After the whirlwind that was spring break ended, CJ returned to the school routine thankful for the first time in her life for a bit of calm. A good portion of the last term flew by without so much as a discussion of pranks and or adventures. But as the weather warmed and the smell of spring was in the air the need for excitement started to overwhelm CJ. Now the problem was what could she do and how could she do it without being caught. The bigger the plan the more fun but also the more likely she was to get caught.
Midterm reports were due to come out the following week. CJ wasn't worried, her marks were decent and her family was really good about recognizing effort when the grades were what they expected. Owen on the other hand was not so lucky. He was looking at a couple of low grades and possibly a failure. His lack of success was due mostly to his lack of attendance but it was times like these that you started to think about the long term consequences of your actions. His belly aching one afternoon gave CJ an idea. She could put her new computer skills to the test and see if she could hack her way into school's marks file and alter them for Owen. He was game and gave her a list of his classes and teachers. They decided on 'appropriate' alterations as they didn't want it to look staged.
That Friday before CJ met with Tim for their weekly mathematics lesson CJ logged onto her father's computer and began her first foray into hacking. She knew that both Tim and Abby would be able to do this in like 30 seconds but that didn't stop her from trying. Several attempts later she was no farther ahead. Instead of getting frustrated or giving up she armed herself with non-incriminating questions to ask Abby about firewalls and encryption code, logged off and ventured towards the lab. Abby was more than willing to give suggestions and explanations when everything was hypothetical and for the education of a young mind.
CJ spent a productive 40 minutes or so with Abby where she was able to tunnel into a "fake" computer Abby had set up on another machine. CJ was beyond pleased, the school system wasn't that well set up and it should be a breeze to hack with her new knowledge. When Abby was in the front lab area CJ downloaded a password cracker onto a memory stick and quickly placed it in her pocket before saying her goodbyes and going to search out Tim for their appointment.
Tim was impressed with how quickly she picked up the lessons he was teaching and continued to increase the complexity of the problems and made sure to add new information each week. CJ was keeping out of trouble at school and he was hopeful that he was playing a helpful role in her transformation.
By the time CJ returned to the bull pen both Tony and Ziva were at their desks. She wasn't going to get a chance to use either of their computers before going home. It wasn't that they didn't have a computer with internet access at home it was more that her parents had this ridiculous rule that the computer had to be kept in the living room, a common space, so that they could keep an eye on her while she was surfing. She understood the rule when she was very young and she could have accidentally ended up on an inappropriate site. But not now, she was almost 16 for crying out loud, there was no danger in getting somewhere she didn't want to be. On many occasions she had tried to argue that she should be able to use the computer in her bedroom as that is where her desk was that she did homework at and that is why she used the internet. She had never won and the computer still lived on a desk in the living room.
Time was now her only problem to surmount. The reports were going out next week but she didn't know when they would be printed out and so felt that if she didn't get in by the end of the weekend then she would have failed. The luck Gods were looking out for her, or at least she thought they were, when on Sunday afternoon her parents were called to a crime scene. She would be left alone for several hours before either they returned or someone came to stay with her for the night, likely Gibbs.
The minute the car was out of the driveway she was logged on and exercising her knew hacking muscles. It took much longer than she thought to actually get into the system. But when the logo of the report card program hopped across her screen she almost jumped for joy. She was most of the way there, now she just had to get past the password. CJ had to comb through her dirty laundry to find the pocket she'd left the memory stick in before she returned to the computer and loaded the program. Now it was a waiting game, she had heard Abby explain that this part could take a few minutes to a few hours. She kept her fingers crossed that it was the former time frame as she wasn't sure how long she would have before she had an audience.
One hour and forty three minutes later CJ heard a ding while she was eating dinner alone in the kitchen. Running immediately to the living room she sat in front of the monitor amazed, she was IN. She had access to every teacher's class list, every teacher's grading, literally everything. She quickly found Owen's list and began altering the marks and comments written by the teachers. As she was about to shut the whole thing down she noticed that this system was linked to the attendance program and fed the absences to the report card program. Owen had a high number of missed classes and she was sure that wouldn't go over at home either and so she backtracked and altered the attendance record as well.
It was in that moment as she shut the system down that the idea came leaping to mind. She could alter attendance records; her attendance records. Ooooh HoH… this was great, no better than great she thought to herself. She could change it after it had been scanned in at the end of the day but before they sent out notices the next morning.
Floating on cloud nine she finished supper and started watching a movie. It was in this state that Gibbs found her an hour later. He was pleased to find his 'niece' so happy and relaxed. It had been a bit of ride the past few months and the fact that she had come out of it unscathed was reassuring. Life could throw her a curve ball and she would be ready to just bat it back.
Monday morning Owen came to find CJ before classes started.
"Did you do it?" he asked half excited, half nervously.
"Yep, No Problemo, sport!" CJ answered with a very wide grin.
He trotted off to class happy as a lark and CJ was pleased that she could make someone so happy with a few simple key strokes. Today would be the day she would see if she could make herself that happy, and at lunch time she was found once again in the cafeteria eating with her friends instead of in math class. That afternoon before her and Steven made out on the living room sofa she more efficiently hacked into the school's system and altered her attendance by removing the absence for earlier that day. Ensuring she saved the changes carefully she logged out and made her way over to a not so patiently waiting Steven.