The alarm tore through the dawn silence like a blade. The entire building seemed to wail in anguish.
Nicholas lurched from his chair. The coffee mug slipped from his hand and shattered, dark liquid splashing like blood on the marble floor. 5:47 AM—white emergency lights burned across the office, casting his twisted shadow far and wide.
His breathing came sharp and fast, heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum.
Three minutes ago, he'd been reviewing routine financial reports from the Shanghai division. Now, seventeen red alerts flashed simultaneously across his holographic displays, each one branded with "CRITICAL BREACH."
Olivia's urgent voice crackled through the encrypted comm channel: "Nicholas! Are you seeing this? Shanghai's in complete meltdown!"
"I see it." Nicholas's fingers danced across the interface, pulling up detailed data streams. "What the hell happened?"
"847 million yuan, completely frozen. Every bank account locked down, and the transfer records show... Christ, these transactions don't even exist!" Shock bled through Olivia's voice. "Someone's been fabricating our financial data."
A chill crawled up Nicholas's spine. This wasn't some random hack—this was a carefully orchestrated trap. He paused at the keyboard for a beat, catching a faint metallic scraping from the ceiling above—probably just the building's thermal expansion. He didn't give it another thought.
"What about personnel?"
"That's where it gets twisted." The sound of rapid keystrokes filtered through the comm. "Lizzy boarded a flight to Singapore at 11 PM last night—hours before any alerts triggered. David Zhang filed for emergency family leave, claimed some crisis in Vancouver."
Too convenient. Nicholas pulled up the personnel files. David's record was flawless: five years of service, A-level security clearance, not a single violation on his record. But now, that very perfection felt like the most damning evidence of all.
"What about their system access logs?"
"David's account shows last login at 3:47 AM—exactly thirty minutes after Lizzy's plane took off." Olivia's pause carried a weight of dread. "But Nicholas, the session duration shows ninety-seven minutes. Exactly ninety-seven minutes. First twelve minutes show normal activity patterns, then... nothing."
Nicholas's blood turned to ice water. Ninety-seven minutes—not ninety-eight, not ninety-five. Precisely ninety-seven.
Humans didn't work in such exact increments. Automated programs did.
"Someone's covering tracks," he said, his voice echoing hollow in the empty office.
"Or buying time." A shared screen request popped up from Olivia. "You need to see this."
The Crystalsight system interface materialized, but those usually fluid data streams now stuttered with obvious lag spikes. Nicholas frowned as he watched the transaction logs refresh—three seconds, five seconds, sometimes eight seconds of delay.
"This isn't network latency." He ran diagnostics, and the results made his heart sink into his stomach. "Someone's intercepting the data flow."
"Real-time scrubbing," Olivia confirmed. "Classic technique—mirror incoming data, strip out anything suspicious, then push the sanitized version to our monitoring systems. It's like someone intercepting your mail, reading it, removing any incriminating parts, then sealing it back up as if nothing happened."
"But if you know what to look for, you can spot it." Nicholas's mind raced. Someone with admin privileges was actively covering tracks. Which meant Shanghai's infiltration was just the tip of the iceberg. "Where's Rex? I need his analysis of the system architecture."
Dead silence.
"Olivia?"
"Nicholas... Rex went dark six hours ago. No response on secure channels, no GPS ping from company devices."
The office suddenly felt arctic. Nicholas pulled up Rex's user profile, fingers trembling slightly as he initiated full tracking protocols.
The location trace completed. The results made Nicholas stare at the screen in disbelief.
Current Location: GDI Internal Data Center - Sub-level B3Last Activity: Terminal Node 7-Alpha - Active Session Duration: 347 minutes
"He's in the building." Nicholas's voice dropped to a whisper. "Rex is in our own data center. He's been there for almost six hours."
Olivia's sharp intake of breath crackled through the comm. "That's impossible. Sub-level B3 requires dual authorization. Even Rex can't access it alone."
Unless he wasn't alone.
But Nicholas didn't voice that thought. Instead, he took a deep breath and prepared to activate a protocol he'd hoped never to use.
"I'm initiating Smoke Protocol. Authorization code: Icarus-Seven-Seven-Alpha."
"Jesus, Nicholas. Are you sure? Smoke Protocol triggers—"
"Full digital forensics lockdown, I know." Nicholas hesitated as the system requested secondary confirmation. "But if we have a mole in our infrastructure..."
Smoke Protocol was GDI's most comprehensive security measure, engineered specifically for scenarios where the organization itself had been compromised. The system operated with clinical precision: freezing non-essential digital traffic, establishing isolated forensic networks, and activating monitoring protocols that existed beyond the knowledge of standard personnel.
