When Richard Pandora was forced by his father to take Computer Science in 9th grade by his father, and his mother only encouraged it, he was originally extremely skeptical of the idea. He'd never seen code outside of Scratch games, and he clearly couldn't learn coding in just 4 years, he believed at the time.
He caught on almost immediately and was the outlier of the class, being almost unnaturally good at it. His computer science teacher even moved him up a year, because he was that good. Richard, or Richie, as everyone called him, was an oddball anyway, for many reasons other than that.
With parents of English and Filipino descent, he was fluent in English, Filipino, and Spanish, all being able to speak coherent Tagalog and Portuguese, though they were noticeably shakier. His skin was sunkissed, but not tanned, since he was never an outdoors kid. His hair was black, and went to the top of his shoulders. It was straight in the "my hair just happens to go wherever I comb/pull it" way, not actually bone straight. He wore glasses, and insisted on getting round glasses, much to his parents' chagrin. Since everyone in the family was either too lazy (mom) or didn't know how to do hair (dad), unless Grandma came over, nothing would be done with it, so he just left it alone or fixed it into a messy bun when necessary. He took all of his classes AP except history, which was his designated "nap class" (since it was so easy, he usually had at least 30 minutes to sleep or catch up on work in other classes). He knew everyone well enough that he could at least have a cordial conversation with most people in Metropolitania High School.
Once, his friends had mentioned with his tech prowess that he could likely hack his way through a bank account or and steal money. He called them all crazy and stupid for thinking that he would do that, and then saying that's not even how that would be done.
Here he was, keylogging one of the most notorious meatheads in the entire building because...
He didn't even know, really. Sure, the guy he was keylogging was well and truly hated by a good 95% of the school, and even outside of it, rumors had been circulating for years, saying he was a high ranking member in a gang. No one would really bat an eye. Hell, he'd likely make friends just for getting back at him. Besides, he'd had to learn how to make malware on his own time, since obviously the school wouldn't teach teenagers how to go around doing things like that, and kernel-level keyloggers were actually impossible to write (or he wasn't good enough to write them; same difference). It would be a waste if he didn't steal something.
But it was still stealing. Stealing was still a crime. He was committing theft...
So? No one would fault him for it, and he went to the lengths of buying a trap phone with a good chunk of his saved up money and made a fake email. Richie was a utilitarian at heart, and only the blockhead (Chester, his name was) and maybe his parents would be mad at it. Everyone else would laugh or conveniently look the other way. It would be fine.
...He had the card info now. Chester was clearly a moron to see that some random email saying that the "K4N64R00" plugin could enhance his game to the next level, then acually downloading it AND going on COD:MW and buying skins...
Wow.
And with that, Richie Pandora was officially a criminal.
Not a caught one though; and he'd need to up his game if wanted to keep it that way.
At least it would keep him sharp.
And hopefully keep on raking in money, because $60 on a Call of Duty gun camo? ...Damn, Chester may be a gigantic dumbass, but he was rich and a gigantic dumbass.
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Cassandra Autumn was confused. Looking at Chester's plight through his texts (and she'd rather not be talking to someone with his reputation, but her friends forwarded him to her, the so called 'Super Sleuth", and at least he wasn't mean to her) she felt a bit sympathetic.
There were lots of people in the school who hated him, but there were very few who knew how to somehow access his bank account. And they knew it was someone from school. It was "johndoe@guest.metropolisd.com" so it was obviously fake, but all the emails sent in the building were automatically redirected through a school email system. Very authoritarian in her humble opinion, but she digressed.
Only Richard Pandora had anywhere near the skills to create and effectively spread a malware system, but in her eyes, he was a lazy bum who only did the bare minimum to succeed, never even trying to do more than was asked of him, and he certainly wasn't needing for money.
Well, she supposed, she ought to look on the bright side. Her dream of solving a case like a real detective wasn't too far off...
Then Chester got another email, and he took a picture of his monitor and sent it to her.
[J0hnd0364739222@gmail.com]
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GETTTTTTTTTTTTT SLOTHEDDDDDDDDDDDD
-5L07H
...At least she had a name... She'd find this Sloth guy, and give him the good Handcuffs of Justice herself! Hopefully anyway...
She laid out on her bed and sighed. She would go to the police station and inform some real authorities some other time.
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Richie snickered to himself as a barrage of angry emails attacked the fake email address' inbox. He couldn't help pissing him off just a tad bit.