Chapter 1

            It’s 4 in the morning and I’m still in front of my screen working as usual in my office which often serves as my bedroom.

            My name is Samy. I’m a hacker. My passion: find solutions and share them with everyone. I rarely speak of what I’m doing because people, poorly informed by the media, confuse "hackers" and "crackers”. I think to call the crackers ‘computers pirates’ would be more suitable because that’s actually what they do.

             The fundamental difference is easy to understand if you take the goal as a starting point: ‘hackers’ are looking to build things, to exchange knowledge, while ‘crackers’, are just trying to break into systems to destroy them with viruses, for the sake of creating chaos for one reason or the other. Ransoning sometimes the large companies. No ideal is driving them, no desire to share and their sense of community is very limited indeed.

            I’m one of those computer enthusiasts who invent and innovate for fun! I’ve been hooked since my first very own computer. I was passionate, curious, seeking to understand, seeking to know more and more.

            I spent many nights of insomnia unable to go to bed without finding the solution to whatever problem I was trying to solve. I’ve read somewhere that this night energy could be explained by the fact that screens produce a stimulating light that actually keeps you awake. Possible after all.

            I’m myself a big fan of these old timers--computer-savvy pioneers who helped create the Internet in the eighties at the age of the first minicomputers. I’d have loved to be part of this community, this shared culture of experienced programmers and network specialists. They are the ones who created the very word ‘hacker’ to express this slow and tedious job of 'digging' until the system creaks.

             Some old backpackers have helped create the Unix operating system, or Usenets, and others were running the World Wide Web, the famous www. The very functioning of the Web is still done with open code software set up by this community of hackers. But who cares today? Only a few mortals know that two- thirds of the servers in the world use the Apache system, developed and maintained by a network of computer scientists.

            And I had the privilege of knowing or, rather, being in touch with some of them. That made a huge difference. Thanks to them I can come around most systems used today.

Anyway, I’ve been working for months in contact with many other hackers all over the world and I’m about to crack a very important system today thanks to my family.

            My family is the whole world, intelligent and generous beings for the most part, a little out of the usual circuits, hidden behind code names. Mine is Pandax, simply because my mother gave me once a stuffed panda and he remained my favorite toy, my confidant through time.

            Even today, at 25, my panda is still sitting on one of the shelves of my library.

            I sometimes hide him when I have visitors, but usually my friends don’t care about him. It’s impossible to explain to others that my panda is my true confidant. I’m still able to take him in my arms when I feel too lonely and tell him everything that comes to my mind. By just talking to him, sometimes that is how I solve a problem. Funny ritual hmm? But I promise it works for me. 

I’m a tender heart, but didn’t have an easy life so far.

        I grew up pretty much alone. Because my mother and father always considered me like a little adult from the very beginning, while behaving themselves like irresponsible teenagers. They let me take care of myself.

            When I was five, my parents would go out to the movie theater just a stone's throw away from our flat and leave me with a walkie-talkie at that time - no cell-phone then remember?--just in case I needed something urgently.

            Fortunately, nothing came up when they were at the movies. But all the same, I remembered the feeling of abandonment when, alone in my room, I could perceive despite my young age that I was all alone in a large empty flat.

            So my Panda replaced the family’s warmth and served me as a confidant, a comforter, an imaginary brother since my parents had decided a single child was enough trouble. When I was older, I was one of those children who came home alone after school, with television as a babysitter and the freezer as the stove.

            As for my parents, between a mother obsessed with the need to keep a body in full youth and who was only concerned by going to the gym as much as possible, and a father for whom the footballs buddies came first, my childhood was rather lonely until I met Mark at the elementary school.

            Mark changed my life forever. I loved to spend time Saturdays or Sundays at his place! I felt home there. I experienced what a real family was like making pancakes in the big kitchen, or playing board games or charades, children and parents all together.

            Mark's sisters fascinated me too. This universe of girls, surrounded by pink and blue colors, being cartoons addict, gossiping about the intimate stories of their girlfriends, breathtaking when they were doing their makeup or surprising in their various hairstyles. All this fascinated me as a silent observer.

            In this friendly world, I felt privileged to be included in this warm happy life, even if I felt a little voyeur actually, feeling somehow always on the fringes of the family circle.

Enough about the past, I’m exhausted, my eyes are shutting down. I’m dreaming of my cozy bed, but somewhere in the back of my head, I feel I’m on the verge of finally finding the solution to penetrate this bloody system I’ve been working on for months.

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            Let’s go and get some more coffee.

            I have to keep up a little longer. I know I’m going to crack it. I really need to have access to this account.

            Leaning back in my bloody armchair that makes me sweat in the back, I continue strumming on my keyboard.

            I keep getting the same message: "access denied". I’m sweating, and wipe my hands on my pants. I’m mad. So close to victory but too tired to think clearly enough to defeat the system.