Nicholas entered biometric confirmation and watched as the office lighting automatically dimmed—a physical indicator that Smoke Protocol was now active. Throughout the GDI building, employees would receive notifications about "scheduled maintenance upgrades" requiring temporary system restrictions.
"Initiate deep packet analysis on all internal traffic for the past seventy-two hours," Nicholas declared, his fingers dancing across multiple interfaces simultaneously. "I want complete audit trails for anyone with access to Shanghai operations."
The investigation tools began their work, but Nicholas found himself drawn to another screen—security camera feeds from sub-level B3.
The data center looked normal: rows of servers humming quietly in their climate-controlled environment, soft blue LED strips providing minimal illumination.
At Terminal Node 7-Alpha sat a familiar figure.
Rex was indeed at the workstation, but something was wrong with the scene. His fingers moved with eerie precision—too clean, too consistent. But every few seconds, a twitch, a hesitation, as if something inside him resisted the commands he followed. Nicholas enhanced the image, adjusting contrast and brightness until he could make out more details.
Rex's screen displayed cascading code—not the clean interfaces of normal administrative work, but raw system commands. Data extraction routines. File deletion protocols.
"My God," Nicholas breathed. "He's not investigating. He's destroying evidence."
But as Nicholas zoomed in further, focusing on Rex's reflection in a nearby monitor's black screen, he noticed something else. A shadow that shouldn't be there. A second person, standing just outside the camera's direct field of view.
Nicholas isolated the reflection, applied enhancement filters, and felt his blood turn to ice.
The shadow belonged to someone wearing a jacket with a small, distinctive logo on the chest. Even in the distorted reflection, that symbol was unmistakable: Clearwater's corporate emblem.
Nicholas's world collapsed in an instant. Clearwater—GDI's biggest competitor for three years, the company they'd been battling tooth and nail for Asian market share. They weren't just business rivals; they were ideological enemies. And now they were here, in the heart of GDI.
"Olivia," Nicholas's voice shook as he fought to maintain composure. "Rex isn't working alone. Whoever's with him... they're not GDI."
Even as he spoke, Rex's head suddenly lifted from the workstation. Even through the grainy security feed, Nicholas could see him turn toward the camera, his face a blur of pixels and shadows.
For one terrible moment, Rex seemed to stare directly through the lens at him.
Then the screen went black.
Nicholas stared at the dead monitor, palms slick with sweat. After several seconds of silence, he realized something far worse—they knew he was watching. Somehow, they'd always known.
Nicholas's fingers flew toward the emergency lockdown button, pulse thundering in his ears. One press would seal the entire building, trapping whoever was in sub-level B3. But it would also—
Suddenly, every screen in his office flickered. Network connectivity indicators flashed red, then died completely.
Throughout the GDI tower, the subtle hum of digital infrastructure fell silent.
Nicholas grabbed his secure phone, but the encrypted channel to Olivia showed no signal. His computer monitors displayed ominous "NETWORK DISCONNECTED" messages. Even the digital clock on his desk had gone dark.
In the distance, he could hear voices rising in confusion—employees discovering their workstations had died, elevators stopping between floors, even the building's card readers ceasing to function.
"No, no, no..." Nicholas whispered, realizing what had happened. Smoke Protocol hadn't just activated—it had triggered complete network isolation. But this wasn't part of the designed response. Someone had hijacked the protocol, turning it against GDI itself.
Nicholas's finger hovered over the emergency button, sweat dripping from his forehead. Pressing it might trap the infiltrators, or it might play right into their hands.
Just then, his secure phone crackled back to life through a burst of static.
"Nicholas!" Olivia's voice cut through the interference, sharp with panic. "Don't touch anything! The building's in complete lockdown, but not from our end—someone's controlling Smoke Protocol, and—"
The line went dead again.
Nicholas stared at the emergency button, finger trembling above the red surface. Press it, and he might trap the infiltrators—or he might be playing exactly into their hands. Whatever was happening in sub-level B3, whoever Rex was working with, they'd just proven they could weaponize GDI's own security systems.
Emergency Protocol 7 had just become something far more dangerous than a financial investigation. GDI wasn't just dealing with an external threat—they were fighting a war that had already breached their walls.
And the enemy had just cut off all his escape routes.
In the silence of his darkened office, Nicholas could hear his own heartbeat and the distant sound of stairwell doors slamming shut as panicked employees tried to evacuate a building that would no longer let them leave.
But most terrifying of all, amid all this chaos, he heard something else.
A faint scraping sound from the ventilation ducts.
Someone was moving through the air shafts.
And this time, it was headed his way.