A Spider's Web

“Spider” is what he called himself. Little did he know that he’d be caught up in his own web.

A hacker, known by the screen name “xX-kingSpider-Xx”, lived alone. The only sounds in his apartment were humming cpu fans and the soft clatter of fingers across a keyboard. Like his namesake, he navigated a complex network of wires and network cables that reached across his living room like an arachnid on a web. There was a laptop on the kitchen counter. There was a pair of cpu towers on the floor near a stack of obscure tech artifacts. A bin full of keyboards and old school ball mice sat next to a bunch of monitors on the living room coffee table. It would look like a mess to anyone who laid eyes on it, but to Spider, it was a command center..

The TV in the living room was on. A man and a woman were being interviewed by a reporter. Their smiling faces made it seem like a happy occasion. Before turning the TV off, spider heard a bit of what they were saying.

“...ran away from us at fifteen. We opened the Open Hearts Center for at risk youths and the homeless in hopes of drawing him back into our—”

Click.

It didn’t interest him. Charity must not have been his thing. Somewhere in the organized chaos of his living room a printer squawked to life. After a moment of printing, it spat out three small plastic cards, each with a different face; a different identity. Not soon after, there was a knock at the door. Spider barely noticed it, stuck in a trance of black screens and rapidly scrolling green text. His eyes darted from monitor to monitor as he muttered something about firewalls and security protocols.

“Psh… That was too easy… Yeah, that’s right, you’ll never know I was here… Bam! Another firewall down!”

BOOM BOOM BOOM! The knocking at the door came again, much louder this time. The door rattled as the knocking continued. Spider nearly fell out of his chair, dropping his headphones in the process. The sounds of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” spilled from the headphones as Spider made a dash for the door. After looking through the peephole, he hopped over some outstretched network cables and snatched the cards from the printer. Then, he made haste back to the door and cracked it open a little, leaving the chain on.

“Money first,” Spider said, shoving a hand out. The young man on the other side looked more like a posing teenager than an actual adult. He reeked of marijuana. The smiling young man took out a crumpled wad of twenties and put them in Spider’s hand. After a quick count, Spider handed him the cards and started to close the door. The young man stopped the door with his foot.

“Dude, do you ever leave? You need some sun. You good?”

“I’m good, thanks. Now, move your foot.”

“You sure? My last fake ID guy had that Chick-fil-A customer service, you know? Maybe you’re not cut out for this—”

Spider closed the door, cutting him off. “Maybe you smoke too much,” he muttered, stepping back into his web of adapters and ethernet cables. He put his headphones back on just in time to hear the ending of “Voodoo Child” and resumed his usual hacking activities. This was a typical Friday night for Spider. If he wasn’t creating hackware and selling it to the highest black market bidder, he was rerouting unsuspecting people’s bank deposits to land in one of his own accounts. If not that, he was creating fake ids and other official documents. He didn’t need friends. The ones and zeros kept him plenty of company.

Out of the blue, he found himself pondering the question he was asked by the stoner. You good? He mulled over the question until it became distracting. The lines of code on the screen were starting to run together. He needed to take a break.

“Man, when was the last time I blinked?”

Falling back onto a couch littered with obscure pieces of technology,, Spider rubbed his eyes and sighed. The stoner’s question was still fresh in his mind. You good?

“Of course I’m good…

He shifted and adjusted, trying to get comfortable on the cluttered couch. It wasn’t the couch that was bothering him, so much as it was his own thoughts. Was he really okay? He searched through an uncharacteristic swell of thoughts and feelings, trying to make heads or tails of it all.

“I’m just bored,” he finally decided. “I need something new. Something challenging…”

Getting up from the cluttered couch, Spider rushed to his bedroom. Passing through the threshold gave him a sense of calm. In stark contrast to the living room and kitchen, his bedroom was tidy and organized. It was his sanctuary for when he needed a break from the usual. On his nightstand was a small notebook. It was bound in black leather; a classic design that would never go out of style. Spider grabbed it along with a pen and flopped down on the bed, thumbing through the pages. The pages were filled with IP addresses, urls, server architecture diagrams, and other computer related things. About half-way through the book was a page with a single url. It looked like a long string of random characters that filled nearly half the page. For a quiet moment, Spider stared at it.

“I probably shouldn’t... But I’m bored, so why not?”

Spider was inspired. He hopped out of bed, book in hand, and made his way over to his command center. Spider went to work on two separate keyboards; a master of multitasking. A different piece of software fired up on each of the monitors before him, and his eyes danced from one screen to another. In a matter of minutes, his digital footprint had become as ethereal as the wind. Then, and only then, would he dare to type in that foreboding url from the notebook. He hit “enter”, but not without hesitation, because he knew where that url would take him. He’d be surfing the deepest, darkest corner of the dark web. It was a land where even the predators themselves were prey.

