Hacking the Sun - The Re-Remake

Chapter 6 Hunting The Lynx 1/3

"You wiped my memory, so yes."

"No one needs to know what you're made of. It's a fine line."

"The finest, Jess."

A shame that Space Elves will terminate artificial intelligence with extreme prejudice. Programmers won't fare any better.

Apple Mire Suites. Jessica shuttered as the elevator doors opened, thanks to flashbacks of Jeffrey, but the complex was empty all the way to her suite. She shut the door behind her and yawned, "Work tomorrow." Sleep invited her to bed, yet as the blue vest came off, she heard a hard knock.

The door pad popped a top-down camera view of the outside. A grey hat and the red mark of Apple Mire. The wearer looked up with a pair of reflective glasses. Distinct red hair and sideburns caressed the young man's cheeks jutting out of a jumpsuit. "Who goes there?"

"Maintenance," he said with a subdued voice.

"Maintenance for what?"

"Just need to make sure water-heating circuits are securely linked."

"You always wait until evening?"

"I have been up here multiple times throughout the day, ma'am."

"Did you try knocking?

"Ye—why wouldn't I knock?"

Jessica bit her lip to withhold a laugh. "Did you try using the password?"

"Are you going to let me in?"

"Grouchy. Well, alright then."

Taking her time, Jessica sauntered to the drawers and picked out a pair of black gloves, murmuring, "You don't just let some dude play with your hardware." With fingers tightened in sophisticated latex, she returned and opened the door.

The young redhead fastened his glasses as he entered, veering with purpose. He was garbed in the full glory of a handyman: satchels, rods, pliers, and conductors across his utility belt, and pockets as baggy as banned grocery bags. Nodding in her direction, his tall figure walked right past. The most unreal thing about him was not his wearing glasses indoors but his auburn hair; the color of his bangs and sideburns looked real.

In front of the shelves, the handyman began his survey.

"So," Jessica exclaimed, "why are you really here?" A pasty white face met her cynical smirk; her gloves pensively clasped. The handyman grinned right back.

"Alright," he began confidently. "I won't try and charade you. But I'm not here to start problems either."

"What are you here for?" She leaned on the wall and cracked a few fingers. "And remember, you have to be good at lying if you're gonna lie."

He turned and observed the wall on Jessica's right, cusping the frame of his glasses. "No need. I was out for a night stroll, hunting lynxes."

Jessica lost her grin and beamed menacingly at the fake worker, invisibly nervous.

"It was you, wasn't it?" he continued, gently removing his glasses. He had blue eyes and propelled a haughty posture, awfully laid back. "Someone knew how to remove ransomware from Jeffrey's Vit, that douche."

That's how he found me?

"Is that to say someone in this room installed Ransomware into harmless Jeffrey's Vit?" Jessica said coyly.

"Maybe someone fooled a mutual acquaintance into installing Trojan software via the promise of unlimited anime. And he just happened to surrender his PHI at the first opportunity, hence downloaded the malware encrypting all his precious, illegal downloads—a software adapting to his cheap anti-virus so as to remain hidden from detection until the moment where he would have no choice but to pay in order to regain all that precious content. Simple ransomware with such a small clock that no random person could possibly decrypt within the allotted time, and unlikely to reach someone who could. And yet—"