The Master Of Defense Ch 1

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. 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.