The Hacker and the Slacker

"Damn, you look fine!" she says.

"Thanks, it feels weird, but yeah, looks good."

---

Thursday at lunch Daniel's buddies are checking out his new style. The other nerds are impressed. "Dude what happened to you?"

"Leila happened."

"Leila, like THAT Leila? Shit, she just broke up with Brent!"

"She's my girlfriend now."

"You are shitting me."

"No fuckin way!"

"Dude no way, you gotta tap that."

"How the Fuck did you pull that off?"

"Speak of the devil..."

Leila comes along with her lunch tray, sits with them, gives him a hug and a smooch. The guys are freaked out. Never in a million years would this hot, snooty bitch ever be seen near them. But there she is. All over Daniel like fuck. The group dynamic of the Nerd Table is wrecked. Same for the table Leila's friends sit at. High school social strata are strange and delicate things, and it doesn't take much to upset the status quo. Leila's defection from the Mean Girls table to the Nerds is a shock.

---

Thursday night Leila goes home with Daniel. She's having dinner with them again.

"What's on the menu?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs."

"Where is everything? I want to help."

"Why?"

"I'm your girlfriend."

For some reason Leila wants Daniel's Mom to like her. She never worried or cared about any boy's parents before... She wonders a bit, but doesn't want to think too much about it. They get everything out, and start cooking. He sets the table for three, and dinner is ready by the time his Mom arrives home.

After dinner they head up to his room. She moves close to kiss him, and they make out for a while. She gets a little wet, despite telling herself this wasn't real, she's just a pretend girlfriend. But Daniel kisses real nice, now that she showed him how. Better than any other boy ever did. And he's not pushy about it, he's sweet and gentle.

It starts getting late, she says she better go.

"I'll drive you home."

"You don't hafta."

"I want to, it's the, ah, boyfriend kind of thing to do."

"OK, and hey, Saturday night, come for dinner?"

"Sure."

She says goodnight to his Mom, and Daniel drives her home.

---

Friday afternoon he walks her home again, and she invites him in. He meets her mother. She seems like a nice lady. Pretty, stylish, friendly. Their house is absolutely huge, and it's decorated like a magazine layout. Wow.

"We're gonna be in my room."

Her Mom gives Daniel the eye and says "You two behave yourselves."

"Yes ma'am." he says.

Her room is nice, in a very girly pink ruffles sort of way. And huge. Almost the size of Daniel's entire upstairs. And she has her own bathroom.

"Wow." he says.

'What? Not what you expected?"

"Didn't know what to expect, really. This is huge."

She shrugs. "So how is our project going?"

"I'm breaking into the school tonight to steal your exam. Then I gotta get you to make the fixes and I can replace it."

"Break in? Like actual B&E stuff?"

"Uh huh."

"Where did you learn that kinda shit?"

"You would not believe the stuff I got into the last few years. I took some locksmith classes online, bought some tools, watched a bunch of videos, practiced a lot. Anyways, its gotta be done. Just hacking the grades on the server won't make it real. Like I said, when the shit hits the fan, the teacher is going to say No Way, and they'll investigate. But when all the paper matches the numbers online, they can't argue with it."

"OK. So you'll need me to write some stuff on the replacement then?"

"Yeah, I'll let you know once I have it figured out. I should have it ready for when I come over for dinner."

"Wow, that's fast! Thank you."

They kiss and make out for a while, and she's surprised that he isn't pushing for more, she'd always assumed he would be after her for a quick fuck by now, despite what he'd said initially about 'no sex'. But he never even grabbed her tits yet. She's never dated an actual 'nice guy' before. This is sorta making her hot for him.

"I gotta go," he says, "Lots of work to do for tonight."

"Work?"

"Yeah, security cameras, alarm systems, and then find your exam. It may take a while."

"OK, good luck then." She sees him out, and kisses him goodbye. She finds all this James Bond spy stuff really hot. She never suspected he did this kind of shit.

---

Friday o-dark-thirty

Daniel hacks the security cameras and bypasses the alarms. Not really difficult, as it's only a school, not a bank or anything. Picking the lock on the door behind the auto shop was trivial. They don't use really high security locks on these things.

