White Hat Black Heart (Cyber Teen Project Book 1)

by D. B. Goodin

  Viktor picked up his red phone and dialed.

  “Hello, Comrade,” the voice on the other end greeted.

  Viktor heard noises in the background. It sounded like a cocktail party.

  “Gregor, are you sober?”

  “Well, of course not. Why would I be?” Gregor laughed as he said this.

  “Stupid drunk bastard! I will give you ten minutes to sober up and call me from a secure location.”

  Twenty minutes later, Viktor received a call from his red phone. No caller information was displayed, but he knew it was Gregor.

  “Ready to work?” Viktor answered.

  “Da.”

  Gregor sounded a lot better, and no distracting background noise could be heard.

  “I have a crucial task for you. I will need you and your team.”

  “I see the details that you sent. It will be done, but I will need some time for execution.”

  “You have a week,” Viktor replied.

  After some considerable thought—a difficult task in Gregor’s current state—he thought of how exchanges got done in the past.

  Dead drops are popular with spies. Why not hackers? Gregor asked himself.

  Ivan Kilosky tossed some chunky herbs into the mixture that he was brewing in a small cauldron. He hated using beakers and flasks when he could use an old-fashioned caldron instead! The caldron also held some sentimental value since his late uncle created it in Russia all those years ago.

  He was working on a mixture of pheromone sprays that, in conjunction with Natasha’s natural charms, gave her the edge that she needed. Just as Ivan was finishing this lovely thought, Natasha walked in.

  “Natasha, my dear, please come in,” Ivan said.

  “Is it ready?”

  “Not quite yet, but it's close.”

  “How long until it's ready? I need it, like, yesterday.”

  Ivan just smiled at his young associate. Her face had a cute wrinkle when she was angry. It was very subtle but visible. He thought she would need to work on that if she were to go up against an experienced agent.

  “Come back in an hour,” Ivan said.

  Natasha stormed out of the room.

  Ivan could have given her his excess supply of the pheromone potion, but he wanted to see her again. He finished pouring the remainder of the fluid into some vials, capped them, then picked up the phone and called her. He had her on speed dial.

  “It's ready, my dear!”

  Natasha hung up. Three minutes later, she entered the room with a cheerier appearance.

  “Well, hello, Dear. It is so great to see you again,” Ivan said.

  “I’m in a hurry. I'm late for my flight,” Natasha said.

  Ivan frowned slightly. He knew her flight was at 3:58 p.m. It was just past twelve. It only took twenty minutes to get to Minsk airport from here.

  “Before you leave, I need to explain the dosage,” Ivan said.

  He explained that the potion could be ingested with virtually any drink, but she had to watch the dosage with certain kinds of alcohol. Apparently there was an intense reaction when consumed with bourbon, vodka, or whisky.

  “Jesus Christ, is there any drink that isn't affected by your potion?”

  “No, just these drinks,” Ivan said, ignoring the sting in her tone.

  “Okay, thank you, Ivan. You are the best,” Natasha said before she left the room.

  Ivan was amazed that she could change her mood so abruptly in such a short amount of time. But that is the charm of Natasha, he thought as he resumed his other experiments.

  Alexei felt exhausted, like he was working two jobs. A phone call marked “Sasha” in red appeared on his phone display. Alexei tapped it.

  “Alexei, Gregor’s team really screwed us,” Sasha said.

  “What happened?”

  “Many targeted text messages were sent to the wrong age groups. To add insult to injury, some phone numbers received hundreds of the same text messages.”

  “Was the source number shielded?”

  “Da, all return numbers are randomized and will not accept return text messages.”

  “How many arrived at the appropriate age groups?”

  “About 30 percent.”

  “Not good, but not totally bad either,” Alexei said. “How many districts to go?”

  “Half.”

  “Proceed. Time is not on our side.”

  “But what about Gregor? The quality of his work is slipping.”

  “I will deal with Gregor.”

  Sybold Systems’ lobby was impressive for a company based in the middle of the United States. Natasha felt warm in the pantsuit. She preferred the silk dresses that she usually wore. She felt awkward and hot in this standard business attire.

  “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

  “Yes. I’m here to see Scott Davis, head of engineering.”

  After several minutes, a tall man with glasses appeared. Disheveled appearance, wrinkled clothes, probably a bachelor, Natasha thought as she sized him up.

  “Mr. Davis?”

  “Yes, and who are you?”

  “Gretchen Roberts from Pretzelverse Games. We spoke on the phone,” Natasha said as she extended her hand.

  He shook her hand and went speechless for a moment as the tactile contact of the patch did its work.

  “Excuse me, Ma’am,” Scott said as he reached for his collar to loosen his tie.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, fine. Come with me, please.”

  Scott led her to his private office and closed the door behind them.

  “As you know, we are interested in potentially replacing our current hardware vendor.”

  Scott tried to pay attention to her voice, but he had a hard time concentrating. His vision blurred, and his eyes closed.

