The Love Algorithm - Vol. III

【18】The Heist

Your friendly neighborhood hacker, Nammota.

PS: You will find below a list of government workers, including judges, district attorneys, and high-ranking justice officials, who have received bribes in the past. The documents that prove these claims have been sent to the appropriate departments.

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It was nearly impossible to hold back the smile that eagerly wanted to take over. We'd fucking done it. I'd have to check further and see if everything had gone well, but we'd fucking done it.

The news outlet couldn't know this yet, but there was much more to these twenty-five bank accounts being hacked. Each of them had gotten sixty-two "micro" withdrawals in a very specific order. It wouldn't take long for the investigators to figure it out, since all these were composed of ones and zeroes, but the transactions formed a message in binary code. 'Appearance is deceptive. Nothing around here is what it seems.' It was another Lex Luthor's quote, Nammota's signature move, and it was meant to point toward Lex's innocence even further. Like a cheeky note left by Nammota, telling the investigators they'd fooled themselves on this one.

Then, the money had been shuffled countless times through various bank accounts, to the point where it was absolutely impossible to trace. In about three minutes, a little under one point four billion dollars had disappeared into thin air. Now, it was patiently waiting, scattered into heavily secured offshore accounts, waiting to be slowly drained. The recipients, the wronged families, would receive randomized amounts, ranging from ten dollars to five hundred, at random intervals of time, sometimes twice a day, sometimes once a week.

Oli, Death, and I had spent hours trying to find the most secure way to get the money to them. Even though there might be some suspicions in the long run, there would be no way for law enforcers to know which transactions were or weren't from the hack, so they wouldn't be able to seize any of it. Also, handling an average of two hundred transactions per family would cost them more than they'd get back. There was no way they'd bother with over five million of these microtransactions. Truly, the plan was flawless.

When I looked around, I noticed that my parents had settled on the couch, their attention completely focused on the screen. Their absolute shock was almost comical. The anchorman was talking about some of Nammota's past strikes, probably trying to keep the public interested long enough until some new information was given to him through his earpiece.

On my way to the armchair, I took my phone out of my pocket, finally allowing myself to check on it. I already had a few messages on it, from people telling me to go watch the news immediately. As I sat down, a call came in. Seeing it was Kevin. I picked it up, my eyes still on the screen.

"Are you seeing this?" he asked right away.

"Yes, I'm with my parents. We're on CNN. This is insane..."

"I know. Everyone at Kelex stopped working, and we're all in the breakroom, watching it. It's everywhere now. All the news channels are talking about it."

Since I was still holding the remote, I checked for myself, and sure enough, every single news outlet had picked up on this. Holy shit, the whole country would know about it soon.

"They have to let him out now," Kev said, his tone light and hopeful. "There's no way they'll keep him after this. Clearly, Nammota is still out there; they'd have to be stupid to keep the charges against Lex."

"Yes, I know. We kept telling them he wasn't Nammota, and now they'll have to believe us," I answered, full of hope as well. The prosecution's case had already been flimsy, but now it was downright unwinnable.