He sneaks around to find the teacher's office, keeping a watchful eye in case someone else is around, like janitors. Daniel picks the first file cabinet lock, and starts hunting for last term finals in Civics. Stupid teacher doesn't label the cabinets, so he has to open them all. Eventually he finds the right set of files. Pulls Leila's exam, tags the spot with a sticky note so he can put it back in the exact same place. Checks the desk for the same colour pen used to mark the exam. He finds a red one that matches, ah yes, consistency is wonderful. One more stop to break into a supply room to grab a pack of the paper the school uses to print everything. Watermarks on the paper will match too, a perfect fake.

He locks up, gets out, re-enables security cameras and alarms. Getting out is always tricky, especially when you've been successful. Your adrenaline is up, and you're over-confident. He gets home very late, but everything looks good so far.

---

Saturday morning after breakfast he reviews the exam, and determines which answers need to be changed. Just redoing a few pages will change this from a 40 to a 75. Nice. He finishes photo-shopping the exam, then sets to work on the midterm and quizzes. He finishes and puts everything in a folder for tonight.

He texts Leila.

+all set for tonight. what time?+

She replies immediately.

+be here @5+

---

Saturday night Daniel shows up, and meets Leila's Dad. They sit and chat with her folks for a while, then it's time for dinner. It's a nice meal, they seem like friendly people, wealthy but not ostentatious or pretentious. They ask about him, his interests, his grades, his career plans, where he's going to University, the usual nosy parents routine. They're impressed with Daniel, much more so than her last boyfriend.

After dinner Leila asks if Daniel can stay to work on a school project, and she'll drive him home later. Her folks say they're fine with that. Up in her room, he organizes the Civics papers on her desk. He's scripted the new answers for her. She reads through them, and says "Hey, this part's wrong."

"Yeah, we want some wrong stuff, so it matches the rest of the exam. If it's perfect then it'll be suspicious. I got the teacher's pen to mark it up with, too."

"What's my final mark gonna be?"

"75. Is that all right?"

"Let me check. OK, here's my other marks, and if this term goes the same way I'll have an 87 average."

"Holy shit! 87?"

"I told you, I'm not stupid, I just slacked off. Civics is supposed to be a free ride. I was gonna graduate summa cum laude, and this stupid shit would ruin my chances at a scholarship."

"So will it work with 75?"

She flips open her laptop, whips up a quick spreadsheet, pops in all the numbers, and checks the results. "Fuck, it's close, but OK, 75 is good. I'll still have better than an 85 average. Let's do it."

She starts copying out the new answers on the assignments and tests, and as she finishes each sheet he marks them up with the red pen. He's careful to match the style of writing the teacher used. Halfway through, her Mom pops in to see how things are going. She was worried they were fooling around up here, but instead finds them hard at work on what appears to be an actual school project.

"We're good Mom, won't take long to finish this."

"Okay then." She kisses her daughter on the head and smiles at the two of them as she leaves.

"Was your Mom checking up on us?"

"Uh huh, I think so."

They finish the Civics work, and he says "You keep your stuff, and I'll replace the final tomorrow."

"Great. Hey, did you want to go out or something, it's only like 10."

"Sure, I guess, where did you want to go?"

"It's Saturday night. There's always a party somewhere, I'll check around. You want to go?"

"Sure. And thank you for asking, that's like, real girlfriend stuff."

"Well, I am, right? That was the deal."

"OK, let me text my Mom and tell her I'll be late."

They checked their phones, he says "OK great, all set." She notices he's got an old phone, so old it's like embarrassing. Maybe she can buy him a new one.

"Yeah, party at Alison's, they have a beast of a sound system, dancing will be great."

"Ah well, might be a problem there, I dunno how to dance."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah. Nerd. Remember? No social life."

"Don't worry, I'll teach you, it isn't rocket science."

"Rocket science I can handle, stuff like dancing, not so much."

"Seriously, do not worry about this, let's go."

She finds her parents in the living room. "Hey, can we borrow the car, we're going to a party."

"Sure, but no drinking, no drugs, and be back by 1 am."

She grabs the keys, and digs a few things out of her purse, stuffing ID and money in her bra. Daniel stares at her in shock. "What?" she says, "It's easier than trying to keep track of a purse."

"Where do you put the car keys?"

"In YOUR pocket, dumb-ass. Lets go."

Out on the edge of town, they find Alison's place. There's a lot of cars in the drive and on the side of the road. She parks and gives him the keys. They can hear the thump of the music in the air.

