Ethan Cole sat in the dim light of his Brooklyn apartment, the kind of place where the radiator rattled louder than the subway outside and the peeling wallpaper smelled faintly of mildew. He was twenty-two, a dropout from an IT program at NYU, and as far as the world knew, a nobody. But tonight, something flickered inside his skull like a match being struck in total darkness.
It started with a sound—a digital chime no one else could hear.
[System initializing… Welcome, Administrator.]
He froze, hands hovering over the cheap mechanical keyboard he’d bought secondhand from Craigslist. His first thought: I’m losing it. I’ve finally fried my brain from too many sleepless nights coding in the dark. But then the voice came again, not through speakers, not from outside, but inside his head. Clear. Mechanical. Authoritative.
[You have been granted access to the BlackNet System.] [Level 1 permissions unlocked. Current balance: 100 credits.]
“What the hell…” Ethan whispered. His heart hammered as a holographic overlay appeared before his eyes. He blinked rapidly—still there. A neon-blue interface floated in the air, listing options like a menu in some dystopian video game.
Exploit Generator
Firewall Bypass Toolkit
Digital Cloak (30 credits/hour)
He reached out instinctively, fingers brushing empty air, yet the interface responded, sliding beneath his mental command.
The System wasn’t a hallucination. It was real. And it was offering him something he had only dreamed of since he was a kid obsessed with hacking forums.
Going Live
For years, Ethan had watched others chase clout on StreamHub—gamers, musicians, political ranters. StreamHub was the digital coliseum where millions gathered, hungry for spectacle. Ethan had lurked silently, dreaming of stepping into the arena himself.
And now, armed with a godlike toolset, he wasn’t just going to join the crowd—he was going to break it.
He pulled the dusty Guy Fawkes mask from the shelf, slipped it over his face, and tugged his black hoodie tight around his shoulders. The webcam light blinked red as he clicked “Go Live.”
StreamHub Notification: “New Streamer: UnknownUser999 has gone live.”
At first, there were three viewers. Then seven. Then twenty. A trickle, nothing more. The chat box scrolled lazily.
“Who tf is this?” “Another wannabe hacker lol.” “Mask cringe bro.”
Ethan said nothing. He simply typed a command into the System interface.
The First Hack
His target: a mid-tier StreamHub influencer named AvaSparkle, known for flawless makeup tutorials and scandalous “leaks” that were never truly leaks. She was live at that exact moment, her face glowing under studio lights, her voice sugary sweet as thousands of viewers spammed heart emojis.
Ethan grinned under the mask. With a flick of his thoughts, the System generated an exploit. Credits dropped by 15.
A green confirmation window blinked:
[Firewall Bypassed. Live Feed Access Granted.]
On Ava’s stream, her perfectly contoured face froze for a split second. Then the filters peeled away. The “beauty cam” vanished. Her real face—acne scars, tired eyes, sweat under the lights—filled the feed.
The chat on her side erupted. “WTF???” “Who did this??” “This isn’t Ava??”
Meanwhile, Ethan’s own viewer count skyrocketed. From fifty to five hundred. From five hundred to five thousand. In minutes, his StreamHub panel showed 20,000 live viewers.
His chat exploded: “HOLY SHT THIS IS REAL.”* “Yo hacker man just killed AvaSparkle.” “Next target!!!” “Do my ex! Do my ex!”
Ethan leaned closer to the mic, letting his voice distort through a filter. “Welcome to my stream,” he said slowly. “Give me a challenge… and I’ll make it real.”
Viral Frenzy
The requests came like a flood.
“Hack my school’s grade system.” “Leak the mayor’s emails.” “Crash Wall Street!!” “EXPOSE MY EX GIRLFRIEND’S WEDDING RN!!”
His viewer count hit 50,000. StreamHub pushed him onto the trending sidebar: “Masked Hacker Causes Chaos—LIVE.”
Ethan scrolled through the chat, adrenaline buzzing in his veins. It was insane, reckless, potentially criminal—but the power was intoxicating.
He selected one challenge at random: “Show us what’s happening at St. Mary’s High Gym right now.”
The System purred in his head.
[CCTV Access Exploit available. Cost: 10 credits.]
With a thought, he confirmed. The System tunneled through firewalls faster than any human coder could dream. Within seconds, Ethan’s screen filled with grainy footage of a high school gymnasium in Queens—basketball practice underway, players unaware they were being watched by tens of thousands online.
The chat erupted. “NO WAY THIS IS LIVE!!” “That’s my school!!” “OMG I see myself on camera!!”
He switched angles, zooming across the school’s cameras, exposing corners students thought were private. The audience screamed in all caps, flooding the chat with laughing emojis, gasps, and disbelief.
The Hook
But as Ethan basked in the chaos, a new message appeared in the chat. Different from the spam, highlighted in red as if branded into his screen.
“Fun show. But you’re playing in my territory now.”
The username was simple: Phantom.
Before Ethan could respond, his entire screen glitched. The System flickered, warning alarms blaring in his head:
[ALERT: Intrusion attempt detected. Source: Unknown Hacker.]
The audience went wild. “YO IS THIS SCRIPTED??” “Another hacker just pulled up???” “DUEL! DUEL! DUEL!”
Ethan’s fingers tightened on the keyboard, his pulse hammering. He wasn’t just streaming anymore—he was being hunted, live, in front of tens of thousands of spectators.
And in the back of his mind, the System whispered:
[Challenge accepted.]
