The Drunkard

After the porcelain projectile had shattered into bits behind James, he looked to see who the marksman was. He looked in front of him and saw his father, named Brent, he was clearly intoxicated, he stood at around 6', but his hunchbacked posture made him seem about 5'10. He had salt and pepper colored stubble, messy grey hair, he had an attractive face that was overshadowed by his terrible eye bags and acne scars. His father was wearing a stained tank-top and underwear, not exactly a fashionista to say the least.

James sighed inwardly, but was used to this abusive behavior, although it usually wasn't this horrible, he had to deal with his father's drunken stupor daily. Ever since his mother had passed away, Brent had been like this. He used to be a happy drunk, but the guilt turned him into a violent one.

Brent had blacked out after performing his attack and was now asleep on the carpeted floor. The apartment was supposed to have white walls, but they were stained yellow from cigarette smoke. The carpet had a multitude of different colored stains on it, some of which seemed to be a dark red, other seemed to look like spilled soda. The apartment consisted of two bedrooms and a bathroom, there was a half kitchen but it was fit in a hallway that connected the rooms together.

James took the pieces of shattered plate and threw them into an overflowing trash can. He flipped his father over to his side to make sure he wouldn't choke on his vomit, because, despite his father's abuse, he still loved Brent. After tending to the mess his dad had made he could finally relax and enter his room.

Detention had ended at 3:00PM so it was 4:30PM by the time James could finally relax in his room. His room contained one singular twin sized mattress, the mattress was just on the ground as they couldn't afford a bed frame or box springs. On the opposite side of the room was a desk, and an something that stood out. He had a pretty expensive looking laptop that rested on top of his desk. This was all his room contained though, the mattress and the desk. His clothes rested upon a corner of his room, stacked in organized piles.

James approached the laptop and opened it and pressed the power button. He was able to afford it by doing online bug bounties. In simpler terms, he found what was wrong with programs code, told them what that problem was, and got paid. James had made a pretty penny off of this and had around 8,000$ USD saved in a cryptocurrency wallet. The reason James hid this from his father was that his father would either spend it on booze or gambling. So he wanted to keep his small fortune to himself.

The laptop had finished booting up and he heard the signature bootup sound. James first hit on an app called Disgourd. The app sprung up in dark mode and he saw that he had 1 new notification. The notification was someone pretending to be a bot called Mee5, telling him that he had won free nitrous. He quickly minimized Disgourd and went into a secure browser called Bunion.

James found himself typing in, b00gel.net, it was a domain owned by Boogle. It was officially bought on the premise that it could be used to make false advertisements claiming to be Boogle, but James had found something interesting on this seemingly empty website. It collected user's computer information, and only opened up to specific computers. This peaked James's interest as he wanted to see what a multi-billion dollar corporation like Boogle had to hide so securely.

James started running through the code, while he opened a bug bounty website that would notify him if any jobs that pertained to his expertise came through.

Running through the code, James saw something trip his trigger. He had decrypted what computers and what locations could access this information, but before he could analyze further he heard...

*Ding*

James jumped in his chair, the notification sound almost made him soil his pants. He thought for a second that Boogle had caught on and was now at his apartment, but luckily for him those were just fictional fantasies. James clicked the notification and suddenly a website filled with bug bounties popped up. The job in particular was posted by Boogle, the posting went as follows:

[Company: Boogle (238 Ratings)(4/5)]

[Pay: 5.000 USD$]

[Description: Test our new encryption system! If anyone can find a way to decrypt information on the following domain and give us a detailed report with proof about the weakness, you will be able to claim the reward money!]

James almost cried out of joy. It was a pie in the sky job for him, an opportunity of a lifetime. Not only could he get rich, being paid 5,000$ per bug. He would also gain more insight on their encryption system and it wouldn't even be illegal.

James quickly sent an inquiry about the job and then saved the list of computers he had gotten off the website.