Anos, the world's largest cybersecurity firm, was under siege by its deadliest cyberattack yet.
Aaron, the CEO of Anos, stormed into the mainframe security room, his coat barely keeping up with his furious strides.
"What the hell is happening?!" he barked, slamming the door open with a bang.
"W-We're still trying to trace the breach, sir!" a trembling technician stammered, eyes darting between cascading lines of corrupted code.
The room was a mess of blaring sirens and red warning lights. Screens flickered with endless lines of corrupted data, entire firewalls collapsing in real time like dominoes.
"This doesn't make sense…" one engineer muttered, drenched in sweat. "Anos is supposed to be impenetrable…"
It was true. Anos wasn't just the largest cybersecurity firm—it was the standard. Governments, militaries, billion-dollar corps—everyone trusted Anos. Its A.I.-reinforced firewalls were built to repel quantum-level threats. They had counter-viruses coded to evolve mid-attack. Layered encryption stacked so deep, it'd take centuries to brute-force through one sector.
And yet—
They were losing.
"We've never seen anything like this…" another tech whispered, watching helplessly as the intruder tore through their core network like it was wet paper.
"We're down to Black Sector defenses!" someone shouted. "They're inside the skeleton server! I repeat—they're inside!!"
Aaron's heart pounded as he stared at the mainframe's central monitor.
Lines of code were being rewritten in real-time. Their own system was turning against them.
And then—
A new message appeared on every screen, typed out slowly, mockingly:
"I see you, Aaron."
"Trace that bastard now," Aaron growled. "I want an IP, a location—a name."
He glared at the screens, fists clenched. "I don't care what it takes. Burn the whole net if you have to."
* * *
"Well good luck with that." I said while looking at the man screaming my computer screen.
The guy on the screen? Aaron—CEO of Anos, the so-called most secure cybersecurity company in the world.
The guy watching him freak out?
That's me. The greatest hacker in the world… At least according to a YouTube video I saw.
I hacked my school's database when I was eight. With an Xbox 360.
Now? I freelance on the dark web, going by the name of Z, selling government secrets to whoever's got the cash. And yeah, the news has me as one of the most wanted criminals in the world. Doesn't bother me, though.
There's always someone trying to find me—probably the FBI, CIA, or whatever agency wants a piece. They throw everything they can at me, but they can't pin me down. They can search the web all they want, but I'm never in the same place twice.
"Guess GTA 6 wont be released till 2028…" I said as I looked into the documents I hacked from the Anos main server.
I sent over the documents that my buyer requested me and stretched my arms.
"What to do now…"
I scrolled through the usual crap on the dark web—nothing new, nothing interesting. Then I came across an ad for a new game. Cyberpunk: Cortex.
"This looks decent…"
Clicked it. Downloaded it. Fired it up.
The game world was huge—skyscrapers everywhere, neon lights cutting through the fog, people walking around like they had somewhere important to be.
It was a city ruled by greed. The rich sat up top, living in the clouds. Everyone else? Scrambling to survive in the streets below.
You played as a mercenary, taking jobs from anyone with cash—corporations, criminals, whoever. It didn't matter.
I ran through a few basic missions. Assassinate a guy. Steal some data. Standard stuff.
The combat was solid—fast, brutal. Blades, guns, whatever you wanted. You could upgrade your character, get cybernetic implants, boost your reflexes, modify your weapons. It was fun at first.
Until I got to the deaths.
First time I died, some random junkie on drugs stabbed me. One shot, out.
Next run, I died in a cutscene. Didn't even touch the keyboard.
Then I walked down a street and stepped on a landmine. Just there. Middle of the road.
One mission in, a vending machine short-circuited and electrocuted me to death.
Sniped through a wall. Set on fire by a civilian. Poisoned by my own teammate.
I didn't come here to be frustrated.
Sighing, I leaned back. "Alright, screw it." I pulled up the console.
A couple lines of code. Health up, damage up.
For a hacker of my skillset, hacking a simple game shouldn't be that hard.
"Should've done this sooner," I mumbled, hitting enter.
Let's see if this works.
The console tweaks kicked in. Stats adjusted. Should've been good.
Then a window popped up.
[Did you really think that was gonna work?]
I froze.
That wasn't part of the game.
I sat up. I had erased every trace, sandboxed everything, isolated the connection.
'The greatest government authorities couldn't catch me. A random game company shouldn't be able to…!'
Another message flashed.
[Death to hackers.]
The screen exploded in white—loud, blinding. Like a flashbang straight to the face.
Everything went black.