A website loaded, unleashing a sea of popup ads. Spider patiently waded through them, closing them one-by-one, amazed at how they managed to get past his custom made popup blocking software. There was no telling what kinds of worms and viruses were feeling along the edges of his firewalls, so he had to be quick. All he wanted was a peek at what the message boards would have to offer.

There was some chatter about an impossibly secure bank account. He clicked deeper into the labyrinth, searching. He’d done his fair share of bank account hacking, and it was all child’s play. Maybe hacking this account would be a remedy for his sudden onset of boredom. Maybe it would renew his vigor. Face pasted to the screens, he continued to dig for more information on the account.

Eventually, he came across an encoded text file. Some amature hacker had been lucky enough to find it in a compromised file store a few days ago. None of his cheap hacking tools could crack it, though. Excited by the challenge, Spider downloaded the file and went to town on it. For a pro like Spider, getting the file to open was a cinch, but extracting useful information from its encoded contents was where the real challenge lied.

Spider slaved away at the encoded bits. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. In the dark. During a hurricane. When the keyboard and code terminal failed him, he resorted to a more arcane method: Pen and paper. It didn’t take long for him to fill up the second half of the notebook with calculations, scribbles, and seemingly random words and characters. There was a pattern somewhere in it all, and he was so close to figuring it out. Once he did, he’d have everything he needed to get into that titan of a bank account. A glimpse at the clock on the far wall told him that it was half past three in the morning. It didn’t phase him, though. He was in a trance. He continued flipping through the pages, underlining things here, highlighting things there, until finally, he froze.

“... That… That’s it… That’s it!”

He had broken the code. Whatever was in that bank account would be his for the taking. Through all of his digging, he still was not able to identify who the account belonged to. It didn’t matter, though. The less he knew, the better. There was less risk of compassion that way. Staying focused on the prospect of a payday, Spider issued the final series of commands that would transfer money from the target account into several of his own accounts. His “money farming algorithm” would decide how much and when so he could remain inconspicuous.

“Yeah, boy! That’s what I’m talking about!” Spider rejoiced, pumping his fists to the sky. It had been a long time since he had that much of a challenge. It was fulfilling; just what he needed. His bout with boredom was over, and he had come out the victor. He was tired, though. After a brief moment of celebration, he felt the weight of it all in his eyelids.

The rising sun peeked through a couple of broken blinds in the window across the room. “I guess it’s bedtime now. I’ll check my money when I wake up.” With a smile on his tired face, he didn’t even bother to get out of his day clothes. He plopped down on the bed in his room and fell fast asleep.

“ROBOT BEES!!!” Spider awakened with a start to the sound of several cell phones buzzing and chiming all at once. The commotion came from the top drawer of his nightstand. In a half-awake, half-surprised moment, he pulled open the drawer and grabbed one of the many phones.

“$1997.00 deposited into the account ending in 8337,” read a text message on the phone.

“Woah, that was fast… And hefty, too!” He was both startled and excited about the amount. Usually, his money farming algorithm would get him several small payments of anything less than $50 at a time, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Grabbing another phone from the drawer, his eyes widened as he read its latest notification, “$1997.00 deposited into the account ending in 3453.” Then, he grabbed another. And another. And another, until ten phones littered his lap.

“This can’t be right… Can it? Oh snap, this is a lot!” With a shaky hand, he grabbed his black notebook and a pen and began scribbling figures in the margin of one of its used pages. “Ok, so, I got nine deposits of $1997.00 and one for $2027… THAT’S $20,000! Oh, snap, I can’t believe it!”

For a long time, Spider sat there in the bed, looking at the balances on his bank accounts. After totaling it all up for the eighth time, he finally got up from the bed. He mulled over how to spend the money as he ate a bowl of cereal. Should he get a better place? Maybe pay his rent up for the rest of the lease? Or maybe he could build another computer. The possibilities were endless, he thought, finishing off his cereal. That day, he did some splurging. Online shopping was his method of choice. He bought everything, from tube socks to motherboards. He let his imagination go wild, working on a very loose budget. By the end of the day, he had spent almost half of it.

That night, when he went to sleep, a thought popped into his head. Did he spend the money wisely? That was a big fat “no”, but who cares? He certainly didn’t. Maybe the poor sap he took the money from would care, but whatever. They’d never realize who took it. Without an ounce of remorse, he slept happily that night.

The next morning, he watched TV as he ate his cereal. As he flipped through the channels, the remote suddenly stopped working. “Gah. I guess I’ll buy, like, a bajillion batteries next…” He smacked the remote on his hand in an effort to get it to work for a little bit longer, but to no avail. The channel was stuck on the morning news program.

