Chapter 13
“I’ll tell you a secret–it’s my favorite game! No matter how upset I am, as soon as I whack one of those little moles on the head, all my sadness disappears!
“But you know, I do feel bad for the little moles always getting hit. So, I’ve decided that when I grow up, I’ll make my own whack–a–mole game and design sturdy little helmets for them!”
On the screen, the mole that was whacked had on a helmet with an “S” on it.
S…
It stood for “Summer“.
Just as everyone was still processing, Mason casually remarked, “Cute.”
Kyle turned to look at the screen showing four
blocky characters bouncing around.
Cute? This outdated, cheesy thing? What on earth was cute about it?
“Is it not?” Mason looked up at the group.
“It is! Very cute indeed!” They all nodded in unison.
Mason then asked, “Has the entire system been breached?”
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Chapter 13
“We’re trying to fix it!” Tim Bryant, the IT guy, blurted, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
“Save this program and send it to me,” Mason said.
Suddenly, he snapped out of his reverie. He wondered how the hacker responsible for breaching the Hartford family’s systems and spreading scandalous videos could be connected to Summer.
His thoughts drifted to one rainy night in the narrow alley by the bar district.
Amid the downpour, a woman’s scream echoed from a distance. Summer had grabbed his arm in panic and stopped him from leaving.
The gentleness that had flickered in Mason’s eyes moments ago turned cold.
“Kyle, look into something for me,” he ordered.
Summer had anticipated that Mason might dig into Rose’s case.
She had prepared two counter–intrusion programs. One was the “the wicked are bound to meet their end” message Robin and his team found, while the other was specifically for Mason.
She didn’t want Mason to view her as an enemy, so
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Chapter 13
after much thought, she decided on a playful yet endearing countermeasure to reduce the chances of conflict with him.
Back in Summer’s room, the computer pinged with two successful intrusion alerts. Quickly, she wiped all traces of her activity before logging into a heavily encrypted website. This site was a haven for the world’s top hackers.
Summer had decided not to squander her talents
anymore.
In the coming years, the Internet would develop rapidly, and she needed to seize this opportunity to secure Hartford Group’s position in the industry.
Hartford Group’s involvement in tech was shallow at best, and, in Summer’s eyes, the current personnel lacked competence. Moreover, there were already signs of betrayal within the company, where some individuals were colluding with
external forces.
After her parents‘ sudden deaths in her previous life, these traitors had nearly led Hartford Group into bankruptcy. Thus, Summer had to act swiftly and assemble a powerhouse team to protect the
company.
On this particular hacker site, she had always maintained a low profile and deliberately hid her true capabilities. She was constantly on the brink of
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Chapter 13
getting kicked out of the elite hacker ranks.
But that was about to change.
The site had a leaderboard, which Summer had always been at the very bottom. To climb the ranks, she needed to challenge hackers positioned higher
- up.
Winning earned points, and the higher the points accumulated, the better the ranking.
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