Page 32 of Control

“We should all be very fucking worried,” Cris added, her hands on her knees as she sat. “Well, not Giff. Everyone knows who you are in the real world.” Giff nodded to her, but I could tell he was still concerned for the rest of us.

“Shit,” Mustafa said walking his way over to the door as if he were leaving. “These fuckin’ marks wanna roll over to my hood, they better be prepared to catch a few. No cap!” Mustafa stopped himself and looked back at us. He could tell we were all feeling the stress of what could potentially happen.

“Jazz,” I said, my voice still strangely calm all things considered. “How good is the encryption on the data?”

“Quite strong,” he said. “An average hacker would have no chance against it. The problem is hackers are often found in bunches. They all like to talk to one another. There’s a chance that one of them has something in their bag of tricks that can bypass the security measures. Nothing is truly uncrackable. Given enough time and the right tools, a group of hackers large enough could break the encryption and then all the data would be in their hands.”

“How long would something like that take?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” Jazz offered back. “But each minute that goes by means they are one minute closer to cracking it and then who knows what they’ll do with that information. We do know, however, that there is a ransom.”

“Ransom?” I asked.

“It’s normal,” Caster chimed in. “Whenever these hacking groups get a hold of extremely sensitive information, they often approach the entity they got it from and demand a certain dollar amount for either return or promised destruction of the stolen data. The problem is even if the company pays that amount there really is no way of knowing if they actually destroyed it. They could simply take the money and then release it anyway.”

“That’s why we have not paid their asking price,” Jazz said. “Even if we pay, there is simply no guarantee that the data will be properly recovered and secured. That’s the classic problem with digital data.”

“You can just keep making copies of it,” I said to no one in particular.

“And at this point,” Caster said, “Those encrypted files have probably been copied hundreds of times.”

“We’re releasing a statement now,” Jazz said. All of us turned our eyes back to him but only I realized what I felt was obvious.

“What?” I said, stepping past Caster and closer to Jazz. “Right now? It’s the middle of night! Why on Earth would you release a statement now?”

“Money,” Caster said. “When corporations have awful news they need to release, especially when it comes to things like personal data leaks and hacks, they tend to release those statements at odd hours. It used to be about dodging news cycles, but that’s not really a thing now. Maybe they want people to wake up and then immediately be worried about their private information being compromised. All I know is there’s a reason they’re releasing it at night beyond the fact that this is generally their busiest time for players in the western part of the world where most of the player base is from.”

Just then a game wide alert went out which lit up our HUDs, letting us know there was an major news announcement to be made. Cris pushed her video feed to a large empty wall in the room and we all stood there and watched. The video was a simple message that was typed out on the screen along with a voice reading it. A majority of it was standard boilerplate corporate speak that one would get if a company they did business with somehow lost their personal data. The admittance that the hack happened 3 weeks ago shocked all 5 of us. Audible gasps could be heard in the hallways outside the conference room we were in as people learned that their personal data and in some cases their safety was in serious jeopardy.

“3 Weeks!” Cris said as she stood up from her seated position on the floor. “You knew about this Jazz and said nothing for 3 god damn weeks?”

“Cris,” Jazz said in a somber tone. “I apologize, but I was under strict instructions not to speak about this until the statement release was set in stone. I had to secure special permission to even speak with all of you about this, sighting your higher social ranking and the potential real life ramifications this could cause.”

“Like that did us any good,” Mustafa barked at Jazz. “Thanks for the 30 minute head start!” His sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on any of us.

"I do wish things could have been handled better,” Jazz said to all of us. I could tell he was just as frustrated with the entire situation as we were. “All I can ask is that you all do what you can to stay safe and if possible, use your influence to try and calm the player base because many of them will begin to worry over this.”

“As they should,” I said. I walked over to the chair Caster was standing near previously and sat down in it. I leaned back and looked up to the ceiling. Caster and Cris began to lay into Jazz.

“Good work Jazz,” Caster said in a condescending tone. “You’ve done a real bang up job keeping all of us safe.”

“All of us should sue your ass!” Cris stated. “It’s your fault our safety is at risk now!”

“Stop,” I said in a surprisingly calm but firm voice. I looked back down from the ceiling and saw that all four of them had turned to me. “Guys, don’t. Jazz isn’t our enemy. He’s just the messenger. He doesn’t own the company that let our data be stolen and he’s not the boss. He’s just a GM that was given the unenviable task of telling us.” Everyone stopped for a moment and considered my words. I looked down to my lap where my hands were resting, balling them into fists and releasing them over and over, occasionally leaving them open so I could stare at the lines in my palms.

“You’re right,” Caster said as he walked over to the wall where the message was being projected and leaned his back against it. Just then a flurry of messages began to appear in my inbox, lighting my HUD up like a Christmas tree, many of them marked as urgent.

“Here they come,” I said, knowing people would start trying to contact myself and the others. There was no doubt that we carried a massive amount clout in the eyes of the player base. The others also started to receive messages from people on and off their friends list. Many of the messages asked what they should do or if they should stop playing completely and maybe even delete their accounts.

“What are we going to tell all these people?” Giff asked, the concern on his face growing by the moment.

“Everyone’s freaking out,” Mustafa said. “Shit’s hit the fan.”

“That boilerplate bullshit of a message didn’t do anything but cause panic,” said Caster. “All the developer is doing is basically saying ‘yeah, we’re so sorry! Good luck!’ I should have known better than to put my trust in all this.”

“Someone has to say something,” Cris added. “People need reassurance. They’re panicking. Unless you want a full on riot, Jazz, you’ve gotta say something!”

“I can’t,” Jazz said back to Cris. “My hands are tied. If I speak out, I’ll just be fired and removed from the game completely.” All of them began to loudly chatter back and forth between themselves and Jazz as they tried to figure out the best way to approach this rather than trying to answer the mountainous number of messages we were each receiving.

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