Red bricks, yellow orbs, a curved roof, and the overhead restaurant name: Jedediah Sushi. Plus its Hiragana equivalent. Of the many food joints in Tokyo Town, Jessica, Shannon, and Valerie arrived by red brick and old-fashioned doors that, when opened, rang a bell.

"Irasshaimase!"

Red lanterns burned yellow amidst some sparse rows of upholstery and oak. Two counters, one on either side of the room, hosted chefs who sliced and diced imitation tuna. They were just as meticulous with the Nigiri. "Order!" Topped at last with thinly sliced lemon, the dishes waited for the waitresses in French maid attire and eventually landed right on Jessica's table.

"What do you call them, again?" said Shannon, sitting directly across.

"Black Hats," said Jessica, clapping her chopsticks.

"What's so special about 'em?"

Jessica shoved an entire roll in her mouth and chewed while Shannon waited for an answer, then chewed, chewed, and chewed some more. Valerie leaned sideways in front of Shannon, likewise anticipating a response. Shannon gently shoved Valerie's head out of the way. "I mean, they're hackers, right?" she continued.

Jessica coughed and took a sip of water. "The definition of hacker varies, you know? It has this elastic meaning, but I pay no attention to the connotations of the plebs. You could be a hacker, I could be a hacker. Doesn't mean we've done anything wrong – It's not a bad thing." She stood up and slammed fists on the table exaggeratedly "But there ain't no good deed that's not under the nutty hands of 'crackers'."

"What do crackers do?" said Valerie. "Besides be white, salty, and crunchy."

Jessica set her chopsticks down and cracked a knuckle. "Okay, so, you ever had a computer virus?"

"Maybe."

"No," answered Shannon. "At least, not in a long time. I always got the anti-virus running."

"That can work," replied Jess, making a jive. "But, see, software viruses originate from jerks, a.k.a. Black Hats. Computer savvy criminals are the architects of everyday software issues. There are so many ways and so many reasons why someone could—may want to infiltrate your system. And it's not just brute force, like trying to decrypt your files. Clever fuckers can always find ways around your security and get to your PHI. One way, and this is especial, is social engineering, which is basically the stuff we see every day, like advertising pop-ups asking for your information. Stay away from those."

"You mean to tell me," started Valerie, "that I should not claim my millions of dollars from a sweepstakes I don't remember entering? A bunch of hot girls aren't waiting for my dick around the corner?"

Jessica shrugged. "They aren't always that obvious, Homegirl, especially if you're downloading porn all the time."

"Say you do get a virus," Shannon said sincerely, "do you know how to get rid of it?"

"That depends." She smirked.

"On what?"

"Are you asking me, personally?"

"Why, it may be that I am, Miss Leibniz."

"Ooh, ah, let's see. I need a way to explain it without making it sound boring."

Valerie goggled. "You can do that?"

"Would you like me to beatbox?" said Shannon.

"Can you?" said Jess.

Shannon placed a tuna roll in her mouth and garbled, "Nope."

"Welp. When it comes to implementation, there aren't too many methods. Viruses replicate their source codes, and the encryption changes per creator, even the language itself. Understanding a virus's identity, so to speak, allows decryption or circumvention, which is never easy. Someone always loses before a crack is patched. Once you have someone to sift through the code of pre-existing malware, you can develop a tool to defend against future infections. But when a new one shows up, the process starts all over again. I might have personally reversed a few..."

Shannon had a full mouth. "Ver do you get those tools?"

"Myself."

Both Valerie and Shannon stared dubiously. 

"Bullshit," said Shannon.

"What? You just need to know the programming language. You know, the bits and pieces. The numbers and the symbols? The hoopla and the hoohah?"

"And how many of them do you know?" asked Valerie.

"I know some."

"How many is that?"

"Ones worth their salt? Mmm... fifty-nine."

"Are you freaken serial, right now?"

"Okay," rejoined Shannon. "So what the heck is the point of knowing so many?"

"Just convenience, interaction, speed of use. Like different tools for different jobs. You got C, C++, Java, Python, Algae, Terran."

"What the actual fock, Jess? Next thing you're going to tell me is you know Azarean code, too."

"Maybe." Jess felt a strange whiplash after talking for so long. She decided to finish the sushi on her plate, hoping her friends would speak among themselves.

"Jess is still the smartest person I know," declared Valerie, sitting back. "No offense, Shannon."

"Psh! She's a fuggen genius!" said Shannon, laying back. "But from everything you just told me, does that make you a White Hat?"

"If I had to resort to labels," said Jess, pushing her plate aside, "I guess I would use the term smith."

"Smith, like smithing? Archaic metalworking and shit?"

"As a smith, you craft, you fix, you temper. A locksmith, they understand the ins and outs of a barrier and operate with a diligence!" Jessica's energy rose as she spoke. "Decrypting, managing a lock, forging, coding, molding, building, computing, shaping, you create something or you work around it for a solution, without breaking the lock. There's no brute force or shortcuts, just knowledge and creativity, and their implementation."

"Sounds a lot like art," Shannon said with a grin. "I dig that. You're an artist."

"Technical info and algorithms are whatever you make of them. So much code. It is like art in that perception is a factor. That said, we don't relegate the language of numbers to computers because they're an art form."

"It's too bad I don't really understand neither," Valerie said somberly. "I'm just tuning in and out of this. If I were a person reading this conversation, I think I'd be mad."

The red hem of the waitress bloomed forth, and she asked in her best English whether any of them would like more servings. They kindly refrained, so she stacked the plates and departed, smiling. Jessica asked that she leave the ordering tablet and stylus.

