Chase Hatter's Origin of Pangaea

Chapter Sixteen

"He's on vacation!" Adelyn said.

"Vacation?" Andrew asked as he wheeled his bike through a residential neighborhood in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Adelyn had managed to contact him to give him invaluable information; Professor Riley's location. Andrew's outburst had caught the attention of an elderly woman walking her dog across the street. She gave Andrew a condescending look for being so loud in such a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Andrew saw her and smiled. "It's a free country, dear." He reminded her. "Mind your own business." The woman huffed and continued down the road. "What is he doing on vacation?" Andrew continued. "Why didn't I hear about this? As a matter of fact, Adelyn, how did you hear about this?"

"I felt really bad the day you left." Adelyn explained. "You weren't here for the end of the interview to talk to the Grants, so my roommate and I decided we'd do it for you."

"What did they say?"

"Professor Riley has been planning this sabbatical for a while, actually. He even invited them to go with him. And, guess where he is. San Francisco!"

"Unbelievable!" Andrew cried. "How could he do this to me? Keeping me, of all people, out of the loop? I never did that to him!"

"Your trip ends in California, right?" Adelyn asked. "He's on a sabbatical. Those last forever. Maybe you'll run into him."

"Oh, run into him, you say?" Andrew questioned. "I've sat through enough of his reminiscent stories to know exactly where to find him, believe me. I have to go now, Adelyn. Bye, bye."

"Bye, Andrew."

The call ended just in time as Andrew had finally located the address he'd been searching for. He strolled up to the nice suburban home and rang the doorbell. Any moment now, his next assignment would begin and he'd be swamped with tasks. For the next two months, he'd be put through extensive training and preparation to prepare for the biggest job of his entire life. The most important, most spectacular-

"Hello, dear, how can I help you?"

The sweet, elderly woman in front of him was the last person he expected to see. He was lost for words.

"I'm looking for Bob." Andrew explained. The woman smiled.

"Oh, you're looking for my grandson. He's downstairs playing with his friend in the basement. Come on in. Make yourself at home."

She opened the door wide and Andrew stepped inside. She led him to the living room and offered him a seat on the couch. She left for a moment and brought back a small plate of freshly baked peanut butter cookies and a big glass of milk that she sat on the coffee table in front of Andrew.

"Now I'll go get Bob for you. You kids and your cute nicknames."

Bob's grandmother left and in her absence, Andrew tried a few of the freshly baked peanut butter cookies. The scholar was confused. It was his understanding that Bob was a master hacker who had sent for the aid of a Pangaean to pull off a major heist. But Bob lived with his grandmother? It seemed strange.

Andrew heard footsteps approaching and assumed that Bob's grandmother was on her way back, but it was quite the opposite. In the moments before a bag was thrown over his head, he got a glimpse of Bob. After the bag was fastened around his head, he was dragged through the house and down a flight of stairs. Once downstairs, the bag was snatched off and his vision saw nothing but darkness past Bob's face.

"Hello." Andrew greeted. "You must be Bob. I am Andrew Valentine. The Pangaean you sent for."

"I know who you are."

Bob's voice and eyes were cold. Cold enough that they reminded Andrew of someone special to him. "There aren't many rules here, but the most important one is that you don't bother my grandmother. Did you bother her?"

"She didn't seem bothered." Andrew explained. "I think she enjoyed the company."

"Good." Bob stepped away and gave Andrew a better view of the basement, but there wasn't much else to see. Only a few tables, some laptops, and a woman who stared at him like he was an alien from space. Or maybe she just hadn't seen another person in a while. Bob introduced them. He gestured to the woman and said, "This is Alice." A light bulb turned on in Andrew's head.

"Oh," Andrew began, "Alice and Bob. Those are code names, then? Interesting."

"Yeah," Alice said, "and you get one, too."

"Congratulations, Andrew." Bob said. "From this moment forward, until the job is done, you're name is Eve."

Bob looked at Andrew and was met with a starry eyed Pangaean. He cocked a brow. "What?"

"My goodness, this is truly a spectacle." Andrew began. "I was brought to believe that you didn't exist outside of Pangaea, but here you are."

"What are you talking about?" Bob asked.

"You two," Andrew began, "are Complex Conjugates."

"Complex what?"

"Complex Conjugates. There's a theorem in Pangaea proven by Ethan and Elijah Grant years ago. With the use of a unit circle, it claims that every Pangaean has a best friend across lifetimes. An-"

"We're not best friends." Alice interrupted. "We just work together. We won't see each other again after this." Andrew smiled.

"Oh, dear, I doubt that."

"Could you spare us the rhetoric?" Bob asked. "We don't have long before this thing goes down. Your 'professor' said you had some hacking skills. How good are you?"

"Well," Andrew began, "you don't have to say it like that. My professor is a professor. Has his doctorate and everything. Second, I am subpar at best."

"Well," Bob mocked, "we only have two months to make you better than subpar. So, you need to stop dickin' around and tap into your inner nerd so you can help us. Alice, give him a laptop and show him what's happening."

Alice picked up one of the many laptops on the table and opened it in front of Andrew. A confusing mess of JavaScript sat in front of him.

"Do you know what an XSS attack is?" Alice asked. Andrew shrugged.

"It sounds familiar." Andrew said. Alice huffed.

"It's cross-site scripting. When an HTTP request is made you can inject a script that does whatever you want. We've been sending them out to random emails for the last few months, stealing decrypted passwords and usernames. A month ago, we got the decrypted password of the CEO of the national bank nearby. He saved it on a person computer on his home network. Bob wrote a script that, if clicked on, will drain the accounts of every person managed in the database of the user. We tried to send the script from here, but his email address is blocked by a firewall, and we can't log in from here, let alone send an email to anyone who belongs to his inner circle. But, if we use the CEO's username and password to log into his email in his office, then we can send a mass email to everyone behind the firewall and someone is bound to click. Got all that?"

Andrew nodded. "This sounds dangerous. I'm excited to get started."

"Over the next few months I need your help to refactor the code." Alice explained. "In two months, there's a company celebration and most of the employees are going down to the lobby and the cafeteria to celebrate for a few hours. We're going to sneak into the building, find the manager's office, use his password to log in, and send the email with the phishing link from there. Get ready, Eve."