Forbidden access

Chapter two - The intruder

Ava watched him from the glass wall of her office as he was escorted into the cybersecurity lab. The entire tech floor had fallen silent. Engineers who had worked in Sinclair Corp for ten, fifteen, or twenty years stared at the stranger with equal parts confusion and insult. Who was this boy they’d dragged in from nowhere?

But he didn’t seem to care.

He dropped his backpack on a desk, unzipped it, and pulled out a laptop so worn out that one of the technicians actually made a sound of disgust. Stickers covered half of it. The other half was held together with tape.

“Dear God,” someone whispered.

Ava’s assistant stepped beside her. “Ma’am, are you sure about this? He doesn’t even meet basic security clearance. We don’t know his background.”

Ava didn’t respond immediately. Her eyes followed the stranger as he plugged in his system, ignoring the expensive company hardware they offered him.

“I want every camera on him,” she finally said. “Every keystroke logged, every file he touches mirrored.”

The assistant nodded and hurried off.

Inside the room, the stranger leaned back in his chair, cracked his knuckles, and began typing. At first slowly, then impossibly fast. The room behind him filled with startled gasps. Three senior engineers rushed forward, staring at his screen.

“He’s bypassing the breach point… from the outside?” one of them breathed.

“That’s not possible,” another muttered.

But it was happening.

Ava stepped into the room.

He didn’t stop typing. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t acknowledge the CEO standing two feet away. The audacity of it made something sharp twist inside her chest — irritation or curiosity, she couldn’t tell.

“You said you can fix it,” Ava said, her voice even. “But you haven’t even asked what they exploited, what our architecture is, what—”

“I already know,” he said.

The room froze.

Ava’s brows drew together. “How?”

He finally looked at her, just long enough to say, “Because your system isn’t the problem. Your people are.”

A ripple of shock moved through the team. One of the engineers straightened, offended. “Excuse me? We built this entire—”

“Exactly,” the stranger cut in. “And you built it wrong.”

Ava’s assistant swallowed loudly.

Ava should have thrown him out. She should have dismissed him on the spot. Yet she found herself stepping closer instead, her eyes cold but curious.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He paused. Briefly. Then: “Noah.”

Noah. Just Noah.

“Fine,” Ava said. “Then do it, Noah. Stop the attack. And do it fast.”

He didn’t answer. He just went back to typing, the screen reflecting in his eyes like fire.

Ava watched in silence. Every second felt like a heartbeat counting down to the end of her company.

Then Noah suddenly stiffened.

Ava noticed instantly. “What is it?”

He didn’t look up. “Whoever’s attacking you… isn’t just stealing data.”

“Then what are they doing?” Ava demanded.

Noah’s jaw tightened.

“They’re looking for something. And they’ve been looking for it for months. This attack isn’t random. It’s personal.”

Ava felt her pulse stutter.

Personal?

Before she could speak, Noah’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and alarms blared through the room. The lights dimmed. Three screens flashed red simultaneously.

Noah stood up slowly.

“Ava,” he said calmly. “You need to see this.”

Her blood turned cold.

Because no one ever called her Ava.

And definitely not like that.

A message appeared on the main monitor, written in bold red letters.

WE FOUND WHAT YOU’RE HIDING.

Ava’s heart stopped.

No one else in the room understood.

But Noah did.

He turned to her, studying her with eyes that saw too much.

“Whatever this is,” he said softly, “it started long before today.”

Ava swallowed, unable to breathe.

Because Noah was right.

And the thing they were looking for…

was the one secret she had buried deeper than all the others.