Chapter 16

Marc clamped his fingers together, stretched his arms out, and twisted his wrists so his palms faced forward. His knuckles cracked loudly in his sparsely furnished apartment, barely more than a room. He owned a bed, a desk, a computer, and a container in which he kept clothes, old computer parts, and the single photo left of his mother. A fire had consumed the rest, along with the woman who raised him.

Wearing just a t-shirt and boxer shorts, Marc didn’t notice the cold. His place was old and drafty but once he sat at his computer, nothing else mattered. The room looked dark other than the three screens in front of him. Lines of code poured down the one on the right, then as he unclasped his hands and moved his mouse, it vanished. A screensaver. Marc typed an address into the bar on his browser. CaliaCorp dot com. Where else would he start? He browsed the homepage of the site for a while, passing many images of Calia, perpetually smiling, smirking at him. He hated her, but it was hard to escape her beauty. The woman appeared everywhere on the site, often in business attire that seemed a little too revealing to get any work done. Alongside the images were slogans and services. Media; Shaping Reality. Construction; Building the Future. Environment; Healing the World.

What Marc was looking for was at the bottom of the page. The About Us section. He copied several names from there onto a document on his leftmost monitor, and then looked around the site, going deeper into the sections that allowed him to contact people at CaliaCorp. He found what he wanted, an email address. @caliacorp.com. What else would it have been, he wondered. That was all the information he needed to start with. He pulled up his email account, one of the few that were not run by CaliaCorp. His drafts had a few options for the next step - emails designed to entice the person on the other side to click on links that would share sensitive data, passwords, addresses, credit card information. Marc chose one he thought the CaliaCorp folks would enjoy, considering their preferred reason to visit the Circuit District.

Hey there party people,

The Circuit is proud to present Dark Mass, an erotic burlesque show like no other. See the sexiest ladies of the night shake their tailfeathers on the stage at the venerable Venus Theatre. For one night only, this evening is not to be missed if you love gorgeous women, erotic dancing, and an after party to die for!

VIP guests get special access to our performers for the real show. A hands-on experience that will leave you completely satisfied. Click here to learn more!

You’ll never have a better night than at The Venus.

Marc smiled to himself. What warm-blooded person could say no to that. It was just what the rich folk wanted, served on a silver platter. He began entering what he assumed the correct emails would be. First name, full stop, last name at CaliaCorp dot com. Everyone he could find on the about us page he added manually, then turned on a program to scrape any other names on the site for him and turn them into the same email format. Within a short time, he had over a hundred emails ready to receive his message. He checked the link, everything was working perfectly. Once someone clicked it, it would download a sneaky little program that would send a stream of data to Marc’s computer, all he had to do was send and wait.

Of course, the penalties for cybercrime were serious, but he routed through a virtual network that changed his location multiple times an hour. Tracking him was next to impossible. He had no fear of that. No matter what his friends said, he knew what he was doing. He’d spent years learning the craft, how to send phishing emails, how to crack passwords. A lot of it was easily garnered from dark web discussion boards, and what he didn’t know, others helped him with. Most of the people he talked to were anonymous criminals, but who wasn’t outside the law, if they were outside CaliaCorp? It wasn’t like there were other options most of the time. Plus, it felt nice to chat with people who understood his skills. Marc loved his friends, but they were always so dismissive. Just because he’d messed up a few times and gotten his PC infected with a virus. Damn whoever invented CaliaWare. Hardly his fault, the whole thing was designed to trap him anyway. Since then, and a few other minor incidents, his friends didn’t trust him with their computers.

What did they know anyway? Marc sent the emails and sat back, waiting. He realised the wait would be long. If those emails even reached any of the people he contacted. In the meantime, he could see if there were other vulnerabilities in the CaliaCorp system. The website looked slick and stylish, but there was a lot going on. Someone may have missed something. Breaking into that could lead him to a password, or better, straight to a database. That’s where he’d find Ben’s information, his new address, the floor he worked on, the department he worked in at the company. All he needed to do was get in somehow. If he could do that, getting to Ben would be just the tip of the iceberg. The things he could do with full access to the CaliaCorp system, before anyone would know, were manifold. Ransomware sounded like an option. He could expose secrets or make himself and his friends rich beyond their dreams. Calia could afford to lose a few million, and maybe he could expose them anyway. They were brainwashing people, he knew it, and all he needed was evidence. There was just so much more to get out of his plan than an address for Ben.

But he needed a way in. The pages that drew his attention first were the media sections. Creative types never understood online security, not like programmers and devs. That part of the website was built around an interactive experience, so he opened the source code on his vertical monitor and began scanning it for hints at an error. The main monitor displayed a simple quiz, the kind that led to a result about what product to buy or which fictional character you’re most like. This one was all about how the media team at CaliaCorp functioned. Kind of self-indulgent to talk about it via a quiz, but Marc supposed they wanted to express their creativity somehow in a sterile corporate structure.

