Chapter 3: Alex.
Piper took off towards the assorted classrooms at a sprint. She turned her feet over fast and stayed as quiet as possible as she delved deeper into the wing. The place was utterly amazing: There were large lecture halls filled to the brim with students, and other rooms completely empty.
As she crept along, moving low and staying quiet, she saw a normal looking classroom of students installing ram into desktop computers. Then in another class 3d images danced across a projected screen as images contorted from terraces to tendrils in an intricate show of light.
Piper soaked in the moment as she felt tears threaten to break free of her eyes, with the beauty of her surroundings.
She was finally home.
But then one computer lab at the end of the hallway caught her eye. The lab was completely dark except for the glow of one blue screen in the distance. It seemed odd to leave only one screen on in the darkness, unless someone was using it. And then that someone wouldn't turn on the lights if they didn't want to be seen.
Piper edged closer with excitement until she could make out the distinct shadow of figure sitting alone in the corner of the room. Piper couldn't make out the figure, but she knew she had to find out who it was and what they were doing.
She moved swiftly to the room's wooden door and glanced around to make sure she was still undetected. Piper felt the door handle to the room and was relieved to find it unlocked. Tentatively Piper eased the door open and squeezed into the room. She glanced back as she moved silently and the figure continued to focus without noticing her.
Good.
Piper crept stealthily past several rows of computers and cords, moving painfully slow in order to remain undetected. Her heart pounded with the thrill as time ticked on with her painfully slow but purposeful movements. Finally she was in the row of computers behind the shady figure. Piper smiled as she crept closer, moving directly beside the figure. Then she couldn't savor the moment any longer as she dared to glance up at the user's screen. Piper couldn't stifle the incredulous laughter that shot through her and made figure spring out of their chair and reel away in panic.
Immediately Piper her face burn bright red in alarm. She could now make out the figure a little better, and was shocked at what she was.
The figure in front of her was tall, at least 5'10". By her long and silky black hair, wide hips, and bulging cleavage Piper knew she had now snuck up on a woman. I really hot woman, which made her feel even worse. The brunette was wearing all black clothes, but not in the goth way. No, she had skinny black jeans, a simple black athletic tank top, and sleek black glasses covering her gorgeous green eyes. Instantly Piper was self-conscious.
"I was just checking the programs, I mean the weather, I mean…" woman sputtered as she quickly dashed forward and locked the screen, her face stricken with obvious guilt.
Oh, now she didn't need to be the one taken aback. No, this could be an opportunity.
"Yeah, I wasn't born yesterday, I know what you were trying to do," Piper said as casually as possible.
"Then you know it's none of your business," the woman snapped back as she stood and looked directly into Piper's eyes, challenging her. "I have a right to be here, and access this lab."
Now Piper was the one who's head was spinning. This gorgeous chick was good at recovering her composure, but Piper knew that knowledge were on her side here.
"Really," she stammered in an attempt to reply. She couldn't handle the brunette's fiery gaze, and glanced back to the computer screen. Piper tapped a few quick keys and brought the woman's screen back up.
"What the… How did you…"
"Not important," Piper interjected. "Now can you tell me that attempting to hack the locally encrypted campus system's server with only one computer is within your rights here?"
Hot damn, she'd said a sentence straight without stuttering in front of this stranger.
"Hey, that's not it at all. I was just…"
"Hey, cut the bullshit here," Piper snapped.
She wasn't about to listen to another lie that day. No way.
"We both know you're trying to use brute force code to crack past the MD5 encryption key without a back door."
No, I was just doing my coding project," the woman tried to say nonchalantly.
"Well let me see here," Piper replied as she sat down in the chair before the terminal as she scrolled through lines of code.
"Hey back off my stuff," the brunette spat as she tried to grab the mouse away from Piper.
Piper pushed her hand aside in utter frustration; "Come on, do you want my help here or not?"
The brunette paused, seemingly lost in thought.
She looked cute while she was thinking. With her finger looping around her glasses and running through her hair. I'd like to run my fingers through her hair.
The thought struck her out of the blue, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from this woman.
"You're help?" the brunette finally responded. "Why would you want to help me on my coding project here? Or even if you do want to help, I doubt you have the knowledge I need for this."
