Status: May be pauses due to exams
The Long Game
Gwen - sister 1
“Oh bother”
Gwen had really done it this time. She hit the tab button on her keyboard and her fingers started to blur as they whizzed over the keys. As she entered the unbelievably complicated program to set up an impenetrable layer of cyberspace around her computers hard drive, a thought came upon her. She didn’t know anybody, not even her seriously nerdy computing teacher, who could type as fast as she could, let alone think of and enter a program this complex off the top of their heads. As far as she knew, it would take one of her fellow students a whole month to even start to crack the first 2 lines. Gwen pondered over this for a few moments, but then forget about it immediately as soon as a red warning box came up on the monitor.
“Oh no! Not this time!”
Undoubtedly, there was a sweaty little technician on the receiving line of her programs, probably sitting in an office chair in a white lab coat, and, most likely, with no hair left after pulling it all out over a solution to her programs. One thing was for certain though, he was really starting to get on her nerves! The poor guy obviously thought she was just another computer hacker looking to illegally download songs from their site. Although not her main purpose in this game of cat and mouse, it was an added bonus. What else did she have to do when her mum locked her in her room for hours for no reason, with only a laptop to do her homework on. Only problem was, her mum was so stupid, she always forgot to turn of the wireless. If she thought that she could lock her up and Gwen wouldn’t do anything about it, then she was wrong. But then, her mum wouldn’t notice if she died, till she started to stink out the house. It was all about her precious little Rory, the ’doctor’ that was going to bring honour to the house. He was still only in the last year of high school, but apparently, he was already a doctor! She couldn’t wait to be 16, then she could be rid of the whole Brady bunch!
She shook her head, too much to think about already without that in her head as well. All right, that had been an easy one. This time, she was going to make it medium level. Her fingers flew over the keys, so fast that the keyboard fell off the side of her desk. She picked it up quickly and continued. She paused, her fingers hovering millimetres from impact. She smiled as she came up with the perfect finish, and entered the final row of code. She sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, and pressed the enter key with her index finger. The program lurched across cyberspace and attacked the mainframe of the music site. The tech was going to have a fit when he saw this, well, unless he happened to speak the African language Swahili. Gwen gave the computer monitor a smug smile as she sat back in the chair and relaxed. She had finally found a use for the language she had learnt online over the years of being stuck in this room. A window popped up on the screen; it told her all she needed to know. She went back to the site, typed in the code she had been trying to get for the last 9 minutes and then entered. She looked at the credit counter in the corner. It had changed from 16 pence, to unlimited. She grinned a Cheshire cat grin and plugged in her iPod. Now all she had to do, was enjoy.
Music site HQ:
A tech sat on an office chair, surrounded by monitors, which were all normally packed full of programs telling him that the state of the mainframe’s hard drive. Now, most of the screens just read ERROR. This person must be ex-military or something, thought the tech. A phone rang in the corner of the room; the tech had to take a moment to brace himself against the flow of rage that was, undoubtedly, going to come from the receiver. He had been picked as the best programmer in Liverpool, and now he was sure he could give kiss goodbye to any further career in computer systems.
“Um, Hello.” He answered, sweat dripping from his forehead.
What came next was totally unexpected.
Don’t worry, they’ve hacked into loads of other sites, eBay, Amazon, you name it, not even the military could stop them.” This was his boss, the one who fired his secretary for giving him cold coffee, when it wasn’t even her job to bring it to him.
“You’re not mad?”
“No way, you did a better job of keeping them at bay than the military expert in computers and programming himself. If anything, you deserve a pay rise, not a sacking!”
“Thank you, sir.” The tech lowered the phone from his ear, placing it back on its base. All he could do was thank whoever the hacker was.
Gwen downloaded all she needed. She didn’t know why she even bothered with this site; it didn’t have anything good on it at all. Yes, now she remembered, she had attacked Itunes so many times that it was starting to get tiresome. The stairs creaked a few metres away from her bedroom door. Gwen closed the music site down, but not before she had added the page to her favourites. If she ever needed some 20’s songs that never made it into the top 10, she’d know where to look. Number 9: Jedward. She rolled her eyes, when did the twits actually start selling records? Well, at least they're now going to go bald! She smiled to herself at the thought of what they would actually do if that started happening. That was worth staying alive just to see that! She just managed to open up a text package and start typing something before her mum pushed the door open at lightning speed, obviously trying to catch her out.
