SnakeByte woke up on his sofa. The TV was still on, his mouth felt like the bottom of a parrots cage, his head hurt, not good. What happened last night?
Pub, yes that was okay. Curry house, think so. Yes he remembered a blindingly hot curry and something else. Poker. He played poker with the staff after close. Oh god how much did he spend?
He reached into his pocket and found a big wad of cash. Cool, so he won. Or did he. He suddenly remembered he had started the evening with 20K in his pocket. A ting of fear ran through his body, followed by waves of pain as he dragged himself across the sofa to his jacket. The money was still there. A huge envelope stuffed full of £50 notes.
Feeling a little better, he sat up. That was a bad idea. The room swam around for a bit before settling down. Confident he wouldn't fall over. He stood up and wandered into the kitchen. The kettle went on and he dragged himself upstairs to the bathroom. Toilet duties complete, teeth brushed, he started to head back down to the kitchen. Something stopped him in his tracks. Something was wrong.
He turned and walked into his office. It was empty. Everything in the room was gone. All his computers, all his notes, all his books, all his software. Gone. They had even vacuumed the floor!
SnakeByte wandered downstairs in a daze. He had expected some kind of backlash after yesterdays adventures, but he had never considered they might clean him out. Stood on the balcony he assessed his situation. He was alive. Good thing. He had twenty grand. Good thing. He had no computers. Bad thing. Fix bad thing. With the money he now had he could easily rebuild the beast, even upgrade it. The old version was constructed with cheap PC's, he could now afford better machines and the new beast would be an animal. That's it. He would build The Animal.
SnakeByte was paranoid enough that he had an offsite backup of all his software, so he could recreate everything very quickly. On the whole, he had averted a disaster and come out ahead. He estimated he needed about ten grand to rebuild everything, leaving him ten grand for fun.
The coffee and nicotine started to kick in. He was feeling better. Life was good.
Pub, yes that was okay. Curry house, think so. Yes he remembered a blindingly hot curry and something else. Poker. He played poker with the staff after close. Oh god how much did he spend?
He reached into his pocket and found a big wad of cash. Cool, so he won. Or did he. He suddenly remembered he had started the evening with 20K in his pocket. A ting of fear ran through his body, followed by waves of pain as he dragged himself across the sofa to his jacket. The money was still there. A huge envelope stuffed full of £50 notes.
Feeling a little better, he sat up. That was a bad idea. The room swam around for a bit before settling down. Confident he wouldn't fall over. He stood up and wandered into the kitchen. The kettle went on and he dragged himself upstairs to the bathroom. Toilet duties complete, teeth brushed, he started to head back down to the kitchen. Something stopped him in his tracks. Something was wrong.
He turned and walked into his office. It was empty. Everything in the room was gone. All his computers, all his notes, all his books, all his software. Gone. They had even vacuumed the floor!
SnakeByte wandered downstairs in a daze. He had expected some kind of backlash after yesterdays adventures, but he had never considered they might clean him out. Stood on the balcony he assessed his situation. He was alive. Good thing. He had twenty grand. Good thing. He had no computers. Bad thing. Fix bad thing. With the money he now had he could easily rebuild the beast, even upgrade it. The old version was constructed with cheap PC's, he could now afford better machines and the new beast would be an animal. That's it. He would build The Animal.
SnakeByte was paranoid enough that he had an offsite backup of all his software, so he could recreate everything very quickly. On the whole, he had averted a disaster and come out ahead. He estimated he needed about ten grand to rebuild everything, leaving him ten grand for fun.
The coffee and nicotine started to kick in. He was feeling better. Life was good.
The next few months were good. SnakeByte finished his game and it went straight to number one in the charts. He even got a sweet 4K in royalties.
The Animal was complete and ran twice as fast as the beast used to. He spent a little more money on it than he planned. He came across a company that made custom PC cases. He bought a load of cables from them that glowed when the machine was powered up. The Animal wasn't just faster, it was pretty as well.
He also invested in a couple of games machines and a new TV. Life was really coming together. He should have known it wasn't going to last.
