The countdown timer remained completely frozen at 34:42. The deafening, apocalyptic wail of the Class-Omega sirens had been abruptly silenced, leaving the primary research and development laboratory in a state of suspended, breathless shock. The only sound echoing across the sterile white tiles was the relentless, machine-gun staccato of my fingertips striking the quantum-glass keyboard.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
I didn't pause to admire my work. Trapping the Leviathan worm in a blind logic loop was merely the digital equivalent of pinning a venomous snake to the floor with a forked stick. Nathaniel Kain’s polymorphic malware was highly adaptive; if I left it in the quarantine buffer for more than ten minutes, it would eventually randomize its way into a new syntax and break free.
It was
