CHAPTER 7: THE LOCKED NETWORK
My biometric key could not be used by anyone else.
At least, that was what our employees believed.
Three years earlier, Daniel had convinced me to approve a continuity system. If I became incapacitated, a biometric profile stored inside an encrypted device could temporarily authenticate emergency access.
Samuel drafted the legal authorization.
Celeste witnessed it.
They had built the weakness together.
Northstar now possessed a digital copy of my identity.
I ordered an immediate shutdown of every remote authentication server.
The Australian facility responded first.
Boston followed.
Then the federal archive rejected the command.
Someone had already entered.
The archive was not a room filled with paper.
It was a secure data center containing system maps, access protocols, and emergency vulnerabilities for major transportation networks and government buildings.
If Northstar copied the information, they could sell it to anyone.
Hannah traced the intrusion to a Hale Systems maintenance terminal.
The terminal was located inside an abandoned manufacturing site in New Hampshire.
Daniel had leased the building through a shell company.
Federal agents prepared a raid.
I insisted on joining the command team because I had designed the archive’s security architecture.
Agent Raymond Cole objected.
“You are a civilian.”
“I am the only person who knows the emergency segmentation sequence.”
“Then provide it to us.”
“The sequence changes based on the active intrusion path. I need to see the system in real time.”
He reluctantly agreed to let me work from a mobile command vehicle outside the site.
We arrived shortly before midnight.
The old factory stood beside a frozen river.
Most of the windows were broken.
One section glowed with electrical light.
Inside the command vehicle, I connected to the network.
Someone was copying the federal archive in encrypted blocks.
Thirty-eight percent had already transferred.
I began isolating the stolen sections.
Then a camera feed appeared.
Celeste sat inside the factory’s control room.
Her hands were tied to a chair.
A bruise darkened one side of her face.
Daniel stood behind her.
He had been released temporarily after his attorney challenged the arrest warrant. Instead of returning home, he had disappeared.
Samuel was nowhere in sight.
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“I know you’re watching, Marcus.”
Agent Cole ordered his team into position.
Daniel continued.
“Celeste became emotional. She considered helping the government.”
Celeste shook her head.
“He’s lying!”
Daniel pressed a gun against the back of her chair.
“You have eight minutes to restore full archive access,” he said. “If you refuse, your wife dies.”
I stared at the screen.
Celeste had betrayed me.
She had tormented my mother.
She had participated in a plan to destroy my company.
But I would not become the kind of man who allowed someone to be executed because I hated them.
“I need a communication channel,” I told Agent Cole.
He connected me.
“Daniel,” I said, “let her go.”
“You still want to save her?”
“I want you to stop pretending this is justice.”
His face hardened.
“This began with your father.”
“My father wronged your family. That does not excuse what you did to my mother.”
“Your mother protected him.”
“She also told me the truth.”
Daniel hesitated.
He had not expected that.
“I know about Arthur Price,” I continued. “I know about your father. I know what Hale Systems was built on.”
“Then give it back.”
“I will create a restitution fund. I will reopen the patent history. Your families will receive public recognition.”
Daniel laughed.
“You think this is about recognition?”
“It was once.”
His expression shifted.
Revenge had begun the plan.
Power had continued it.
“You became everything you claimed to hate,” I said.
The archive transfer reached forty-six percent.
I initiated a false restoration sequence.
Daniel’s screen showed full access returning.
In reality, I redirected the transfer into an isolated server.
He would receive files containing carefully designed tracking code.
“Access restored,” I said.
Daniel checked the system.
Then he smiled.
“Thank you.”
Federal agents entered the building.
Gunfire erupted somewhere outside the control room.
The camera shook.
Celeste threw herself sideways, knocking the chair into Daniel.
The gun discharged into the ceiling.
Agents broke through the door.
Daniel ran toward a rear stairwell.
Celeste remained on the floor.
Within seconds, the factory’s fire alarm activated.
Daniel had triggered an automated destruction system.
Flames rose from the server room.
The federal team pulled Celeste outside.
But Daniel escaped through a tunnel leading to the river.
When agents searched the control room, they discovered a live video connection.
Samuel Price appeared on the screen from an unknown location.
He looked directly at me.
“Daniel was always too emotional,” he said.
Behind him stood shelves of Hale Systems backup servers.
May you like
“I have the real archive.”
Then the connection ended.
