Vol 2 Arsee’s short stories 7 Golden Opportunity

Since the early age of seven there were just two things that Sam was very fond of, one, hamburgers and two, computers. By the time Sam was nine he could break the code of all the school computers and rewrite most of the exam papers, much to the joy of his friends. And by the time he was eleven Sam broke into the National Bank server making his own gateway, though he had to quickly scramble out before all hell broke loose.

As Sam grew up he came to realize that hacking was not really a good job, if you really wanted to be on the honest side of the fence. Sam had an idea. He wanted to float his own Internet Security agency but the idea collapsed even before it started. No one was really interested in paying for Internet Security; no one really took the dangers of the Internet world seriously. Well it was what it was!

His Father had a friend who had a friend that owned a stock broking firm. Sam managed to get a day job at the firm. All he had to do was punch away at numbers and take calls all day. There was one advantage, a Hamburger joint close down the street, he could eat as many as his heart desired.
The owner of the firm, Ghanshayam Shah, insisted on calling Sam by his given name, Shyamsunder. Not that it terribly bothered Sam but it was just the way he called his name. He added a sarcastic lilt to it and stretched the yam of the Shyam a fair amount. It made all the other employees at the terminals laugh out loud. Sam would just grin and just bear it politely . Amongst Ghanshyam Shah’s peculiar habits there was one he had of sending his investors text messages of “golden opportunities” that they might want to invest in.

It was on a rainy Monday morning when one such “golden opportunity” misfired completely. Ghanshyam was besides himself with rage. His investors had been pulling out all day and all his begging and pleading had helped very little.

Now, on the other side of the room Sam was munching away at his hamburger and punching away on the numbers. From the un-scrubbed glass of his cabin Ghanshyam watched this sight with growing anger. Imagine relishing a burger while he was losing investors that he had worked a lifetime to gather around! Insensitive to the core! He marched up to Sam and grabbing the burger from his hand threw it out of the window.
There was a collective gasp from the office and a stunned Sam. “It is because of lazy bastards like you that I have to see a day like today! Eat all day while I lose my money! Get the fuck out of my office! Now!”

Sam had no idea what had happened. What had he done to deserve such humiliation and have his burger thrown out of the window? Everyone in the office could see tears of humiliation in Sam’s eyes. He picked his bag up slowly and walked out of the office.

“It must be your fault! I am sure you did something that you are not owning up to now, I am going to call Ghanshyam in the morning and apologize on your behalf,” his father bemoaned. Sam’s cries of innocence were lost in the melee of accusations.

That night Sam went to his room and cried himself to sleep. He could not get the image of Ghanshyam Shah grabbing his burger and throwing it out of the window off his mind.

Sam woke up to the sound of his Father pleading on the phone with Ghanshyam, he felt his heart being crushed under the weight of his Father’s disgrace. It was in the way that his Father hung up the phone that he knew that Ghanshyam did not want him back… But he, he would have to get back at Ghanshyam. There had to be jusitice!

Now, all he needed was a laptop and a Wi-Fi.

Sam had saved enough money to buy a second hand laptop, it was just for a day’ in any case, then a coffee shop with a free Wi-Fi area. It took Sam less than five minutes to get into the computer network of Ghanshyam’s Stock broking agency. Creating red herrings and using the agency’s IP address Sam hacked into the websites of The Press Service of India and The Indian News Network, the premier news agencies, and posted a bit of a breaking news, he posted, “Attack on PM’s motorcade, PM could be gravely injured, two bodyguards dead!”
He then threw the laptop in the garbage can down the road and walked away

By the time the agencies could correct the breaking news, report the hack and send out an explanation the Stock market had lost its bearings. In the fifteen minutes that the mayhem lasted investors panicked and went on a selling spree. In an hour when the dust had settled investors had lost more than a 100 million rupees. Sam, he bought himself a burger.

Fifteen days later the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister looked at the report of what had happened. Someone had played a prank from Ghanshyam Shah’s office, a stockbrokers office. Ghanshyam was behind bars and all his employees were being questioned but they really could not pin the blame on any one person. The Owner, however had been ordered to close the firm down and he was facing some really serious charges that could have him in prison for the rest of his life.

The National Security Advisor smiled and shook his head, “It’s not that Idiot behind the bars or any one working there, let them go, this is a work of a genius.”
The Sleuth in front of him nodded.
“Did you not tell me about a disgruntled employee who had his burger thrown out?” asked the Security Advisor.
“I did Sir,” responded the sleuth.
“Find him!”
“But what can we charge him with?” probed the sleuth.
“We don’t want to charge him, we want to hire him for National Security!”

-Arsee.