The alert hit the system without warning.
Red flashed across the main screen, sharp and unforgiving. A simulated breach unannounced, unscheduled, and way above intern-level difficulty.
The room froze.
Chairs creaked. Someone swore quietly. Another intern stood up as if that might help.
Nyra didn't move.Calm as ever,for someone dealing with shark being calm was a virtue.
She leaned forward instead, eyes narrowing as lines of corrupted data streamed past. This wasn't a bug. It was intentional. Sloppy security wrapped in arrogance the kind built by people who believed no one would ever challenge it.
"This wasn't on the agenda," someone whispered.
"Is it supposed to do that?"
Nyra exhaled slowly.
"Of course it isn't," she murmured. "That would be too honest."
Elias rolled his chair closer, eyes sharp now. "There's a recursive loop feeding the breach back into the core. Whoever wrote this wanted it to spiral."
Nyra glanced at him, approval flickering in her eyes. "Good catch."
Most people would've panicked. Nyra had learned early panic was a death wish.
She isolated the entry point, fingers moving with quiet precision. No wasted motion. No hesitation. She rewrote live code like she was defusing something explosive steady hands, steady mind.
"You're rewriting the firewall while it's active," Elias said under his breath.
"If I don't," she replied calmly, "everything crashes."
Minutes passed.
The room grew silent. Interns gathered closer, drawn in despite themselves. Screens reflected in wide eyes. This wasn't practice anymore this was survival.
Nyra built a new barrier from scratch, layering protocols, redirecting corrupted packets like rerouting traffic in a city she knew by heart. Sweat gathered at her temple, but her expression never changed.
The red alert vanished.
Silence.
Then green flooded the screen.
"Run diagnostics," Nyra said.
Elias did.
Clean. Stable. Secure.
Someone let out a breath they'd clearly been holding. Someone else laughed in disbelief. A few people stared at Nyra like they were seeing her for the first time.
She closed her laptop slowly, like this was just another task off her list.
"That was insane," Elias said quietly. "You didn't even hesitate."
She shrugged. "Hesitation gets you caught."
He didn't ask what she meant. He never did.
Across the room, the energy had shifted. This wasn't gossip anymore. This was attention. Respect. Envy. Fear.
Nyra felt it settle into the space like smoke.
She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder, eyes scanning the room once calm, unreadable.
Let them talk.
Let them doubt.
She'd learned long ago: the ones who underestimate you always make the best mistakes.
And somewhere above them all, behind glass and ego, someone important was about to notice her.