Connected

Chapter 2: Turning Point

God, I hate math tests. I'm in 9th grade, and and it's super important to memorize the Pythagorean­freaking-­Theorem. Luckily for me, this is an open-­book test.

When I opened my math book, my phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I probably shouldn't bring my phone while testing.

One of my classmates, Matthew, stared at my pocket. He also had heard it.

Snap! Crap, my pencil broke.

"Hey Matt, do you happen to have an extra pencil?" I whispered to him.

He took a minute, and when he came back as he handed me a half-­chewed, eraser-missing pencil. "Here ya go. Also, just a hint: don't bring your phone into­-"

buzz!

He gave me a disgruntled look; I shrugged at him and rose my hand. The teacher allowed me to go to the bathroom.

As I sat onto the toilet seat (Which felt sticky, for some reason I do not to know) my phone vibrated again. Last time I couldn't seem to find out who the number was, because it had some weird numerals I couldn't understand. Oddly enough, this time it was clear.

Who in the world is 368­7826?

What is even stranger is the message that came with the number.

| You won! |

Wait, what? What did I win? Am I missing something? I read the next message after that.

| Download it now! http://bit.ly/DlFnTTa |

...Should I click that? No. probably not. I should ask Trey. He might be able to help with this.

Me and Trey had always been gaming together. Thing is though, I never got into computers. To much stuff I could possibly break, set on fire, blow up, etc. Trey though, he's a whiz when it comes to computers.

Yeah, I'll wait for Trey.

As I finished that thought, I started my way out the bathroom. When I closed the stall door, I realized there were other people in the bathroom almost the whole time. I must sound crazy. I then stopped walking and ran out the bathroom. Now I sound and look even crazier.

...

Well, I hope I passed the test. I probably didn't. When I left the classroom for lunch, I saw Trey walking down the hallway. I almost knocked somebody over on my way over to him. As I walked up to Trey, he whimpered a tired hello.

"What's wrong?"

"I was bullied again." Trey is the kind of guy who got beaten up for his hobbies and interests.

"Are you going to be okay?" You could tell this upset him, seeing that there were tears in his eyes. It is kind of his fault though; he has a big mouth and an even bigger pride.

"Yeah, I'm fine. This has happened before."

"Okay, good. Hey, do you know about decrypting private links on a wireless range with an instant firewall?"

"...What?"

He probably had no idea what I was talking about. Then again, Neither did I. What did I even just say?

"Sorry, let me rephrase that. Do you know what this URL could possibly stand for?" As I showed him the message, he had another of his blank faces. Le sigh.

"How could I possibly tell that?" He uttered.

True, true.

Trey smiled. "If I actually thought seriously about it, it probably is just a randomized URL. Usually if it was custom made, it would include something obvious."