A STORY GUYSSSSSSSSSSSSS (NO NAME)

Chapter 1

It's 2 AM in the suburbs of Tokyo, inside a small house is a dark room lit up only by a computer screen. A thin man wearing glasses sitting in front of the screen is quickly typing on the keyboard (me right now).

- Ugh, I need some sleep, I've been awake for 2 days.

On his desk are 6 cups of coffee, he's currently finishing a project on his computer. Like most indie hackers / security researchers, he spends hours well into the night fulfilling the community's desires for little to no compensation (except for donations but like 1$ can't buy you anything today). But not this time : A game company known as Intbx released the GSP (Gaming System Portable), a revolutionary new product that brings gaming (and only gaming) to the user's pocket, a real competition to traditional phones. But security researches refused to jailbreak this console. Their reasons are different depending on who you ask, but mainly they roam around the fact that the console is far too complex and the material support from the community (aka money) is far too low. Within a year of its launch, the GSP became one of the most successful consoles in history, while a vulnerability pops up here and there, the researchers don't really disclose the POCs (proof of concepts or the real exploits) because of Intbx's bug bounty program, and Intbx was very generous, giving tens of thousands of dollars to discover vulnerabilities. It was on track to become the unjailbreakable console, and for a good reason, its hardware was very powerful. Finally, the community had had enough. They announced a prize pool of 15000 dollars to whoever found an exploit on the console. The researchers still weren't lured in : If something's working, don't fix it, they said. Translation : We're already getting more cash from Intbx so why switch sides ? Most of them replied the same, except for our man right here. Not only he jumped at the opportunity with extreme zeal, he started working on it for 2 weeks back to back. And right now he is preparing a KO punch to the GSP's security system.

His extreme zeal however, shut his eyes from the fact that a man was next to him, and that man had a gun he didn't hesitate to use.

Chapter 2

It's 8 in the morning, 2 police cars and an ambulance arrive in front of Andrew Lee's house. 4 men get out of the first car.

- So what do we have here ? asks Detective Ryū

His assistant goes through some notes, then says : 

- At 7:50 AM, we received an emergency call from a woman who smelt awful corpse smells from her neighbor's house.

- And this is the house ?

- Yes.

- Then let's get in.

Detective Ryū tries to turn the front door's knob to open it. Oddly, the door's unlocked.

- Ewww the smell is awful, says the assistant in disgust.

They head for the bedroom, and find a man laying in his chair, and an awful lot of blood on the floor, some blood splattered on the desk and screen. The forensic team quickly runs in to wrap the police wire around the room and look for prints.

As for the detective, after a quick systematic search in the man's pockets, he finds an ID card, 6000 yen in cash and a phone.

- So this isn't a robbery gone wrong, the killer wanted him specifically, concludes the detective, found anything ? He then asks the forensic team.

- Nothing, no prints, no DNA drops, no footprints ; hitman work.

- But why next to a computer ?

He then looks at the body carefully.

- The wound is from a bullet on the left side of his head, which means the killer had enough time to sneak in and aim.

He then asks the forensic team to take the body to the medical examiner. He then turns his attention to the computer.

He turns it on to find out that all the files have been deleted.

- Akiru, can you take the drive for analysis ?

- Alright.

His assistant removes the hard drive and then gives to another man from the forensic team. Ryū's attention is now drawn to the phone. He searches for his social media accounts :

- The guy's a ghost, no social media presence at all, only a... IntbxForums account ?

He clicks on the latest entry and reads in astonishment:

"Intbx has been sending me threats all week long, first legal, then their legal team called, then I've started getting death threats. Their goal is clear : They want me to stop working on the GSP.

They tried to explain it : It would be catastrophical and the losses are considered to be astronomical, the device is also very powerful and many of them could be clustered into a supercomputer. Like nobody cares.

Since they told me not to tell anyone, I'm telling you.

PS I'm serious THIS IS NOT A JOKE"

- This is either a joke or the real deal, Detective Ryū concludes, either way this is way too big and we're getting out of our depth, Intbx is contracted to our intelligence officials and telecom operators because it gives military tech. There's only one way out of this mess : Get someone from the outside to help us.

- Or just drop this entire file, we never thought this would amount to where it is now, big tech is too shady and if you delve in too deep, they'll send an army of dark web assassins to cover the whole thing up. Besides, who on earth is this guy from the outside who'll help us ?

- Maybe some of his... acquitances.

