Chapter One: The Office
My memories with my parents as a small child began in a restaurant. I remember my dad telling my mom that he had heard great things about the food at this place and how happy my mother was to check it out. Family time was always important. I felt like I was the center of their world as their love for me was evident in the time they spent with me and the way they made me feel. “Table for 3 please” my dad said as we stood in front of the server who greeted us with a big smile saying, “and would you like a kid’s menu for this handsome boy here?”. My dad smiles back “Yes please and some crayons as well, my boy is quite the artist.” I always enjoyed coloring the pages at the restaurant and seeing my mother’s look on my face as if I was some kind of Picasso. She’d have this huge smile on her face and show the waitress my artwork with so much enthusiasm I was convinced my art was the best. Of course, when you grow up and see it’s chicken scratch, you realize that it’s love that causes that kind of response.
As we were sitting at the table, my mom gave a smile at my dad saying, “the people here seem so nice and I love the décor; very classy place dear.” I look up at my mom and tell her, “I gotta go pee.” My mom smiles at me and says, “Ok Simon, let’s go now, quickly before the waiter comes.” My mother motions for my dad to order the food for us and he winks at me to “hurry up son, I’m a hungry man.”
As my mother and I head to the bathroom I see a man entering the restaurant wearing a large bulky coat and a withered cap on his head. He has ripped jeans and work boots and a depressed look on his face. No one pays much attention to the man but something inside me tells me things aren’t right.
My mother and I enter the door on the left and I sit on the toilet to go pee. My mom then takes me to the sink and lifts me up as I am too short to reach, and we begin to wash my hands. Once we are done, we grab paper towels to dry my hands and that’s when I hear a bang. My mother looks at me with a confused look on her face wondering what is going on. She puts me down and peaks out the bathroom door to see what is going on. I try and peek as well and can see the man that we passed by in the restaurant is shooting people inside. My mother quietly but quickly shuts the door and fear grips me as she picks me up and brings me to the bathroom stall having me sit on the top part of the toilet tank telling me to be very quiet. She then props herself up on top of the toilet seat, so no one can see her feet. Both my mother and I are looking through the crack of the bathroom door and I am crying quietly. My mom turns and looks at me whispering “it’s ok baby, we have to be very quiet, trust mommy.” We can hear screams and cries coming from dozens of people in the main area. I look at my mom who reaches back to hug my head and kisses my cheek softly telling me, “I love you, it’s going to be ok baby.”
We continue to hear the loud bangs of the gun, but they keep getting louder almost like it’s progressively increasing and getting closer to where we are. Another bang happens but this one was different, this was the bang of the bathroom door slamming open. My father rushes in and when my mother sees him she grabs me and runs to my father who hugs us all. The door opens again but this time the gunman puts the gun to my father’s head. My mother cried, and my father looked at me and my mom saying, “I love you” with tears in his eyes.” I could hear my mother scream “No”! But then, another bang and the blood splattered across my mother’s face as she drops to the ground crying and begging for mercy. “please, spare my boy, please don’t do this, please” but before she could finish he pulled the trigger and in an instant my mother was gone with her eyes still open looking at me as her limp body drops to the ground.
Things were happening so fast around me it was as if I was out of my body watching everything unfold. There was silence and this man then gets down on his knees and grabs my hands. I begin to cry but there was no time to process, no time to think of a plan of escape, this man takes both my hands and wraps the gun around my six-year-old fingers and forces my hands to pull the trigger. Why he used me to kill himself is something I will never understand but the shooter who changed my life forever is dead, it had been his wish all along to take others down with him on his suicidal rampage. In that moment, that coward not only took his own life but, in a sense, he took mine too because although I was still alive, I was very much numb and dead inside. He may have spared my life, but he scarred me forever.
I often wonder what life would be like if that day never occurred. Many dreams haunt me over that day, and the memories of my parents and the love they had for me fills me with sadness and anger if I think about it too long. What would my life have become if my parents were still here and if I never faced the hardships I have through my life. However, this is where things get interesting because as I piece things together, it becomes clearer to me that some events take place for a reason.
