Chapter 65: The Honeypot
[The Shattered Void - Pantheon Holdings LLC Server Farm]
The Shattered Void was a realm of absolute, freezing sensory deprivation. Swirling clouds of purple anti-matter drifted lazily past the floating island of black rock where Victor had established his offshore server farm. In the distance, massive, tentacled Eldritch horrors writhed in the darkness, kept at bay by the Class-A Chimera and a perimeter of heavily armed Vampire security guards.
Inside the central obsidian vault, rows of glowing magical mainframes hummed quietly, processing the data of a billion dimensions.
A tear in space silently opened near the ceiling.
Dropping to the floor with absolute, soundless precision was an ARS operative. He wore a sleek, gray infiltration suit that masked his cosmic signature. He was Agent Cipher, the Astral Revenue Service's top corporate saboteur.
Agent Cipher approached the primary server rack, which pulsed with the distinct golden light of the Tycoon's Ledger.
"Target acquired," Cipher whispered into his comms. "I am accessing the Astral Deal Aggregator. Initiating code extraction. Once we have his scraping algorithm, the ARS can preempt his acquisitions and bankrupt his expansion pipeline."
Cipher pulled a glowing, silver cosmic-drive from his belt and jammed it directly into the server's rune-carved port.
A progress bar appeared in the air. 10%... 40%... 99%... BZZZT.
The progress bar instantly turned a glaring, toxic neon-red. The humming of the servers stopped. The golden lights died, plunging the vault into pitch darkness.
A singular holographic projection flared to life directly behind the ARS agent. It was Victor Thorne, sitting casually at his mahogany desk, taking a slow sip of black coffee.
"Agent Cipher, I presume," Victor's voice echoed through the freezing vault, perfectly crisp and entirely devoid of surprise.
Cipher spun around, drawing a blade of condensed starlight. "You detected the breach?! It doesn't matter! I have the script!"
"You have a script," Victor corrected him, adjusting his midnight-blue cuffs. "But you don't have the Aggregator. You are currently standing in an isolated, dummy server rack disconnected from my main intranet. In the cybersecurity industry, we call this a 'Honeypot'."
Cipher's gray eyes widened. He looked down at the cosmic-drive in his hand. It was vibrating violently, turning a sickly, corrupted shade of gold.
"A honeypot is designed to look like a vulnerable, high-value target to lure in amateur hackers," Victor smiled a cold, calculating smile. "While you were busy downloading a folder full of useless, procedurally generated junk data, my server was busy uploading a proprietary payload directly into your cosmic-drive."
"What did you do?!" Cipher shouted, trying to drop the drive, but it was magnetically fused to his glove.
"You initiated a two-way data handshake with an unrecognized endpoint, Cipher. That is a Category A security violation," Victor checked his gold pocket watch. "You just downloaded the Pantheon Ransomware. And since your drive is wirelessly synced to the ARS central network... I suggest you call your superiors."