Oh, she liked how this woman played it safe, avoiding direct omission of guilt. It was strategic, and extremely sexy.
"Look, I certainly can help you."
Piper looked back to the screen as she inspected the woman's code. It was remarkably good quality.
"Okay here's your problem, you have only one brute force attack here and nothing else to work with," Piper pointed out. "Now I'll admit this code is phenomenally written and formatted, but if you want to crack a dynamic server that's encrypted you need some variable adaptivity."
The brunette leaned down to look closer at the code. Piper hardly dared to breathe as she felt the woman's breathe against her cheek, her sturdy arm against the frail chair. Piper soaked in the sensations that flooded her mind.
"I still don't see the problem," the brunette finally replied. "I mean there's no variability, but that there doesn't need to be. The server is just a machine that can be cracked open like a bank vault. So where's the error."
"There are also no counters programmed here, no redirects, traps, or other bots at all to assist in the assault. It's like you're trying to open a re-inforced steel door with a monkey wrench. Even if it's the best built monkey wrench in the world it still won't open that bank vault."
"What do you mean monkey wrench?" the girl protested, obviously upset. "That code took me a week to write and it's better than anything I've ever seen someone else write to crack a system like this. This task is just impossible," she huffed.
Oh no, she was not about to give up like this.
"Hey, impossible is just a word used by small beings with no ambition. Now I know that's not you," Piper replied.
Why was she trying so hard to make this woman feel better?
"Look, the problem isn't your code, it's your approach."
The woman looked back at her with interest. "What do you mean, my approach?"
Piper felt her heart skip a beat.
Damn this chick had an unprecedented effect on her.
"Well," she stammered, "If we stick with the bank vault metaphor then you need to vary your attempts to access it. If brute force doesn't work then making a guard open it, or hacking the computers to unlock it should be in your arsenal."
"Okay, I'm not following you."
Piper blushed with embarrassment. "Look you just need to imagine the system like an adversary in a game of tennis. The server is dynamic as an opponent, and you need to think of it strategically to cover it's tough shots, and break it's game."
"You know sports were never my thing," the woman smiled.
Piper smiled back as she blushed. "Well, me neither. But why don't I show you."
"And how will you do that?" the brunette mused.
"Well, I installed a backdoor to my own computers elsewhere so I could sound the alarm or something at this place if I got bored and wanted to cancel the tour."
"Wait, you're just visiting this place?"
"Yep, and if I want to stay out of trouble I'm going to need to make this fast. Now where is the shared group of drives at?" Piper asked.
"Here, I'll show you."
The woman's hand dropped over Piper's on the mouse. Her breathe caught in her throat as the sensation froze her in place as she gasped.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, no. Just show me the drives and I'll do the rest," Piper breathed.
"Okay, they're just over here."
The woman guided her hand to the hidden folder and pulled up the assorted drives.
"Thanks," Piper replied.
The woman's warm touch drifted away and Piper felt her flowing sensations drain away as she reloaded the folder after nailing a few keystrokes.
Instantly another drive appeared in the folder with an encrypted label.
"What's that?" the brunette asked.
"Oh, just my server to tap into here. I'm just going to active my system and help finish this/"
Piper tapped a few key and in a second the screen transformed to an alien symbolic circle with lights of red and white fading in and out in random intervals and non derivable patterns of artistic flow. The brunette gasped and Piper just shook her head with a smile and smug expression with pleasing her.
"What is this?"
"My system."
Piper hit a few keys and a profile picture of the mysterious woman showed up with all her grades and basic campus information. Piper hit the R key for the portfolio of information and sat back as the information poured out.
An almost perfectly natural, male sounding voice read, "The user's designation is Alex Revise. She is a sophomore at Arkale University, currently double majoring in biology and advanced computer science. Press R for more information."
Piper glanced back at the woman with a smile, "So you must be Alex then," she smiled.
Alex seemed frozen in place as she continued to stare in disbelief at what she'd just seen. Then she recovered and and replied, "Yeah, I'm Alex."
"Well nice to meet you Alex. Now I believe you wanted full admin access to the server and all data on campus, is that correct?" Piper asked as if it were something completely ordinary.
