White Hat Black Heart (Cyber Teen Project Book 1)

by D. B. Goodin

  White Hat Black Heart

  Cyber Teen Project Book 1

  D. B. Goodin

  Copyright © 2019 by D. B. Goodin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction; any references to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Andrew Dobell.

  Editing by Wandering Words Media

  Proofread by Wandering Words Media

  For more information about the Cyber Teen Project series visit:

  www.cyberteenproject.com

  https://www.davidgoodinauthor.com

  ISBN: 978-1-7334202-1-1 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7334202-2-8 (Hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7334202-0-4 (e-book)

  Created with Vellum

  For my Family

  Contents

  Exclusive Bonus Content

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Exclusive Bonus Content

  I’m offering a free Behind the Scenes eBook of the making of the Cyber Teen Project (coming Fall 2019). The book will feature, character sketches, artwork, puzzles, games, deleted scenes, and exclusive access to never released content, and more. To sign up for the free content, please use the “Contact Us” form at https://www.davidgoodinauthor.com.

  Preface

  I have altered the names of specific technology used in this book to protect copyrights. I got the idea for this book back in 2011, when I noticed an upward trend in data breaches. I had only been in the security space a few years and was just starting a Master's program in Digital Forensics. One goal for this book is to teach young people basic Cybersecurity concepts in a fun and engaging fashion. There is a shortage of qualified Cybersecurity professionals, and if this book piques the interest of young people, then the book has met its goal.

  Chapter 1

  The sun shone on Nigel Watson's face as he picked up the remaining pieces of trash. Of all the volunteer service activities, Nigel enjoyed the beach cleanup days the most.

  The sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and the heat of the sun relaxed him. Nigel gazed out over a jewel-like ocean to enjoy another spectacular view before he returned to the beach parking lot to drop off collected trash, equipment, get his log signed, and go home. Just as Nigel was contemplating this, Milo appeared from behind a sand dune.

  “Hey, Nige! Any weekend plans?”

  “Not much; going to play The Machine, I think.”

  The Colossal Machine was an online role-playing game that had been taking up most of his weekends lately.

  “I might do that, although my dad did just get me a cool new antenna kit to construct. Either way, we should hang out. We haven't since summer.”

  They began walking toward the parking lot together, the sun bearing down on them.

  “We’ll see how it goes. I need to develop some characters for Jake and his friend.”

  “I don't know why you do that. I know it's extra money, but you have been missing a lot of school lately.”

  “I haven't been feeling well,” Nigel lied.

  They dropped off their equipment. Nigel’s mother’s black Ford sedan caught his eye, and he waved.

  “Well, call me if you change your mind, Nige.”

  Milo was already in line to get his service log signed. As Nigel got in line behind him, he heard his phone chirp. It was Jake. Nigel swallowed hard.

  “Give me the account.”

  Nigel typed one word, “Tuesday!”

  “Deliver or ur ass is mine.”

  Nigel swore under his breath. He wanted to get on Jake's good side—if he had one—because the cash was too good to pass up. Nigel looked up from his phone; a dozen or so kids were in front of Milo, and the line wasn't moving fast. At the rate of speed Nigel had been going on the design, it would take the rest of the long weekend to finish Jake's character.

  But what if he used the game's macro and programming features normally reserved for modifications to level Jake’s character?

  “See you Tuesday,” Nigel told Milo. “Got to get to work. I’ll get this log signed after school instead.” As Nigel approached his mother’s car, he noticed her going through a stack of papers. His mother was working Saturdays and bringing work home again. She worked too hard. At the beginning, it was great without her around to nag him, but lately having to make his own lunch and look after this younger brother Ralphie wasn’t worth the hassle.

  “Hi, Mom. Did you have a good day at work?”

  His mother Ellen Watson looked up. “Yes, Sweetie. I'm glad I'm off.”

  Nigel was already in another world: the mobile app version of the game he was addicted to, Pretzelverse’s The Colossal Machine.

  “How was your beach cleanup day?” Ellen continued when he didn’t respond.

  “It was good.”

  “Did you get your service log signed?”

  “The line was long, so I’ll do it Monday.”

  “Nigel, you forgot to get your log signed last time and missed out on ten hours of community service. Did you forget Monday’s a school holiday?” Ellen chided. “This will affect your rating in the honors society.”

  “I’ll get it signed, Mom,” Nigel snapped.

  “Yes, you will.” She whipped the car around. “Today!”

  Nigel threw his head back and groaned.

  When Ellen arrived at the beach, the event was already packed up, and there was no one to be found. Ellen grumbled as she pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the district office.

  “You always do this, Nigel.”

