It's been two months since I skipped out on graduation; my father still hasn't forgiven me. He'll be walking in any moment to tell me to get out of bed, and look for a job. This has become a ritual since I didn't show up for my first day of work. You can feel the disappointment in his eyes every moment of every day. It's not my fault that I need time to cope. You don't just get back to normal after an event like that. I won't get out of bed until his pillow no longer smells like him. Three days before graduation; James decides it's a good idea to poison himself. We were going to get married, and work for rival tech firms. I can't tell my parents that though, I've already lost him, I can't bare the thought of losing my parents when they realize I was going to marry a man. The door opened, but this time it was my mother. She was carrying a package, and placed it on my bed before sitting next to me.
"This came for you yesterday, your father wanted to hold onto it until you came out of bed, but I think you deserve it now" she said, as she pat me on the head.
"I haven't ordered anything. Please let me go back to bed." I started, but realized their patience must be wearing thin by now, "I promise, first thing Monday I'll start looking for a job."
"Honey, your roommate shot himself in your dorm, right in front of you. I don't blame you for needing time to sort it out."
She scooted closer to me, and whispered; "But this package is from James. It might have the answers you need"
She then got up, turned my lights on, and walked out of my room. She left the package, and a knife to open it, on my bed. After an hour I finally mustered the courage to open the package, but I wasn't expecting this; a laptop with no hard drive, an SD card, and a USB stick with a button, and a note. The note only read "Do not use the SD card or the ubikey on anything except for this laptop. I love you, and I'm sorry. " It's a safe guess that the SD card was acting as the laptop's hard drive.
When I booted the computer up, the drive was encrypted. My first instinct was to use the ubikey, but the password wasn't right. Over the next several days, I tried every password I knew he used, and everything I could guess. My parents even stopped bothering me, because they saw this as progress away from laying in bed all day. James and I kept all of our assignments since freshman year, and I was able to keep his notes and journal from our dorm room. So I spent an entire weekend looking through them for hints, when I came across a note from a class on cryptography. James mentioned his thoughts on secure passwords, and notes that he'd use the device's serial number as a password, with a phrase added on the end.
The laptop's serial number was still readable, but the phrase would be unknown. I modified a password dictionary to have the serial number in front of every option, and ran it on the computer. I knew this would take a few days, so I started looking for jobs. Something to show my parents that I'm trying.
It was a Friday evening now, about a month after I received the package, and I had just gotten home from an interview, when I saw my Dad in the living room. "Is everything OK, dad?" I asked, "I know I've been a burden these past three months, but I'm looking for a job now. I have a call back on Tuesday."
He then threw a crumbled up note at me, "Nothing is OK. Why do you have a note from James saying he loves you? Your mother is devastated!"
At first, I was heart broken, I wanted to tell my father in another way, give him time to adjust, but before I could respond to him, it clicked.
"I'm sorry Dad, but I have to go!" I exclaimed joyously, as I took the note, and ran to my room to get the laptop.
I could hear him yelling as I entered my room, screaming that I was disowned, that I was kicked out.James and I had been preparing for years, and we had a disowning fund available. It looks like I break into the fund tonight. I packed light, only taking clothing, the laptop, ubikey, and SD card.
I found a cheap motel to stay in that night. Somewhere that I could be alone with the laptop. I put the SD card into the computer, booted it up, entered the serial number, and then the phrase "Do not use the SD card or the ubikey on anything except for this laptop. I love you, and I'm sorry.". When I hit enter the drive decrypted. When the drive decrypted, I saw the login prompt, it prompted me for a user password, and I entered the ubikey, and pressed it's button. The computer unlocked, and I finally had access to his computer.
There were three icons, a folder labeled "Project Ghostry", and a video file named "Watch this first" and a directory named "Setup". I started the video "Watch this first", and James appeared before me.
"Allan, by the time you watch this, I'll be dead. It may have been a mugging gone wrong, or a car wreck, but please know that it wasn't an accident. I was murdered. The 'owner' of this laptop is the anonymous hacker Pulvada, and I am Pulvada. Well, I was. I want you to be him now. Please continue my work. When the CIA needs to do things outside of its scope, they sometimes hire contractors. In some cases, they need to hire someone that can be blamed in case of a screwup. This is what happened here.
During my last assignment, the CIA decided they wanted to know who I was, and left a trap for me. They embedded software into the assignment documents that phoned home at another time, revealing my location. This information was then leaked to the Russians. I do not know how, all I know is that I'm going to die.
I created you a false identity in our freshman year of school, you won't have a degree with this new identity, but you'll be able to survive. Instructions on getting your new identity, and accessing my swiss bank account are in the directory 'Setup'.
Please go through all of Project Ghostry, once you do you'll see why it was important enough to risk my life, and yours. Hopefully you'll see why it's important enough to continue my work.
I love you Allan, and if I find a way out of this, a way to not be dead when you get this message, I'll find a way of getting in touch with you."
The video had ended, and I knew then, even before reading the files on Project Ghostry, that I needed to continue his work. Ignoring everything else, it was important because it was his life. I also knew I had to continue his work, because there is now a glimmer of hope that he isn't dead, and that we can find each other using this persona, the anonymous contractor for the CIA.