He clicked start and glanced at the code, updating in real time. The quiz began with Calia, of course, what else? A video of her smiling and gently moving her head left and right played, not quite shaking or nodding, just slow movements, like a metronome set to a low tempo. Marc didn’t have his headphones on, he wasn’t repeating previous mistakes. The first question appeared on screen, fading in over that familiar face.

Can Calia Media Help You?

The only option was yes. Marc clicked it. The code updated. Nothing useful. On his main monitor the image widened, as if a camera pulled back and showed more of the woman on screen. She danced to an unheard rhythm, and now her collarbones, bare and prominent, showed between the black straps of a dress or a top. Marc wondered which it might be, and in the dark corners of his mind, he had a question of his own, what would it look like if he saw all of her. The next question faded into view.

Do you need us to shape your reality?

Again, no option but yes. Marc hesitated. He felt like this was going one way, but he had no reason to worry, he couldn’t hear whatever Calia danced to. He was just looking at an attractive woman moving her body. So what if he enjoyed that? So what if he hated her? She was hot. Ridiculously, stupidly hot. He clicked yes. More of Calia was revealed, a deep cleavage in what could still be a top or a dress. Her breasts bounced to the rhythm of the music she danced to. Marc found himself drawn to her cleavage, watching her move sensuously, like a snake writhing from side to side. He felt almost disappointed when the next question appeared over her chest.

Do you need what CaliaCorp offers?

Marc knew the drill. This time he quickly clicked yes. He wanted to see more of Calia, and he did. The screen revealed the rest of her upper body, her slim waist above what he could already imagine were hips, shaking, rocking side to side. A pendulum, a metronome, a rhythm he wished, for a moment, that he could hear. Marc knew that was a bad idea. He was simply gathering information, searching for weaknesses. He looked at the code and saw his own reflection for a moment as the screen flickered off and back on. It did that occasionally. Old monitor. The next question flashed up on screen.

Do you want to know more?

He did, he wanted to know everything. He clicked yes without hesitation and saw more of Calia, and confirmation she wore a dress, a short black one. The pleated lower part flicked left, then right, moving with her. Marc’s eyes moved with it. Calia put her hands behind her head and began to move faster, the rhythm increasing in pace. Marc forgot about the source code, he was staring, wondering what her shoes looked like.

Do you want to go deeper?

Yes, he thought, as he clicked the button, yes I do. He wanted the camera to go deeper too, wider, to see more of her. It obliged, showcasing her entire body, her black, open-toed kitten heels, bare legs, and the dress that flounced and bounced to the rhythm of her body. The sweetly seductive motion of her perfect hips. It felt so easy to stare at her, Marc could hardly think. He wondered how many people were brainwashed by her, broken and corrupted and turned into drones at her command. He felt his cock stiffen at the thought and then with a sudden hiss, fizz, and finally a pop, the monitor died.

He blinked, shook his head, and cursed, smacking the monitor’s frame with his hand. It didn’t respond. Dead. He looked across to the screen on the left, at least that one still worked. On it, his email account was open, and someone had replied to his mass mail to the CaliaCorp staff. He scrambled to move his cursor to the other screen and check it.

Your email has been rejected by our filters, and your account has been blocked.

Thank you for contacting CaliaCorp, if you would like to learn more about our company, please visit CaliaCorp.com for details.

Regards,

CaliaCorp Digital Protection

“Fuck,” said Marc as he threw himself backward in his seat, feeling his body crack against the hard chairback, the cushioning long worn out. He rubbed his forehead and stared at the blank screen between the two functional ones. Nothing from the website, nothing from the emails, and now a monitor was broken. He couldn’t afford to replace it, and he needed it. He set to work pulling out the cables from it and moving the other two monitors closer together and placing the broken one on the floor. He stared at it for a moment. His window to the world, one of only three, broken, dead, fizzled out.

Then he kicked it hard in the centre of the screen and cracked the glass. The monitor fell to the ground with a dull thud. Marc turned back to his desk and opened up a browser window. He navigated to one of his bookmarks, a favourite haunt of his where other hackers, coders, and other tech-savvy folk exchanged skills, advice, and resources. He started a new thread, entitled: Need Help With Major Hack ASAP. In it, he explained little other than he wanted to get some sensitive data from a server that had strong security. It took five minutes before he got a reply from someone, about average for what was a popular, but well-hidden site.

XxNarixX: Hey, wanna PM me deets? Experienced hacker, can hlp!

He didn’t recognise the name, but what did it matter, the whole place was anonymous anyway. Marc clicked on the username and opened the private message button. Some help would go a long way and keep him focused. He hoped this Nari was up to the challenge.