Chapter 13: Response

Chapter 13: ResponseEthan clicked open the email in a secure environment and watched as the contents loaded.

___________

Dear OmniTech,

This is Amelia Rhodes, Lead Security Architect at Google.

I’ve reviewed your report, and after verifying three of the vulnerabilities, I can confirm their authenticity. As such, I would like to schedule a secure, formal discussion regarding the remaining fifteen vulnerabilities, their scope, and the terms under which you intend to disclose them.

Please propose a channel and time that works for you.

Sincerely,

Amelia Rhodes

Lead Security Architect

Google Inc.

_______



The email was more or less what he expected so he went directly to his encrypted mail and started typing a reply.

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Dear Ms. Rhodes,

Thank you for your swift response. As for the remaining fifteen vulnerabilities, their potential impact ranges from data exfiltration to full service disruption on core systems.

In the wrong hands, they represent a systemic risk to over 2.3 billion active users. I’m sure you understand why I chose to limit the initial disclosure.

I am willing to discuss the compensation for these in full, but only under the following conditions:

1. The communication must take place through a mutually agreed-upon, zero-trust environment.

2. Any shared data remains under NDA with legally binding terms of non-retaliation.

3. The compensation structure must reflect the scope, complexity, and critical nature of these findings.

As for our communication channel, I’ll send you a link to my encrypted video chat software at 10:00 AM EST

I look forward to your response.

OmniTech

_____

Ethan kept his response as simple and straight forward as possible before hitting send.

As for the video chat software, he opened up a file and loaded it into his IDE. This was a project he had been working on at this time.

It was end-to-end encrypted video communication suite.

The software allowed it’s user to create customized the channel parameters to block all packet inspection attempts.

And even add a digital self-destruct timer on the session logs.

This was just a fun little project his past self had created but had abandoned mid way since his time was extremely limited and the software didn’t have any chance of making him money whatsoever.... Or so he thought.

Until now.... Now, he was glad that project was created

Ethan smirked as the old codebase came to life on his screen. It wasn’t market-ready, but he didn’t need it to be—it just had to work this once.

With his future knowledge and current experience, fixing the unfinished parts took less than an hour.

Soon enough, the packaged software was sitting on his laptop, ready to be opened.

He clicked the software’s icon and it immediately opened, displaying the name Ethan had chosen,



CryptCall

Maybe it wasn’t the greatest name but if it works then there was no need to concern himself with the name.

The call interface presented itself to him after the name. It was almost like zoom’s interface but with noticable differences.

"Not the cleanest UI, but it works" Ethan muttered and immediately went on to schedule a meeting.

Ethan watched as the software went through the process of creating a secure call and nodded in approval.

He proceeded to copy the link generated and reopened his encrypted email account before sending a follow up email alongside the link he just copied.

He stretched before dropping his eyes to the bottom left of his laptop, noting that it was just 8:00 AM, meaning he had two hours before the meeting.

"Let’s go get some breakfast first" Ethan said and proceeded to change into some lighter clothes.

He then headed to Sammy’s to grab a quick bite.

________

While Ethan peacefully enjoyed his breakfast, Google’s cyber security team were sweating their a*ses off.

They were currently scanning for each of the vulnerabilities Amelia had gotten from Ethan and blood drained from their faces with each bug confirmed.

Amelia stood in the room, visibly unhappy with the situation.

The team before him was supposed to be the best yet they allow such threat to just casually marinate in their systems.

But she couldn’t completely blame them after all, they had done a full system scan a few months prior and all these openings had completely sneaked past them.

"Who is the hell is this OmniTech guy?" Alex, who stood by Amelia, spoke up in disbelief.

It was still beyond him how OmniTech had found vulnerabilities that sneaked past his team of handpicked professionals.

"I have no idea" Amelia muttered, "all I know is, he wants something from us and it’s not just money."

Alex frowned but before he could say anything else, Amelia’s phone let out a ding.

Pulling it out, she unlocked the screen and saw a new notification from her encrypted inbox.

"It’s from him," she said before frowning at the second email.

"He built his own video call platform," she muttered.

"Wait, what?" Alex leaned closer, reading over her shoulder. "Is that even safe to use?"

"Probably not," she said closing the email and turning to Alex, "I’ll need a new machine, one with no link to our infrastructure."



"Right away," Alex answered before turning to a technician in the room. "Get her a clean box, preferably a new one or just factory reset one, make sure there’s no network logging or existing credentials."

The technician nodded and hurried off.

He then turned back to Amelia and asked "when’s the meeting?"

"In two hours," she replied.

______

It was currently 9:45 AM and Ethan was already back in his apartment, freshly showered and dressed in a plain black t-shirt and jeans.

He was dressed this casual because the meeting, although a video call, didn’t require him to show his face.

Ethan wasn’t ready for his identity to be made known just yet, not until he was surehe could handle the consequences of what followed.

After all, Nathaniel was still out there and drawing his attention this early wasn’t ideal.

The time soon hit 9:55 Am and the interface before him suddenly changed.

Amelia appeared on the screen, seemingly in a room with not a single bit of tech or anything at all, but Ethan didn’t mind.

"Ms. Rhodes," He said with a slight smile. "Thank you for joining. Shall we begin?"