Thursday, May 21, 2015

Chapter 1: The Cyberbeast Page 2

3:35 PM, Monday

It was 2 minutes past Ziah's class and she only got 3 more minutes before she could be tagged as tardy. She hated being late since it was her favorite subject after all.
Two days ago, the country's state university was placed in a scandal when the supposed to be confidential meeting between University Chancellor Dr. Jonathan Tim and Alpha Realty Inc CEO Ronald Soriano was sabotaged. The company's website was taken down during the meeting and all their operations were forcibly stopped. At the same time, a video about the alleged negotiation was uploaded on the company's homepage and circulated on social medias, and so a lot of the students marched and held a protest in front of the Chancellor's office.
Ziah couldn't really care less about the issue at the Capital Region since it didn't concern the Metropolis. But then again, Dr. Euclid was contacted by the Realty if he could assist in locating the identity of the crackers. Ziah was working part-time at the doctor's office so she was tasked by the professor to help and yet, just like the white hats of WebSec Agency, she couldn't find any trace.
WSA was a well-known Cyber Security Information Center based in Pampanga Metropolis Area. A special team was hired to diagnose how the penetration took place and they worked in cleaning up and restoring the site. The private company had suffered an estimated amount of P15 Million on losses due to the attack. Their operations had returned to normal even so, they faced a greater challenge in rebuilding the corporate's reputation and regaining customer's trust.
However, this morning Ziah found an open back door which led to one of the crackers that attacked Alpha Realty. She was suspicious with the way the footprints were removed but this back door looked like it was left on purpose.
Ziah checked on her watch and her face tensed as she passed through a narrow path that had been covered with the falling red-orange flowers of the fire trees, the mark of Summer's last days. She reached the end of the paved way and proceeded to the backside of the Computer Science building. She jumped over the 4 feet high rusty fence that blocked the hallway where CS 177 Operating Systems class was being held.
"Here!" she shouted as she opened the door of A/V Room 103.
All noise and movements stopped when Ziah entered the room. Her eyes searched for Ms. Ella but what she found were just students sitting on the professor's table, a group checking on an article online, a few doing their reports, and others who were playing with their gadgets. After a few seconds, they all ignored her and resumed with their chatters.
"It's only Dee." someone commented. "I thought it was the professor"
"As I was saying, this is the 13th Generation SunX microprocessor."
"Do you think we should delete this part since it's redundant?"
Ziah dropped to the floor feeling very exhausted. "Why is Ms. Ella not here," she frowned to herself.
One student attached a paper on the flat front surface of the teacher's desk. A red button had been drawn on the paper where the words "PRESS BUTTON TO EJECT TERROR TEACHER" was written and everyone laughed.
"I'm jealous that everyone is having a good time." Ziah laid herself with face down the floor and sigh.
After a few seconds, she heard her blockmate Roslyn talking to Rayne, her accused boyfriend since everyone thought so.
"Rayne, your girlfriend is on the floor! Why don't you pick her up?"
The guy didn't respond. He placed his phone in front of his face to check on his hair.
"Raaaayne! Hurry up and save her from public humiliation," Roslyn shouted at him.
Of course, her so called boyfriend who happened to be narcissist would care more about his appearance than a misunderstood girlfriend. Nonetheless he called out to her.
"Dee, would you mind standing up? You are embarrassing yourself and more importantly you are a disgrace to my image."
Ziah didn't move a bit and whispered, "Who cares about his image? Anyone please raise your left foot." She heard slow footprints amidst the noise and a pair of silver Air Jordan shoes flashed before her and she felt her eyes dazzled. She lifted her head and right before her were Rayne's narrowed eyes, his left brow lifted. She smiled at him.


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