Caleb turned from his computer screen to level a hard stare onto his friend, who was still turned away from him, busy with the notebook.
“Marcos?” Caleb said slowly, trying to remain calm.
“Hmm?” Marcos kept his attention on the screen.
“Have you talked to Leana recently?”
“Yeah, when you were just getting the food. Why?”
“What did you talk to her about?”
“Just the normal stuff. She said she’s getting a summer job at Yúncai mall. I mentioned you were doing good, already talking to other girls and stuff.”
“Talking to other girls? You told her that?”
Finally catching on to Caleb’s tone, Marcos turned around. “Yeah.”
“And you told her about Miranda?”
“I thought she’d be happy that you’re moving on. She got real quiet after I told her, though.”
“Why did you do that? I told you I don’t know that girl! Now Leana’s upset.”
“Oh. Sorry, man. I didn’t know she’d take it that way. But you guys are broken up, right? So it doesn’t matter if she’s mad at you or not. You don’t have to worry about her anymore.”
Caleb stayed silent for a moment.
“Just don’t tell her anything like that without talking to me first,” He finally said.
“Alright,” Marcos said slowly, a little confused.
Caleb turned back to his computer with a sigh. He reopened the conversation with Leana, but she had signed out while he was talking to Marcos. Her last message read:
Leana- I have to go. We’ll talk later, maybe. Bye.
“She got off!” Caleb shoved the keyboard back into the desk and put his face in his hands. An odd minute or two passed in silence until he raised his head again and pulled the keyboard back out. He went into his mail account and started typing.
From: <lightguardian@ins.gn>
To: <mirandamanda@lucidity.gn>
Subject: You’ve got the wrong person.
I’m sorry, but you must have made a mistake. I’m not sure who you thought this account belonged to, but I don’t know anyone named Miranda. I don’t know who your friend is. I can’t help you.
When Caleb was finished, he hit SEND.
He sat for a while, looking at the “your message has been sent” page, tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk. The day had barely started and he was already on edge. He needed to calm down. It wasn’t the end of the world. He would figure this stuff out.
Caleb took some time to browse the web. He stopped at his usual sites to check the news and see what his friends were up to. There wasn’t much of interest. It was still early.
He made sure to bring up cosmosus.gn, the site of his favorite MMO, a huge sci-fi space exploration game. There was a PvP tournament tonight, which didn’t interest him, but there was also a new heavy ship hull pack that looked cool. The reason he had come to the site, though, was something else.
He checked his friends list. Just as he suspected, Jie was online. She was always either on early in the morning or late at night. He wished he could join her. She always helped him relax. But he couldn’t, not with Marcos there.
“Whoa,” Marcos said. “Hey Caleb, come check this out.”
Caleb turned in his chair.
“What is it?” He asked, unenthusiastic.
“I let a sniffer loose in your mail account and it found some interesting stuff.”
“A what?”
“A DSP: Data Sniffing Program. It slips into a database and tricks the system into diagnostic mode for just a fraction of a second. In that tiny window, the sniffer takes a look around. Before I sent this one in, I programed it to search for traces of foreign programs. And it found something.”
Caleb rolled closer to get a clear look at the screen as Marcos analyzed the sniffer’s findings. There were a dozen or so lines of unintelligible code.
“What is it?” Caleb asked.
“I can’t tell for sure,” Marcos replied. “Since the packet was so limited, I could only get a glimpse of what got into your mail account. It’s some hardcore stuff though, man. It’s definitely nothing I could ever get my hands on. Such high level stuff that it barely leaves a footprint to be picked up. Ninety-percent of the code you’re looking at is normal, legit stuff. There are just little differences that show something’s off.
“The weird thing is that it was super overkill. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could probably get into your account with what I’ve got. The program that’s ghosting you, though, is nearly government grade. It could take me a few hours just to wrap my brain around the fragments that the sniffer found.”
“You’re serious?” Caleb asked. “You think a government organization is hacking into my mail? What would be the point of that? You could be wrong. You only picked up a small trace of it. It might not be what you think.”
Marcos shook his head. “No way. I know my hackware, and we’re definitely not dealing with the regular stuff. Just give me some time and I might be able to figure out more.”
“Alright,” Caleb said. Then, after a pause, he patted Marcos on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
He pushed back to his desk, opened a browser window, and sat for a moment, debating what to do. He had to figure out who was watching him, and why. What could he do to help fill in the puzzle? He definitely couldn’t do much to help Marcos. Was there anything else?
He typed an address in and the window turned to black. A fog slowly began forming from the darkness.
