A Hacker's Regret (SOLO)

“HZZzzzz.z.z….z”

The VR headset’s hum died down as Jin shrugged it off, casually tossing it to the side of the rumpled futon he was laying on. The room was surprisingly well lit, as light streamed in past the frail curtains Jin had picked up from the local TarMart. Judging by the location of the pillar of light that illuminated the wall in front of him Jin guessed it was shortly before noon, not the wee hours of the morning he had been expecting.

With a yawn the scrawny teenager pushed himself up, eliciting a moan of hunger from his stomach. How long had he been logged on, 12, 14 hours? It was hard to tell as most of his time was spent within the virtual space recently, as he tried desperately to catch up with the beta players. He had the advantage of being able to work his own hours with his side business, but it was a slow going process. “Maybe I should have picked a Mage.” Jin lamented as he fell back into the comfort of his affordable futon.

Jin laid there for a few moments as he pondered whether he should eat or sleep first before turning his head to his desk. It was a shabby table purchased at some Swedish store, but it had tons of available work space, taking up the majority of the wall. On it, in addition to his state of the art custom build PC and monitor, lay various half disassembled VR headsets and parts. He had been purchasing every model he could find on the black market, and taking it apart so he could learn the hardware’s ins and outs. So far he hadn’t learned much beyond what he had expected, the circuitry and neural feedback modules were state of the art even with the earlier models, and each above Jin’s level of expertise to modify.

Jin shrugged the hunger and weariness from his mind as he forced himself to stand up and walk over to the desk. He had even managed to acquire one of the oldest VR headsets that had launched with the infamous SAOn the NerveGear. It was a clunkier model and as such the modules were much bigger, allowing Jin a much better look at them with an unassisted eye. He picked up the headset which was more of a helmet inspecting the side he had ripped off when he felt a telltale buzz in his pocket. He quickly set the device down, and grabbed his communication cube which launched a holographic display of his messages.

Hakure

I got it.

It was from Hakure a long time anonymous friend from Japan, he was one of the very few people Jin had told about Terrasphere, and he had promised to help him dig out any information he could find. Jin clicked a button on the cube turning on the vocal recognition software which would allowed it to send messages back to Hakure based on what Jin said.


“Got what?” Jin asked.

Hakure

Oh man you’re going to owe me big time.

This intrigued Jin, but Hakure was known to overstate things, “That’s fine I can transfer a couple hundred Yen into your account.” He said to his communication food as he began to pour a bowl of cereal.

Hakure

Not going to cut it this time Hanzo.

Hanzo was his internet alias, even Hakure didn’t know Jin’s true name. “Ok, I can throw in a coupon to a free burger from Wackarnolds.”

Hakure

Im being serious here, Hanzo. This stuff is good.

Jin sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, he hated when Hakure got like this, “Ok what is it then?”

Hakure

1 million yen.

Jin stopped eating for a moment. That was at least ten times the price he had ever paid Hakure, to be honest he wasn’t sure if he could spare that much and still pay rent. He was intrigued before, but now Hakure had his attention, which in turn made his friend’s continued vagueness even more annoying. “Ok out with it.” Jin responded hoping the games would end with that.

Hakure

Here I am risking my virtual neck, and you’re going to be so demanding?

Jin was nearly at the limit of his patience, “If you think I’m paying 1 million yen based solely on your word, you should go see a doctor.”

Hakure

Fine, fine, I’ll give you a hint, you know the world seed right?

Jin let out an exasperated sigh, of course he knew about the world seed anyone who knew anything about VRMMO’s knew about the world seed, “Yes, and?” Jin replied.

Hakure

Well what if I told you that prior to its launch its source code was housed within third party data storage.

Jin rubbed his chin unsure of what Hakure was getting at, “Well I would say that makes sense, most companies outsource data storage.”

Hakure

Right, right super common. What’s not common was that this data company didn’t have an insurance policy for their protected data.

Jin shook his head, “That doesn’t sound right, but so what?”

Hakure

Come on, you haven’t figured it out yet? They didn’t have their own policy because they were their own policy.

“Was that supposed to make sense?”

Hakure

Complete sense when you realize that they kept ran a batch script that kept duplicate copies of all their data, in a secret data vault.

It all clicked. When the world seed launched several years ago, it wiped out its source code at the developer’s company and launched its various spin off worlds. The code was enclosed and self-maintaining and attempts to alter or change it were blocked off even at the root level an insurance mechanism by the designer. The source code was different, it still would have admin access for the developers available to it, meaning with the right credentials one could essentially change or access anything they want within the program. The code was long since considered lost, but if the data company had a second set stored in an offline server it wouldn’t have been deleted when the world seed program was initialized. He wouldn’t’ be able to use the source code to alter Terrasphere online at all of course, but he could find hidden mechanisms or data he wouldn’t know about otherwise, assuming of course it used the same code.

Jin took a deep breath and said, “When can you get it to me?”

Hakure

It’s too big to send over the internet, I’ll have to physically deliver the drive. So keep an eye out.

Jin nodded as he closed the connection on his companion cube, moving over to his computer and accessing his cryptocurrency account. “One million yen huh?” Jin said feeling slightly hesitant, “This better be worth it..”

