Cipher

Four

I need hours to do this, but that doesn't stop me. It never has. I decided that I will look up any or all the seemingly suspicious personal accounts of any person with the initials JV. And work from there. Impossible. There must be thousands of people with that name, and it's a hopeless lead. A massive waste of time. A personal account definitely would not lead me to the document, but I don't know. Maybe I'll browse the activity of all of these accounts, look for a break in the code, root around for any kind of activity that happened after the sites had been shut off.

I begin typing away the code to crack into the site- Turf Snap first- and then eventually into multiple different personal accounts. Majority of them had been deleted even before the shut-down of the site; it turns out that the site hadn't been making any interesting turns to entertain these people. Or possibly, a new program came up and ended up stealing the attention enough that they deleted their accounts.

I couldn't care less about that, but it makes this easier for me.

I pick out all the accounts which were deleted before the termination of Turf Snap and toss them aside from my archives. No need to inspect them. Then, I type a command to do a quick count, and; 5238 personal accounts.

Nodding to myself in approval, I lean back against the chair. This is better. Most certainly better.

Leaning back and cracking my knuckles, I let my eyes wander to the clock blinking at the top of the display; nine-fifty pm. I mull over how long it would take me to write up the code to crack into Dulex Quantum. I know it'll take me hours, and once I begin, I won't stop. I should turn off the computer. I should sleep.

But I haven't felt more alive in my life.

I grab a water bottle from the fridge and settle down. Then I begin to run the hack for Dulex Quantum.

∞

I wake up, disoriented, and wonder for a moment where I am. Then I realize I'm sitting on my desk and have a cramp in my neck. My AirN3 has long since gone to sleep-mode. Bleary-eyed, I look out the window to find that the rain has stopped pattering away and the bleak blue of the day is back. Maybe it'll finally stop. Maybe the sun will shine again.

I push off the desk and get up, stretching my back and rolling my shoulders. I don't feel very brilliant, but at least I don't have a hangover. I walk to the kitchen, which is basically an electric stove with a slab and a fridge situated in the living room where I have space to fit only one sofa. I use it mostly for boiling water for ramen or for coffee. On rare occasions, I cook myself an egg.

Grabbing a water bottle, I do a mental tally of how far I went last night with the code.

The last thing I remember is collecting data for the passwords of the users- diminishing the code altogether so I can enter the accounts immediately. Something the hackers of that time must have done often. If they hadn't, then life must not have been very thrilling for them. The code is pretty simple, but it takes hours to run. I walk back to the room and bring up the code on the wall by letting the AirN3 project. It's nearly done. The creators of Dulex Quantum knew well how to protect their site, unlike Turf Snap. I still have a few minutes until I'll be able to access those accounts.

I unscrew the lid of the water bottle and chug it down in a few gulps. My stomach grumbles. Sighing, I walk back to the kitchen and begin to boil the water for the instant cooking noodles.

The action of cooking reminds me how I can't remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal.

It makes me yearn for things I cannot have. The flashes of dull metallic tables and yellow walls come before my eyes, fading away the next instant. I look at the stained ceiling and sigh again. Then I go back to the code, only to find an icon displaying that I have a missed call.