The Popular Girl Manipulated Our Applications I Went To Stanford Chapter 03
“Stop with the nonsense!” Chad panicked, slamming his palm against the door.
“The portal closes in less than thirty minutes. Tiffany said if you just hand over your account, everything will be fine.”
“If you let your personal grudge ruin everyone’s chances at college, you’ll be responsible for ruining everyone’s future.”
I looked coldly at his twisted face through the peephole.
“My account was locked by the state board hours ago. No one can log into it.”
“I don’t believe you. You just don’t want to help anyone!”
Chad cursed outside the door.
“Jennifer, you evil woman. You just want to watch everyone fail.”
“I’m telling you, Tiffany already contacted the hacker’s boss. They’re working on it right now. When the applications get changed back, don’t come begging for our forgiveness.”
He finally left when he got tired of yelling.
I went back to the couch and opened the state board’s official website.
Traffic was spiking abnormally. The page was loading extremely slowly.
Clearly, over thirty students plus their curious parents were all frantically refreshing the portal.
Twenty-five minutes left.
My phone rang again. It was Marcus.
“Jennifer, something’s wrong!” Marcus’s voice was obviously shaky. “I tried to log into the portal, and it said my password was incorrect.”
“When I tried to reset it, it said my phone number had been removed from the account. Tiffany said the hacker was just changing applications, so why would they lock me out of my account?”
I frowned slightly.
“Did you ask Tiffany in the chat?”
“I did!” Marcus was panting with anxiety. “Tiffany said it was standard hacker procedure to stop anyone from logging in early and messing up the program.”
“But I have a bad feeling about this, Jennifer. If my mom finds out my application changed to a technical college, she’ll ground me forever.”
“Call the police,” I said.
“But Chad said anyone who calls the police is a traitor to the class.” Marcus hesitated. “And Mr. Kowalski said in the chat that anyone who calls the police will get expelled.”
I let out a sad sigh.
This is what a top-tier education produces.
Straight A’s but zero common sense.
“Marcus, a principal can’t expel you. That’s not how it works,” I said into the phone.
“But Jennifer, I’m really scared.” Marcus still hesitated.
“I’ve told you what to do, the choice is yours.” I hung up without hesitation.
Twenty minutes left.
The tone in the subreddit thread started to shift.
Some tech-savvy commenters figured it out.
“This isn’t a hacker attack at all. Someone got your passwords and manually changed everything.”
“Call the police now. There’s no way the state portal lets some dark web hacker just walk in.”
“Twenty minutes left. If it doesn’t change back by now, it’s permanent.”
Tiffany’s fake account was still doubling down.
“What do you know? You can’t understand what a professional hacker can do. Everyone stay calm. The miracle will happen in the last ten minutes.”
I looked at the time on my computer.
Ten minutes?
The portal enters data lockdown fifteen minutes before closing, stopping all external writes.
Tiffany had no idea what kind of fire she was playing with.
Just then, a breaking news alert flashed on TV.
“We have an urgent update from the State Board of Education.”
The news anchor looked grim.
“The state college application portal may have been tampered with maliciously. To protect student data, the board initiated an emergency lockdown two minutes ago.”
“All application change functions are now closed. Police are investigating. Please remain calm…”
The anchor’s words hit like a thunderclap, shattering every illusion.
Fifteen minutes remained until the original closing time.
But the portal was already locked.