  “What? I will get it done at school, Mom; let’s just go home,” Nigel pleaded.

  “You would almost be home if you waited in line like you’re supposed to. Why are you so lazy?”

  Nigel folded his arms and looked out the window. Ten minutes later, she pulled up to the office. The windows were shuttered. Nigel didn't immediately make a move to go inside; he was still on his phone.

  Ellen gave him a gentle push. “We’re going to be late to pick up your brother,” she said. “Go.”

  Nigel mumbled something unintelligible as he left the car and slowly moved toward the door.

  The community service supervisor sat at a desk going through papers. Helping him was a girl Nigel had never seen before. She was six feet tall, skinny, and had the most captivating smile. Pink streaks ran throughout her golden blonde hair.

  “Can I get this log signed?” Nigel asked.

  The girl took it from Nigel. After a brief glance, she handed the log back to Nigel.

  “I need you to fill this out completely. If you don’t, you won’t get credit.”

  Nigel stared back with a blank expression.

  “You’re missing the correct date of service,” the girl said.

  Nigel smiled at the g
irl as he took back the paper. Their hands briefly touched, sending shivers down Nigel's neck. He quickly added the correct information. He wanted to ask her name, but when he opened his mouth and started to speak, he froze. She was gone. Only the community supervisor remained. Nigel gave the log to the supervisor; she signed it and gave it back without so much as a second glance.

  “What was the name of the girl who was helping me?” Nigel asked.

  “Josephine, but she goes by Jet.”

  “I like her hair, very captivating.”

  “Yeah, but the pink streaks are too much.”

  “Thank you.”

  He left with a strange feeling in his gut.

  Other than a couple side conversations with Milo, Nigel's weekend was spent on the computer, leveling up Jake's character to level thirty-five (out of a possible seventy). Nigel was investing as many hours as another would doing a part-time job. He navigated Jake's character through the virtual world of The Colossal Machine, realizing a more efficient leveling process was needed, then froze as a single thought entered his mind: I forgot to work on my class project.

  Nigel sighed. Sleep will have to wait. Where are those machine learning project notes? He didn't want to be caught without any progress, especially since this was the only class Nigel liked.

  Nigel needed a way to continue leveling up Jake's character in the background while working on his project. Pretzelverse, the game developer, allowed users to make enhancements to the game without modifying its core code. After a few searches, Nigel found an article by a programmer who removed much of the graphical interface, allowing the game to run on less powerful computers. A link to a demonstration video was embedded into the article. Nigel watched in amazement as a scene of a forest transformed into text-based characters. He noticed a tree having several rotated equal signs for the trunk and greater- and less-than symbols for the leaves. While this approach wasn't perfect, it did a decent job of showing the world without real graphics. The modification was so good that Pretzelverse awarded the Modder its best game modification award at its annual gamer conference in Cologne, Germany.

  Nigel thought he could use this information to virtualize a subset of his operating system and accommodate running the game in the background without taking too much of his computer's resources.

  Before long, Nigel found the original modification programmer, or Modder, had a page on Prog-hub, a site most programmers used to share their work. His project was called PretUIModder. Nigel downloaded the program, and in a few short hours he was leveling Jake's character while simultaneously writing code for his class project. Nigel worked until his eyes began to ache. He drifted off to sleep.

  Nigel woke up on Tuesday feeling like his brain was in a fog. He knew he spent way too much time playing the game for his classmates this weekend—nearly sixty hours in total.

  Usually he took Saturday off but got talked into accepting two last-minute paying customers on Friday afternoon. Jake practically forced his way in. Nigel reluctantly agreed because Jake and his friend were paying $150 each.

  They even paid in advance!

  Nigel rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. He had underestimated the amount of time it would take to level the characters to max level. Over the weekend, he only managed to gain another five levels. Argh, this is taking forever.

  Ellen awoke to an annoying buzzing sound that she could not place.

  What day is it?

  She had worked a double shift at the telemarketers’ union because her co-worker, Linda, called in sick. Time seemed to blend together with her excessively late working schedule. The telemarketers’ union specialized in solving problems or conflicts with members’ work assignments. Ellen’s work was very routine; however, sometimes clients were belligerent, verbally abusive, or difficult. She could transfer them to another level up the chain, but lost points if she did it too often. Yesterday she had encountered plenty of belligerence, but lost zero points, which was a benefit to her paycheck (and a detriment to her mental health).

  When she finally opened her eyes, the clock read 7:45!

  “Holy crap! I’m going to be late!”

  Ellen needed to hurry this morning, but she had her boys to consider, and she wanted to make sure that they got a good breakfast. She knew Nigel skipped a number of meals due to his computer game addiction. Ellen didn't care for the constant late nights. She planned to address the problem on Saturday, her only day off this week. He’s going to spend some time with me no matter what, Ellen thought bitterly.