 

Several days later…


BZZZ


Jin could feel a throbbing sensation on his forehead, and opened his eyes to see, “Thank you for playing Terrasphere online” in large glowing characters displayed right before his eyes. It seemed the headset had a feature that detected when you had fallen asleep and woke you up before it logged you off accordingly. “A safety feature due to sword art?” Jin thought as he shrugged the plastic piece of electronics off his head, “Maybe.” Slowly Jin stood up stretching as he tried to reorient himself to the real world. As realistic as TS was, it wasn’t perfect, and spending hours at a time logged in caused one to experience a sense of vertigo when you logged out, to put it simply your mind began rejecting the physics of the real world.

Pushing through the sensation Jin was met with a familiar growl from his abdomen. He had never really been able to keep up with eating even before playing VRMMMO’s, and now it had begun to turn into a health issue, one that Jin could see every time he passed a mirror and saw the gaunt skeletal image reflected back at him. With a groan he moved to the kitchen, trying to ignore his nausea as he pulled out a cup of ramen and began to filling it with water.


“You have 14 unread messages.”


His communication cube chimed in his pocket as he put the cup in his microwave hitting the desired cook time. Pulling it out he quickly began to scroll through them as he waited for his food, it was mostly just requests, or feedback on his previous jobs as well as an email from Hakure giving him a time frame for his delivery. Jin clicked the vocal recognition button allowing him to address the cube verbally.

“Computer” Jin commanded, “Set an alarm for delivery for tracking number ‘X-1-2-0-S-K-O-U-8-9-2-1’” The cube buzzed as it accepted the command repeating back, “Alarm set.” Jin set the cube aside and moved to remove his meal from the microwave when it began to make rumble and emit a loud beep. Stunned Jin turned away from his meal and ordered the device to stop, “Computer, report.” The device stopped chirping and repeated, “Confirmation of delivery for ‘X-1-2-0-S-K-O-U-8-9-2-1’” Jin stopped, forgetting his meal, “It just got delivered?” He asked half stunned and surprised, and nabbed the cube and swiping back to Hakure’s message. It stated an estimated delivery of two days ago, it didn’t just get here, it had been delivered a while ago.

Wasting no time, Jin stuffed his cube in his pocket and rushed to the door leading out of his apartment flat. He didn’t trust Hakure enough to give him his actual address, instead he had set up a safe deposit box a few blocks down with one of his various stolen identities that he kept for himself for just such an occasion. Quickly he made his way to the post office and then to his deposit box opening it and revealing a medium sized brown box stuffed inside. “Jackpotttt” Jin exclaimed as he grabbed the box pulling it from the enclosure. As he turned to leave, however, he was confronted by two large men in blue suits standing in his way.

“Hello sir.” Said the man with darker skin, as he held up a hand preventing Jin from moving forward. He was bald and had a large scar that rolled down the side of his face from his temple to his collar which gave him a dangerous air despite his nicer shoes and suit. His friend, directly to his right, was nearly identical in height but had an excessive amount of weight around his waist, pushing the suit’s buttons to their limits as they tried to contain his girth.

Jin froze tightly gripping the box across his chest as he stared at the two men unable to speak. “Excuse me, I don’t think I’ve met you before.” Continued the darker skinned man, “What’s your name?” Jin mentally panicked, did they know who he was? Were they American cops? Did they know what he had in the box? A long period of time stretched as he began to hyperventilate, despite this the two men remained confidently waiting for a response. “Ray..” Jin eventually squeaked out coming up with the first name that came to mind, “Ray Parker”

The overweight man spoke up next, “Oh is that so, well it’s nice to meet ya, Ray.” He said in a local accent, while holding out his hand to shake. Jin glanced at the man’s wrist on which laid a solid golden watch. “No these aren’t cops” he thought as reached out to shake the man’s hand. The pudgy man nabbed Jin’s palm squeezing it tightly as he vigorously shook it, “Im uh, er, Dan, and this here is Padre.” the fat man said eventually letting Jin’s hand go. The darker skinned man, seemingly Padre, shook his head in agreement before speaking, “It’s a pleasure Mister Parker.” Padre’s hand flicked to his chest reaching inside, and pulled out a small white card before he held it in front of Jin, “We like to meet all the new residents of the area and offer them our business, directly, you see.” Padre said as Jin took the card from him, sliding it into his pocket without a glance. “Well one’s of interest, anyway.” Dan chimed in with a jovial grunt, “And might I say, you, Mr. Parker sure are interesting.”

Jin began panicking again, he felt cold, and surprisingly dry, why wasn’t he sweating? He always sweat when he got nervous, but now he was bone dry, could it be dehydration? Either way he still was chilled by the interaction, but numbly made out, “Uh-hum-uh wh-why do you say that?” The porker of a man snorted with a laughed, “Ain’t it obvious kid?” he said waiting a half moment, “A Chinese kid like yourself with an American name? Now –that’s- interesting, Im sure you got one hell of story, eh?” Jin almost collapsed into himself in relief. The fat man just chuckled as he and his friend turned and began to walk away saying, “Give us a holler if you want to work together.”

Jin rushed away, not straight home, he couldn’t trust them not to double back and follow him, instead he jumped on a subway and rode it to the other side of town, before getting out and grabbing a cab to drive him back, all the while suspiciously looking for a tail behind him. Eventually he got home, sending his package from Hakure to the ground with a thud as he fell into his futon. “Ugggghhh.” He groaned as his entire body ached from the stress of the ordeal, as he rolled over though he felt something he had forgotten about in his pocket, their card from earlier. He rolled over to his back and pulled it out, it only had one word written in heavy black ink.

“Deadsoft.”