“Gwen, get downstairs now and set the table! Your brother has been at school all day, and he is exhausted! Come and do something, now!”
Her mum slammed the door, making one of the posters on her wall come unfixed. Gwen sighed as she pushed herself out of the chair and stood up. She groaned as a splitting headache came over her. That’s what you get if you stand up too quickly Gwen, she told herself. She slowly walked over to the wall where the poster was positioned over her bed. As she jumped up onto the bed, Gwen noticed that some of the wall paper was coming away from the wall behind the poster. She jumped back off her bed and went to get some glue from the cupboard in the hall. Gwen tiptoed out into the hall so her mum wouldn’t hear her, but when she heard Take That music floating from the CD player downstairs, she knew she was safe. She rolled her eyes, who listens to those old classics anymore. This was 2041 for goodness sake! Gwen found the glue, after making a mess of the cupboard, and went back to her room. Gwen got back on the bed and folder back the corner of the wallpaper behind the poster. Gwen reached for the glue that she had placed on the bedside table, but when she turned back, Gwen noticed a mark on the wall, a mark made by a pencil. She tore at the paper a bit more to reveal some writing. Gwen pulled even more away from the wall, and found a whole line of writing, old and barely legible. Gwen tried to make out the words; w .t un ers orm.c m. It’s a web address! She realised with a start that it must be something important. Gwen ran to her computer and typed in www.tunersorm,com. Nothing, not even a proper address. Gwen sat back and stared at the writing on the wall. Just then the 5 o’clock news popped up on her screen, The weather report, there always wrong these days! Then she stared at the screen, at Scotland to be precise. Gwen typed in something else. www.thunderstorm.com. A web page came up, and Gwen’s eyes opened with wonder.
South Wales just got a little more spooky!
Gwen had really done it this time. She hit the tab button on her keyboard and her fingers started to blur as they whizzed over the keys. As she entered the unbelievably complicated program to set up an impenetrable layer of cyberspace around her computers hard drive, a thought came upon her. She didn’t know anybody, not even her seriously nerdy computing teacher, who could type as fast as she could, let alone think of and enter a program this complex off the top of their heads. As far as she knew, it would take one of her fellow students a whole month to even start to crack the first 2 lines. Gwen pondered over this for a few moments, but then forget about it immediately as soon as a red warning box came up on the monitor.
“Oh no! Not this time!”
Undoubtedly, there was a sweaty little technician on the receiving line of her programs, probably sitting in an office chair in a white lab coat, and, most likely, with no hair left after pulling it all out over a solution to her programs. One thing was for certain though, he was really starting to get on her nerves! The poor guy obviously thought she was just another computer hacker looking to illegally download songs from their site. Although not her main purpose in this game of cat and mouse, it was an added bonus. What else did she have to do when her mum locked her in her room for hours for no reason, with only a laptop to do her homework on. Only problem was, her mum was so stupid, she always forgot to turn of the wireless. If she thought that she could lock her up and Gwen wouldn’t do anything about it, then she was wrong. But then, her mum wouldn’t notice if she died, till she started to stink out the house. It was all about her precious little Rory, the ’doctor’ that was going to bring honour to the house. He was still only in the last year of high school, but apparently, he was already a doctor! She couldn’t wait to be 16, then she could be rid of the whole Brady bunch!
