Danger Arrives [Hacked!

, #1]

9:00 A.M., Saturday, November 14

Fatima Bennett couldn’t be happier: the moment she had dreamed of was
finally here.

The 4C Challenge (also known as the Clark County Coding Competition)

was the event of the year for STEM-minded eighth graders like Fatima and
her two best friends, Julia Sheen and Felipe Alvarez. They had spent all
summer working on their entry, a gaming app based on
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While their classmates were busy
posting pictures on social media of their glorious summer vacations, the
three best friends, who called themselves Team Java Time, had spent
countless hours storyboarding, coding, and debugging their program. Their
app, Romeo and Juliet Remixed, turned the famous play into a multiplayer
adventure that retold the story, combining Shakespeare’s language with
rap rhymes.

The completed app was due by September 1, and the teens had worked
feverishly to get it done. If at any point they lost momentum, they were
pushed by weekly texts from Neil Green, the Clarksville University assistant
professor who had taken over the competition coordination this year.

“All I know is, when we get around to reading this play in English class, I’d
better get an A,” Felipe said on the day Team Java Time submitted their
app to the competition’s submission website.

“An A would be great,” Fatima said. “Even better? The cash prize for the
winning team.”

“But we all know the very best reward,” Julia responded. In unison, the
teens shouted, “K-J-H-S!”

Fatima, Julia, and Felipe were happy to show off their digital chops in front
of the other teams of eighth graders, but they were most interested in the
reward given to the top three teams: guaranteed admission to Katherine
Johnson High School (KJHS), the county’s prestigious STEM magnet
school. Felipe, Fatima, and Julie, friends since kindergarten, could barely
contain their excitement. Their dream of going to KJHS together was within
their reach!

That was why Fatima didn’t mind getting out of bed at 8 AM on this cold
November Saturday to spend the day at Clarksville University (CU), the site
of the annual competition. Now, she was waiting in line to check in, happily
observing the comings and goings in the lobby of Haven Hall, CU’s main
computer science building. Fatima shrieked with joy when she saw
university IDs—good for one day only—in their registration folders.

“It’s like we’re actual college students!” she exclaimed to Julia and Felipe
as they eagerly slipped their lanyards and ID badges over their heads and
walked, single file, into the auditorium.

As soon as they were seated, a young, vaguely professorial-looking man

with longish hair took the stage and offered his opening remarks.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m your competition coordinator, Neil Green,”

he began. “You’ve been hearing from me all summer. You know, it doesn’t
seem that long ago that I was sitting in one of those seats—a nervous
eighth grader, just like you, hoping my team would win this competition,” he
paused, then added, “Which we did! And you can, too.”

At precisely that moment, cell phones around the auditorium—Green’s,

along with everyone else’s—began buzzing, the sound amplified by the
microphones on the stage.

Fatima took her phone out of her backpack. Another 4C text message?
That seemed odd with Green on stage. Still, as she had done since June,
Fatima opened the message and clicked on the link. The other students in
the auditorium did the same.

Horrified, Fatima watched as her mobile phone’s screen turned black. Julia
and Felipe were holding their own phones in wide-mouthed disbelief as a
danger sign—a yellow triangle with a black skull-and-crossbones—flashed
on their screens. Fatima looked down at her phone and saw the same
sinister image.

Terror gripped Fatima’s heart like a fist, squeezing tight.

Shrieks and cries of “Oh no!” and “OMG!” rang out. Everyone—kid
competitors, CU staff, graduate students and faculty—stared at their
phones in shock.

“What’s going on?” Felipe called out. He whipped his head from one side to
the other, his long dreadlocks flying as he looked around the auditorium.

Julia put her index finger to her lips and pointed to the front of the room,
saying “Shhhhh!” Professor Green was tapping the podium microphone,
trying to get the crowd to listen.

Just then, a hideous cackling sound pierced through the noise of the room.
All eyes darted back to their phones, where the skull began laughing.
Green, looking at his own phone incredulously, took a few steps back from
the podium.

The laughing skull spoke: “Hello, fools! You poor kids. You think this is a
real competition. You thought everybody had a fair chance at winning.
WRONG!” the skull shouted. “The Clark County Coding Challenge is
rigged, and I can prove it. Clarksville U? I say, Clarksville BOOOOOO!”

As giggles broke out across the auditorium, Julia, Fatima and Felipe stared
at each other.

“Nobody wins until I win,” the skull continued. “Your puny little apps have
gone bye-bye for now. It’s never too early to learn that life isn’t fair. I want
$500,000 cash by 5 PM, or this little hack will seem like a mosquito bite
compared to the havoc I’ll wreak! DANGER—OUT!”

One of the crossbones raised itself to the brow of the skull in a mock
salute, and then the warning sign dissolved. A few moments later,
everyone’s home screen was back to normal, as if nothing had happened.

Neil Green was still standing on stage, all color drained from his face.

“Wow, $500,000!” Julia whispered to her friends. “That’s huge!”

“Attention, everyone,” Green called out, “as you all have realized by now,
the university’s communications channel has been infiltrated…”

“What does that mean?” a student shouted.

“It means they’ve been hacked!” another student screeched.

The auditorium erupted in shouts and yells.

“HACKED? !”

“How could this happen? !”

“Our apps! Are they really gone?” a frantic voice cut through the unruly
crowd.

Fatima, Julia, and Felipe looked at each other, slack-jawed and in disbelief.

“Oh, no!” cried one student. “Now what?”

---

Ed. : The tale continues in Part 2, "App Attack!"