Hacked

Who Am I

Whoa.

I wake up in my bed, a flurry of sheets and blankets, the smell of stale coffee and dust invading my nose. I blink the sleep from my eyes, and try to clear my head.

The sun shines through my window and lands on a pile of clothes. I should probably get dressed.

I push myself out of the comfort of my bedsheets and embrace the day, stretching my arms and legs. Tight muscles and bones snap into place, my neck realigns and my eyes focus.

Suddenly, it slams into me, and I stumble back. Like floodwaters, the sights and sounds of last night come pouring into my mind. An alley, a trunk, two kids...

It's in the past, though. I did the right thing.

I search for some underwear amongst a pile of strewn, disregarded garments. Having found a pair, I head for the bathroom. A quick shower ought to do me some real good.

The warm water feels soothing against my skin, and it streams down my body, cleansing me of the dirt and sweat and blood. Blood that is not my own. Sweat I did not earn.

But the dirt. The dirt is mine.

Wiping the mirror of its fog, I see a child, his face devoid of emotion, absent of color. He is me, but I do not recognize him. I refuse. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

I dry and dress, normal clothes. My second-hand store clothes. Holes in all the wrong places. Zippers where they don't need to be. A slight snort of fleeting laughter escapes me.

I am a cheap bitch. Ha!

I lazily start up my home computer. Last night was just the beginning. Twenty-three more confirmed child sex-slave traders. I intend to catch them all in the next two weeks, if it all goes according to my plan.

I walk over to the wall of pictures and string, and X out the picture of Mr. Fautier. I step back and admire my work. It looks like an obsessed detectives wall, full of suspects and clues, trying to prove all the right right ones together. Sometimes it's a puzzle, other times it's a game. But this time it just sucked. These sex slave types cover their tracks well.

But I always find them. I always find exactly who I am looking for.

I am a hacker. Like, that's what I do for a living. You could call me a private investigator of sorts, even though that's not my official title. In fact, I don't have an official title. I'm underground, you could say. Below the iron fist of the law. Unscathed, etc. Anyways, that's besides the point. Basically, people hire me to ruin other people's lives. Or to expose people. Or to bring about the end of a sex trade ring.

Thats my job now, actually. A man hired me to end an underground sex slave operation. I hacked into the mainframe for their website, which took a few hours scouring the deep web for, and logging in as one of the bosses was a breeze. From there, I just had to get the closest bosses phone number, give the sick bitch a call, order from him. And then I meet him.

From here, I just have to use his list to call hotspots for tips at the local police stations. Once that's finished, I let law enforcement do it's thing. Detectives, police, canine units, the whole nine yards. They usually shut the whole thing down in a matter of days after I give them that jump start.

And then I'm finished. A job well done.

I move in to the next job.

I use a fake name when being hired, the same one everytime: Mad Max's real name, Mike Rockatansky. Mostly cause Mad Max is my all-time favorite movie series. Also cause nobody knows that's his real name. People know him usually just as Mad Max. But I'm a loser, so of course I know his name.

Maybe it's dangerous. You know, to use something I'm attached to. It's why I can't have friends. Or at least, not real ones.

I have friends that come over sometimes. I work with them. The thing people always get wrong about hackers is that we just sit in our rooms all the time and do nothing but steal your credit card information.

Nope.

People think we wear all black, and hoodies all the time, and have long black hair, and sinister eyes. They think we are evil.

Wrong again.

I have never stolen credit card information. I have stolen back stolen credit cards and returned them, though. I dont have long black hair. Well, my hair is black, but it's not long. I got it cut recently. I wear hoodies, but they are usually brightly colored and have pictures of Majora's Mask or Mario on them. My eyes aren't sinister, just tired.

Only ever, always so tired.

Anyways, I have a day job. I work for a tech company, naturally, since I have such vast technological skill.

My friend works with me. His name is Paul. He's a good guy. Born on December 12, 1992, in Philadelphia, but he moved to California in 2010, graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in computer engineering. He got hired by Sony at first as a tech consultant, but got laid off when things went south in the economy. He got hired at a small tech shop, but moved up the chain of command pretty quickly due to his experience at Sony. He moved to the office here in LA, where he works as a software designer for our company.

He met the love of his life at twenty four while at college, a girl named Sharleen. They live in an apartment together.

He never told me any of this. Normal people have no idea how little somebody needs to know about you in order to know everything about you.

All I needed was his name. And now, I know everything about him. That's why hackers never use their real names.

So, I guess he's my friend. We kinda talk sometimes.

But it's safer if we don't.