Guess who you stole money from.
Guess who you stole money from
"This is going to be the best hack I've done in a while." Said Erik as he was quickly tapping at his keyboard. As he was staring intently at his computer screen, he couldn't keep a smile from spreading across his face as he got past a very good firewall. When he had gotten the three hacking jobs he had been ecstatic. He would get a 20% share from all three of them. All he needed to do was wire the 3 million dollars of the account he had just hacked to the hundred or so offshore accounts he had made the previous week so that his employers couldn't be tracked down easily by the authorities that were likely to notice his actions.
Erik is a hacker-for-hire, but lately with the Black Tide being a threat to humanity and the whole world bonding together against it, there hadn't been much of any use for a cyber-thief such as himself. But ever since the ponies from Equestria had gotten rid of it a year and a half ago, with something called 'The Elements of Harmony', he had been getting a lot more jobs in the recent months then he ever had. Recently, he had gotten a job from the usual anonymous sources he gets. He had gotten three jobs at once, and being the opportunist he is, he had decided to take on all of them at once. While doing so would've made his work harder, he had gotten the same target from all three of them. While that surprised him, it didn't exactly warrant his suspicion. He just thought it was funny that someone was hated enough to have three different people want to take his money, and otherwise make his life miserable.
The job entailed three objectives for him, since three people wanted something from the poor chump, who Erik now knows is one Richard Johnson, a multi-millionaire who owns one of the new Ascent-styled clinics that are going out all across the world to the companies that could afford one. One job was to, of course, steal some money from him. The next was to hack his system and make all Mr. Johnson's personal computers go haywire. That one, Erik thought, Was gonna be a fun one, since it didn't specify how to make them go haywire. The last thing that Erik would need to do was change the companies protocols regarding the Ascent-styled labs. He was to change who got to use them.
Erik had laughed to himself at that last one. Imagine, him, a 'known' criminal, although not known well enough for authorities to track him down, doing something good for people who couldn't afford to use the labs to cure whatever disease or injury they had. Although it didn't bother him much. He had a similar train of thought as to who should be able to use the labs, he had just waited for someone to pay him to do it, but given enough time he would have done so regardless to ease his conscience.
As Erik was making Richard's personal computers go haywire, he got a warning from one of his desktops. Apparently, messing with Richards personal computers without actually using the computers own keyboard had triggered a program that made a virus attack Erik's own computers. "Shit." Muttered Erik. Although the virus didn't stand a chance against Erik's own custom-made anti-virus programs, it had set off alarms that set off shutdown initiations on all of Richards computers. Erik's own computer's were starting to make warning sounds. Erik turned around to see what was making his computers freak out. What he saw shocked him. Each one of his hand-made computers were completely shutting down, throwing sparks, and otherwise doing things they absolutely shouldn't be doing.
On his main computer he gave up trying to mess with Mr. Johnson's personal computers, and started to work on what was going on with his own computers. What he saw in the programming of the original virus that was released was a complex series of fail-safes, rebooting programs, corruption files, and various other things. Erik had never seen something so complicated. He was just simply dumb-struck as to how to counteract this...this thing, that was attacking his pride and joy.
While the virus hadn't gotten to his main computer yet, and since it was the hub for his other computers, the virus would get to it soon. Erik started to frantically cancel programs that were running from him main computer to his other computers. While that was happening Erik didn't notice the warning beeps from his computer telling him that his location had been found out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sir, we've located the person who is hacking into your computers!" Exclaimed Trent. He was the one that had designed the virus that had attacked Erik's computers. "Good, now send someone to deal with this...annoyance." Replied Richard. Richard Johnson was a man who didn't like to be annoyed, and this person had annoyed him very much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later
"Okay, we're going to go right through the back door. Then we go to the second floor, last door on the right. That is where he will be. Hopefully he won't hear us and we can wake him up our own way." Said a bored-looking guy. "Sure thing, Boss." Replied his buddy.. "But when are we going to go in though, we've been sitting in this van for hours now." In reality they had been there for about ten minutes, waiting for Erik's lights to go out, signaling that he was going to sleep. "We'll go when he's sure to be asleep, George." Replied Boss. "Fine, fine, I'm just so fucking hungry though. Why couldn't we have stopped by a McDonald's or something? You know how loud my stomach gets when I'm hungry." Said George. Boss sighed, contemplating whether or not to smack George upside his head. "How about this, after we 'talk' to this guy we go to an Arby's or something?" Said an exasperated Boss.
