Coding Fantasy [Kallisti]

[Sterling]

Sterling was in awe of Liam. She could barely take his eyes off of him. He was engrossed with Marta and that was okay. They had nothing in common -- her and him that was. Marta at least mostly spoke his language. Sterling knew little about it. She knew her way around the internet but that was about it.

She wished they could be alone, but that wasn't likely to happen. Liam followed Nox's rules which was odd since he didn't follow any other rules.

Marta spoke to her and sent her an image and she tore her eyes from the cute boy and looked. It was a comic of Nox. It was adorable She laughed softly "You should give this to Nox for Christmas. He love it."

[Marta]

Marta watched as Liam did his hacker magic. It was almost too fast for her to follow, but she thought she got the gist of it. ”Spy on your dad often?” she said with a smirk. ”So what you’re doing is telling the security in the system to look the other way for a bit. Then facial recognition software to find our boy Sage. Why’s he meeting with your dad?” His dad ran a tech company. Was Sage getting a job? That seemed weird. ”So can you run facial recognition backward. Like - who was that girl he was sitting with or the guy that’s leading him to your dad’s office?” Truth be told she was more interested in the woman. She looked sad.

Marta looked over to Sterling, and was aware that her friend had probably been looking over at Liam with puppy love eyes. She could smell that they were both attracted to each other. She hoped Sterling didn’t think anything was going to happen between them. Marta wasn’t interested in him. ”Already under the tree. Got a good print of it in a frame.” she gave a wink and her gaze turned briefly to Jackson - a reminder of where her interest lay.

[Liam H]

Liam nodded."Sorta. And no I didn't shoot on my dad. I'm just excited to see Sage at Paragon. Though I'm surprised he hasn't set off any alarms trying to hack in things he shouldn't. I barely held him off and if it weren't for the air gap he'd probably get in."

"Sage sent in CV on paper. And there are a lot of people who would like to talk to him. Some would want to study him. Other still will want to take him apart."

[Marta]

Sage was a weird one. He sent a paper CV? Like through the mail? It seemed odd to her, but hey Sage was a weird guy. "Well I hope he's being careful then. Don't want anyone to take him apart."

Marta had been picking up programming and coding quite well, better than she thought she had been at least. She wasn't good at book learning, but she was interested enough and motivated enough that she was doing very well with it though. She wanted to get more into the hacking though. Maybe she was just being impatient though.

"So how do I practice this kind of stuff," she said, pointing to the cam feed on his monitor. "The hacking stuff I mean. Like - it's not a good idea to go find a company and try to get into their system. Seems like a good way to get in trouble if you don't know what you're doing, but how do I know what I'm doing if I don't practice it?"

[Liam H]

Liam wasn't exactly sure how to answer that. "You just keep practicing. You have Sage to teach you things, and show you things, that's a leg up better than anyone I know. Because he can do things no one else can. But you only learn by doing and usually you start small. You hack a website, or something that no one uses. You learn how to use the command line. You could create your own sites, or have someone build you one and practice on it. I bet Sage has things you could practice with. But most people don't have that luxury and they just learn by doing."

Liam opened up a website. "This is a cyber security course, that teaches you what to be on guard for in your business. It also teaches you what you can do to exploit things. Not how, but it tells you what to guard against." Liam opened another site. "This one is a white hat hacker site that has jobs that need security testing. You break in, you send them a report, they pay you. But it's not for beginners, but you can always try to do what they are asking and if you succeed well that you've learned something, and you can get paid."

Liam opened a final one "This one is just a general learning tutorial type game that is psuedo hacking, it's like a game and it gets harder as you go, it teaches you how to hack. It's on the dark web so you need to be careful who you chat with."

[Marta]

Marta nodded at all he was saying. She had some things that she could do now and she was grateful for it. She bookmarked the sites he showed, categorizing them into folders so she could access the various tools he had given her easily. The dark web sounded interesting, but also a little scary. She was glad he had mentioned it though. Marta was relaxed here and usually could be in person due to her sense of smell, but online, you never knew what crazies you’d find.

She moved to the white hacking site, not necessarily to find something to hack, but to just see what was there. She wasn’t sure she was ready to try it yet, but she might give it a try later when someone who knew what they were doing wasn’t watching. She was a little self conscious with Liam there. It made sense that companies would test their security in this way.

She also signed up for the cybersecurity course. There was no better way to break through something than by learning how the defenses worked. She had other projects she wanted to work on too that knowing more cybersecurity would help. Liam was also right about something else though. She had Sage. She was his padawan in the ways of coding. At least that’s how she thought of it. But it did make her wonder how Liam knew that. She hadn’t really talked about it with anyone. Not through shame, just had never thought to mention it.

l”How’d you know I’ve been working with Sage?” she asked, legitimately curious and not angered.

At the same time she sent Sage a message, doubting he would be terribly bothered by her text even if he was busy. It wouldn’t even be a blip on his radar. Taking a cybersecurity course recommended by Liam - gonna start working on building some of those skills.

She then noticed something. ”Im getting better at multitasking,” she commented, more to herself than anyone else, as she gave Splash’s ears another scratch.

[Liam H]

Liam chuckled. "You're here. This is The Wicked Truth's network. He probably noticed the first time you tried to do anything. And he's Nox's friend so, it makes sense. I'd love to mentor under him. But he had an advantage we don't. His thoughts are translated directly. He'd be a genius without the chip in his head. With it. He's so much more."

Liam had fine some research on Sage after he'd learned his identity. There wasn't much out there. He'd scrubbed himself clean but there's were for prints and trails to follow. "You should do done digging of your own and find out more about him. It's a good exercise. "

[Marta]

Marta shivered. ”I couldn’t imagine having a chip in my head. I have enough voices in there with the wolves that I don’t need a constant data stream joining it,” she said with another shiver. She understood the advantage it gave Sage, but it was a big no for her.

His next comment was enough to make Marta look away from her screen and look at Liam with narrowed eyes. ”You’re telling me to practice hacking by going against Wicked’s defenses. I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready enough for that. Mostly it’s just been me trying to be able to find out how to really get started,” she turned back to her screen. ”He’s actually a really good mentor. He gives me the tools to find the answers on my own, but doesn’t tell me how to do it. It’s really effective. At least for me it is. Sometimes I get confused though.”

[Liam H]

Liam grinned. "I was suggesting you hack his system. I was suggesting you hack the DMV and the other databases, even search the dark web. I'm sure it'll alert him that someone's doing research on him. But there's stuff out there he won't tell you. Things he's done. People he used to be. I'm sure you'd find it interesting. And you could ask him, but it's more fun looking for yourself."

He wasn't surprised he was a good mentor. Liam didn't need the same kind of guidance, but working with him would be wonderful. Working against him had been a challenge and a learning experience, and if he did end up at Paragon in one fashion or another then he'd have that chance more so. Though Liam truly hoped they didn't kidnap Sage. He was a good man.