This hack was personal.
I glanced around the room, suddenly feeling on display. Exposed.
Violated.
This is how your targets feel.
My conscience needed to shut up already.
A flare of fear swept through me.
Was he onto me already?
Were the Feds finally closing in?
For years I hadn’t given much thought to what the authorities were doing. Not that I wasn’t worried about getting busted. There was always the underlying concern that one day I wouldn’t cover my tracks enough to stay invisible. That one day someone just as good as I was would figure me out.
But that was part of the thrill.
The fear kept it exciting. From those first days I had been full of overconfidence about my own skill. I thought I was too smart. Too good. No way would a bunch of technically inferior federal agents ever be able to find me.
So as time went by, I had gone about my work, not giving much thought to whether I was being hunted.
Getting intel on a possible investigation into my hacker alter ego hadn’t been on my radar.
Until Toxicwrath brought me back down to earth with a bone-shattering thud.
23:22 There’s a file on you. An open case. Did you know that?
I dismissed it initially. I sat at my computer in my dimly lit kitchen and rolled my eyes.
23:22 Yeah, okay, so what? It’s not like they can trace my IP. I’m careful. You know that.
I had probably even smirked, feeling full of myself.
23:23 Minotaur20 was busted two days ago. He’s been arrested and charged.
My smirk dropped instantly.
Every cracker knew Minotaur20. He was one of the largest contributors to the Tor network in the world. It was rumored that he had helped found the Lomaxians, one of the biggest and most prolific hacktivist groups in operation. A group that I used to have a close, personal tie to.
He had been around since the dawn of the Internet. Everyone had thought him untouchable.
My email dinged and I opened it to find an email from Toxicwrath. It was a newspaper article detailing the arrest of Jonathan Lambert of Winchester, Virginia, for cybercrimes going back fifteen years.
Shit.
My throat seized and my palms began to sweat.
23:23 You’re on their radar. This is serious.
For the first time I took the warning seriously.
23:24 How serious?
23:25 Very. They’ve been looking for you for years. You have their attention.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew that my questionable deeds had caught the eye of the authorities. Several times I had even made the news, which had been a nice bump to the ego.
