Birds of a Feather
Christopher S. Case
9/29/05

   Bleary-eyed, Louis looked up from his console. He'd been sleeping; as of late it was an activity he wished he did more often. Wondering what had woken him up, he noticed the soft beeping coming from his system. His late-night efforts had paid off; he had finally discovered the information he'd been looking for. Now, all he had to do was check his logs, and make sure he'd left no traces behind. If he had, which was rare, he'd have to hack his way back into the system, and remove them. Looking through the scrolling lines of text, he noticed one anomaly. It was a login history file, which had only been partially deleted. It was odd, and most likely meant the system he'd hacked into was experiencing some low level failure. It wasn't too out of the ordinary, just unexpected. According to the clock on his system, he saw it was 6 am in the morning. Taking a deep breath, he resigned himself to loosing more sleep.

   Slowly working his way back in, he let his mind wander. His reasons for doing this were vague, and normally that would have bothered him. The hack has started with a simple desire to disprove a rumor going around he base. If he was honest with himself, he realized, it was nothing more than an excuse to hack for the first time in months. Technically, if he was caught, he'd be thrown into the deepest, darkest brig they could find. In reality, things would be much, much worse.

   Originally, Louis had never planned on joining the military. His only real ambition had been to be the best hacker in the League, and even now, he still strived for that. He'd pulled off enough serious hacks to be listed among the top five hackers in known space. Only one human was better than him, and some people even wondered if she was anything more than a legend. Louis hated the idea of being second best, especially to someone who might not even exist, so he'd decided to secure his place as number one. His plan was to hack the Naval Information and Security Department. The NIS was an obscure name for the most elite group of spies, assassins, and special operatives in the whole of known space. They were considered a part of the League military, however, most people didn't doubt the rumors that they pursued their own agenda. If he could hack the NIS, he would finally be number one.

   Louis smiled as he remembered how stupid he's been. He had actually managed to hack the NIS, and get away without leaving a trace. He hadn't thought about how to share the news of his amazing hack, and so when eh started telling people about it, the NIS got wind of it. To this day, he still had the occasional nightmare about being pulled out of bed by a squad of heavily armed elite forces.

   Instead of being taken to jail, like he expected, he'd been taken to the head of the NIS, Admiral Case. Case was a middle aged man, who had an intimidating air about him. He told Louis that the only reason he hadn't gone straight to jail was the fact that there were very few skilled hackers in the universe, and it would be a shame to ruin such promise. Louis was given the choice of working for the NIS, and joining the Navy, or spending the rest of his life in jail. He, of course, chose the first option. Officially, Louis would have his access limited to League computer systems, and he would never be allowed to hack again, however, unofficially, he would work for the NIS, and hack for them, should they need it. Any hacking infraction would officially land him in jail. Unofficially, if he hacked anything other than what he was told to by the NIS, he would face their wrath. (To this day, Louis still didn't know what they meant.)

   An unexpected system message pulled Louis back to reality. Somehow, the file that he had originally come back in to delete had become encrypted. He almost missed the notice, but as soon as he saw is, he cam close to panic. He started trying to back out of the system as quickly as possible. The only other time he'd ever encountered something like this was when he'd been caught by a trace program. This situation was a little different, but as he was logging off the system he already saw twelve connection to his system from it. He was going to have to go through, and manually shut down each one, before whoever was on the other end figured out who he was. He was definitely dealing with another hacker. Sitting up in his chair Louis smiled. They're good, but I'm better.

Two hours latter, he wasn't so sure anymore. He was definitely dealing with someone who'd not only had a great deal of experience, but an amazing amount of skill. He had been battling with them for the past two hours, and he was loosing. Not able to believe that he was going to be beaten on his own system, Louis focused harder on the battle. There was no retreat anymore; they already knew who he was. Either he would have to crash their system, and remove that information, or he'd have to earn enough respect to open a dialog.

   “Bawls. Who the hell is this guy? The ping time is so short that it's almost like they're right down the hall.” On a hunch, Louis tried to find out what subnet they were using. Before he got the chance to test his little theory, his entire system locked up. He tried hitting keys, and even tried shutting it down, but it was no good. He'd been owned. This was a new experience for him.

   Without warning, there was a knock at his door. Without even given him the chance to open it, a tall blond woman, about Louis age walked into the room. She glanced around, with a smirk on her face. Turning to Louis, she started sizing him up. He could tell that she approved of what she saw. Louis had to admit that if the person standing in front of him was the hacker who'd just locked him out of his system, she definitely met with his approval.

   “So, you're the idiot who was messing around in my system.” She smiled. “I'm glad to see it's someone I can respect. You sure don't live like a hacker.”

   “So you're the idiot who locked me out of my system. I'm glad to see it's someone I can 'respect'. You sure don't look like a hacker. Now, mind fixing my system?” Louis smiled back, and motioned to his console.

   “Sure.” She walked over, and pressed a few seemingly random buttons. The system shut down. “That's better. It will need some fixing though. I'm afraid I had a little too much fun breaking it.”

   “Wonderful. Mind telling me who you are?”

   “Name's Samantha Rae. Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. Louis looked at it, and decided to ignore it.

   “No, I mean, who are you? You just locked me out of my system, something that's never been done. You traced me, something not even the NIS can do. I know you play the game. Who are you?”

   “You just said it.” She paused, to see if he understood. “I'm Dr. Who.”

   Louis couldn't believe it. He'd spent the last two hours battling with the best human hacker in history. What made him feel even worse, was the simple fact that she lived down the hall, considering she was wearing slippers and pajamas. Given her handle, he guessed she was a doctor. Also, what gave it away was the fact that the entire floor was doctors. This was a 'private' section, where everyone had a single room. With the exception of Louis, the only people who had private rooms were doctors, or very important officers. (Louis only had his quarters because he convinced his roommates to complain about the kind of hours he kept. Louis handled the rest of it, by hacking the request for his single room, and approving it.)

   “So, you're telling me that I just got booted from my own system by 'Dr. Who' the best hacker in known space? Damn. Until now, no one even knew your name.”

   “It's not like much is known about the guy in the #2 spot, either, 'Lynx'. After all, the only place where that handle is identified as belonging to Louis Capelle is in the NIS database, which as you found out, is pretty hard to hack, and get away with it. I must admit, you're cute. For a hacker, that is.” She shook her head. “What do you say we fix this system of yours? I must admit, I'm much better at doing the damage, then reversing it.” Samantha smiled.

   Louis starred for a second and then laughed. He had a feeling things were about to get a good deal more interesting around here.