It took Nigel several minutes to even think about checking his messages. He felt like his head was stuck in a jar of thick honey. It was an effort to perform even basic tasks. That’s what I get for not getting enough sleep! After examining Jet’s response, he continued the trace of the connection. He let his Datasploit program lead him the rest of the way to the hacker’s home. Give me the goods!

I’m in, Nigel texted Jet.

Ralphie stirred, but didn’t awaken. He clicked on the “exploit” button on his Datasploit console. A system message confirmed that a reverse shell was active. He was inside the intruder’s system. He had to be careful not to give himself away. He watched the system activity for a while and monitored certain system files, such as the bash history, which gave him a complete command history. Whatever the intruder typed, he could see. He clicked the record button in the Datasploit app. He wanted to save this session. After a few more clicks and keystrokes, Nigel could trace back the intruder’s location to a MORP exit node in the UK. This was the first big break he had had. He could resolve the external IP of that exit relay in the Edinburgh location; it wasn’t an exact address, but it was close enough to start looking. He also could confirm the intruder’s intended target based on packet flow. It was EIA!

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Nigel composed another message to Jet, relayed the details, and then shut down the laptop. He had to conserve power, as he was almost out of reserve battery.

Where is Mom? She should have been back a long time ago, Nigel thought.