Chapter 1

6:50 am, Wednesday

The phone buzzed and Joshua woke. He must have been in REM stage of his sleep, because he remembered the dream: He was in the country, maybe in a farm and black wild boar was chasing him, there also was a black dog, which was barking and jumping around. He hid in the stables when a buzzing sound began to sounds and woke him up. He sat on the edge of the bed. It was Wednesday, a weekday, so the usual morning rituals took place - toilet, teeth, coffee, no breakfast as he was going jogging. He dressed the tracksuit and sneakers, took the keys and phone and went out for his morning exercise. Joshua was renting a small studio on fourth floor in Central Park South area and usually ran in the Park, around the Pond for a round or occasionally two. He took the elevator down and walked the one block distance between the building he was living in and Central Park. Drowsing, he was passing Jose Julian Marti monument when he pushed some other person to the ground. As it turned out he had pushed a woman. A woman in her mid-twenties. Her reaction was instant, she said:

- Watch your steps, moron!

- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't pay attention.

- O, Yea.

- Yes, I'm snoozing, not fully awake yet.

The girl nodded and looked at him good. Then she said:

- Is that your natural state?

- Uh, no, I mean, I don't know. Perhaps... Do you often bump into strangers?

- Ha, very funny. No, I don't.

Joshua looked at her. She was obviously a jogger and somewhat beautiful. He said:

- We could exchange our numbers, you know?

- Mmm, I don't know. I prefer not to.

- Take a chance then, you never know.

She hesitated a bit, then she said:

- Okay, why not.

They exchanged their phone numbers, and after polite goodbyes they separated.

Joshua continued his tour around the Pond. Today just one half a mile circle, he thought.

After the jogging Joshua came home to his studio on West 58th Street, took a shower and had a breakfast. As a web-developer he mostly worked from home and most of the days didn't go to his workplace.

Besides, he had handed over his latest project in Monday and he had no other work for the moment, but he decided to go there to see his colleagues and tick off some tasks. His workplace was in office building on 6th Avenue, half a mile from his rented studio. That is the same building which houses "Simon & Schuster" publishing house.

Although cloudy, it wasn't likely to rain, so he checked his backpack for all necessities, he glanced a last look at the flat and went out. Traffic was the usual. Joshua walked the distance to the office. When he arrived, he saw Suzie, his boss' secretary and greeted her:

- Good morning, Susie.

- Morning, Josh – said she and smiled.

He moved on to his cubicle, when Patrick, a fellow web-developer, stood up from his cubicle and said:

- Josh, did you watch the Sunday's game? They smashed us, huh? – and winked.

Patrick knew very well, that Josh didn't care about sports and that's why he often teased him with that. According to Josh, closest thing to sport he watched were Blizzard's Starcraft tournaments or recently – League of Legends twitch channels.

- Patrick, you know me well, I don't watch sports.

- I know, but it doesn't get old, right? – and continued – By the way Don doesn't approve your last design.

- He told you that?

- Yes.

- Okay, later.

Joshua entered his space, left off his backpack and turned on the computer, a 3-year old Mac Pro. He was in good mood; the designs were changed dozens of times before they settled on the final version. He checked his work email accounts and installed several app updates, emerging for his week absence. He went to the office of Donald, his supervisor. Suzie, Donald's secretary wasn't there, so he knocked on the door. He heard from inside:

- I'm busy, one moment.

While he waited, he poured a glass of water from the bottle in the corner. After few moments the office door opened and Donald asked him in.

- Josh, bad news brother, the client doesn't approve your design.

- Okay, that's why I came. I will do it over.

- Now they want material design.

- Give me more details.

- Oh, you know better, go for it.

- Okay, I'll see what I can do.

Joshua came back to his cubicle and started looking at sites with templates until new ideas appeared in his head. He had made dozens paid Wordpress themes and supported these of them with highest rating for each new version of the Wordpress platform. These activities took him 4-5 days every couple months, but with passive income from them he paid big chunk of his Central Park South studio's monthly rent.

While he browsed the web, his phone beeped. It was one of the alarms he had set up for job hunting. He glanced over the alert, but he didn't like it, despite specific defined settings in the IFTTT app. He went back to web-surfing. An ad with a title "Looking for Sidekick" in one of the freelance sites intrigued him. It said: "If you know your path through the networks and know how to hack computers – pm me at 0xc0de@protonmail.com on Riot.im". Joshua didn't know much about computer hacking, but he wanted to learn. He downloaded and started Riot.im app on his phone, entered the ID and typed: "Hello". He waited a bit, but there was no answer, so he left the app and started working seriously on the new design of the client's site. Two hours later, the design was 90% ready with a few details left out for finishing touches.

The head of Jenny from HR popped in his cubicle and she said:

- Josh, Me, Harry and Patrick are going out for lunch, are you coming?

