Brenna.”

“Are you in your office yet?”

“No, but I"m nearly there.”

“Please call me from your secure line once you are settled in the office. I have some news.”

“Acknowledged,” said Alexander as he terminated the connection.

Brenna was lead legal counsel for Pretzelverse Games, and she worked out of their Washington D.C. office. It must be urgent if she was calling in the middle of the night.

A few minutes later, Alexander pressed the button labeled Brenna on his desk phone. She answered on the second ring. Alexander looked at the LCD screen on the phone where the secure icon was displayed. Calls made from any executive line were always encrypted. As a result, certain audible artifacts could be heard; sometimes it sounded like modulation tones, or garbled gibberish.

Brenna “Hello, Brenna.”

“I think we have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“An intellectual property breach as well as some trouble on the Hill.”

“How bad is the breach? Did we get hacked?”

“Didn"t get hacked, but Gregor noticed some anomalies on the code repository servers.”

“‘Anomalies on the code repository servers’ sounds like a hack,” Alexander said. “Assemble the team to meet at the cottage within forty-eight hours. Contact dispatch for help.”

“Immediately—but we also have legal trouble with the U.S. Senate,” Brenna said urgently. “A Senate committee has opened an investigation into the expansion. They are expected to vote on it next week.”

“That was fast!”

“It usually takes months for a bill to get through the House and reach the Senate. For some reason, the U.S. Congress fast-tracked it, and voting was completed less than an hour ago,” Brenna said with a very tired voice that Alexander hadn"t noticed earlier.

“Deploy your team of lobbyists to Capitol Hill. I need you at the cottage in person,” Alexander demanded, then immediately severed the connection.

* * *

Gregor’s eyes were blurry as he pulled up to the cottage, south of Minsk on the edge of a forest. Usually the meeting was held just before the end of the quarter, but this one was held weeks early. Something must be going on.

The cottage had ten rooms and a downstairs basement area (complete with a World War II era escape tunnel). Alexander and Viktor occupied the downstairs basement section during emergency situations. The cottage was actually three houses interconnected by tunnels. Each home had several bedrooms and a basement.

Gregor practically sleepwalked into the cottage. He had driven nonstop from his flat in downtown Grozny. The drive would have taken a normal person well over twenty-nine hours; he did it in less than twenty-five.

Why didn"t I fly? Gregor asked himself as he rubbed at his eyes. He estimated it had been more than thirty hours since he last slept.

Why didn"t I fly?He had to find Brenna. She was in charge of everything related to Pretzelverse official business. Gregor hoped the meetings would be brief; he wanted time to visit his girlfriend Dunya, a fledgling fashion model, in Kyiv.

Gregor was greeted in the cottage by Natasha, a principal member of The Collective. Natasha held positions on both the Pretzelverse and Collective boards—the difference was that Prezelverse was a legitimate business and The Collective wasn"t. The Collective was in the business of fixing problems (not necessarily game-related) and had a stable flow of repeat business. Some of the more controversial clients of The Collective included politicians and business people with problems to bury.

“Hey there,” Natasha said in Gregor"s direction.

“Greetings, Comrade.”

“You get me excited when you talk like that,” Natasha said in a playful voice.

Gregor smiled in return. Gregor was a good-looking, tall man in his late twenties and was used to women being attracted to him. When it came to Natasha, however, Gregor always kept their relationship professional.

“Are the other members here?” Gregor asked.

“Da, everybody except you.”

“Then let"s not let them wait any longer!”

“Yeah, maybe we can have some fun later?”

Gregor just smiled as Natasha got up from her comfortable seating and opened the double doors.

“It was good of you to make it, Gregor,” Alexander said with a hint of venom in his voice.

Alexander sounded really annoyed. Or was it Alexei? Gregor couldn"t remember. He was so bad with names.

Or was it Alexei?“My apologies, Comrades. Circumstances dictated that I drove for this meeting,” Gregor said, taking a seat.

After a brief awkward silence, the meeting resumed.

“Brenna, what legal action can we take against the authors of this Glider tool?” Alexander asked.

“The authors of the tool appear to be unknown. Payment can only be made in Digibit through an anonymous store on the Dark Web,” Brenna answered.

“Is there any way to dox the store owners or administrators?”

“I think that is a question for our late arrival,” Brenna said as she smiled at Gregor.

