neural.coder 0x05

Part 5 : Celebrations

Missed the beginning, see the first chapter.

“I did not know the pub opened this early?” Andy said.
    Geoff laughed, “Well thankfully I knew, the advantage of being an alcoholic over a workaholic. Now drink up I’m three pints ahead you lightweight!”
    Andy looked at their table, where there were four empties and two full pints of lager. 
    Geoff picked up his pint and swiftly finished it in one, plonking his glass on the table, and taking a deep breath before being able to speak, “This is bloody amazing, we don’t need to ever work again. We can just use this app, that I appear to have written in my sleep, to make as much money as we want.”
    “An hour ago you were worried you’d been hacked, now you’re claiming you wrote all this wonder code in your sleep? You didn’t even stop to examine the source code for that balance app before going ahead and risking launching it, let alone using it.” said Andy.
    “It all seems to have worked okay doesn’t it?” Geoff gestured at the pile of ten and twenty pound notes scattered amongst the empty pint glasses. He picked up a twenty and waved it at the landlord who was cleaning tables nearby, “Another four pints of your finest lager please Jim.”
    The landlord took the note and headed for the bar.
    “Oh sod it!” said Andy. “There’s not much to feel great about recently,’ he turned and shouted after the departing landlord, “Make that eight lagers please!”
    “And two double whiskeys!” added Geoff, holding up another twenty pound note for the landlord.
    Andy laughed and started on his pint, “I still do not believe it worked.”
    “I'm afraid it did my good friend!” Geoff had a habit of pretending to be more eloquent the more drunk he got, “So what shall we do with our bottomless pit of never-ending cash?”
    “It’s five hundred quid, Geoff. It’s not like we’ve won the lottery.”
    “But we can just add more if we use this wonderful invention of mine.” Geoff held up his phone, showing his bank balance five hundred pounds lighter than it was.
    “How much do you think you can add?” said Andy, “And where’s it coming from?”
    “Dunno, it appears to just edit the balance directly somehow.”
    “Is that not supposed to be impossible?”
    “Evidently not!” Geoff laughed, “Anyway, what shall we buy next?”
    “After we’ve drained the pub of beer you mean?”
    “Yeh. What shall we do with our hard earned cash?”
    “Hard earned?” Andy snorted and thought for a moment, “Could we buy a car? I’m sick of getting the bus.”
    “We could buy anything! A new flat, a house even, a helicopter! Think bigger Andy, think bigger!”
    “Seriously? So I can just give up work?”
    “You’re getting it.”
    “This is mental.”
    “Yup. Free cash for ever, drink up we should go shopping. Let’s add some more to the balance,” Geoff said.
    “Are you sure we should?”
    “Well we can’t have broken the law if there’s no transaction to show where it came from? The people we buy things off will get payed just fine.”
    “But who’s paying.”
    “The bank, but they just move electronic numbers around, it’s not real money, so it’s not their’s anyway. They lend out more to borrowers than savers have saved, just by tapping numbers into a computer.”
    “Someone must notice it somewhere? Aren’t there automated alerts for this kind of thing?”
    “It’ll be fine.’ Geoff shrugged, “Come on let’s bump up the balance seriously this time.’ As he reached for his phone it vibrated, shifting among the sea of twenties with each staccato pulse. Geoff casually picked up his phone and swiped it open.

    > 0700 000 000 - 2027-06-10:11:05:13 - Don’t do that again, you will get caught.
    
Geoff dropped the phone, clattering onto the table. His face drained of all colour, “Fuck!”
    “What is it?” said Andy.
    “Someone knows, they're looking for us, and threatening to catch us.”
    “Shit!” Andy picked up the phone and read the message, he paused, “Someone definitely knows. Did you tell anyone else? Could it be a prank?”
    “I’ve told no-one except you. I searched the web a bit for similar things, I might have triggered some bot watching for keywords?”
    “I doubt there’s keywords for this!” said Andy. He read the message again, “It says, ‘will get caught’ not ‘we are going to catch you’, it reads more like a friendly warning than a threat.”
    “Maybe it’s just the good cop!” Geoff gave an unconvincing laugh.
    Andy smiled, “It’s not really a laughing matter, Geoff.”
    “Well what the fuck should I do?” 
    Andy said, “Never use it again maybe?”
    “But what about the money?”
    “Forget about it.”
    “One more time won’t hurt, just a little more cash?”
    The phone vibrated again, indicating another text message. They both flinched away from the table.
    “Fuck.” Geoff muttered.
    “Well read it then, or I will.” said Andy, grabbing the phone and swiping down to the next message. He read it in seconds, and laughed, “I like this person, whoever it is.” He span the phone to face Geoff and slid it across the table for him to read.

    > 0700 000 000 - 2027-06-10:11:45:02 - I said don’t do it again. Listen to your wise friend. You might have got away with it the first time if you’re lucky. Any more will get you in trouble. Never tweak financials.
    