- Yeah, give me a second and I'm coming.

- Okay, we're waiting.

Joshua put his Mac to sleep and followed them. They went down with the elevator, exited on the street and it became evident that they would lunch at Potbelly Sandwich Shop.

When they arrived, they saw Suzie, who was quite ahead of them at the line. They lined up, and placed their orders. A little bit after that Suzie went somewhere with sandwich in hand. Then Jenny said:

- Did you know that Suzie had sex with that guy from maintenance, what was his name?

- Tom – said Joshua – but that's just rumor.

- No, Maria the cleaning lady, saw them in the closet.

Joshua said:

- Don't talk like that behind people's back.

Patrick said:

- I'm not surprised, Suzie is our type of girl.

Harry, who was eating with mouth full, said:

- Jenny, it's good that you're such a gossip girl to enlighten us what's going up in our offices.

And then the silence continued while they ate. After that they started small talks and the lunch break ran out imperceptibly. They went back at the office. When they arrived, they scattered to their workplaces.

Joshua woke his computer and started working on the website. After a while, upon his judgment that site was ready, he uploaded it on the test servers and called Don that the site is ready for testing. Left without pertinent work, he checked the news and got distracted with his social accounts. He checked his phone, but there were no messages in Riot.im app from that mysterious hacker. Shortly thereafter, Don called and said:

- Josh, they approved the design this time, only slight changes are necessary. The client wants to round the edges and the buttons slightly.

- Okay, Don. I'm on it. – said Josh and dived into work again.

Joshua loved to tinker his websites to the tiniest details. A distant observer would say that he was a perfectionist, but he didn't think of himself as such. In his work, he enjoyed when the design of the site was impeccable, aesthetic, ergonomic and with good fonts, so the text was easily read. When he thought that it was ready, he rang his supervisor again, who called the client to show them the final design.

Half an hour later a final approvement came from the client's side, so Joshua could count his work done for the day, but it was 4:50 pm already anyway. He started to prep for leaving, took his backpack and was ready to go home, when Patrick asked him:

Do you have plans for tonight? Me and the boys will stop by Glass House Tavern. Would you care to join us?

Joshua hadn't particular plans for the night, but he thought about Julia – the girl, whom he had bumped in the morning and decided to try his luck calling her.

- No, thanks, Pat. I'll go home.

- 'Kay, see you.

- Bye

Joshua left for his studio apartment. He called Julia's phone number, when he got on the street and started walking on 6th Avenue. The phone rang one time, two, three times... She answered after the fourth ring.

- Hello – she said.

- Hello, Julia. It's Joshua.

- Who? Joshua who?

- Joshua, who pushed you on your morning jogging.

- Ah! I remembered. What's up?

- Do you have plans for tonight?

- As a matter of fact, I do, sorry.

- So, then when could we go out me and you?

- Call me... No, actually don't call me, I will call you when I can.

- Okay, bye.

- Bye.

Joshua ended the call and thought whether he's wrong not hanging out with Patrick and the guys, but he didn't want to go back to the pub. On his way home, he dropped by Topaz Thai and got food for home. When he arrived home, he turned on the TV to watch the news and sat on the table to eat. Eager to get in touch with that mysterious freelance hacker, he punched another greeting message in his' phone Riot.im app.

While he ate dinner and watched television, his phone bleeped and a message icon appeared.

The anonymous hacker had replied.

- Who are you?

Joshua thought for a moment, then replied:

- My name is Joshua and I want to work with you.

- What skills do you have?

- I know a little Java, web-development – HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, NodeJS and some PHP. Almost full-stack.

- That's garbage in my line of work. You're wasting my time. Bye!

- No, wait! Please. I might not be a computer security expert, but I want to learn. That's why I search expert advice. Give me some clues where to begin, please?

There wasn't answer for more than 2 minutes, after which a reply message appeared:

- Learn computer penetration testing, watch some online courses on that subject, there are many of them these days. Learn Linux, specifically master Kali Linux. Read some books on pen-testing and computer security. When you feel you're ready – lurk into stealth-net forums, they're in the deep web, you'll find them.

- Thanks, but isn't there more easy way to learn this knowledge?

- No, sorry! No pain, no gain. Whenever you feel ready, you may message me here with a bunch of questions.

- Ok, thanks! I'll get in touch with you soon. With questions.

- Np, bye!

- Bye!

They stayed online, but no one send more replies, so Joshua got bored and tuned into Netflix, chose two movies – one action and one fantasy, made popcorn, got a beer from the fridge and sat on the couch to watch them. At 10:30 pm after two movies, he dozed on the couch. He turned off the TV, the desktop and put the laptop to sleep and went to bed. His thoughts jumped from topic to topic in the beginning, but after a while he calmed down, his breath became shallow and he fell asleep.