Undue Competition

by R A Wallace

  ***

  Jamie was waiting for her at the office when Callie returned. She was sitting in the reception area in front of Mrs. Brzeski.

  “There you are.” Clara flashed a relieved smile at Callie.

  “Jamie. Thanks for coming in. We can talk back here.” Callie motioned for Jamie to follow her to the other side of the office. She led her to the small conference room and quickly turned on the equipment.

  “Have you found something?” Jamie took a seat and set her purse on her lap.

  “I have. I want to show you what process we followed. It might help you in the future when you’re interacting with people online.” Callie pulled up the social media web page Michael had created for her and displayed it on the projector. She explained what it was for.

  “I’m sure my Jason wouldn’t have responded,” Jamie said. “We agreed that we would have an exclusive relationship.”

  Callie took a deep breath. “That’s the thing, Jamie. I met your Jason.”

  “You did?” Jamie sat up in her seat.

  Callie pulled up the pictures she had taken earlier. “Do you recognize the car?”

  Jamie frowned. “That looks like Jason’s but I don’t know much about cars. It could be anyone’s.”

  “Let me play an audio file for you.” Callie pulled her phone from her purse and played the file.

  Jamie was shaking her head when it ended. “That’s not right.”

  “I know. But it’s true.” She pointed at Stella Sacco projected on the screen. “Stella makes a living pretending to be other people.”

  “Why?” Jamie was still shaking her head. “I can’t believe this. Jason wouldn’t do any of this. He’s such a nice man. You must be making this up.”

  Callie set her phone down and walked around the conference table. She took the seat next to Jamie. “I think you know that isn’t true.”

  The first tear rolled down Jamie’s face. “We were soul mates.”

  “I know.”

  “He promised we would always be together.”

  Callie nodded. “You didn’t send any money, did you?”

  “No.” Jamie frowned. “Not much. He said he really needed it.”

  Callie offered a gentle smile.

  “What do I do now?” Jamie reached for a tissue in her purse.

  “That’s up to you,” Callie said. “Is there someone in your family who knows a lot about computers?”

  Jamie nodded as she dabbed at her eyes. “My niece. She’s the one who insisted I come here.”

  “Maybe your niece can help you when you’re online for a while. Just to make sure you get the hang of spotting fakers.”

  Jamie nodded her agreement. As she stood up to leave, she took one last look at Stella Sacco on the projected screen. “Maybe Stella can help too.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ariana walked down the hall of the conference center early Thursday morning with a cup of iced coffee in her hand. It was an acquired taste. She’d never bothered with it when she was in high school. Now that she was hanging around college kids, she noticed that they all relied on some form of it and not just in the mornings. She wondered if any of them actually liked the taste. Maybe she should stick with her sweet tea?

  She was beginning to recognize some of the faces she saw as she passed through the hall. It wasn’t possible to know all of them, of course. There were probably a thousand students participating in the competition. She nodded at the shy kid she’d first seen when talking with Angelina. He ducked his head as he passed her going the other way but not before she saw the shy smile and the red blush working its way up his neck.

  She joined a line that had formed to check into a presentation. The girl in front of her turned around and smiled. Ariana flashed a smile back. She noticed that the other girl was carrying a cup that looked just like hers.

  “We don’t seem to be moving very quickly,” the girl in front of her said.

  Ariana took a sip of her coffee and willed herself not to make a face. “Popular presentation.”

  “True. I guess I can’t complain.” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Ariana. “I heard that the people that are doing this one are also hiring.”

  “I heard that too.” Ariana took a few steps forward when the rest of the line moved and continued chatting with the girl in front of her. When they finally reached the check-in table, she flashed the credentials she was given by the in-house security team.

  The girl in front of her motioned to some empty seats after they entered the presentation room. “I’m Jordyn.”

  “I’m Ariana.” Ariana took the seat next to her. “Thanks.”

  Jordyn took a sip of her coffee. “What year are you in?”

  “I start in the fall.” Ariana made a face. “I can’t make up my mind what to major in. I was hoping this would help.”

  Jordyn looked impressed. “I wish I had done that.”

  “Really?” Ariana couldn’t believe it. “Why?”

  “I spent my first semester in all the wrong classes.” Jordyn shook her head. “It wasn’t until my second semester that I realized multimedia was for me.”

  “At least you figured it out early on,” Ariana said.

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I’ll still be able to use one of the courses from my first semester as an elective. Still.”

  Ariana settled her coffee cup in her lap. “Have you been to these competitions before?”

  “Oh, yeah. I sign up for every one of them that I can.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Jordyn lowered her voice as two people approached the front of the room. “It challenges me to be creative, for one thing. But I think my favorite part is the mentoring that I get. Not just from the competition advisors at my school.” She motioned to the presenters in the front of the room. “I ask a lot of questions whenever I can. I have a whole list ready in my head for these two.”

