Onderwêreld deur Fanie Viljoen | Twee foto’s | English Summary | Onderwereld

 

Onderwêreld deur Fanie Viljoen

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Dr. Pienaar and Mr. Andersen’s hushed conversation about the compromised school database continues. Dr. Pienaar asks Mr. Andersen to contact a computer technician from Harrismith named Thompson. Greg eavesdrops on the conversation attentively as Mr. Andersen explains that there is no information in Eckhardt’s records except for his name.

Greg tosses and turns in bed later that night, mulling over Eckhardt’s disappearance and the fragment of information he got from Dr. Pienaar and Mr. Andersen’s conversation. He hopes that Eckhardt is okay but what if that is not the case? With his school records being blank, his phone and laptop being in his room and the rumours of his suicide lacking confirmation because there has been no discovery of a body, Greg’s mind continues to swirl with thoughts. Greg remembers his brother’s death and how angry the grief made him. He gets out of bed and walks into the cold hallway, where he bumps into Kwanele, who asks Greg why he is awake at an odd hour. Greg’s clear contempt for Kwanele is evident in his narration, but he handles the interaction calmly, telling him that that he is going to the bathroom before returning Kwanele’s question to him. Kwanele was studying but is now on the way to bed.

Greg walks to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He waits a few moments until Kwanele’s footsteps can no longer be heard. He then turns back around, walking towards the step, where there is a small table holding up models of two Da Vinci inventions: the helicopter and the tank. Mr. Ian, the housemaster of Da Vinci keeps the master key to the matric floor. Eckhardt showed him the location once. “It’s like hiding your spare key under a rock in the garden,” he
said. Greg finds the key hidden in the tank’s hull. With the key in hand, he walks over to Eckhardt’s room, carefully looking over his shoulder to ensure that no one is following. The room is just as he had left it, meaning that the police have not yet investigated. Greg remembers overhearing a uniformed officer telling Dr. Pienaar and Mr. Andersen that they would be handing the case over to the detectives, who also still have not investigated.

Greg looks at the noticeboard in Eckhardt’s room, which was mostly unchanged, except for one photo, which now stood where Eckhardt’s family photo was, held in place by a golden thumbnail. The photo features a white hat on a black background, much like one in a picture he once received from Eckhardt via MMS. The cogs in Greg’s brain start turning. He takes the photo back to his room, thinking about how the picture was not on Eckhardt’s noticeboard before his disappearance. Under the light of his lamp, the picture reveals a marked difference to the MMS photo: a written link to a website – www.securekit.com, next to the word “Ekk-0”.

Greg swiftly whips out his laptop, boots it up, and opens Firefox, a browser that Eckhardt told him is far more secure than Internet Explorer because there are fewer users, hence fewer shady types trying to expose vulnerabilities in the browser. The website takes him to a downloader for a steganography program. Steganography refers to a manner of incorporating hidden messages into photos. This is apparently how terrorists spread and receive information and instructions. Greg initially thought that the white-hat MMS was a reminder for him to remain a white-hat; however, there is a message hidden in the photo. He installs the program and uploads the picture to his laptop. When he opens the picture with the program, a field appears requesting him to enter a password. He tries “Ekk-0”, mistyping it the first time. Once unlocked, the word “message” appears onscreen with a window containing a URL: www.Ekk-0s_underworld.co.za. Without skipping a beat, Greg copies the address to his browser, which brings up a simple website with no graphics, just a black background, an input field, and two words in white: “Enter Password”.

SummariesKeroshan PillayComment