Below are the first few paragraphs. It is very rough, but a good start.
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There I was sitting in jail on a Sunday morning, waiting for the Feds to arrive and take me back to the states. I hated the states because they were full of people who would do anything to get ahead even if it meant taking everything from some one they called a friend. Yea, I admit that I would do something like that now, but it wasn’t always like that. I knew that they were going to arrest me as soon as I saw the news reports. I didn’t try to hide or run, instead I spent the last three days making sure I was easy to spot. A different man wouldn’t have. A different man would have stopped this this before it got started. A different man might have even survived.
Flashback
I had the luck or misfortune to work for a global technology firm called Hamacu. It was run by the father of my best friend, Jake Sutler. Jake and I had met in public school, after he refused to go to any private establishment. In those days he was rich, but tried to be down to earth. It was his way of rebelling against his father. On the other hand I was the social outcast. Part geek, part nerd and all too trusting. I got picked on, made fun of, and generally tormented day after day. I became wise enough to do other kids homework to keep them at bay, but foolish enough to trust that it really made a difference. Jake was a part of the clique even before he had attended his first class. Once the other kids met him, it was almost immediately a natural match. The only reason he even talked to me on the first day, was because I was the only person in computer class that didn’t have a partner.
I didn’t need a partner, but the teacher thought that Jake did. I was as close to being the actual teacher as you could get in those days. Spending my time working in the lab, made it that much easier to stay off of everyone’s radar. Programming came easily to me, and I was far ahead in the lessons. The teacher had even obtained some college level assignments to keep me busy. Jake didn’t have the aptitude for it although he tried more than the others. He actually asked for help, instead of just asking me to do it. That is why I probably considered him a friend.
That was the way it was for the next few years, I helped, and Jake passed. I got a scholarship to Brown university and Jake paid his own way. We ended up being roommates due to our similar last names. Jake was friends with everyone, and by association so was I. You could say that I stepped out of my shell after high school. I started going to parties, and participating in the world. Jakes father made sure that we had things easy around campus. He donated money to build a few buildings, and supplied his son with an allowance and weekly supplies to keep the need for us to work at zero. I still worked part time as an intern at the computer science building, since it was something I enjoyed. I even got to go on a few vacations with his family and was treated very well. It was only natural that after graduation when Jakes father asked us to come and work for his company that we said yes.
That was eight years ago, and now here I was sitting in handcuffs. About twenty hours after I had been “detained,” the federal agents arrived. I was processed and turned over to their custody without a care. “You are hereby charged with computer fraud, malicious cyber warfare, and class three computer terrorism” agent Jereau told me. She read me my rights, or lack thereof, and escorted me to the plane and her waiting partners. They tried to question me and bully me with words like federal prison and life sentence, but I never said a word on the plane. They kept me awake, another tactic, I guess, but something inside of me wouldn’t break. We arrived back in Chicago, and were greeted by scores of media and angry people. I had seen similar debacles on television. Some mass murderer or corrupt politician, being guided through masses of people in part to tell the public that the person had been caught and in part to show the person, those they had hurt with their crimes. However, I was still unsure of exactly what I had supposedly done.
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Part 2 coming soon.