"Nah, how about a Joe's Crab Shack? I've heard that they have the best crab, even better then Red Lobster." Said George. "Okay, we'll go to Joe's Crab Shack." Replied Boss. Boss didn't hate George, not really, but he could get annoying at times. Mainly when he and George had to sit and wait for something, anything really.
It had been about ten minutes when George finally spoke up. "So, how much longer until we go after this Erik guy?" Asked George. Wow, I'm surprised he lasted this long without talking. He usually can't keep quiet for more than five minutes at a time. Thought Boss. "We'll wait about five more minutes, then go in, just to be sure he's asleep." Replied Boss.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erik woke up suddenly. He thought he had heard something downstairs, which was weird since he lived alone. He quickly turned on him computer and pulled up the live feed of the camera's around and in his house. He saw two guys in all black clothes with black ski masks over their heads. Great, burglars. Erik thought. He quickly got out of bed and grabbed the gun he kept in his night stand. Although he wasn't a good shot he was sure to hit something in the close confines of his house.
As Erik was going down his stairs he saw the shadows of two men moving up his wall. He decided that crouching at the top of the stairs and aiming where the stairs turned should be a good spot. He then waited for the burglars to turn the corner.
"Stop right there, I have a pistol with a full clip and I have no qualms with shooting you two if you keep coming up the stairs" Said Erik.
The two shadows on the wall stopped. Erik smiled. Then he was one of the shadows turn back. Erik wondered why it did that. He soon found out when he saw the light that was making the silhouettes of the two intruders disappear. That made Erik panic a little bit. He crawled backwards for a few feet, then re-positioned himself so that he would see them as they came close to the top of the stairs.
He never saw the small object flying through the air until he saw a bright flash of light and heard a loud bang at the top of the stairs. He heard his ears ringing and couldn't see anything because of the after image of a bright explosion.
While he was disoriented the two burglars quickly climbed up the stairs and disarmed Erik. They quickly tied his hands behind his back and blindfolded him. Then they dragged him down the stairs to Erik's living room and set him on the couch.
"Alright, lets see if he still conscious. I told you we shouldn't use a flash bang." Said a smooth voice. " But they're fun to use Boss. You can't blame me for that." Said a rather gruff voice. Erik heard a meaty smack. "Will you for once just be quiet." Said, what Erik assumed to be, Boss. "Fine, fine. Lets just get started then." Said Gruff Voice.
" I'm sorry about this, but apparently you went and stole some money from someone you shouldn't have. We've been tasked with politely telling you to put that money back where it belongs. If you don't put it back, well, I don't think it will be pretty." Said Boss. "Also, you should threaten people with shooting them when you forget to actually put bullets into your gun, that's really stupid." Erik would've face-palmed if his hands weren't tied behind his back. "Well, I think you might have the wrong person." Said Erik, trying to sound panicky, which wasn't all that hard, since he was panicking already. "No, we've got the right person. We looked in your basement and saw all the fried computers. I guess that virus you got must've been quite the little devil. Then again, it's not like I expect less from that little runt." Said Boss. "Okay Erik, time to go back to sleep so you can think over what I've told you. I really hope you give the money back, I don't like using torture methods but my friend here does." "Yup, I sure do. Do you think I could use the pliers this time? Or maybe I could use some homemade things?" Said Gruff Voice. Boss then put a rag over Erik's mouth. Erik, as most people would do, start to thrash his arms to try to get the rag from his mouth. Erik started to feel a little light headed. After a few more seconds he was out cold.
"Can we go to Joe's Crab Shack now, I'm hungry?" Asked George. Boss sighed, looked up, and muttered something, then said, "Fine, you're paying though, since it was your idea, and I'm not gonna get all the cheap stuff either."