“...is on the scene live with the owners of the Open Hearts Center, which was expected to open its doors tomorrow.” The reporter stood with the same couple that was on the news a couple of days ago. This time, instead of smiling, they held grim expressions. All of the hope they displayed days ago had been drained from them. This, unexpectedly, caught Spider’s attention.

“We don’t know for sure what happened. All we know is that our money is gone. The bank can’t make any sense of it. $20,000. Gone… Unless there’s a miracle of some sort, we won’t be opening our doors any time soon, unfortunately.” The man speaking fought to keep his composure. He had the look of a man who’s life works had been thrown in the mud and stomped on. His wife buried her head into his shoulder as he embraced her on camera. “I’m sorry, we just can’t right now,” he said, walking away from the camera with his wife.

The reporter was at a loss of words. All she could say was, “... James, back to you,” before the camera cut back to the studio. As the news anchors tried to make heads or tails of it, Spider stared wide-eyed at the screen. The remote clattered to the ground as his mouth dropped open in awe. Tears blurred his vision suddenly. A floodgate of emotion that had been suppressed for a very long time seemed to break. Spider sobbed openly, his salty tears ruining his sweet breakfast cereal.

“It couldn’t be… Wait, no… No…”

His mind began to race, looking for a solution; anything to fix what he had done. He knew now who the mysterious bank account he stole from belonged to. His actions had hurt not only the charity directors, but also the people who would have benefited from the Open Hearts Center. Just days ago, they had made a televised call to runaways and the homeless. The truth was that he had been in both of those boats. Remembering where he came from, he just couldn’t let it go down like that. Spider made haste to his table of monitors, grabbed a keyboard, and went to work right away. He had to fix it.

His day consisted of jumping from proxy to proxy, surfing the dark web, and crashing through firewalls like a mad man. His fingers were sore and his joints were aching. His eyes were red with dryness. Nothing would stop him from making things right. Unfiltered emotion that had been held at bay for so long was now running freely, seeming to control his each and every decision.

When the sun went down, he finally blinked, moistening his sandy eyes. “It’s done,” was all he said as he lumbered over to his bedroom and flopped down on the bed — again, forgetting to change his clothes.

“...More robot bees…”

When the morning came, Spider awakened to the familiar sound of cell phones buzzing and chiming all at once. He smiled as he checked the notifications, then put them back in the drawer. Finally, he took a shower and changed his clothes. He even brushed his teeth. Starving from having skipped meals yesterday, he ate an extra large bowl of cereal. When he was finished, he locked up and left the apartment for the first time in a while. The sun was bright, but welcoming. It was as if a part of him craved light. Spiritual? Physical? He didn’t give it any thought. He followed his feet through old neighborhoods and busy streets. Eventually, he arrived at the same building he had seen on the news.

“Open Hearts Center… Here we go,” he said, psyching himself up. Though there were only five steps up from the sidewalk to the main entrance, those steps were hard. He felt the weight of years of living wrong. He stole hard earned money from people. He aided criminals in dodging the law with his fake identities and illegal software sales. That weight made each step harder than the previous. There was one more step to take, but he found that he just couldn’t. Guilt chained him to step number four. After what he had done for so many years how could he even show his face there? He had to work some magic in order to cancel all those orders yesterday, and it was even more difficult to get the money back to where it came from. But would it be enough to make up for years of wrong?

“Maybe I shouldn’t…”

Defeated by his own mind, Spider sat there on the steps. He could hear talking not too far away. The voices sounded familiar. Looking over toward the main entrance, he saw the same reporter from the news interviewing the center’s owners for a third time.

“...and the bank called us. They said, ‘Sir, you’re money’s here! All of it plus more!’ And I went and told my wife…”

The joy in the man’s voice was contagious. It gave Spider just what he needed to get up and take that final step. Once he did, he felt lighter. It was as if years of weight was removed from his shoulders. Eyes locked on the man and his wife, Spider walked. His steps quickened. He was nearly jogging. When he reached them, he stood just outside of the camera’s frame, silently, tears streaming down his face. The reporter paused and looked over to him. So did the man and his wife. The cameraman widened his frame to include him in the shot.

“Son… Is that really you?” the man’s wife said.

“Oh my God, son… You came back to us…”

“Mom… Dad… I’m so sorry…”

All the reporter could do was stand back and let the reunion happen. She fought for composure before facing the camera and summing up the event, “Wow… This is unbelievable. We’re witnessing a miracle here. Not only did they see their money returned, but, apparently, their long lost son has returned as well. This is amazing, folks. This is just amazing.”