AT TEN YEARS of age, any thought of being a physical badass was abandoned. That was the age when Mike Rollins put down a baseball and picked up a keyboard. When his world became smaller and centered on things that required little physical effort. Books on code were read, online chat forums and computer clubs joined. Visions of designing video games or social networking sites became the new fantasy. Hopes focused on becoming the next Internet billionaire, surrounded by women and friends and admiration.
Quick money called, and greedy adolescence listened. Mike pushed aside developmental projects and focused instead on breaking the genetic code that is the Internet. Once you understand it, it’s easy to curtail it. Once you can curtail it, you can start to control it. Build fake trails that will lead your opponents turning in circles until they fall on their ass. Create insurmountable roadblocks that are truly only paper thin. Hide someone so deep that you are the only person who can pull them out.
The truth:
Deanna Madden, aka JessReilly19, is twenty-two years old. She lives on 163 Oakmont Place, Apartment 6E. She has, unfortunately for Mike, a boyfriend, one Jeremy Pacer. She has a net worth of $2.3 million, half of which is hidden away in the Cayman Islands in a place known only to her and Mike. She is an orphan, her parents and younger siblings killed four years ago in a manner one can only describe as brutal.
The appearance:
Jessica Reilly is nineteen years old, a sophomore at the University of Iowa. She lives in an on-campus dorm on a student budget. She is single, widely popular, and, as evidenced by her Facebook wall, hasn’t met a frat party or house party she’ll turn down.
This man will never track her down. It is impossible. The cover was tested recently, just a year ago. After all the groundwork was in place, Mike posted a challenge to Hnet. Offered a thousand of Deanna’s bucks to anyone who could find one hole in her story. A hole that led to something other than a dead end or him. Forty-nine hackers accepted the challenge. Forty-nine who, within three weeks, admitted defeat. This man, with his rudimentary knowledge of the Internet and his Motorola Krzr, doesn’t stand a chance. And his guy in IT either sucks or is on the same side Mike is, which involves keeping this psycho as far from her as possible.