Early Adopters S01E08 — Downpour
Continued from previous episode s01e07: Amir eavesdropped on the computer room and heard two men talking about Jasmin’s suspension and his long lost Big Eye software. On top of that, something suspicious is going on at school and it could jeopardize students’ privacy.
Amir wanted to confirm his suspicions. He took all the courage to finally peek in the room. He recognized that voice but he did not want it to be true.
“I hope I am wrong.”
He carefully opened the door and found a man looking out the window and holding his phone close to his ear. As the man tilted his head a bit, Amir finally saw his face.
The shock Amir’s felt could not be contained. He immediately took out his earphones and shoved it into his pocket. Then he ran out of the building as fast as he can. When he finally reached the school gates he was panting hard and red in the face. He looked at his phone and saw that it was still recording the conversation. He immediate tapped the save button on the screen and flicked the screen to a self-destruct menu.
Back in the room, the man started to sniff the air. “Is something burning?” Then, he heard some crackling noises. One of his colleague entered the room and immediately noticed the smoke.
The two men began to look around to find the source. When the man’s colleagued finally found the origin of the fire, a small flame had engulfed a small metal item.
“Water!” the man shouted as he grabbed the flower vase and poured the water onto the burning metal.
“What is that?” the man asked in panic as he approached the colleauge who had just picked up the item using a handkerchief he had taken out of his pocket.
“This is a recording device!” The man then ran towards the door to check the hallway but found no one. He stood in the middle of the hallway as a mild breeze brushed past him.
Amir reached his house by foot. The shock made him forget how far he lived from school. He felt confused. He ran up to his room and shut the door behind him.
“Mr… Mr. Lee was behind all this? And my…my old program. B… But how? Why?” Amir buried his head in his hands as he sat on the bed.
“What…what happened?”
“It’s my fault that Jasmin got suspended.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
Amir argued with himself internally as he walked across his room, rubbing his chin as he tried to think.
“Am I going crazy?” he exclaimed as he sank in the bed. He grabbed his phone and went into his files then played the recording again.
“There has to be something you can do, Amir. That’s for sure.”
Something on the shelf caught Amir’s attention — it was a small black notebook that had sat quietly on the corner for years. He immediately got up and reached for it.
“This notebook had everything,” Amir murmured as he frantically flipped through the notebook.
It was filled with codes, flow charts and words that could not be read clearly anymore. He rushed towards the last few pages. Amir paused as he flipped to the second to the last page.
”The Big Eye Program…I thought… I thought I had deleted it. It turned out I didn’t,” Amir flipped to the very last page before completing his statement, “because I gave it to Mr. Lee”
His memories flashed back to that dreadful day.
“They think I’m a big failure!” Mr. Lee shouted as he slumped his body onto his seat.
“What happened, sir?” Amir worriedly walked towards Mr. Lee. He had been following him behind since he had left the director’s office.
“They… They think I can’t do anything. They only see my flaws. Amir… Amir, what can I do to prove myself?”
Amir stretched out his arm to tap his shoulder as Mr. Lee buried his head in his hands.
“Amir…” Mr. Lee turned to him as he grabbed onto the black notebook Amir was holding. Then snatched it from his hands.
“This. This could be the answer. Amir, lend it to me just this once. We have been working on this together.”
“But…”
“Amir, I will get old and lose my career without anything under my name. You… You are young. You have a lot of time left.”
“How will this help you? This is program is not something… It’s against the law. It’s illegal.”
“There are ways to make surveillance legal. I… I will prove it, Amir! Just give me this chance. I will prove my worth to everyone !”
Amir sat at the edge of his bed for a minute before walking towards his computer.
“Did everything just happened beacuse of me? If I hadn’t given that code to him, then he wouldn’t have… ”
He opened a browser and went to Youtube, randomly searching videos with some keywords. He decided to play a recording of a webinar on programming.
“Jasmin needs to watch some of these things. This guy talks about pretty helpful stuff on programming.” he laughed sarcastically to himself.
“…as John Woods said, “Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.”
“…knows where you live…” the words made Amir freeze.
“Was he traceable? Could they find out the hacker was him? No way.”
Then the idea stroke him. He looked at his laptop. “This laptop is something only I can use.” he continued as he stared at the monitor.
“This is where my thoughts live. If I can keep myself anonymous, untraceable, what can they do to me? Nothing. They will never know.”
Previous: s01e01, s01e02, s01e03, s01e04, s01e05, s01e06, s01e07
Brought to you by Slash.
Written and created by Marc Gamet and Mianne Cudal.
Story-telling Consultant: Robin Narciso.
Drawing by Faisal Arief.