  Ellen knocked on Nigel’s door. When he didn't reply, she opened the door and found Nigel playing video games.

  “This is the last time,” Ellen said.

  “What?”

  “I don't know why I try so hard to get you to be responsible when all you want to do is play childish games,” Ellen demanded.

  Nigel said nothing.

  “You are a solid B student. I know you can bring at least one of those grades to an A. You are more than capable of entering a good engineering school, but with your track record, you’re going to be lucky to get into community college!” Ellen wondered if Nigel even cared about getting into college at all. “You have ten minutes, then I'm leaving.” Ellen slammed the door.

  Nigel’s plan for work was simple: develop a game-leveling business and do the odd hacking or coding on the side. He didn’t need to spend four years at a college when he could make money with his current business. He didn’t need a degree at all.

  According to Nigel, there were two things that prospective employers wanted: good coding skills and a good work ethic. In addition to his homework, Nigel was putting twelve-plus hours a day into his business, which he had carefully developed and nurtured from nothing. He was creating online characters for popular games and reselling them for a profit (at least most of the time). The last thing he needed was college.

  Chapter 2

  Nigel could access the computer lab anytime school was open, even between school periods. Aside from Mr. Levinson's class, the lab had the best connectivity in the entire school. When Nigel arrived, he had to stop short of running into another student; there was a small but noticeable line to the computer lab.

  “What's going on?” Nigel said aloud to no one in particular.

  “New reader system,” the boy in front of him said. “You have to scan your school ID.”

  Nigel nodded in acknowledgement. He recognized the boy; he had seen him around when the computer lab just opened. Nigel thought his name was George.

  When they finally reached the front of the line, George waved his badge atop the reader and entered. Nigel was about to do the same when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, Chum.”

  To Nigel’s horror, it was Jake!

  “Got to go to the lab,” Nigel said and stepped in.

  Jake suddenly cut the line but was stopped by a tall and burly proctor.

  “Swipe your badge for entry. No tailgating,” the proctor demanded.

  Jake tried swiping his school badge. A red light and audible negative tone emitted from the reader.

  “You do not have access,” the proctor said. “Go to school administration and get it fixed.”

  “Hey, Bonehead, we’re not finished,” Jake cried as he was escorted out of the computer lab.

  As Nigel entered, he glanced at his watch. 3:11 p.m. The lab was fairly dead for this time of day; he counted about eight students. Nigel sat at his favorite terminal at the far side of the lab. It was close to the window, and the desk was big enough for him to work on the desktop and his laptop at the same time. Nigel quickly set up the laptop, did his usual screen obfuscation (which always took several minutes), then finally started working on his project.

  Since Mr. Levinson made it clear that he wasn't accepting any computer game projects, Nigel chose machine learning as his backup project. Nigel had heard the buzzword “machine learning” somewhere, but it was so new that most students knew little or nothing about it. It wasn't even in h
is assigned textbooks yet, and Mr. Levinson almost always used up-to-date materials.

  Nigel glanced up from his project long enough to see a girl he recognized. Oh, the girl from the district office! What was her name? Nigel frowned in concentration. She tripped and dropped a book just short of Nigel's desk. He quickly got up and retrieved the book and handed it to the girl.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The cover of the textbook pictured a robot holding a dove in its metal hand. The title read Electric Dream: The Story of Artificial Intelligence.

  “It’s for my project in Mr. Levinson’s class,” the girl said.

  “Cool. My project is on machine learning.”

  “Awesome,” the girl said excitedly. “Most of the kids here are doing something trivial like creating games. You are the first person I met who actually has something worthwhile.”

  “What is your name?” Nigel asked, swallowing back his urge to argue that there was nothing trivial about creating games.

  “Josephine. But all my friends call me Jet.”

  “I’m Nigel.”

  “I’m so glad we met, Nigel. We should talk soon so we can compare notes.”

  Nigel thought he noticed Jet blush, but before he could process this thought, Jet gave Nigel a smile and walked away.

  Nigel’s little brother, Ralphie, sat in his room staring at the load screen for Kenny Kart Racing, his favorite game of all time. He wanted to play with his big brother, but Nigel was always preoccupied with his own games. Most of Nigel’s games required reading hundreds of lines of dialogue just to complete a single quest. Ralphie had no interest in that. The difficulty level in these games was off the charts. Ralphie enjoyed simple gaming pleasures, and his favorite was Kenny Kart Racing. Nigel used to play the multiplayer version with him, but not since he got sucked into The Machine.