            Suddenly I notice a bit package coming back somehow. I usually got a good instinct on that kind of thing. I only need to put myself in the shoes of the creator of the system, to think like him, to immerse myself in his own personal logic and the solution finally comes up.

            Maybe my long years as a silent observer, always a bit outside groups, has helped me develop a specific quality: to think like the other one.Very useful.

             Suddenly in front of me runs a page of access to all the accounts of this banking company. I quickly take coded notes in a small notebook, which never leaves me since I’ve been working on this mission. I would be able to reiterate my intrusion.

            I carefully erase all traces of access as I learned to do.

            I turn off my computer and feel to go out celebrating it by going for a walk in the early morning in the deserted streets of Paris. I have a sudden craving for croissants, chocolate breads, raisin breads, a whole feast of pastries, but it’s still too early. It’s the time when the bakers are just arriving to their shops around 6 o’clock.

           I feel a bit frustrated not being able to communicate my victory to anyone. I’m eager to tell Mark the good news and my hands are itching to call him on his cell phone, but we have long ago decided never to mention my work over the phone.

            Nothing, never, no trace that could be recorded whatsoever.Too dangerous for the future. That way no one can ever trace it back to us. All our communications have to be face-to-face. Without being paranoid, it’s better to be really cautious from the very beginning. Never underestimate the opponent, so keep a cool head and don’t give in to the urge of a moment.

            I want to celebrate those two years of patience finally rewarded.

            Two years of slow, organized and systematic work to crack this well-kept Swiss system.            Let’s got out for some fresh air.

            I arrive at Place Vendôme, one of my favorite places in Paris because I like the calm, symmetrical and regular order of that almost round square, so logical, so simple and so majestic. At this early hour, the rising sun reflecting on the facades makes it look like a jewel in its case.

            I continue to the Place de la Concorde and go down along the banks of the Seine, meeting some homeless people wrapped in backpacks under the bridges, surrounded by their empty bottles that are lying and rolling in the sandstone.

            One is rolling to the rythm of the guy snoring beside. So funny.

I rediscover Paris at its best and understand its attraction for every one in the world. There’s something magical about these beige gray-clad stones, this architecture that reflect a certain idea of greatness from another century.

 'Are you coming honey?’ a young woman asks, on rue des Victoires, as I’m going back home up towards Pigalle.

            The girl in black leather shorts, perched on thighboots, is smiling at me and I wonder what I’m risking after all. But something in the forced smile stops me. Yes I’m looking for some comfort, to share something strong with someone but no, I’m not going to sink to such a low level.

            I just can’t pay another human being to give me sexual pleasure.

I refuse to be part of this human slavery, even if the temptation is really strong at the moment. My whole body is tensed at the sight of these long legs that let’s me guess a thin and nervous body.

Her eyes have too much makeup on. Why do girls have to spoil their face that way?

            I imagine for a second the possible scene to come; her soft arms around me, her caresses and experienced hands that would easily give me some pleasure.

            I make up my mind and ask her gently, ‘Take me in your arms for a moment, give me a real big hug and tell me nice things. That's all I want from you. How much do you want for that?’

            The surprised girl whispers "fifty" and come closer, her head slightly back, her eyes on her guard. She must be wondering if I’m not one of those crazy people.

            I see her relax slowly.

She’s gently putting her right arm under mine and pulls me a little further under the more discreet porch of the mansion on the left.

            Gently she stands in front of me, takes my chin in her hand, lifts my head, and stares at me with mixed emotions, some pity and admiration at the same time.

            After a while she says: ‘You're great, you're probably important to a lot of people. Many people are counting on you and they’re right because you’re wonderful, generous. I’ve no doubt that you’ll succeed in your life and find the woman you need. I don’t know what makes you so sad inside, but forget those memories that only slow you down. You’ll succeed I’m sure. And if I helped a little tonight, that would make me happy too. .’

            She gently wraps her arms around me and we stay there for a while.

Tears are flowing down my cheeks first silently then heavy sobs are shaking my chest but the girl continues to rock me, just tightening her grip.

            I wonder how often she has had this sort of moment in her career. My head is drowned in her hair and I love the smell of it. We stay that way for a while.

I gradually calm down and this short moment when I let go strong emotions gives me my strength back, my faith in the future, my desire to fight to be happy.

            Raising my head, I realized at the sight of her dried tears how intense the moment has been for both of us.

            ‘Thank you... really’, is all I can say.

             ‘You're very welcome’ she replies with a tender smile.’

              ‘Thanks too.’ she adds a bit more seriously, and realy means what she says.

               ‘What's your name?’

            ‘Laura and you?’

               ‘Laurent’.

            I don’t know why I said so. We burst out laughing, a little more complicit by this double lie.

            But names for me don’t mean anything. One identity or another, what’s the point after all? Just some letters together, a sound, a label?

             But this hug and those eyes tell more about her than any name or nickname in the world.

            I shyly push two bills of fifty euros into her hand, give her a kiss on the cheek, and walk away.

            Somehow I know I would see her again.