Alex continued to stare as she seemed lost in thought. Finally she replied, "Yeah, that's what I was sort of going for."
"Good, now all you need is a triangulated botnet ddos user override attack, breach, and basic code resequencing system to re-write the server's security with a back door. Basically I'm aiming to paralyze the server for a few milliseconds while I gain complete access and control through installing some code in it while it's so overwhelmed that it has no defense. Now I'm thinking why not triangulate from states with W today, since I'm from wisconsin and all."
Alex continued to stare intently as Piper pulled up a botnet tab and typed in w-usa;. Immediately the red screen flashed to a basic satellite view of the United States as small red blips appeared throughout washington, wyoming, and wisconsin.
"Now here's the fun part," Piper said with excitement.
She was really having a good time showing off in front of Alex.
Piper opened a new command line and typed: netlocalserver-hack;.
The screen flashed between different lines of code as it worked for 0.5 seconds then pulled up a full view of the files hosted on the server.
Alex stared at what had just happened in complete amazement. Piper continued as per usual as she typed at lightning speed through several command terminals in a matter of seconds. She was in her zone, but Alex's onlooking gaze still raised her apprehension, people still weren't her thing, but somehow Alex felt more reassuring, like less of a threat.
Meanwhile, Alex's head spun as she watched Piper fly through the files and systems with complete control and grace, completely at ease. Alex greatly envied that. Then in a split second Piper was done. She exited the alien looking system and returned to Alex's previous user screen.
"Now you have complete server access. I wrote you in as god with total admin control and complete access to alter and modify all files and information. The server access and log files are all in an invisible folder in the top left of your desktop on all computers linked through this server. You should have all you need."
Piper stood-up and awkwardly glanced between Alex and the door. She knew she needed to get back to her tour group, but still couldn't take her eyes off this woman. Finally she gave into the silence and strode towards the door.
"Wait," Alex called out.
Piper immediately halted and spun around, eager to interact more.
"Yeah, what is it?"
"What do you mean god access, there's no god level above admin in any system I know of."
"Exactly, but you don't know my system. The code I use is my own language that ultimately can trump and re-write all others because the basic rules of all languages are assimilated and re-written to be completely compatible with my language. I call it hive code."
"So you programmed all that by yourself?" Alex gasped.
"Yeah, I was bored during a summer once so I wrote it all then in 27 straight hours for the base code and have done slight modifications ever since."
Stop sounding like such a nerd, look good here.
"That's incredible. You just hacked the most complicated college server in the nation and re-wrote it's basic programming in less than a minute. But why did you help me, and give me all this from the server?"
Piper blushed deeply with the question. She knew the real answer but wasn't anywhere near ready to admit it.
"You seemed like you were someone who wanted the information for good reason. I thought I could help keep you out of some trouble for now. That's always something I believe should be done."
"Oh."
Something seem to fade in Alex's eyes, some gleam smothered by disappointment. Piper didn't understand it, so she quickly turned and was almost to the door when Alex caught up to her.
"Thanks by the way, I'd like to stay in contact with you, maybe meet up some time for lunch?"
Piper's heart skipped a beat, the thought so tantalizingly delicious.
"I'd love to, but I'm only here on tour, really I live hours away from this place," Piper said with a sigh.
"Well you seem like the right type of person for this school. I'm top of my class in Artificial Intelligence, but I've never seen anything close to what you created. There's a real future for someone with you talents," Alex grinned.
"I think I like the sound of that. We'll see how it goes, but whatever happens I'll remember you." Piper blushed deeply as she looked up into Alex's radiant eyes, before she turned away and left the dark computer lab.
Piper opened the door and reluctantly walked away from Alex. But as she did she turned and looked back to see Alex smiling back at her. She blushed deeply as she felt a rush of some kind of emotion she couldn't describe. She'd known Alex for less than 5 minutes, but saw something so powerful in her, so genuine, that touched her in a way she couldn't comprehend, or begin to understand. Piper walked thoughtfully past the halls of computers on her way back towards her tour group. As she did, she could feel the beauty of the technology radiating around her. She couldn't begin to explain it, but somehow she could feel that this was place for her. This was her true home.