She shook her head, too much to think about already without that in her head as well. All right, that had been an easy one. This time, she was going to make it medium level. Her fingers flew over the keys, so fast that the keyboard fell off the side of her desk. She picked it up quickly and continued. She paused, her fingers hovering millimetres from impact. She smiled as she came up with the perfect finish, and entered the final row of code. She sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, and pressed the enter key with her index finger. The program lurched across cyberspace and attacked the mainframe of the music site. The tech was going to have a fit when he saw this, well, unless he happened to speak the African language Swahili. Gwen gave the computer monitor a smug smile as she sat back in the chair and relaxed. She had finally found a use for the language she had learnt online over the years of being stuck in this room. A window popped up on the screen; it told her all she needed to know. She went back to the site, typed in the code she had been trying to get for the last 9 minutes and then entered. She looked at the credit counter in the corner. It had changed from 16 pence, to unlimited. She grinned a Cheshire cat grin and plugged in her iPod. Now all she had to do, was enjoy.
Music site HQ:
A tech sat on an office chair, surrounded by monitors, which were all normally packed full of programs telling him that the state of the mainframe’s hard drive. Now, most of the screens just read ERROR. This person must be ex-military or something, thought the tech. A phone rang in the corner of the room; the tech had to take a moment to brace himself against the flow of rage that was, undoubtedly, going to come from the receiver. He had been picked as the best programmer in Liverpool, and now he was sure he could give kiss goodbye to any further career in computer systems.
“Um, Hello.” He answered, sweat dripping from his forehead.
What came next was totally unexpected.
Don’t worry, they’ve hacked into loads of other sites, eBay, Amazon, you name it, not even the military could stop them.” This was his boss, the one who fired his secretary for giving him cold coffee, when it wasn’t even her job to bring it to him.
“You’re not mad?”
“No way, you did a better job of keeping them at bay than the military expert in computers and programming himself. If anything, you deserve a pay rise, not a sacking!”
“Thank you, sir.” The tech lowered the phone from his ear, placing it back on its base. All he could do was thank whoever the hacker was.
Gwen downloaded all she needed. She didn’t know why she even bothered with this site; it didn’t have anything good on it at all. Yes, now she remembered, she had attacked Itunes so many times that it was starting to get tiresome. The stairs creaked a few metres away from her bedroom door. Gwen closed the music site down, but not before she had added the page to her favourites. If she ever needed some 20’s songs that never made it into the top 10, she’d know where to look. Number 9: Jedward. She rolled her eyes, when did the twits actually start selling records? Well, at least they're now going to go bald! She smiled to herself at the thought of what they would actually do if that started happening. That was worth staying alive just to see that! She just managed to open up a text package and start typing something before her mum pushed the door open at lightning speed, obviously trying to catch her out.
“Gwen, get downstairs now and set the table! Your brother has been at school all day, and he is exhausted! Come and do something, now!”
Her mum slammed the door, making one of the posters on her wall come unfixed. Gwen sighed as she pushed herself out of the chair and stood up. She groaned as a splitting headache came over her. That’s what you get if you stand up too quickly Gwen, she told herself. She slowly walked over to the wall where the poster was positioned over her bed. As she jumped up onto the bed, Gwen noticed that some of the wall paper was coming away from the wall behind the poster. She jumped back off her bed and went to get some glue from the cupboard in the hall. Gwen tiptoed out into the hall so her mum wouldn’t hear her, but when she heard Take That music floating from the CD player downstairs, she knew she was safe. She rolled her eyes, who listens to those old classics anymore. This was 2041 for goodness sake! Gwen found the glue, after making a mess of the cupboard, and went back to her room. Gwen got back on the bed and folder back the corner of the wallpaper behind the poster. Gwen reached for the glue that she had placed on the bedside table, but when she turned back, Gwen noticed a mark on the wall, a mark made by a pencil. She tore at the paper a bit more to reveal some writing. Gwen pulled even more away from the wall, and found a whole line of writing, old and barely legible. Gwen tried to make out the words; w .t un ers orm.c m. It’s a web address! She realised with a start that it must be something important. Gwen ran to her computer and typed in www.tunersorm,com. Nothing, not even a proper address. Gwen sat back and stared at the writing on the wall. Just then the 5 o’clock news popped up on her screen, The weather report, there always wrong these days! Then she stared at the screen, at Scotland to be precise. Gwen typed in something else. www.thunderstorm.com. A web page came up, and Gwen’s eyes opened with wonder.
South Wales just got a little more spooky!