  Natasha started her stopwatch app on her phone. She had maybe ten minutes before the initial sleep agent wore off. She hopped on Scott’s computer.

  Nine minutes later, Natasha was still attempting to locate the schematics when she saw a folder labeled “Proprietary Information.” Scott started to stir from his brief slumber. She inserted the flash drive and copied the contents of the folder; she would need to examine it later. She composed herself and sat back down where she was.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What?” Scott slurred.

  “You fell asleep.”

  “Really?” Scott sounded alarmed.

  “Yeah, you must have had a long night partying?” Natasha said playfully.

  “No parties… Can we reschedule?”

  “Sure, Darling! I will show myself out.”

  Nigel opened the first message that appeared on the Collective Systems app:

  Greetings Nigel,

  I hope this finds you well.

  Congratulations on receiving your first assignment from Collective Systems. The task below is tailored to your unique talents. To learn more and accept this assignment, click the “accept” button, otherwise click “decline.” Remember, you only have a limited number of decline credits per month, and overuse of these credits may result in the dismissal of your internship.

  Nigel quickly clicked the accept button. A few minutes later, details of his first assignment appeared in his inbox:

  Debug the following code and send the corrected sample back via the secure app.

  Nigel looked at the code. It looked simple enough, and the main module only had fifty-five lines of code. It appeared to be a module that was part of a communications system. There was code that referenced the Short Message Service that all cell phones understood.

  Thirty minutes later, Nigel uploaded the corrected sample via the app. The annoying part of the app was that all code editing had to be performed within the app. There was no way to export the code to a computer, and no forwarding mechanism.

  Several hours later, Nigel received a confirmation that his solution was accepted and payment was sent to his Digibit wallet address.

  “I wan
t my account, now,” Jake said as he grabbed Nigel by the shoulder.

  Nigel wasn’t prepared for Jake’s bold actions in school.

  “It’s been more than a week, no account or refund! What gives?” Jake started to make a hand-pounding-his-fist gesture. Nigel flinched as he heard the smacking sound.

  “Sorry, Jake. My mother was hacked, and I had to help her.”

  “I’m sick of your excuses.”

  Jake invaded Nigel’s personal space and whispered, “I’m going to enjoy hurting you a second time. This is your last warning, Chum!”

  “Do you have the Payfriend app?”

  Jake pulled out his phone and checked. “Is this it?”

  Nigel examined Jake’s phone. The Payfriend app had a yellow exclamation point on it.

  “You need to update the app.”

  “Done. Now pay me!”

  Jake held the phone out to Nigel displaying a QR code which allowed him to receive funds from Nigel. After Nigel waved his phone in front of Jake’s, the money was transferred.

  “You still owe me an account,” Jake said as he stormed off.

  Chapter 14

  Nigel launched the MORP program that Jet gave him so he could browse the internet anonymously. Nigel now felt relatively safe and secure; he could browse the Dark Web without anyone knowing about it. After about twenty minutes of browsing, Nigel found what he was looking for: the entrance to the dark compiler project called "Dark Glider.” For a brief time, it was available for sale, but it was taken down before Nigel could obtain a copy of it.

  He was about to give up when he spotted a forum post that gave additional clues. As he read through the posts, another black window with blue text appeared directly in the foreground. He attempted to click away from it, but it maintained its focus. Text appeared in the window.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Information,” Nigel typed.

  “What information?”

  Nigel didn’t want to reveal too much information, but he needed Dark Glider.

  “I seek the Glider,” Nigel replied.

  For a very long time nothing appeared on the screen. Nigel was about to give up and sever the connection, but he didn’t want to leave his session in limbo. Finally, additional text appeared in the window.

  “Are you worthy?”

  “How do I prove my worth?”

  Nigel didn’t like where this was going. The person on the other end of the connection may be trying to dox him, a process of revealing someone’s true identity on the Dark Web.

  “Solve the challenge by playing.”

  “How do I play?”

  “I will present you with a riddle. You must answer in the form of a question. Get it?”

  “Yes, I’m ready to play.”

  “Excellent! I’m a function that is very aggressive; if I miss a prediction, my value increases exponentially. What am I?”

  A timer appeared, counting down from sixty seconds in the top right of the screen in sixty-point font. The computer also started beeping distractingly after each second.

  Nigel couldn’t immediately think of the answer, but soon it occurred to him.

  “What is exponential loss?” Nigel answered with just five seconds remaining on the timer.

  “Clever, but you are not off the hook yet! What function is not continuous and impractical to optimize?”

  Why are these questions all related to machine learning? Nigel wondered.

  With only a few seconds left, Nigel typed in what he hoped was the answer.

  “Zero-one loss.”

  He heard a loud horn sound, which startled him. No new text appeared on the screen for at least a minute. Nigel put his hands over his face. He was so tired of all this.

  Almost on cue, he heard a typewriter sound emanating from this computer.

  “You have skills and, therefore, are worthy.”