Jessica tapped a blank sheet then took the stylus, launched the holographic projection, and began drawing. At first, she drew simple vectors, then boxes filled with alphanumerics. Several angles later, Valerie and Shannon stared stupidly.

"The founders of what we know today as the Anglo-alliance were predominantly Deists," Jessica said, "and Deism qualified a deity that did, in fact, create the human race and this planet, but as a master clockmaker. Basically, He set things in motion in a sort of planned path, where everything that happens happens as part of an inevitable sequence, like a function of some intelligent design. I like to think of that concept as the precursor to an algorithm." 

She completed her elaborate, asymmetric equation, then gave her friends the stink eye. 

"Everything in life is part of a finite sequence of action, causality, inevitability, and rationality vs. irrationality until there is one result or spectrum of results. Imagine that principle with mathematical functions, what we use every day to build and automate our solutions. Life is a series of algorithms."

"If life is a series of algorithms then what am I, a variable?" Valerie scoffed.

"'Life is a series of algorithms'." Shannon meditated. "That's not to say people are like numbers, is it?"

"No? No!" Jessica said. "I'm just saying we're always a part of something bigger. Constant."

"Cool. Cool. I can take that and understand it. Probably not as well as you do," she chuckled politely, "but I don't think I'm too far off."

"It was just a metaphor," said Jessica, setting the tablet down and sitting back.

"And it was, like, a good extended metaphor. Just got me thinking..."

"Hey, Jess," Valerie said, leaning forward. "What more do you know about Black Hats? What else do they do?"

Jessica's brow rose. "Besides take what's not theirs?"

Homegirl glowered. "What if it's to help others?"

"How do you mean?"

Val leaned forward again, pushing the limits of her blouse. "I mean, say someone has secrets. Many secrets, secrets that mean life and death. Would it be wrong to steal those secrets then?"

Jessica's eyes rolled up. "Like the transfer of private knowledge to the public domain?"

"What if hacking meant breaking the law, but it was for the greater good?"

"That!" interceded Shannon, "is a matter of perspective, Val."

"So what does it mean if a so-called cracker screws over someone to benefit someone else? Where does the hacker distinguish right or wrong, is my question. Who decides? The injured party or the ones who benefit?"

"Like I said..."

"Hold on!" Jess hushed. "You're probably not thinking of a Black Hat."

"Then what the Hades am I thinking of?" Valerie fell back in her seat, Shannon grabbing the backrest to make sure she didn't fall.

"This is why I hate labels." Jessica sighed. "There's always a possible grey area, Homegirl.

"What do they call Black Hats in the grey area?"

"Take a guess."

"How am I supposed to know?"

Jessica eyed Shannon, inviting her to chime in. With a smirk, Shannon said, "I don't answer obvious questions. It's like trying to validate not being stupid."

Val properly glared at Shannon before returning her demonic gaze to Jessica. "Sabes que? It doesn't matter! All I know is that hacks have been messing with mobile navigation. Can someone fix that?"

"There has been a string of cyberattacks, recently." Jessica checked her watch, which, as if reading her mind, navigated to internet news publications. "The Wire says New Sumer's digital network disconnected from the hub for a bit, and the recycle bots displayed curse words. I don't watch enough television. Beth watches more TV than me." She gulped more water.

"These private dating sites were broken into," Valerie coughed, "and a buncha people's info got leaked. A friend told me."

"See! That's when I get pissed off," said Shannon. "When random people get screwed because hackers need to make a show. Crackers, sorry."

"You don't care for the reason?" said Valerie.

"It's not about reasons. You just don't play God."

"So's that why you wear the hat?" Jessica pointed to the flat cap on the table.

"What about it?"

"WWJD: What would Jesus do?  You don't like people who play God."

"Oh, no." Shannon laughed. "It's What would Jackson do? Samuel L. Jackson. The twentieth and twenty-first century's gift to the art of cinema."

Jessica and Valerie shrugged, exchanging glances in a realm of oblivion.

Shannon leered. "You guys ain't my friends! I don't know you!"

At some point in their procrastination, after Shannon managed to cool down, Jessica developed deep thoughts. Her mind drifted to her second life, the secret life of Lynx her friends didn't know about. "You guys ever wonder what alternative motives guide the Azareans?" she asked. "If any."

"What would be an alternative motive?" questioned Shannon. "I mean, yea, they govern behind human politicians, but probably because things seem normal that way. It's smart, too. I mean, what if people, every day, saw someone not human telling them what to do?"

"But, we know they own and control every damn thing."

"But we don't know how involved they are!" said Valerie. "This is what I'm saying; it's weird how they refuse the spotlight."

Shannon burped. "Like an entire race of introverts."

"With their own military," added Valerie. "Y para que?"

"Yea, but that's for the WON," said Jessica. "International issues need policing."

"Like the AEF?"

"That again?"

"Gotta think about it! Don't be sucking the sack, Jess! Ponte attencion!"

"Yo," started Shannon, irritated. "You know you're going to make me get ghetto if you start with the Spanish, right?"

Valerie turned to Shannon. "You know the rule: If you get ghetto, I get ghetto."

"I'm not gonna get ghetto unless you get ghetto!"

Jessica scoffed. "Scheisse!"

Well then, I hope I didn't lose anybody in this chapter. If I didn't feel free to give it a vote and comment. I means soooooo much. And answer, would you like to see Valerie and Shannon get 'ghetto?' I don't even know what that means.