Game Over, Engineer

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NOTE: I'm telling you. If you're not a fan of TOO DETAILED ethical hacking scenes, this story will bore you hahahahaha pwede kang mag-jump sa story ni Attorney Alexander. 'Di 'yon masyadong nakadudugo ng utak, swear hahahahaha 

This is an INTERACTIVE STORY. If you want to play the game, just scan the code, which will be found as you scroll or flip. Enjoy playing and reading!

Expect erotic scenes. Hindi na ako maglalagay ng warning unless trigger warning.

Genre: Mystery-Romance

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October 6, 2022

HER GAZE RAN along the frames placed on the wall and the plaques inside the glass cabinet. Two years of working as a cybersecurity engineer in a detective agency makes her life good, she can say. She remembers taking a lot of courses related to the field after graduating from AMA Computer College with a software engineering degree.

And right after she graduated, she came back to her hometown—Cebu, Philippines. Talagang hindi niya ito maiwan-iwan, because this is where. . . her parents' tombstones lay. At nandito rin halos lahat ng mga memorya niya kasama ang mga magulang.

Napangiti siya nang malungkot at napatingin sa computer. Wherever they are, she hopes she makes them proud.

Her parents were both skilled programmers, leading her to follow in their footsteps. And when she received the news about their deaths due to a car crash at the age of nine, she saw her world crumble right in front of her very eyes.

Until now, she could still remember the feeling. The blood on her lower lip because she bit it so hard that it turned numb, the gnawing pain in her chest, the static sounds bouncing in her ears, and the dark spots dancing in her vision.

She remembers it all. At ayaw niya munang isipin ang mga pangyayaring iyon.

Sighing, she tapped her head to erase those things from her mind. It's her rest day, so she's in their house, scrolling through her Facebook feed na puro jowang-jowa postings lang ang laman. 

Kumunot ang kanyang noo nang mag-pop up ang Gmail notification sa gilid ng screen, and when she opened it, kaagad niya iyong binasa. . . only to stop breathing.

The email made her halt.

Pakiramdam niya tumigil saglit ang pag-ikot ng mundo at bumagal ang takbo ng oras. She felt her hands shake, and her eyes widened, her eyes blinking and scanning repeatedly the message in front of her.

Last year. . . She found herself staring at those words, each letter echoing through the silence of her thoughts. Her nerves tingled, making her palms turn cold, and a gasp escaped from her mouth.

Last year. . .

Nang makabawi sa gulat, sunod-sunod siyang napalunok. Fuck. The sender knows what she did.

Without thinking twice, she downloaded the zip file and immediately opened it. Pero malakas siyang napamura at napatalon sa gulat nang biglang mag-shut down ang computer niya. Napatingin siya sa charger. Naka-charge ang kanyang laptop, kaya imposibleng malo-lowbatt iyon.

So, why the heck did it shut down all of a sudden?

Her eyes moved back to her laptop, and she could see her pale-stricken face on the black screen. Kumunot ang kanyang noo habang inaalala ang email at nang may napagtanto, nagtagis ang kanyang bagang.

Mapakla siyang natawa at hinawi ang bangs.

Fuck. Did someone just bait her into opening the virus and hacking her computer?

But. . . the hacker clearly knows something about what she did last year. She needs to find out who's behind this attack.

DURING THE ENTIRE day, she repaired her laptop, and she busied herself trying to trace the email and hack the Proton Mail's database in the hopes na makikita niya kung ano ang email ng nasa likod ng alias.

Simple Login and Proton Mail surely works together.

Sa domain pa lang nito, alam niyang gumagamit ito ng Proton Mail at naka-premium pa! But she got nothing! Masyadong malinis magtrabaho ang gumawa nito! Even the real email is just a bunch of jumbled letters!

Fuck.

Napasabunot siya sa buhok at napatingala. She couldn't believe that she, a hacker, got hacked!

Pinagpatuloy niya ang pag-trace nito kinabukasan, pero talagang puro dead end ang makukuha niya. The IP address is not even registered in the Philippines! Paniguradong gumamit din ito ng VPN habang sine-send ang email! Fuck!

Ang sakit sa ulo!

Marahas siyang bumuga ng hangin at pinikit ang kanyang mga mata. Her bangs flew when she blew air, at pinakalma niya ang kanyang sarili. Who the fuck would hack her computer at bakit nito gagawin iyon?

Kaagad siyang nagmulat ng mga mata nang tumunog ang kanyang notification bell. And it only means one thing—another email has arrived.

Kagat-kagat ang pang-ibabang labi, kaagad niya itong binuksan. At gano'n na lang ang pagkatigil niya nang mabasa ang nilalaman ng mensahe. 

She could hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears. Matagal niya pa iyong tinitigan, tinitimbang kung gagawin niya ba ang sinasabi nito o hindi.

But something is telling her that she should.

With no hesitation, she saved the picture. And a lump formed in her throat the moment she scanned it.

The code led her to a Google Drive link uploaded by someone named. . . Kevan.

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Please correct me if you see any grammatical and typographical errors. Thank you!