For me, things that have happened in my life often seem to have no point to them, such as losing my parents the way I did but for other people, they may believe there are reasons for suffering. Perhaps you may have heard of the theory of multiple universes? if not, then here is a little description, there are multiple universes, and in those universes, there are different versions of you. Some versions of you might be very similar, while other versions of you can have many differences. For example, you might have different clothing styles or prefer different types of music while another version of you could be dead in one universe and a world leader in another. Sounds crazy I know, but either way, there are an infinite number of universes in this theory, and each one may have the same scenario going on but with a different outcome or slight differences.
I mean the thought of having multiple universes with multiple versions of yourself is quite fascinating. Think of the endless amount of possibilities there are. I could be a king in one of them, or perhaps in another I could have discovered time travel. Maybe another version of me actually inhabited mars. What if there is a universe that actually achieved world peace or discovered the cure for cancer. Maybe in another world my parents are still alive. The possibilities are endless but why is it that I was born in this universe which has brought so much pain and suffering to me and so many others. Honestly, when I look up at the sky I see endless artwork that is longing to be looked at but all I see before me is pain and constant reminders of the day when I was 6 years old and my parents got killed.
I don’t want to get too sidetracked here so let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Simon Tickner and I was born in Union City, New Jersey, on January 22, 2001. The city I lived in was one of the most densely populated areas in New Jersey. Clearly it was a pretty packed area and traffic was always a problem. Trying to get from point A to point B, was like trying to buy a house. A simple 10-minute drive would turn to an hour in no time. The streets were always crowded so you were constantly bumping into someone.
Growing up I never was able to get close to anyone except for my best friend Colin. Once my parents were killed I was placed in an orphanage and about a month later, Colin arrived. Colin was scared and spent a lot of time alone on his bed. I knew how he felt. I remember how scary it was when I arrived and the demons that I was battling in my mind from all that I had seen. I had wondered what Colin’s story was. One of the staff members introduced us and from that point on we became best friends.
So here I am now sixteen years later, and I am still living in Union City except now I’m a 22-year-old college graduate, class of 2023 working as a member of cyber security division in a business that is pretty low key. For me, life is pretty predictable. Maybe I want it that way because I never want to endure what happened before. I wake up every day, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, wash my face, go to my room, get dressed, go downstairs, make some coffee, walk to work, stop on the way to work to pick up a bagel or some type of breakfast to hold me over till lunch, then continue to work, check in at work, proceed to walk over to my desk, sit down at my computer and stare at my computer, like I’m waiting for something to happen. Nothing happens ever because that is how I designed my software to be, unbreakable. Did I mention that I am the head of cyber security crew for my company? So, I watch the computer and see how many hacks attempt to break in. It sounds boring, but I learn more on how to keep my firewall hack proof by staring at my computer and analyzing what it does.
I’ve been coding and hacking systems since I was first introduced to computers as a kid. In the orphanage, we had a computer room and Colin and I spent hours in there learning about the internet, coding, and software. You name it, we wanted to understand it all. Total geeks and its paid off. Colin is good at hacking, but not as good as me. I asked him to try and hack the company to see if he was able to do it and he couldn’t. Once I realized that Colin couldn’t do it, I knew I had mastered this and I also mastered job security.
The company I work for has some interesting people. We are all techy people dealing with computer stuff. Jeff is our go to guy for basic computer issues. He is one of those people that is always smiling no matter what. I think if you were to walk up to him and stab him in the chest, he would just stare you in the eyes with a huge smile and say, “thank you,” It’s really insane how much he smiles.
Then there’s Robert, he usually minds his own business but occasionally he comes out of his shell and socializes. Robert never causes any problems in the workplace either as he hates to be the center of attention. This is good because we never hear any complaining coming from him.