Chapter 3

It's a Saturday, my alarm rings, I turn it off quickly. Yawn. I put on my glasses and go to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Like most Japanese 19-year-olds (prove me wrong idk), I live alone in a house I bought from some savings. My bedroom is my everything room : Wide enough, with a large window and a huge desk with a super powerful PC I built myself. I study at university but I don't have any friends because they see me as too solitaire to play the ugly, manipulative game known as social life. But if I have to get ugly and manipulative, I'm an expert. My social skills ? A book called "The Laws of Human Nature" by Robert Greene, thanks to it, I've learned to avoid this ugly game and create a character that embodies my dark qualities into me instead of repressing them. Anyway I don't live alone yet, an 18-year old girl called Takeba lives with me, for some reason she doesn't have enough to buy or even rent a house : it's as if the house is split into 2 smaller houses. She started to like me and we became good friends. She falls asleep everytime and takes kendo classes. Online I go by the name "deadbeef", a random security researcher that finds vulnerabilities in anything - if I look well enough. Takeba broke into my room once to see me wrapped in terminal screens.

- WOOOOOOOOOOOW, What is this ??????? PLS TEACH ME 

And that's how she learned some things, but not everything, as part of our little deal I had to take kendo classes with her because she thought it was good for my thin slim body and that I needed to defend myself in such an aggressive world.

Anyway after I had lunch I heard someone knocking the door. I opened it and saw 2 men, both of them were wearing formal clothes even though I felt like the higher ranked man was wearing a little more loose clothes (in my opinion).

- Hi, I'm detective Ryū, and this is my assistant, could we have a few minutes of your time ?

- Um sure.

As they got in and sat on the entrance couch, Takeba was surprised, she never saw me with someone else, mostly she was inviting her random besties in and listen to super loud vocaloid hit songs (im not shitting on vocaloid rn), what surprised her more is that she saw me with 2 formal men that looked like police.

After I sat on the opposite couch they got straight to the point :

- Do you know Andrew Lee ?

- Yes I know him from IntbxForums. He was deep in legal battles against Intbx.

- We found him dead yesterday.

 The news kept me speechless.

- I thought it was a joke..

- What's the joke ?

- The latest entry on his profile. It says-

- So you already know the current state where we're at. I'll get straight to it : We need you to work with us to find the culprit of this, I won't guarantee anything, and this is quite dangerous, but as far as we are concerned our job is done.

- Why would the police need 2 19-year olds for a murder investigation, and probably something deeper ?

- Because they would try to cover up the entire thing and set up a cover up story, but I want the truth.

After 2 seconds of analysis, my rational brain came up to one conclusion : this was too huge, probably impossible, getting in trouble like big tech and shady CEOs is like signing your death warrant, but deep in my heart, I thought of doing the job that he can't and won't do and serve justice to him.

- Give me a day to think about it.

- Sure, we'll be back tomorrow.

And they left silently for their car.

Chapter 4

The next day, Takeba and I had lunch at a restaurant. We had Kung Pow Chicken, a southern Chinese dish that had rice, chicken, spices and Sichuan sauce. After we finished the plate, I told Takeba what the detective told me : 

- The poor man, being killed for exercing his freedom, Takeba said, what do you think we should do ?

- I don't know, but they'll probably give us something.

- I think it's a serious joke, I don't know..

After we returned we found the 2 guys from yesterday.

- So, did you have enough time to think about it ?

Right about then, an unconscious brainwave passed through my brain.

- What's in it for me ?

- Glad you asked.

Ryū puts over the table an envelope and a small piece of paper that turned out to be an official sword usage authorisation license (or idk it exists in Japan).

- The envelope has 20000$ in cash, another 20000 dollars will be given to you later.

This time, I took the envelope and the license without hesitation:

- Okay, now what should I do ?

His assistant pulls out a hard drive:

- Our forensic team couldn't recover any files. Try to recover any recent files.

- Alright

The detective pushed a card to me and said : 

- We'll be leaving for now, call me if you find anything.

Chapter 5

After the detectives left, I went to my room, Takeba followed me and sat next to me as I plugged the hard drive in and turned on the computer. Takeba complained:

- So we're playing detectives now or what ?

- Doesn't matter, 20000 dollars is more than whatever the silly demanding community gives me in donations. Also both of our phones don't have the usual spyware every phone has so we're safe... at least for now.

A regular file recovery program proved pointless, 30 minutes and one Tor browser tab later, I've decided to use a professional file recovery program used by the NSA I found on an archive. And soon enough, 15 minutes later I found an entire folder called KploitGSP containing lots of exploit files. After analysing the files, I found out that the GSP's security system wasn't all that secure, it had a very fatal flaw, most of the kernel code was trusted and the CPU had also a vulnerability. The README file said that the exploit was "unpatchable". The folder also contained decrypted and dumped firmware, CPU keys, a dumper program, a custom program and a full assembly based SDK. I was astonished.

I released the exploit on a few forums and websites as Andrew's ; News of his death had topped the headlines and people have been spreading crazy conspiracy theories including the one we're investigating : Intbx having a hand in this. And just an hour later, 16000 dollars (I don't know why I got an extra 1000 dollars) were sent to my Monero account.