"Looks like a good turnout, come on."

They go inside, the music is much louder, and she leads him to the source, a greatroom, high ceilings, oak beams, furniture pushed to the sides, people dancing. Leila pulls him outside onto the heated deck where it's less crowded, only a few couples are out here in the cold, smoking or necking. She teaches him to dance, shows him what to do, gets him comfortable with it.

"It's gettin' cold out here." he says, shivering despite the warmth from the propane heaters.

"Yeah, well, more incentive to learn, so we can dance inside. You ready?"

"I guess so."

Leila leads him into the big room again, the warmth is nice, and she drags him onto the dance floor.

"That's it, you're doing great!" she yells in his ear, the only way to be heard over the throbbing beat. They dance, break for a drink, and go back to dancing. Daniel is enjoying himself immensely. People seem friendly and happy here, and Leila is stunning, her body moving like that is hypnotizing. The slow dances are a whole new world of sensuality he's never encountered before. She was grinding on him, their contact more than physical, and he finds himself lost in her eyes, her lips, her presence. She keeps bumping and grinding on his erection, laughing at the look on his face. Leila is having a wonderful time, she's never had a guy react like this before. She discovers she likes being the dominant one.

They share a cooler, and Daniel mentions her Dad's 'no drinking' admonition. She laughs at him, saying "Don't worry, we'll dance this off pretty quick!"

The dancing continued, and Daniel thought it was wonderful. They were heating up and she wiped sweat from her brow, suggested they go outside to cool off a bit. When the chill air hit them, they moved close together to share the heat radiating from themselves. Daniel suddenly realized that he'd made a mistake with this 'girlfriend for grades' deal. He was falling for her. No. Already fallen, big time. This was going to break him when she left.

She kissed him, their tongues twinning and swirling together, continuing the intimate dance they were wrapped up in. They made out for a while, until their sweat cooled, and the chill made itself known again. Leila pulled him back inside to get another drink and continue dancing. On one of their breaks, she noticed the clock in the kitchen said 1:15 so it was time to go.

Outside, he gave her the keys and she drove him home. They kissed for a few minutes in the car, and she said 'good night', then drove home, hoping that she wasn't so late her folks would complain.

Her Dad was still up watching a movie, but all he said was "Did you two have fun tonight?"

"Yeah, it was great. Daniel's really nice. Sorry I'm late, I had to drop him off."

"That's fine" he said and wished her goodnight.

---

Sunday morning Daniel slept in. When he got up, his Mom asked him when he got home, and he said around 2 AM.

"That was awful late. How long do these parties go?"

"I dunno. We left around 1:30 but we uh, stopped to make out in the car a bit. The party was crowded, no place private for that."

She smiled at him, remembering her own youth, and how much fun makeouts were. "Well, you just be careful, OK? Don't get her pregnant."

"I know, I know. I get how much an unintended pregnancy can affect your life."

"I'm just looking out for you honey, please be careful."

"I will." And of course he won't have to, because that's not part of the deal.

It was time for the technically difficult part of the process, hacking the school board. It's every nerd's dream to do something like this, but it's not at all easy or assured in real life. The only way is to have physical access to their network, as that's a huge part of it - access. He spent the rest of the morning doing preliminary work, ate lunch, then went back to the school. It was risky doing this in daylight, but it got him on the network. He's done stuff like this before, so he knew what he was doing, but it still took time and care.

He broke in through the auto shop again, then checked several offices before he found an idiot who kept their password on a sticky note next to the computer. There was always one. So fuckin' stupid, just like in the movie Ready Player One.

It was almost two hours before he was done. He'd found the grade database, made the adjustments to match the new hardcopy. Then he'd had to find the audit trails and patch those. Finally, he dealt with the backups. Once the backups were overwritten with the new grades there was no longer any record of her original grades available online. There might still be a tape or disk stored offsite. And even if there was, the circumstances of needing to use it would only be if there was a catastrophic failure, like the Board Offices burning down.

He also had to replace the exam. At least this time he knew which file cabinet to open. Daniel snuck out of the school again and went home. It was hard to sit still through dinner as he was so keyed up.

After dinner he called Leila. "Hey, all done."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but I think the transcripts were already mailed out with your failed grade. You'll have to challenge it when you get the letter, then they can issue a new one. That's when the teacher will start looking for proof that you failed, and he won't find it. So it's not entirely over, but close."

