The Master of Defense
Chapter 1
The way things were, I was all set to get
screwed over again.
Last time, at the school’s cybersecurity
defense competition, Miss Perfect, the head
cheerleader from the dance squad, submitted
almost the exact same program as me.
My own cousin stepped up to back her,
saying I was a shameless copycat, that I’d
ripped her off.
The whole school turned on me. Even my
parents refused to believe me. They said I
was embarrassing them, that I should just
disappear.
And I did, in a way. I got sick and died. But
then I woke up, back on the day before the
competition.
This time, I decided screw it, I’m moving
abroad. But it looks like Barbie wants
something from me.
- 1.
opened my eyes and I was back in the
–
school lab. I glanced at the clock two in the
morning.
The lab was still buzzing with energy.
I checked the calendar. Exactly one week until
the program submission deadline.
I’d been pulling all–nighters, and I must’ve
My teammate, Sarah, patted me on the
shoulder. “Hey, Emily, if you’re too tired, go
home and get some rest. You’ll think clearer
with a full tank.”
I nodded, finally realizing what was going on.
I’d been given a second chance.
I stared at the blinking cursor, thinking about
what happened before.
Last time, we were on top of the world when
we submitted our defense system. But then,
boom, we were disqualified for plagiarism.
Turns out, a ton of people online were saying
our design was identical to another team’s.
That other team’s star coder made a habit of
posting code snippets to an open–source
website. She had a whole fanbase.
I was getting bombarded with hate, the fans
were all over me,
“Seriously, what nerve! This team straight up
copied the design off the open–source site!
Wish I’d thought of that. Easy A!”
“These guys are bold! Openly stealing? They
should be blacklisted from the whole industry.
This school isn’t doing a great job, look what
kind of students they turn out!”
“Still in school, but they’ll do anything for
money. Imagine what kind of scumbags they’ll
turn out to be!”
But we knew we had done our own work, how
could the team solutions be so aligned?
But here was my cousin going line by line,
code compared against code, like a perfect
copy.
Thinking about it, I raced to the open–source
site and found the girl’s account. Her profile
pic was a cute gamer girl.
She already had thousands of followers. They
were all calling her their goddess. Her latest
post was only five minutes old.
I clicked it open, and a cold sweat broke out.
Her latest post laid out her design concept,
with code attached.
Her whole thought process, the code itself,
was exactly the same as what I’d just
finished.
Г
I almost believed in some kind of weird
magic.
The girl was a dancer named Jessica from
the fine arts program. Super pretty. Guys
were always after her.
Our school’s top career path was straight to
the research department at Amazon. Fresh
grads could rake in millions a year. Amazon
was even sponsoring this competition.
A couple days ago, Jessica posted on the
school message board she was gonna be a
hacker in 30 days to work with the research
department at Amazon after graduating.