[Interactive Novel] White Hat Black Hat: A New Beginning

Note from the author

This is the beginning of my new fictional interactive steemit based novel. Depending on the choice you make you will be able to make this story about a young hacker in the making named Alex take different directions, for better or worse. You will be in charge of leading Alex in the right direction of either an ethical (white hat) hacker or an unethical (black hat) hacker. At the end of a post you will get to choose what direction you want the story to take. Note that if a path is not a link yet, that means I am still working on it. Hope you enjoy!

A New Beginning

It was a Sunday, May 3rd, 2016. That was the day that would change my life forever. But before I tell you anything about that, let me start at the beginning. My name is Alexander Rios. I am 20 years old, live in the heart of Harlem, and you could say I'm currently just trying to get by. I work as a cashier at a small convenience store 8 hours a day, for 5 days a week at minimum wage. You see, I'm not the wealthiest of guys, my parents raised me until I was 18 and released me into the world with just $10 in my pocket. I didn't pass high school, and on top of that my landowner was just about ready to kick me out of my apartment.

"Hey Alex! Can you pass me the broom?! The store is getting pretty dirty near the magazine and newspaper section! Looks like someone dropped a can of peanuts," yelled my manager Dan. Today was a busy day, it was noon, almost 90 degrees fahrenheit and a rush of people were just starting to come in to order beverages, and snacks. "I got it, give me a minute I'm working with a customer," I yelled. I had just started working at Dan's Grocery & Deli a couple of months ago, and despite being here for awhile, I was not liking the workload. Dan was a nice guy. He never asked too much of me, but always made sure that what needed to be done got finished. As a cashier I did get to meet a lot of people, some nicer than others.

The customer that faced me today was a skinny man, looking like he was in his late 30s, with a brown mohawk, and stylish glasses. "Three mega-million lottery tickets," he said. I gave him a nod and proceeded to hand him the tickets. He handed me the cash, but along with it some sort of card. He told me, "I have a new job offer for you, contact me with that card if you're interested." Not paying much attention to it, I proceeded to finishing up with the rest of the customers. As I was walking back to my apartment, I decided to take a look at the card and to my surprise instead of a phone number there was a string of numbers, symbols, and letters: MzEzMDkyMTQxOQ==. I knew it had to be some sort of code. I was fairly fond of codebreaking after it first sparked my interest in middle school when I picked up a book about World War 2, after which I started reading about various types of codebreaking trivia. Luckily, I was fairly certain I had a book with some codebreaking trivia lying around in my apartment.

After skimming through the book for a little while, I figured that the string was Base64 encoded, and to decode it all I would have to do is run it through a Base64 decoder. Unfortunately, I didn't own a laptop nor could I afford an internet connection so I had to walk to the nearest computer which was a block away at the library. After arriving at the library I ran the code through a Base64 decoder, and sure enough the decoded string looked like a 10 digit phone number. Since I had nothing to lose I decided to call the number, a deep voice with a European accent answered, "Hello is this Alex?" to which I replied, "Yes." The voice responded, "This is MultiSec, we are the world's most complex hacking group and we believe that you are worthy to join us. You have 3 hours to decide whether you want to join us, put a paper slip on the window of your apartment with your decision. Compensation is favorable." And that was it. Was this some sort of joke? I was highly skeptical. I knew nothing about this group, and a quick online search showed no results for MultiSec. I didn't know what decision I should make.

The Decision

Now it is your turn to decide, what should Alex do:

1. Contact the federal authorities
2. Decide to join MultiSec
3. Walk away from the situation
   ** Note these will become links as soon as the posts are published so stay tuned, in the meantime feel free to vote in the comments with your decision and what you would like to see