The screen was screaming at us, demanding our attention, and whatever thoughts we had been on the verge of voicing vanished.

Quick, uneasy glances between us; then we turned back to the computers-no words, no questions.

Everything was sealed with silence.

I looked into the recorded logs, flipping through the entries. At first glance, all seemed fine: routine actions, every system responding in order.

Then, I saw something odd. There was a string of commands executed in succession without any break-a very simple, almost too simple-set of commands with no evidence of delay between any one of them, as if it had been correctly timed. Too correctly timed.

"This doesn't look right," I muttered, breaking the silence.

Krishika leaned over my shoulder. As calm as ever, she asked, "What are you seeing?"

"These commands-look." I pointed. "Executed too perfectly. Back-to-back, no gaps. This isn't normal."

Shura leaned in, speaking in a hushed tone. "You are saying it is deliberate?"

"Yes," I said, "Whoever did this wants us to see it. But why?"

"It's a test," Krishika said, "or A bait."

Bianca cut through the room, quiet but clear. "Wait. Look at the spaces before and after each command." Then she added, a hint of confidence growing, "It is consistent. It's too regular. They are leaving a path-something that we're to follow."

Shura's chair creaked as he shifted. "Why not just stay hidden? Why risk this?"

"They're challenging us," Krishika replied. "And they're confident." She looked at Bianca. "Check for patterns. See if this has happened before."

Bianca nodded quickly; "On it."

Shura leaned back, tugging his lips up into another smirk. "If they are testing us, they have pick a wrong. Right, Vyom?

"Oh Yeah. We will show them hell." I said with a very wide grin.

I began to analyse the command. It was obfuscated, it was encrypted in layers designed to slow me down. It took longer than expected, but when I finally broke through, my stomach dropped.

It was a shell script. Meant to be executed on this server, the intent of which is pretty clear: to provide them with a reverse shell, giving them remote access to all things. "How did this end up on our systems." I muttered low and sharp.

Then it hit me right in the gut that, we didn't revert the changes. We didn't even bother to patch the newly discovered vulnerabilities. It was one of those really rookie mistakes.

Krishika," I said, my voice slicing through the room like a hot knife. "I need you to fix all the vulnerabilities we found out during our session. Now."

Her eyes widened a little, and she nodded briskly, her head already spinning back to the keyboard. "Oh! Right-we completely forgot about that." A little guilt was taken by her tone, yet not a single second was being wasted to get right up to the task.

"I found nothing," Bianca said shortly. "It was their first and only attempt."

I nodded to absorb the information,"Oh, I see." I muttered but didn't waste time. I plunged myself again into the analysis of the script, concentrating on the most important details, searching for any detail that might let me know where it may try to do its connection.

It did not take long.

There it was, buried in the lines of code: the function I had been searching for-written to connect with an FTP server.

I dug deeper, hunting for more details, and there it was-a set of credentials, clear as day.

A rookie mistake; whoever had been behind this, had left all in open view. Sloppy.

"Amateur," I muttered, shaking my head. "Definitely, whoever handled this job didn't know his stuff."

I passed it on to the rest of the team, and the air in the room changed immediately. The urgency turned into focused intensity as we turned our attention toward gaining access to their system.

"Time to turn the tables," I said, my voice cold with resolve.

Krishika's eyes shone with determination as she cracked her knuckles, ready for action. Shura, his usual calm demeanor unwavering, slid into position, waiting for the signal. Bianca, the strategist, took the lead, her focus sharp as she studied the server layout.

"We're not just defending anymore," Krishika continued, her eyes locking with each one of ours. "We're going on the offensive."

A small, rare smile curled the edges of Shura's lips. "Let's make 'em feel it. Hard."

Bianca’s quiet voice cut through the room, calm but commanding. “I’ll isolate their vulnerabilities. We’ll make them regret this.”

Well, I was shocked to see Bianca like this, and so was everybody else, but no time to dwell on this, I log in to their ftp server and immediately share the connection with others. Now, we were inside the server, but this was their ground-they had anticipated our move. The name of directories-they were after their team members, just as we did. Clever it was; now it was going to make our job difficult.

"To get the key, we must access the quantum computer's file," I murmured, staring at the lines of data passing before my eyes.

"And that'll be named after their leader. But we don't even know who that is yet."

I sat back a moment, running through the various options in my mind. The pressure was growing, but I had to be quick.