"Awesome!"

"So, our deal...?"

"I'm still your girlfriend until Valentines. I'm not going to fucking bail on you. We had a deal, and I'll stand by it."

"Thanks, so do you want to do something tonight, to celebrate?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno. A date maybe?"

"Oh, OK. Where you gonna take me?"

"I don't know, I'm new at this. Where do you want to go?"

"How about a movie?"

"All right. And Leila...?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you go to the Valentine's Dance with me? I never officially asked."

"Yes, of course I will. I'm your girlfriend, remember?"

"Thanks!"

"What time you picking me up?"

"In uh, half an hour?"

"Perfect."

She is really starting to like him, despite being forced to play the girlfriend. She's starting to think that it wasn't such a bad deal. Her asshat ex was such a dick, now that she has someone to compare him with. She cuddles with Daniel during the movie, and she gives him a smoking hot kiss goodnight. This is a much nicer date than her usual experience. Daniel is thoughtful, respectful and gentle. Very different.

---

On Monday morning Leila's Mom finds her transcript in the mail, and she's pissed. There's gonna be words when her daughter gets home... This is not what she expected.

Leila's Mom showed her the grades when she got home, and Leila acted totally surprised, and told her it was wrong, it should be like 70 something, not a fail. Her Mom asked her for all her term work, and said she had called the school already. "I have an appointment with the vice principal tomorrow, we're going to get this straightened out."

Leila called Daniel that night, and told him what her Mom was doing about her grades. "She's pissed. She's going to the school to see about it tomorrow."

"This is exactly what I expected."

"I know, I know, but it's still a little scary. Fuck, I'm glad you made me do all that other stuff."

"Don't stress too much about it."

She sighs. "Right, I'll try, g'nite."

---

Tuesday morning Leila's Mom meets with the VP. "So what can I do for you? Apparently there was some problem with your daughter's transcript?"

"Yes, there's something wrong! It shows she failed a class she should have passed."

"Oh, well let's see."

"Here, this shows 45, but I have all her term work, and she was on track for a 70 at least."

He looks through the folder and says "Well, that's definitely a concern." He sends a text to the teacher.

"He'll be here in 15 minutes, on his break. I asked him to find her exam and bring that along, too. In the meantime, let me look up the records on the computer."

He checks the student ID number on the transcript, and looks her up.

"That's strange. It shows she got a pass. 75%. Hmmm, not up to her usual standard, but certainly not what the transcript shows."

When the teacher arrived, he was apprised of the situation, and he handed the VP Leila's exam. The VP reviewed it and said it matched the records on the database.

The teacher looks confused. "I think I remember this student, her performance was remarkably poor. May I see the exam again? Is that her course work?"

The teacher reviewed it all and said, "Well, it looks like a solid pass to me. Sorry, I must have her confused with someone else. I need to get to class now, do you need me anymore?"

"No, thanks, I'll handle this."

The teacher leaves with the exam, and VP says "I will have a new transcript sent out. Sorry about all this fuss. Must be a glitch in the system or something."

"No problem, it was just so concerning, what with her university applications being based on this."

---

Wednesday after school they walk to Daniel's house. Leila is staying for dinner. It's pasta again, so they get busy in the kitchen, boiling water and heating up the sauce. When his Mom gets home, she greets Leila warmly.

"So nice to see you again Leila. How are you two doing at school? Everything good?"

"I had an error on my last term's transcript, but my Mom got it straightened out."

"Oh, my! Is yours OK Daniel?"

"Yeah, it's fine, no problems there."

Dinner was pleasant, and afterward they excused themselves to his room. "Don't forget what I said" his Mom warned.

"What was that about?" asks Leila once they're in his room.

"She doesn't want to become a grandmother yet, so she told me to be careful."

"Whoa, she's pretty upfront about this isn't she?"

"She knows exactly how difficult having a kid too young can be."

"Meaning you?"

"Yeah, me."

"Fuck. I thought she looked really young."

"Well, we don't have to worry about that."

"Why not?"

"Well, like I said at the start, sex isn't part of the deal, so..."

"Yeah, well, I can still do all the other girlfriend stuff with you. Like right now, I was hoping we could make out a bit."