  ***

  Callie pulled into the cemetery at the edge of town and turned to follow the internal road that ran parallel to the main road in front of the cemetery. She pulled off the cemetery road into the grass so any other visitors could pass her and parked the car. After getting out, she slowly walked up and down the rows of headstones, reading any names that were still visible. After twenty minutes, she found the name she was looking for.

  Marquita Dixon. If her math was right, Marquita died when Jesse was around twenty. Callie thought about how confused she’d been as a young girl when her parents had divorced. She didn’t want to think about how she’d have felt if she’d lost one of them. Her eyes were drawn to the small bouquet of flowers. They were wilted. She assumed they were the ones left by Guy Gallagher. There was no real way to confirm it. She doubted the cemetery kept video surveillance.

  The last conversation she’d had with her mother ran through her head as she walked back to her car. She sat inside with the air running and used her phone to begin looking up Ella Wareham. It didn’t take long for her to discover that her current name was Ella Fisher.

  ***

  Jordyn leafed through her packet of challenges for the current event. “We got this,” she said smugly.

  “I agree,” Angelina said. “We nailed every one of these challenges.”

  Xiang leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m glad that we practiced together online first. It made working together today a lot easier.”

  Alejandro looked around the room. There were dozens of other teams just like the one he was working with. “I agree.” He pointed with his chin at another group. “I swear someone’s having a meltdown over there.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Lily muttered as she continued typing.

  Aiden hovered over her shoulder. “I think you should add another line of code right there to check for firewall rules. Maybe make it a procedure call.”

  Lily nodded. “Already planning on it.”

  “I think this is my favorite event,” Jordyn said as she began checking off each componen
t of the challenge that they’d already completed.

  “I agree,” Angelina said. “It lets us merge all of our fields together into one set of challenges.”

  Lily sat back. “I think my part is done.”

  “Okay, so we’re down to the interface for this challenge.” Jordyn changed seats with her. “How much time do I have left?”

  Aiden checked the clock on the wall. “Ten minutes.” He clapped his hands together. “We’ve got this.”

  Xiang stood and looked around the room. “Everyone else is still looking pretty stressed.”

  “Far corner,” Alejandro said. “They’re looking over here.”

  Xiang followed his gaze. “You think they’re close?”

  Aiden turned back to Jordyn. “The faster you get done, the better.”

  “I know that,” Jordyn muttered. “But it also has to be both correct and better than everyone else’s submission.”

  Xiang motioned with his hand to hurry up. “I’ll settle for correct and first.”

  Alejandro watched the team in the corner. “Xiang is right. I think we need to submit now.”

  “One second,” Jordyn muttered. “Got it!”

  “Submit!” Everyone hissed.

  Jordyn flashed a smile and reached for the mouse with a flourish. “There.”

  Aiden leaned over her shoulder. “Why is the hourglass there?”

  Jordyn frowned. “I don’t know. The computer isn’t responding for some reason.”

  Xiang motioned with his hands to get them to move out of the way. He took the seat Jordyn left and began clicking with the mouse. When that didn’t work, he pulled up a command prompt.

  “It’s no good. Something has all of our ports blocked. We can’t communicate with the server to submit our results.”

  Alejandro moaned. “The other group just submitted.” He scanned the room. “I think some of the other teams are submitting too. We need to get ours in!”

  “I know that,” Xiang said above the hum of voices in the room. “I’m telling you it isn’t going to happen.”

  “Why not?” Lily demanded.

  Xiang turned around. “I think we’ve been hacked.”

  “That is so bogus,” Aiden said.

  “We need to tell the advisors what’s going on,” Angelina said.

  Xiang stood. “We need to talk to those two presenters.”

  “Yeah, we do.” Lily looked around at the others. “What were their names?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Aiden said. “I’ve seen them around all week.”

  Alejandro hissed. Everyone turned to watch as the group from across the room filed past their table on the way out of the room.

  “Looks like you were having some technical problems over here,” one of them said.

  Another one pointed at the hourglass on their monitor. “Too bad. Can’t win if you can’t submit.”

  “Better luck next year,” one of them said as the rest laughed.

  “Bogus,” Aiden repeated as they watched the other students file from the room.

  Lily tapped Angelina on the arm. “Let’s go find those two presenters.”

  Angelina looked around the group. Everyone nodded agreement.

  She motioned to half of them. “We’ll find the presenters.” She pointed at the other half. “You find the advisors and explain what happened.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were all in the room Michael and Sierra used for an office.

  Xiang handed the computer to Sierra. “I’m telling you. We were hacked.”

  “We had everything completed and ready to submit,” Lily said.

  “We were the first ones done,” Alejandro added.

  Michael held up his hands. “I’m not saying that isn’t true.”

  Sierra flipped the computer open. “He’s just saying that we need to look at it first to see what we can see.”

  The door opened and two of the competition sponsors walked in.

  “We heard,” Tammy Nguyen said.

  “What can you tell us?” Javier Walker asked.

