The next morning, Freeman awoke. He squinted as sunlight drenched his face.

Argh, I can’t feel my arm.

As Freeman rubbed his numb appendage, he had several alerts on his smart watch. They were stacked up like a deck of cards.

I must have fifty alerts. My arm is so numb I didn’t feel the buzzing.

As Freeman flipped through his phone, a new encrypted email appeared; these ones always stood out from the rest of the emails that inundated his mailbox daily. Since encrypted emails often contained work, he made sure these didn’t get filtered out. Gregor’s name caught his eye.

It’s about time that jerk got back to me. Wait . . . it’s not Gregor.

The message read:

Dear FreemanRising,

I’m a friend of Gregor and you come recommended, so I’m reaching out. Please contact me at this secure channel if you are interested in any hacking or challenging red team work that will require you to break into systems and point out any flaws. My clients are always looking to improve.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

D

Interesting.

Freeman replied using a secure channel.

It would be good to get some more work. As soon as I’m out of high school, I’m getting off this island.

Freeman got a reply in under five minutes with a message asking him to audition. They gave him information on the venue of the hack. It wasn’t as simple as defacing a website. The information he received was exploiting a database for a provider on the dark web.

My hacking skills will be put to the test with this one. One wrong move, and then I could be tracked back.

A knocking sound broke him out of his thoughts.

“Freeman, you’re going to be late for school,” a female voice demanded.

“I’m not feeling so well, Mother,” Freeman said.

“You seemed fine earlier, are you sure—”

A moment later, his mother attempted to open the door.

“Why is your door locked?”

“I’m not dressed. Do you want to see your son naked?”

Freeman heard his mother leave.

I won’t get paid for doing nothing! I need to hack already.

Freeman shut down his computer and switched drives to get his hacking environment ready for the trials to come. Moments later he heard a rattling sound at the door.

What’s that?

Before he could complete the thought, his mother opened the door, her keys still in the lock, which slapped against the door as she flung it open. His heart leaped in his throat.

“You sure as hell don’t look sick to me!” she yelled. “I’ll give you five minutes to get your shit together. You’re going to school. I don’t care if you like it or not.”

Freeman stared in disbelief. His mother had never talked to him like that before. He tried to say something, but no words came out.

“I’m serious, mister. Five minutes or your father gets a call.”

Freeman watched his mother leave.

Damn, I guess she’s serious. I’ll pick this up later.