So I was cautious. Aloof.
Until he proved himself in the biggest way possible.
Toxicwrath had breached the firewalls of Smacktown, the largest distributor of online snuff films in the world. Everyone knew about Smacktown’s questionable reputation. There was a common belief that it orchestrated actual murders to increase its video content. It had been under investigation at one point or another for over three years. But no one could stop it. It kept doing what it was doing.
Until Toxicwrath decided to take it down.
The able hacker not only barreled straight through its security but also deleted all its movies, including its backups. Obliterating Smacktown’s business in one click of the mouse.
And every time the shady company tried to reestablish itself, my deft cracker friend took it down. He made it his mission to keep that particular scum off the Internet.
After that I trusted Toxicwrath. I might not know his face, his gender—though it was just easier to ascribe a pronoun—but I knew his morals. And they were completely in line with my own.
He became my shadow partner. Anonymous yet integral to everything.
So we had formed a hesitant partnership. I stopped being the lone gunman and I let myself rely on someone else to deliver our preferred brand of justice. Taking down only those who deserved it.
We had been planning this attack for three months.
We carefully chose our target.
It was one that was important to me.
Personal.
I had been biding my time, waiting until things were just right.
I set the groundwork. Using basic phishing scams I had been able to infect over two thousand computers so that now I could access them remotely whenever I needed to.
They would be my army tonight.
And Toxicwrath would be my eager soldier.
21:12 What about taking things one step further?
I frowned. My stomach flipped.
21:12 DDoS is the plan. We will make our point.
We had decided to start small; I chose Ryan Law as our target. And it wasn’t by chance. Ryan Law was a notoriously corrupt law firm that used bribery, coercion, and threats as a means to win cases.
But they were smart. They knew how to play the law and make it work for them. Dominic Ryan and his brother Jared were the lowest of the low. Choosing to represent the worst of society, they had made sure that child molesters and murderers got off with nothing more than a smile and a wave.
They had also represented the city when the families affected by the faulty roads that had caused the death of my father had decided to sue. We had wanted a little compensation to pay for funeral costs and medical bills. It was the least they could do given how many lives they had destroyed through their laziness and greed.
Dominic Ryan had ensured that we never saw a red cent.
—
“We’re dropping out of the lawsuit,” my mother announced on our way home from seeing Charlotte.
It had been six months since losing Dad and putting Charlotte in the residential facility. Mom was depressed and I was angry. The sort of anger that spurred action.
I had been the oneto convince Mom to join the other families who were filing suit against the city. She had been resistant. Too overcome with the devastation that had befallen our tiny world.
But I had told her that it would give us closure. It would ensure that we were able to financially take care of Charlotte and her needs.
Mom had agreed—after a lot of arguing. And for the first time since that horrible accident I had felt something like hope.
