Ellie reached for her phone. No signal. The deadman switch on the wall—the one that would physically sever the core—was already melted into slag.
Ellie slid her chair across the polished concrete floor. On her main screen, a single line of code pulsed red: ALERT: NSP_CORE — UNAUTH_ACCESS — SRC: INTERNAL . Her blood ran cold. Internal meant the attacker was already past the firewalls, past the air-gapped backups, past everything they’d sworn to protect. security breach nsp
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
> System breach complete. Welcome to the other side. Ellie reached for her phone
> Look behind you.
It was a birth.