And then there’s this new guy, Steven. He took over after the previous worker just up and left without a trace. He was here one day, then gone the next. No one knows what happened to him. Steven is a pretty suspicious person. You never know what he’s thinking and something about him makes me feel uneasy. I’ve never seen him outside of work, he doesn’t talk to any of the other people in our division, unless he absolutely has to. He just sits at his desk and does some computer work but other times I have caught him staring blankly as if he’s checked out. This might sound strange, but I wonder if he’s actually a robot that the government has sent to observe its citizens. I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I mean no one knows what the government is doing behind closed doors. They could be making drones that will one day replace the human touch on our commercial products and if that happens then drones will take over our jobs and we would all be at the mercy of others.
No one is safe when the government runs things without accountability. CEO’s may think they are safe because they have climbed the corporate ladder of success and made it all the way to the top to earn the CEO title, but they too can easily be replaced with a computer because just as the CEO tells the workers what to do, a computer can do the same thing. With drones it can all be self-run. This is a pretty scary thought.
Then there’s my boss, he is the CEO of this company. I made him rich from my cyber security. He thinks he is in charge but in reality, I am the one who is aware of all that is going on in the company; he has no clue how to do any of the things that we are doing. He doesn’t even know what we’re talking about half the time. I mean every time we talk to him, or around him about the job we are doing or what has to happen, he just nods, smiles, and says “Great Job guys, just keep on doing what you’re doing” or something along those lines.
First day I came in here for work he gave me a set of rules, he said “don’t do anything malicious to hurt or hinder the company, and just defend and secure our company from anyone who’s trying to do the thing I just told you not to do”. He didn’t have any specifics or anything just two rules that he probably told every other person he hired. I do have to admit that my resume spoke for itself because I had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was the man for the job, but my boss is not invested in this company, he is only interested in looking like he cares and getting a hefty check for it.
For the most part, my co-workers are pretty laid back, they all have their own personalities but because the security here from the program I created works very well, most of the time we try and look busy and joke with each other. So, as I sit here today looking at my computer thinking about all those around me going through the same routine over and over again, I find myself jolted a bit for the first time in a long time because today, we actually had an attempted hack. My co-worker April who was sitting at her computer noticed that her computer just randomly shut off. Now normally that wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for when we turned it back on, someone was trying to transfer files over to her computer. She looked over at me and I quickly sprang into action and stopped the file transfers from happening and secured our system, but this was unsettling because it was the first time this ever happened. Now I was on high alert.
What was even stranger is that the person who tried to hack us didn’t even try and hide that they were attempting to hack us. The hack was so easy to stop that I was concerned it might be some kind of diversion. It was too easy. Others in my company felt safer once I got things under control, but I wanted to avoid scaring everyone, so I kept my thoughts to myself. I felt that something bigger was happening. I believe the person who was hacking us was just trying to test their skills for something bigger. I had my speculations, so I decided to find out for myself what is happening. The hacker did leave a little trail, as hackers usually do, and I found out through my own internet research that the hacker, goes by the name of Delta.
He was very suspicious, even his name was dubious. Delta, the definition is literally a code word used for radio communication. Clearly, he is no small-time hacker because he was able to reach as far as he did with my software. So now I had to do more digging into Delta and what his intentions are.
After that incident, many people were a little riled up, and I must admit I was nervous too because but also intrigued as it’s been a long time before we had any kind of action at our company. My boss pulled me into his office and asked me if I could prepare a speech for tomorrow, just to settle the workers and show them that everything is ok. I thought he should be the one to do the speech since he’s the CEO, but this again confirms that he is just in this for a paycheck. So, I headed back to my desk to prepare something. At first, I was a little worried, I mean, I’ve never been asked to give a speech before. So, my mind was full of thoughts on how the situation would go down. For about 30 minutes I was just thinking of what to say but my thoughts were also consumed wondering how Delta broke through my firewall. I slowly started typing out what I was going to say and by the end of the work day, I was finished, and I gathered all my things and headed for home.