I called the detective and told him everything :

- Wow I was right to "hire" you, you did what our forensic team couldn't do, anyway that explains why they wanted him dead, now that you're a potential target, I suggest you keep a low profile. We'll take it from here.

Takeba and I decided to celebrate and since we were very hungry we bought takeouts and hung out until 11pm, by then I had received several e-mails, first a reminder to take the files down or face "further action", then legal, then my phone's voicemail started filling up, then the threats became more and more aggressive. I simply sent screenshots to various forums and slept. At around 1 AM I was peacefully sleeping when I heard liquid pouring loudly. I knew exactly what was going on.

Chapter 6

I slowly opened an eye to see a viscous liquid poured over my bed, my computer and the ground. I quickly jumped out of my bed to see a man wearing black lighting up a match.

Without even thinking, I jumped to the side of the room, the man drew a gun and started shooting, but I managed to grab a broom, throw away the gun, and hit him in the back of the head, he fell and the match lit up the gasoline. Soon the black man became the ash man. I quickly opened the window to let in some air and then went to the kitchen and came back with a bucket of water which I threw at the fire. Suddenly, I heard a walkie-talkie.

- Seriously ??

I quickly took it out of his pocket and heard:

- What's the situation ?

- Are you in ? Over.

- THE GUY IS DEAD SHIT MOVE IN MOVE IN 

At that point I ran for my life toward Takeba's room. I entered and turned on the lights. She woke up and started yelling : 

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHY ARE YOUU HERE ??????

- Shhhhh, they're here.

- Who's here ?

A window broke and I heard lots of footsteps.

- Someone is trying to burn me alive, now the whole party came in.

- Burn this entire place, kill the kid and whoever else is in here, burps, said one of the men, these are our orders.

- Uhh to be clear, you shouldn't be saying the point of this mission when you're doing it, said some other man.

- Less talking more doing things, moron.

- Shit, Hawk's dead, said another guy.

- Search all the rooms now.

Takeba's long hair was still messy, and her eyes were still closed, yet she jumped to the other side of the room, opened a drawer and threw a sheathed sword at me.

- You said they wanted to kill us, right ? She asked. Then take this.

I drew the sword from its sheath, it had a sharp long black blade which already had cut through the sheath and a red hilt. It wasn't time to admire it though. A man broke into the room. 

- The kid is here.

- Then kill him stupid !

The man drew a gun and starts shooting, some of the bullets were luckily countered by my sword, I jumped behind the door and stabbed him from the back. I took his gun and shot another guy near us. Their comrades noticed us and started shooting and throwing bombs, my ears were stunned by the sound of explosions. I took a bunch of knifes and threw them wherever i saw someone, One of the men's machine guns stopped and I threw my black sword at him. It pierced his mask and his face. I ran to the dead man and pulled my sword from his face. Takeba hit everyone with the sword still inside the sheath to knock them out, the last man threw a smoke to run away and burn the house, but I cut the smoke and threw the sword at his gun. It pierced them both.

I collaped in a heap on a pierced couch by bullets, Takeba was fine but had fell asleep. Exhausted, I caalled the detecctive, who came in with 6 police cars and an ambulance and took all the attackers.

Chapter 7

 The following day the police cleaned up the mess and placed 2 guards on duty in front of my house. For the next 3 weeks we had to stay as a mild form of house arrest. After that, the detective told us there would be no legal prosecution against us since it was an act of self defense. I took pictures of most of the chaos and sent them to a few forums. 5 men were arrested, and 3 were dead. A few days after the 3 week deadline Takeba asked me .

- So what do we do now ?

- We sit and wait, eveything is going according to plan. But it's not over yet.

- Whose plan ?

- Mine.

4 days later, the detective called :

- These guys are a group of dark web hitmen, they were hired for both the murder and the break-in. Anyway these guys are facing a long time in prison, the judge could even go for the death penalty. But in my opinion : we've reached a dead end, they don't know who hired them, and since conversations in the dark web are highly secure, we won't get anywhere. Anyways I think we're done here, the remaining 20000 dollars will be sent to you shortly.

A week later, after Takeba and I returned from kendo class, I took a look at the forums, and what I saw was surprising.

The GSN (Game System Network) was down for over 6 days now. A hacking group called Anonym took responsibility for the attack, they also released a series of documents that incriminated Intbx's security director and various security researchers. Intbx's stock fell down and the once-successful company was on the brink of bankruptcy. As for me : I was approached by Anonym to join them, in exchange for a lot of money. Anonym was in a legal gray zone but my heart said it didn't matter. From the money I got from this mess, I bought myself a car. Takeba and I graduated from university and founded a startup a few years later.

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