[A light flickers on. Albert Lamplight sits in a study surprisingly left untouched.]
[With a leg crossed over the other, a book rests on his lap.]
“For as hungry as they’ll always be for my greatest treasures, there are but a few of them that they’ll never find – like this book that was given to me by my father. It speaks of a man known only as Dark Dante – a fascinating wonder with electronics. In fact, he was so good with them that he eventually learned what kind of information he could collect from them. And to him, not exclusively for his benefit – but for everyone’s”
“He was boring technological holes into the information superhighway. The deeper he managed to get, the deeper he wanted to go.”
“It really got interesting, however, when he realized that he could poke around into files that he knew he was not only prohibited from seeing but could get into an extraordinary amount of trouble for. Naturally, there were always systems put in place to add additonal layers of security.”
“Walls, if you will…”
“But the walls only made Dark Dante hungrier, greedier, more anxious to get to the bottom of it all. If approached with this sort of barrier, he would simply start digging an entirely separate hole, confident that he would be just little bit quicker than them.”
“The book speaks of the fearlessness he had. He was simply impenetrable, disguised behind a camouflage of binary code – always with an ace up his sleeve just in case everything suddenly soured. There were so such thing as consequences for Dark Dante, because consequences were failures – and failures don’t exist in a world where number variables are infinite.”
“Unless they are…”
[Albert slaps the book shut and smiles into the camera.]
“Much more ahead than he thought. Which, as this book insists, was the case.”
“Of course, Dark Dante didn’t know that. Neither do you, Jinx. But, just like our storied hacker here, there’s no such thing as stopping is there? It’s no longer just a matter of importance for you to get to the bottom of these secrets – it’s a matter of necessity. And just like Dark Dante, tapping in and disclosing this information isn’t just to necessarily benefit you – but others as well.”
“Unfortunately for you – and Dark Dante – the powers that be are simply just that – Power. And it is a power that serves in large numbers to ensure that certain information doesn’t it find its way into the general public.”
“And you know what? They were watching him the entire time, Jinx. Recording every single one of his moves like it was a game of chess. They hunted that boy down until there was nothing about him that they didn’t know.”
“And when he was finally caught?”
[Albert takes a pregnant pause, reflecting with his finger against his lips.]
“I suppose that’s probably why they made this wonderful book about it, because…”
“That’s all that was left when it was all said and done.”
[Albert lets out a sigh, before uncrossing his legs. Right before he shuts the light off–}
“Hopefully, you understand.”