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March, Owen: Joke all you want. I’ve been writing code since you were in diapers.
Moltisanti, Amber: Diapers? You’re only a few years older than me.
March, Owen: I’m operating under the assumption that you weren’t potty trained until you were a teenager.
March, Owen: But don’t worry! Your office at ACS is only thirty feet from the bathroom. That should help prevent any oopsie-accidents.
Moltisanti, Amber: You can deflect all you want, but I’m never going to believe a bro asshole like you knows the difference between a for-loop and a while-loop. You couldn’t hack your way out of a plastic grocery bag.
March, Owen: Fair enough, You can go on believing whatever you want.
March, Owen: Oh, by the way. I didn’t know you played Diablo. The older version, too. Old school.
I froze at my desk. The cursor blinked on the chat window, waiting for my response. It felt like laughter from Owen.
How did he know I was playing Diablo?
My home PC’s screens were currently dark because the screensaver had kicked in. Plus the laptop was parallel to them. If he had abused the ACS laptop camera to watch me, he still wouldn’t have been able to see the screen.
But maybe I had turned the laptop around at some point, giving him a glimpse of the other screen. That was the only explanation. It had to be.
Moltisanti, Amber: Diablo? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
March, Owen: Yeah, okay. Play dumb. That’s fine. But when you go to sleep tonight, you’re going to think about how I really am a pretty leet hacker.
Moltisanti, Amber: Abusing your position and using company property to spy through my laptop camera isn’t hacking. It’s the kind of shit perverts do. What if I was changing clothes? I bet I can find a good lawyer to sue your ass for everything you’ve got.
March, Owen: Wrong. Try again.
I frowned at the screen. Part of me suspected he was lying, and that hediduse the ACS laptop camera to spy on me. But part of me wondered…
First I went into the Device Manager on my work laptop and disabled the camera and microphone. Next, just for good measure, I grabbed a roll of duct tape from my closet and covered the cameras on my work laptop. Then I slid over to my home PC, dispelled the screensaver, and quickly ran an antivirus scan. It was halfway complete when Owen messaged me again.
March, Owen: Lol, that basic-ass antivirus isn’t going to help.
Well shit. That meant he could see my home PC’s screen, and not through the work camera.
Moltisanti, Amber: Maybe you didn’t use the camera, but you infected my laptop in order to gain access to my home network.
March, Owen: Swing and a miss. That’s strike two, kid. I thought you were smarter than this. You disappoint me.
I felt my anxiety start to rise. This was my private room. My home computer. I was supposed to feelsafehere, hidden behind my array of computer screens. Owen’s intrusion was like a digital violation.
I scrambled under my desk, found the power cable, and yanked it out of the wall. The fans in my computer tower wound down and then became still and silent.
“Cunt-waffle,” I muttered while climbing back into my chair.
March, Owen: You know, I had never even heard that term until you called me it the other day. It’s kind of growing on me.
I gave a start when I realized what he meant.He heard me call him a cunt-waffle.And the microphone on my ACS laptop was disabled. Maybe he had turned it back on. I didn’t have any other listening devices in my room. No Alexa or Amazon Dot. Just my desktop (currently turned off), my ACS laptop (which had the microphone disabled), and…
I flinched like someone had smacked me.My cell phone.
My phone was sitting on the desk. I picked it up and retraced my steps today. Had Owen grabbed it when I was not in my office? No, I took my phone everywhere with me—even to the bathroom. And I had never connected my phone to the ACS Wi-Fi. It should have been secure!
March, Owen: Shit. I think you figured it out. It was worth transferring $2,000 in ArgoCoin to get access, though.
That’s right: last night on the bench outside his house! He took my phone in order to transfer the money to my crypto wallet. But I was watching him the entire time. He didn’t open any other apps or try other fuckery.