"Now, what are we gonna do?" I said, my frustration now creeping into my voice. My thoughts felt scrambled.

Shura was as cool as ice. "Attack for the directories named 'Rena' It's their leader's name."

"How do you know-" Krishika started asking, but Shura did not let her finish.

"Whenever I take on a task, I complete it through," he said, his voice firm.

But while they were discussing these stuffs, I didn't waste any time. I was already going through the directories labeled "Rena"

"Found it," Bianca said with a steady and, more or less, mechanical tone. "Found the key."

I quickly turned to her, my heart racing. The key. We finally had it.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Bianca did not hesitate and started putting the key in the fifth computer. Finally, we took down one heart of Team 1.

For one brief second, we felt relieved. It was almost like a small victory, some crack in their armor. That feeling of relief was quickly tempered by the harsh reality-we only had one heart left. One mistake, one wrong move, and it was game over.

This wasn't just a fight anymore; this wasn't even a battle.

This was war. A hackers' war.

Suddenly, Krishika's voice pierced the air, shrill and commanding: "Guys, alert. Network activities are spiking. somebody is trying to pay us back."

Her words cut like a knife-through butter. The usual confidence she wore like a badge on her sleeve was hidden now, substituting an underline of urgency. But she masked it the best way she could; her voice was firm and steadfast.

Bianca's eyes flicked to her screen, going over the patterns with precision. "It's a DDoS attack," she said,"A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack. They're flooding our network, trying to overwhelm our it."

Krishika wasted no time. "Bianca, keep tracking the activity. Stay on top of their shifts. We need to know when they change their attack patterns so we can respond immediately."

Bianca nodded, her gaze laser-sharp. "I'll watch every move."

Krishika turned to me, "Vyom, we need to hit them back. Find their weak spots and take them down."

I didn't hesitate. My hands were already flying, burrowing into their network in search of vulnerabilities. If they thought they could overwhelm us, they were about to learn how wrong they were.

Shura," Krishika continued, "I want you to craft a phishing attack. We got to get inside 'n hit them from inside."

Shura grinned, already on task. "I'm on it; I'll have something ready."

Krishika came to me, then turned back to the team. "I'll be updating our defenses so we can dodge whatever they're tossing at us. We have to be flexible."

We heard Krishika's voice, ringing as usual, rallying us. "Let's go. Stay sharp. We hit hard, we hit fast. We can't afford to make mistakes."

"YES, MA'AM!", we all yelled as one voice in absolute unison.

I began to scan the network, and in a very short while, I realized something strange-a file server was left open. It looked almost identical to the one I'd found on our network during the pentest. A chill ran down my spine. This couldn't be a coincidence.

I began re-exploiting the vulnerability methodically, having worked through these steps many times before. The feeling while working wasn't right; even after completing 100 percent of the steps, nothing emerged as expected-a kind of invisible wall was obstructing the path.

The more frustrated it became, there came a feeling like no amount of angles are going to get me somewhere. Then it clicked: The file server wasn't connected to their real network; it was isolated-purposely so. They'd left it open as a decoy, what's called a honeypot, to trap us in wasted effort."

"This server's not what it seems," I muttered, largely to myself, but loud enough for anyone within earshot.

"Progress update," Krishika's voice cut through the tension in commanding tones. She turned to Shura first. "What's the status on the phishing attempt?

Shura frowned. "Still on it. I'm using multi-layered redirects. Every time they think they've nailed something, it loops back to a dead end."

"Keep at it," Krishika nodded, turning then to Bianca. "Anything new pop about the network activity?"

Bianca shook her head, her voice a little unsteady. "It's. chaotic. They're still spiking, but there's no real pattern. It's like they're just throwing noise at us." She paused, then added in frustration, "I'm trying to filter it out, but there's so much going on."

Krishika turned to me, "Vyom?"

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "This file server. it's isolated. They've left it open on purpose-to distract us. I've tried every trick in the book, but I keep hitting a wall. It's a dead end. Krishika pressed her lips together, deep in contemplation, before firming up to say, "I'll update our defenses. If this is some sort of diversion, then it means they're planning on something bigger, and we can't afford to have our vulnerabilities exposed."

Her words brought me back into focus. I slid back in my chair, my cheek muscles chewing as my brain did revolutions. I closed my eyes to filter out the clatter and fitted the pieces together.

The file server, the vulnerability, the log file on that file server.

But the log file was empty. Completely empty.