“Shit!” Geoff flipped the phone over, removed the back cover and ripped out the battery. He plucked the SIM card out and attempted to snap it in half. When it proved too hard in his state of panic, he simply dropped it in his pint of beer. 
    “We should get outta here.” Geoff said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “It’s quite obvious whoever that was, friend or foe, was listening to us.”
    “What next then?”
    “Let’s go delete the code, and pretend this never happened.”
    “Here’s your beer and whiskey’s lads.” the Landlord said, as he placed a tray of drinks on the table.
    Andy stood up, while Geoff gathered the notes together, “We’ll be back in a bit Jim,” Andy said, “Hold our table for us.”
    Geoff grabbed his whiskey, lifted it to his lips and drank it down in one. “I needed that! Right let’s go.” he dropped the empty glass back on the tray, “Sod it!” he said, as he picked up Andy’s whiskey and sank that down as well as he pivoted and headed for the door.

Geoff slammed the steel reinforced front door behind him, and sprinted up the stairs on the heels of Andy. “Right where’s that laptop we need to delete everything.”
    “It’s where you left it on the table.” said Andy.
    “Let’s do it then.”
    Andy pursed his lips, deep in thought for a moment, “Would it make sense to reverse the five hundred pound addition before deleting the app?”
    “The text message warned us not to use it again!”
    “But if there’s no transaction, and no trace except the change to the balance then, won’t it be better just to undo it?”
    Geoff sat down and opened the laptop, tapping away on the keyboard in silence for a minute or two, while Andy muddled around in the flat’s kitchen area, preparing coffee.
    “Here, this might help with sobering up.” said Andy as he placed a mug of coffee next to Geoff’s laptop.
    “Frankly I’d rather be drunk right now,” Geoff said, “I can pretend none of this is happening.”
    “Well you wanted something to do with your life,” Andy grinned, “Running from the bad guys gives you something to do.”
    Geoff shook his head and turned back the screen, fingers flicking over the keyboard only pausing to take sips of coffee. Andy watched on, tapping his foot and looking around, lost for anything useful to do.
    “So I’ve found all the code for this balance app. It was all apparently written by me last night. According to these file dates. I’m going to delete it all and triple erase the files so they can’t be recovered,’ he looked up at Andy, “Are you ready?”
    “Sure, if you think it’s the best thing.”
    Geoff type out a short line of commands and hovered his finger over the return key. “Say goodbye to a life of luxury and expensive toys.”
    Andy sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Do it.”
    Geoff brought his finger down but stopped just millimetres above the key, shaking, “Fuck it!” he said and stabbed the key hard, “There it’s gone, once the full wipe is done there’s no way to get it back,” he paused and watched the output on the screen, “There you go. All deleted. In triplicate.”
    Andy sank down into a chair and let out a long breath, “Well that’s a relief.”
    “I was looking forward to buying a car, you know, and getting out of this shit-hole neighbourhood,” said Geoff.
    “I know, I used to enjoy cycling until I had to do it to commute.” Andy said, “Still this is the safest course of action. You wouldn’t want someone like those legalised thugs we met last night being sent round to collect you, believe me.”
    “Aye, those coppers were out of order. I still haven’t complained about that you know.”
    “Don’t bother kicking that hornets nest.”
    “But it just wasn’t right, the way they treated him!”
    “There’s worse than them around, just keep your nose out of it,” Andy said.
    “You know more than you’re saying, don’t you?” Geoff frowned and stared hard at Andy.
    “Maybe.” Andy sighed and leant forward propped on the front of the chair. “It’s these new vagrancy laws, the government’s cracking down on the drunks and layabouts,” he looked around, even though there was no chance of being overheard, “Last week they beat up a woman so bad they she died on the operating table. We were told to keep it quiet, forget it ever happened.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yes. I’m not comfortable with it, but the difficulty of finding a new job was mentioned in a rather threatening way.” Andy said.
    “You should report them.”
    “Who to? They’re the police. The inspector in charge of this crackdown is a nasty piece of work by all accounts.”
    “Go higher up.”
    “And risk losing my job? It’s easy for you to say.”
    Geoff scowled, “I work for you now, remember!”
    Andy grinned, “Not if I’m a jobless waster as well you don’t.”
    “Why the fuck didn’t you mention this before I erased our source of infinite wealth! We could have reported all this crap if we were loaded.”
    “We deleted it so vicious thugs don’t come knocking on our door, remember?” Andy said.
    “Fuck!” Geoff slammed his laptop shut. “Fucking fuckity fuck!”
    Andy closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly, “We’ve had a narrow escape I reckon. We should just behave normal and get on with our lives. Bin the dome-phone and find something else to work on, there’s still too much we don’t know about it, or the code you might have written in your sleep.”
    Geoff just scowled.
    “Seriously, do normal Saturday stuff, I prescribe you a good decent run or something. Get your head clear.” Andy said.
    Geoff scowled, “No one likes to be told to calm down Andy!”
    “Still. You do need to chill.”

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Does Geoff ever chill? Find out in the next part.