He was stood at the bar of the Frog and Parrot with a pint in his hand when the world kicked back. He looked up and George was stood there looking at him. Shit what now.
"Mr Dooley, we need a word."
Oh god no.
"Come with me please"
What choice did he have?
SnakeByte finished his pint in one gulp. He figured it might be the last pint he would ever have so he wasn't going to leave it. George led him to a car parked just a few yards away from the pub. The two of them got in the back, and the driver drove away. George made him stew for a few minutes them started his pitch.
"Firstly I have to remind you that you have signed the official secrets act. Anything we discuss is covered by the act. The penalties for disclosing anything I tell you are very severe. Do you understand your position?"
"Yes. I'm screwed"
"Exactly. You are going to write some software for us. This software needs to run on a single floppy disk and boot from that disk. It needs to then search a hard drive attached to the host machine, find encrypted files that contain a set of strings we will give you at a later date. These files then need to be copied to floppy disks. The whole process has to take no more than 10 minutes and leave no trace behind that could alert the owner of the computer."
"What encryption system is in use?"
"Unknown"
"How big are the files?"
"Unknown"
"What is the spec of the machine"
"Unknown"
"You want me to write a program to automatically decrypt files to memory, using an unknown encryption system, select and copy files of unknown size from an unknown computer"
"Yes, we need the program to be ready for testing in three weeks"
"Three weeks. What is the penalty for failure?"
"You really don't want to ask me that question, the reply might impede your ability to concentrate"
SnakeByte was in a blind panic. This was an impossible task. A task that he couldn't possibly complete in three weeks, yet he couldn't afford to not complete. Payback most certainly is a bitch. The car stopped. George turned to him and just said.
"We will be in touch"
The meeting was over. SnakeByte got out of the car and found he was back outside the Frog. He hadn't been paying attention during the meeting. They must have just been driving around the block.
What the fuck was he going to do?
The Animal was complete and ran twice as fast as the beast used to. He spent a little more money on it than he planned. He came across a company that made custom PC cases. He bought a load of cables from them that glowed when the machine was powered up. The Animal wasn't just faster, it was pretty as well.
He also invested in a couple of games machines and a new TV. Life was really coming together. He should have known it wasn't going to last.
He was stood at the bar of the Frog and Parrot with a pint in his hand when the world kicked back. He looked up and George was stood there looking at him. Shit what now.
"Mr Dooley, we need a word."
Oh god no.
"Come with me please"
What choice did he have?
SnakeByte finished his pint in one gulp. He figured it might be the last pint he would ever have so he wasn't going to leave it. George led him to a car parked just a few yards away from the pub. The two of them got in the back, and the driver drove away. George made him stew for a few minutes them started his pitch.
"Firstly I have to remind you that you have signed the official secrets act. Anything we discuss is covered by the act. The penalties for disclosing anything I tell you are very severe. Do you understand your position?"
"Yes. I'm screwed"
"Exactly. You are going to write some software for us. This software needs to run on a single floppy disk and boot from that disk. It needs to then search a hard drive attached to the host machine, find encrypted files that contain a set of strings we will give you at a later date. These files then need to be copied to floppy disks. The whole process has to take no more than 10 minutes and leave no trace behind that could alert the owner of the computer."
"What encryption system is in use?"
"Unknown"
"How big are the files?"
"Unknown"
"What is the spec of the machine"
"Unknown"
"You want me to write a program to automatically decrypt files to memory, using an unknown encryption system, select and copy files of unknown size from an unknown computer"
"Yes, we need the program to be ready for testing in three weeks"
"Three weeks. What is the penalty for failure?"
"You really don't want to ask me that question, the reply might impede your ability to concentrate"
SnakeByte was in a blind panic. This was an impossible task. A task that he couldn't possibly complete in three weeks, yet he couldn't afford to not complete. Payback most certainly is a bitch. The car stopped. George turned to him and just said.
"We will be in touch"
The meeting was over. SnakeByte got out of the car and found he was back outside the Frog. He hadn't been paying attention during the meeting. They must have just been driving around the block.
What the fuck was he going to do?