  All of the students began talking at once.

  Sierra’s brows went up in a silent question to Michael. He nodded and slipped his earbuds in as he took the computer from Sierra. She joined the group of students and sponsors to listen to what they had to say. Michael’s earbuds leaked music on the other side of the room as he pounded away at the keyboard on the first computer they’d given him to check.

  By the time the students began to wind down, Michael was pulling the earbuds out. Everyone else moved to join him.

  Michael focused on Javier and Tammy first. “They’re right.”

  Tammy held up her hand. “Which part?”

  “I checked the timestamps on their files. What I saw agreed with what they said.” Michael nodded toward the students. “But they were also right about what prevented them from submitting.”

  “How so?” Javier asked.

  “Not only did the hacker manage to get a virus on this computer that shut down the communication ports, it installed a tracking program to monitor what the user was doing,” Michael said.

  Xiang rubbed the top of his head. “That’s messed up.”

  “We should have tried submitting with a different computer,” Aiden said.

  Michael shook his head. “From what I saw, all of the other computers that you gave me to check were infected the same way.”

  “Can they submit now?” Javier asked.

  Sierra looked at Michael. “Did you have a chance to check their submission for viruses?”

  Tammy pressed her fingers into her eyes. “Oh, yea. You’re saying that this is a zero-day exploit that the scanners aren’t picking up on yet?” She dropped her hand and looked at Javier. “We need to tell our people to check the system accepting the submissions from the students. If our antivirus software doesn’t know to check for this, we’re in trouble.”

  “I can help them with that,” Michael said as he glanced around the group. The students were all looking at him hopefully. “From what I could see, their submission wasn’t infected.”

  Sierra held up her hand when the students all began talking over each other. Once they were quiet, she focused on Tammy and Javier. “It would be best to isolate the system that is accepting the submissions until we can check everything out.”

  Tammy turned to Javier. “We need to tell our people now.” They both moved toward the door. “We’ll let them know to expect you.”

  “We’ll tell the judges to expect your submission,” Javier called to the students as he opened the door.

  The students erupted into cheers and began talking over each other again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “But they’re going to accept your submission?” Ariana asked the kid in front of her.

  Xiang put his hand on his chest. “I kid you not. I thought I was going to have a heart attack when I realized there was no way we could submit our results for the event.”

  “I’ll bet.” Ariana took a step closer to him as they waited their turn to pay for their food in the cafeteria. “Do you know who hacked you?”

  Xiang looked around them furtively before answering. “No, but there’s these two programmers. It’s like they have superpowers or something.”

  Ariana didn’t have to guess who he was referring to.

  Xiang pulled his wallet out. “People like them are the reason I come to these competitions.”

  “You’re into programming?” she asked.

  Xiang shook his head as he took a step forward in line. “No, networking. But one of my professors always said there’s two kinds of networking. The kind where you connect devices and the kind where you connect with others.”

  Ariana thought about it as she took a step forward. “I have met a lot of interesting people this week.”

  “That’s what I mean. There’s no way I would have met those two if it weren’t for this competition. Who knows? I might be lucky enough to work with them sometime in the futu
re.”

  Ariana smiled behind him in line. “They might be thinking the same thing.”

  “What?” Xiang turned around to look at her as he put his wallet back in his pocket.

  “I was just thinking,” she said as she handed her money to the cashier. “They might be thinking that they’ll be lucky enough to work with you sometime in the future.”

  “Yeah, right.” Xiang laughed as he led the way to an empty table.

  ***

  Sierra bent over a computer and tapped away on the keyboard.

  Michael watched over her shoulder. “Would you want to do this full-time?”

  “What’s that?” Sierra entered the command to compile the code and turned to Michael.

  “Working with the students. You seem to really be enjoying it.” He sat back in his seat.

  She made a face as she considered it. “Haven’t you?”

  His smile was slow. “Yeah, but we were talking about you.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Yes, I’ve been enjoying myself this week.” She tilted her head and studied him. “Now, what about you?”

  He looked up at the ceiling. “I have to say that I have too. It’s been interesting, that’s for sure.”

  “You always liked challenges before,” she said.

  “Still do,” he agreed.

  “But?”

  “How do you know there’s a but?” he asked.

  She grinned. “But I wouldn’t want to do this all the time.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’m the same way.”

  “I like the life we have now,” she said.

  “Yeah. Me too.” His eyes shifted to her. “We can pick our programming jobs.”

  “We get to help Callie and Greyson sometimes.”

  “I’ve enjoyed working with Ariana,” he said. “I think she going to go into information technology.”

  “I think so too.” Sierra looked at her computer. “I think we’re ready to push this down.”

  He stood and held out his hand to help her up. Instead of backing up to allow her more room, he stayed where he was. His arms slipped around her just as the door to the room opened.

  Javier and Tammy walked in.

  “Are you ready in here?” Tammy looked from Michael to Sierra as they took a step apart from each other.