I’d never been into the school network before, nothing to interest me. No challenge. They don’t even try to hide the IP address. Asking for it. Give you all you need. The beauty of it. Being able to reach out across this network of glowing lines and connections and secrets and say, that one. Ports are found, flung wide, you’re invited in.
You are invisible. Inexorable. Uninstall firewall. Open admin files. Methodical, just a hint of pride. Pick a code and a password. Mr Smythe’s seemed appropriate. My plan was nothing obvious. It’s always better to be cautious, and anyway, it’s more fun if it’s a surprise.
Classroom Manager was what I was looking for. Where I found revenge in the NCEA results ready to be sent off to NZQA. Retaliation in the neat columns of names and grades. If you looked at them now you wouldn’t know the difference. Unless you knew the people. No deletions, no angry messages. Just a subtle little reversal. Achieveds to Merits. Merits slipping back to Achieveds. Not Achieveds becoming Excellence, far too many Excellences for our school to get away with. And all the precious geeks, with their maths assignments and their geography essays and their complete lack of perspective, they fail.
Someone will notice eventually. Then Mr Smythe will realise what I can do. And what he cannot. He cannot say that Pete is wrong. He cannot try to stare down those who see through him. He cannot make me almost cry watching Pete trace the stitching on his jeans, alone in the echoing hall. He cannot. Without having to pay.