  A link appeared on the screen with a thirty-second timer.

  Nigel clicked the link and stared in awe as the screen turned red with gold text.

  Despite the hard-to-read colors, Nigel was able to download all three parts of the code—which was a puzzle in and of itself. The checksum sequence had to be downloaded in a specific order. The code also had to be assembled by the programmer who solved the puzzles. At the end of each puzzle (or test), a series of alphanumeric characters of varying lengths had to be written down or captured with a camera. Once all three sequences were gathered, the author required the programmer downloading the code to piece each part together into a single string, then run it through another algorithm to put together a hash. The programmer had to decipher the final pieces using an algorithm called ROT-13. Once each part was downloaded, the ROT-13 had to be entered to decompress the file structure.

  A lot of thought and careful consideration had to be given to solve this puzzle. If the machine was cloned or virtualized, then Dark Glider would stop working. Even if the programmer was lucky and patient enough to solve all the puzzles, the decompiler had a limited life of sixty days. The programmer did not need to completely start over, however; a clue was given at some random interval between the original unlock and expiration. This clue was forfeit if reverse engineering (of any kind) was done to the program or source code.

  “We have voting shills out there that are as American as anyone else at the polls,” Alexander said.

  “That is a lot of fake IDs and identities to maintain,” Viktor interjected.

  “If a voter’s identity cannot be verified, then a provisional ballot is issued, which means we can control that vote,” Brenna said. “These ballots are often reconciled after the election.”

  “Once we influence the outcome of the midterm elections, Pretzelverse’s earning potential will increase tenfold,” Alexander said.

  “I’ve visited many managers at gaming retail stores who are planning launch events,” said Sasha. “Many of the largest volume retailers have inquired about portable scanning units to be placed on site during these events.”

  “Great, but even if we don’t have the capability of doing that, now we can keep up the hype by offering certificates or coupons,” Alexander said. “I like it. Let's pursue this during the campaign.”

  Last night, Agent John Appleton had been examining traces of source code with little understanding of what he was looking at. John knew he could utilize code signature technology; he read an internal bulletin about it. Although he had no technical ability, he intended to seek out the agents that did. After spending the better part of an hour looking, exhaustion overcame him. He decided to take a break for the night.

  The thought didn’t come to mind until he was pouring his first cup of coffee the next morning. I should start with the authors of the paper! John felt stupid for not thinking of it last night. He hurried to his desk.

  After a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, John was able to find the authors: Kyle Brennen and William Stohl. John started by calling Kyle. No response, and apparently he didn’t have voicemail set up. He called William. No response, so he sent secure messages instead.

  The door to Len’s cell opened, and the bright light irritated Len’s eyes. He was squinting so much he could barely see who entered the room. It had been three days since he’d seen sunlight, or even another human being.

  “Hello, Comrade,” Viktor said cheerily.

  “Did my information check out to your satisfaction?” Len asked. “Can I go now?”

  “Yes, you are going somewhere, but it’s not where you're expecting,” Viktor said.

  Len’s eyes adjusted to the light. He saw Viktor standing over him with a wide grin on his face. The brief time he had known him, he had never seen him smile.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To meet your comrades, the ones who you created Dark Glider with,” Viktor said.

  “They're here?”

  “Nyet. You're meeting them in spirit.”

  Someone from behind covered his face with a burlap sack. As it tightened,
Len coughed as his lungs filled with dust.

  Viktor chambered a bullet. Len heard the metal.

  “I wasn’t truthful before. There are others I worked with,” Len said.

  “I don’t think so. The other two gave us all of the information we needed. They lasted a lot longer than you, I might add. Don’t worry, I will make it quick.”

  Len gasped, a rather large oval formed in the burlap sack. Len began to shake all over. He crumpled to the floor. Viktor grabbed and pulled the burlap sack. He shoved the weapon into the widening gap that was Len’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Viktor then pulled out his red phone and dialed.

  “It’s done. Dark Glider is no more!”

  After a couple of sleepless nights, Sasha didn’t have a resolution to his text message problem. He attempted to contact Gregor several times to no avail. He also contacted Alexei and Viktor, as well as anyone else who would listen.

  Sasha’s red phone began ringing.

  “Yes?”

  “Have you been able to locate the problem with your text messaging code?” Alexei asked.

  “Nyet. Gregor has been no help, either.”

  “Well then, you are in luck!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of our interns fixed your code. I took the liberty of having it tested, and it works!”

  Sasha was speechless. Gregor couldn’t fix the problem but a kid could?

  Agent Appleton was getting nowhere trying to reach either Brennen or Stohl. It was time to call in some favors.

  “Deputy director's office,” Janice answered.

  “Hello, Janice.”

  “The deputy director is not in.”

  “I’m not calling for him.”

  “Calling in that favor?”

  “Yes.”

  Janice sighed. She hated owing anyone for anything.

  “What do you need?”

  “I need information on two agents that are currently or were formally with the Bureau.”