Why leave it empty? If it's a decoy, then why not fill it with fake logs to waste even more of our time? The silence in the file spoke louder than any clutter ever could. It was clean. Too clean.

"They isolated it and cleared everything." I grumbled under my breath. "Why?"

My mind flashed to spikes in network activity Bianca had spoken of-chaotic but deliberate. All noise. Then there was Shura's phishing, which had yet to catch its fish.

I connected the pieces.

They were setting the stage. The spikes, the decoy, the clean logs-all hinted at one thing: misdirection. They wanted us here, chasing nothing, while they worked in the shadows.

I opened my eyes, frustration coagulating in me to determination.

"They're covering their tracks," I said, sitting up.

Krishika looked over, brow furrowed. "Explain."

I nodded towards my screen. "The file server is a trap, but not the kind we thought. It is not just isolated; it's there to waste our time. The empty logs? That is their signal. They want us to think there is something to find here."

Bianca left her hands upon the keyboard, frowning. "But why leave it completely empty? Wouldn't that make it too obvious?"

"That's the point," I said leaning forward. "They are playing with our minds. They were gambling that we would second-guess ourselves, dig deeper for nothing, while they set something bigger into play." Krishika stood a little straighter, her voice steady but urgent. "I'll change our defense tactics. Bianca, track any subtle changes in their activity. Focus on patterns that might reveal what they're doing in the background.

"On it," Bianca said, narrowing her eyes in focus.

"Shura", Krishika resumed, "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying!," Shura said, already typing.

"And you, Vyom?" Krishika asked, her voice sharp.

I breathed out, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. "I'm going to step back from this decoy and focus on where they don't want us to look. If they're baiting us here, they left a trail somewhere else."

Krishika nodded firmly. "Good. Let's move."

The team dove back into action, as we had one heart left, and this wasn't just about survival; this was about turning the tables.

My fingers flew over the keyboard as I went back to scanning the network. My eyes narrowed in focus, and then something caught my eye-anomalous traces leading to a new server. "Hold on…", I muttered, leaning in closer. I started probing the server, running a series of scans to see if there was a potential entry point that could be exploited. Krishika looked at me. "What do you have? "A new server," I replied. "It's got a weak SSH connection."

Seconds later, a smirk of satisfaction crossed my face. "I'm in," I announced, my voice slicing the tense silence.

The team's gaze fell on me, the burden of their earlier struggles momentarily lifted.

"Same setup," I continued, my tone sharper. "Directories named after their teammates."

They leaned in, expressions lighting up with a mix of hope and determination.

"Go for it," Krishika urged, her voice steady but edged with urgency.

I nodded then launched into the same routine I had already used. I worked my way through each directory named "Rena, my concentration unyielding as I scanned for anything out of the ordinary."

Finally, I stopped. "Got something," I said, pointing at the screen. The file stood out, its name too unusual to ignore.

"Looks suspicious," Shura said, leaning closer.

The clock was ticking. No time for second-guessing. "Only one way to find out." I opened the file directly on our system.

"Wait—" Bianca shouted, with a sharp sense of urgency, "Don't open it yet!"

But it was too late.

It was because the file had already been executed.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then the monitors flickered and the room was plunged into silence as every system went blank.

The screens faded to black.

I was frozen for a moment. The silence in the room was deadly, except for the hum of the overhead lights. I stared at my blank screen, mouth open, trying to comprehend what just happened.

My throat was dry, and I leaned back in my chair, my body weighted down by the overwhelming sense of disbelief. This couldn't be happening. Muffled, the sound of students passing outside the lab grew louder and louder; their voices pierced the air like knives.

"Oh yeah, that idiot really opened the file without a sandbox!" A harsh, jeering voice boomed, accompanied by loud, boisterous laughter.

My stomach dropped.

"Haa! Though you were generous enough to give them one of our hearts, I would never have done that," another voice chipped in sarcastically.

"You're so brutal, John," one of the girls added, trying to ring sympathetic overtones in her voice.

Another girl said, "Well, they're just a bunch of idiots." Her words sliced through me, followed by more laughter.

The mocking voices were echoing off the walls, with every word a deeper cut.

I clenched my fists under the desk. Anger simmered, building. But more overwhelming than that came a wave of guilt. That 'give them one of our hearts' line, the words scalding into my mind. They'd given us a heart on purpose. A pity play.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

That was my fault.