Undercover High School

Chapter 12: The Digital War Begins

Alister's phone vibrated as night deepened, the screen’s glow illuminating part of his face, half-sunk in shadows inside his small apartment. The name flashing on the display made his brow arch slightly: Jonathan Kim — International Investment Client.

Alister answered the call.

“Hello, Mr. Kim.”

The voice on the other end sounded rushed, tense. “Mr. L, I need your help. It’s an emergency.”

Alister stood from his chair and walked to the window. “Talk.”

“There’s something wrong. A group calling themselves the Black Dragon Mafia… they’re pulling off a massive fraud. They’ve exploited a loophole in the international investment payment system using advanced tech. I’m one of the victims. And I’m not the only one—hundreds of other clients have been hit.”

Alister fell silent, eyes narrowing. “Are you certain this is their doing?”

“I have proof—fabricated transaction records, manipulated server paths, and shadow accounts linked to a name: Cyber Dragon. This isn’t street-level crime, Alister. This is high-level cyber warfare. But… I know you can stop it.”

Alister exhaled slowly. Outside, the sound of cars drifted by, but his mind was already absorbed by this new intel.

“How much did you lose?” he asked quietly.

“Almost two million dollars. And I’m not even the biggest victim. If this keeps going, they’ll disappear without a trace.”

There was a pause. Then Jonathan’s voice returned, softer, almost pleading.

“Help me, Alister. Stop them. And if possible… recover the money. I know you’re no god, but if anyone can do this—it’s you.”

Alister closed his eyes for a moment. In silence, his mind was already running simulations.

Black Dragon Mafia. Technology. Systematic fraud.

This war wasn’t fought with guns. It was a game of intelligence, digital traps, and the kind of risk that could erase someone’s identity with a single click.

“All right,” he finally said, voice low but resolute. “Send all the data you have to my secure server. Starting tonight—they won’t sleep easy.”

The call ended.

Alister turned to his computer screen. His fingers flew across the keyboard, booting up his private systems and encrypted networks.

He sat before the black screen glowing with neon green text. The room was silent, save for the hum of the cooling fan and the rapid clack of mechanical keys. A cybersecurity expert living in the shadows, Alister was a ghost, known only to the digital world and desperate clients like Jonathan.

The data came through. Encrypted files opened one by one—financial graphs, altered server paths, and seemingly random accounts that had sprouted from nowhere. But Alister wasn’t one to be fooled by digital illusions. He saw patterns. Patterns only a genius—or someone incredibly dangerous—could create.

One name surfaced from the layers of digital debris: Cyber Dragon.

It sounded like a myth, but the traces were real—painfully precise. Cyber Dragon wasn’t just a hacker. He was the mastermind behind a multinational fraud operating beyond the reach of traditional law.

Alister swiveled his chair, grabbed his headset, and dove into the data. He mapped out the fake transactions and analyzed the obfuscating algorithms. The code wasn’t just complex—it had a personal structure. Like a fingerprint. And Alister recognized it for what it was: arrogance, a digital signature daring someone to come closer.

He entered the dark web. The deep web. Server after server, he descended, slicing through layers of digital underground, bypassing stacked firewalls and multi-layered encryption built to mislead even supercomputers. But Alister had more than just brains—he had a hunter’s instinct.

Then he found it.

A hidden server. Its IP pointed to a data center on the outskirts of Jakarta. It pulsed like a heart—alive, yet full of corruption. This was the Black Dragon Mafia’s control room. Here, the money flowed, systems were manipulated, and the world was deceived without knowing it.

Alister couldn’t sit still. He started building something. A counterstrike program that would infiltrate the server, shut down the system, trace the money’s movement, and force it back into victims’ accounts. At the same time, it would search for a crack in the mask of Cyber Dragon.

But this was no simple mission. If it failed, he wouldn’t just lose the trail—he’d become a target. Cyber Dragon might’ve set traps, honeypots, or digital landmines for hunters like him.

Still, Alister didn’t care.

His fingers moved faster. Onscreen, a green progress bar began filling as the attack program compiled. The lights in the room dimmed—but his eyes only grew sharper.

“You started this war, Dragon,” he muttered. “Now it’s my turn.”

That night, as the world slept in ignorant peace, Alister deployed his program. Somewhere else, behind a wall of monitors, a person using the alias Cyber Dragon might have sensed something creeping into their system.

Within layers of code and encrypted networks, Alister’s program went to work. It didn’t strike loudly—not like amateur hackers who relied on brute-force DDoS attacks. Alister moved like poison—silent, spreading without sound.

Each line of code was a scalpel. He severed communication lines, infiltrated encrypted files, and planted subtle controllers that could hijack the system without raising alarms. This wasn’t revenge—it was a rescue mission.

From the Jakarta data center, signals began to tremble. Indicator lights blinked erratically, logging unusual activity too complex to immediately identify. The Black Dragon system tried to respond—but too late. Alister was already a step ahead. He breached core control points, cloned admin access, and silenced internal firewalls with camouflage code nearly undetectable.

At the same time, in a dark room lit by glowing monitors, someone slowly stood up. Sharp eyes narrowed. On one of the screens, an anomaly appeared. Someone was inside—their forbidden domain was under siege.

Cyber Dragon knew… this wasn’t an ordinary attack.

Fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, initiating defense programs. Emergency protocols kicked in, attempting to shut entry points and destroy the quiet refund process Alister had initiated.

But Alister had anticipated this. He’d planted layered diversions, distractions to keep Cyber Dragon busy fighting shadows—while on another path, he opened the gate to the system’s core. That’s where the digital funds were stored. And more importantly—Cyber Dragon’s identity.

Alister stared at the data unraveling on his screen: aliases, offshore bank accounts, and… a blurred face caught on the internal server’s camera.

“Got you,” he whispered.

But before he could extract everything, the system shook. The screen flashed red—a counterattack.

Cyber Dragon had launched malware. Malicious programs struck back at Alister’s network, attempting to remotely disable his gear.

***