The next day George followed Huliyana, Tibareth, and Esma to their secret place. George had to duck down under a couple of beams to avoid hitting his head as the others walked normally. George was escorted through a hall into a narrow room.
Huliyana put up her hand, signaling for George to stop in place while Tibareth and Esam walked in front of Huliyana standing on either side, former a triangle before turning around to face George.
The candle light lighting the room seemed to glare of of walls. The walls of the room seemed to be breathing. When George let his gaze relax, he saw what he perceived as smoke oozing out from the wall's cracks as if the air was a green, weightless mass in the void of space.
Huliyana, Tibareth, and Esam turned to face George, their eyes darting with excitement.
"This is your test," stated Huliyana. "Should you escape the room, your reward will be on the other side of that door." Tibareth's and Esam's boney arm's raised with fingers pointed at the door with a "7" hanging on a nail was. "Should you fail to escape," Huliyana said as her eyes perked with even more excitement, "you will give us the zero hour for free."
Each of them then turned on their heals and left George alone in the room. George felt a bead of sweat perculate on his forhead; he felt the breeze against his sweaty palms as they gentle swung back and forth. His career was either ending tonight or just beginning.
"Probably, the apprentice himself did away with Malcolm for his own selfish reasons."
George turned to see where the noise was coming from. What he saw was a clock that read "5:00" and then it started to count down. Five minutes was all that he had.
"The FBI was working with the NSA with an un-crackable code written down on rice paper. Field agents became sick from the pen's ink after chewing and ingesting the notes they wish to get rid of."
George started scanning the room. A radio. A wall Thermometer. The "7" on the door. "What was the first part of the voice message," he asked himself. Something about Malcolm and selfish reasons.
"What more to the room was there?" He could feel the room trying to squeeze him, make him give into the pressure, make him give up when he's outside of his comfort zone. Computers were his things. Not this strange room with puzzles that didn't require a computer and an internet connection.
"Three minutes remaining," stated the clock.
George forced himself to focus. He scanned the room again. "No," he thought. "It has to be the clock. Hack into the clock." As he battled the other thoughts back that wish to control his mind, he forced himself to reach out and grab the clock with his hands. The clock was light; it was made of wood; it had a port! He found his way to hack something.
George pulled out the hacking tool needed for the job and plugged himself into the clock.
Out of a holographic port popped out the message, "a screeching cat outside the window." George turned and looked over his right shoulder. It was a knee jerk reaction to a bad memory. George's new friends knew how to fuck with him.
"One minute remaining!" exclaimed the clock.
George took a deep breath as a new hologram image flashed. It asked for the login name and user password. George executed a bug into the system that made it start running through login names and what the password may be. If he has to crack this on his own, it could take hours. But, no hacker leaves his home without the proper tools.
"Failed!" A red button flashed. "Thirty seconds left."
George continued to left his device do the work. It always came through. He just need to tweak the system in the correct way. Where was the backdoor in?
"Twenty seconds."
Almost there.
"Ten seconds."
George paused. "No. It can't be that simple." He pulled out a small keyboard and typed the login name, TheRealDonaldJTrump, and the password, MakeMyBankAccountGreatAgain, and pressed enter just as the clock struck one second and stopped.
The room lit up with lights shining down from the ceiling. In walk Huliyana, tibareth, and Esam, each with a shit eating grin on their faces.
"What gave that away," asked Esam?
"You bipassed all of our red herrings." Tibareth scratched his head, defeated.
George smiled back. "A good hacker never tells be he does take note of what others do."