“It is very difficult, but not impossible. I will see what I can do,” Gregor said.

“Gregor, give us a status on the code repository situation.”

Gregor explained that he noticed some unauthorized traffic egressing from one of Prezelverse"s code repository servers. He traced the connection to a machine in California, near San Francisco, which was not surprising since Prezelverse did have a development office there. Although it was possible to access the server without a VPN, most developers didn"t. However, the company did hire a number of outside contractors that didn"t have access to a VPN. Gregor said he would file a report and have the IT manager fix the issues ASAP. The most troubling piece of news was from a connection in China; a large amount of data was transferred to that IP.

“The investigation results are still pending. I should have an update from my team by the end of today.”

“You have until tomorrow morning to finish your investigation and provide a report. I’m surprised and disappointed that you haven"t already,” Alexander said.

* * *

Jet’s house was a modest two-story. Its yellow and white paint was faded, but otherwise it looked in good shape. As Nigel stepped up on the porch, Jet opened the door.

“Right on time. Come inside,” Jet said with a smile.

Nigel followed Jet to a back room filled with several games, a rather old dart board, and a pool table. Jet sat down at a card table in the back of the room where her brother, George, was already seated; Nigel gave him a nod as he took a seat.

“Good to see you again,” George said. “Let"s get started with this no-tech hacking lesson.”

“I’m ready,” Nigel said. “But before we get started, I need to know: How did you two learn these techniques?”

After a long moment, Jet answered Nigel"s question.

“Our dad moves around a lot for work.” Jet paused for a moment before continuing. “We would be placed in a new school every year or two. It would often take a long time before we got to know new kids. We would try and learn what we had in common with the kids we wanted to hang out with, build rapport.”

“Did that work?” Nigel asked.

“To a point, but I felt that we were trying to get people to like us rather than making friends organically,” Jet answered. “We did our homework on a target, a potential friend, found out as much as we could about that person, then struck up a conversation. Before we knew it, we had friends!”

“Well, we had people who liked us enough to do things for us,” George said. “The key is to get your target to like you.”

Nigel was listening with interest as George continued.

“This wasn"t as hard as it sounds. If you like someone, they may like you in return. However, you can’t fake it. If you don"t truly like someone, it will be obvious to the other person.”

Nigel had no idea that manipulating others in this fashion was even possible. He was thoroughly impressed with his friends" lessons. He planned to use these skills as soon as he could. The clock in the game room, which featured pool cues for arms and balls for numbers, read 3:35 p.m. He had been at Jet"s house for nearly two hours and still needed to finish his pretext for unlocking his account. He thanked the siblings for their help and promised to relay his results.

* * *

Nigel checked his email: two more orders for high-level characters, and more for special items. He needed to get back into the game. Being the young entrepreneur that Nigel was, he decided to use another one of his backup accounts to continue his side business. He had to be careful since these backup accounts contained most of the rare and unique items that were sold separately. If something happened to this account, he would be finished.

As soon as he got the account back online, he received an in-game message from Jet. Nigel opened the message. It contained a scroll and a note explaining to use the scroll exactly at 6 p.m. She had some news to share. He put on his augmented reality glasses for access to the enhanced heads-up display the game offered. While it was not as immersive as the available virtual reality goggles, it did provide an acceptable enhanced hands-on experience. He could still move objects in a three-dimensional space, but he still needed his monitors to complete the illusion of immersion.

At 6 p.m., Nigel used the scroll to transport his in-game self to the location inscribed on the scroll. His field of view blurred for several seconds. When his vision cleared, he scanned the room for any signs of Jet. There was no sign of her, but he realized that he was in a sparsely furnished room that appeared metallic. At the opposite end of the room, two chairs and a small table were placed under a window. As Nigel took a seat, he caught a glimpse of the virtual horizon. In the distance, a mountain range with several waterfalls poured into a vast lake. At the nearside of the lake, a small sailboat was tied to an ancient-looking dock. Several animals which appeared to resemble unicorns were prancing in a nearby meadow.

“Hey, Nigel.”

Nigel spun around. It was Jet, or at least the in-game representation of her, known as an avatar. Her in-game avatar appeared to be glowing. She wore a white robe and a jewel-encrusted staff. Her avatar put his lowly rouge to shame; he felt like a bum standing next to a queen.