-DIARY LOG 11/07/2057-
Dear diary,
I learned something about ghosts today. Not the kind that haunts abandoned buildings or whispers through the cracks of old memories. No, these ghosts live in the Net, in the gaps between data streams, in the spaces where information should be but isn’t. They leave just enough of a trail for you to know they were there but never enough to catch them.
Back then, I wasn’t looking for ghosts. I was just a kid playing around where I shouldn’t have been, slicing through encrypted archives on a private server because I wanted to see if I could. It was reckless, stupid, exactly the kind of thing that should have gotten me caught. But I wasn’t alone.
Someone else had been there first.
I didn’t notice them at first. Not until my access logs started changing on their own. At first, I thought it was a glitch. Then I realized the timestamps were rewriting themselves in real time, erasing my footprints before I could even make them. My pulse spiked. My breath went shallow. I’d spent enough time poking around systems to know what this meant—someone was watching me.
I was about to jack out when a message blinked onto my screen.
"Too slow, kid."
Three words. No signature, no traceable sender, just a whisper in the code before the entire archive scrubbed itself clean. The files I had been digging through were gone. The access logs were erased. It was as if I had never been there at all.
I spent weeks afterward trying to retrace my steps, scouring old logs, digging through backchannels for any clue as to who it had been. But there was nothing left. Just a blank space where data should have been.
That was the first time I realized that in the world of netrunners, the real pros don’t just hide. They rewrite reality as they move through it. And if you see them at all, it’s only because they wanted you to. I hope one day, I will become that good.
Until next time,
Ellia
-Night City 2064-
I arrived under the shroud of a rain-drenched evening, the slick pavement reflecting the neon glare of Night City as I made my way into the corporate headquarters. Tonight, I wasn’t just another employee. I was working for my father, and his expectations weighed heavily on every step I took. Outwardly, I had to appear as a naïve new hire, inexperienced and eager to learn, even though beneath that façade, I was already playing a dangerous double game.
The corridors were dimly lit and lined with rain-streaked glass while fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting long, shifting shadows on the cold, polished floors. Every echo of my footsteps reminded me of the isolation inherent in this place: a sleek, modern labyrinth built for efficiency where every move was silently monitored.
As I navigated the hallways, my mind churned with conflicted emotions. My father’s directive was clear: blend in with the cybersecurity team and appear untested, all while secretly carrying out two critical missions. On the one hand, I was to integrate with the cybersec team, a close-knit unit of four. There was Toby, the methodical analyst who never misses a detail; Malik, a brilliant technician with a quiet, brooding presence; Samantha, whose enthusiasm masked a deep-seated wariness; and Devon, a resourceful operator known for his uncanny ability to improvise under pressure. They all thought I was just another rookie here to learn the ropes.
But that was only half the plan. My true assignment was far more perilous: to infiltrate the research division, an eight-person team led by my father himself, and root out a traitor. So far, I have narrowed the suspects down to four. Darius Chen’s repeated unauthorized access logs were the first red flag. Helena Ruiz’s data anomalies made her an enigma, always a few steps out of sync. Liam Foster’s secretive off-hours activity painted a picture of deliberate evasion, and Marisol Gomez’s irregular communications with external contacts left too many questions unanswered.
As I passed through the security checkpoint, a swift, almost mechanical scan of my credentials, I couldn’t help but think how easily I could be mistaken for a simple, inexperienced hire. That was exactly what my father wanted. I adjusted the strap on my backpack, concealing a secure data drive loaded with tools and backups, and steeled myself for what lay ahead.
At that moment, as the rain tapped softly against the glass and the hum of the facility filled the silence, I resolved to master my dual role. I was here to blend in, to be the obedient asset they all expected, but underneath it all; I was determined to peel back the layers of corporate deceit and expose the corruption festering within our ranks.
With one final deep breath, I stepped forward into the unknown, every sense alert to the subtle dance of loyalty and betrayal. Tonight, beneath the polished veneer of this high-tech fortress, the quiet infiltration had begun.
The cybersec office was unlike the rest of Biotechnica’s corporate floors. It did not have sleek glass paneling or neatly curated décor, no decorative plants, and no AI assistants waiting to answer pointless questions. It was a functional space, built for work and nothing else. The room smelled faintly of old coffee, heated circuitry, and the ever-present chill of recycled air. The low hum of cooling fans and servers filled the silence, the only real sound besides the constant clicking of keys.
Against the back wall, two netrunning rigs pulsed with the soft glow of idle holo-interfaces, their sleek frames almost ominous in the dim lighting. Unlike the terminals at the desks, these were high-end corporate-grade setups, built for deep dives into the Net. Not the kind of gear you’d find in an average security office.
I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or unsettling.
As I stepped in, the team barely acknowledged my presence. They weren’t being rude—it was just how people like us operated. When you worked in cybersecurity, you got used to processing multiple layers of information at once. New hires weren’t a threat. Network breaches were.
The first to acknowledge me was Toby, the one who had probably built half the system they were running. He had the kind of face that never betrayed emotion—sharp, efficient, measured. His brown hair was cropped short, his clothes were neat but not stylish, and his eyes held the kind of weight that came from too many hours staring at screens, too many threats caught just before they turned into disasters.
"You must be Ellia," he said, his tone neutral. Not cold, not welcoming—just stating a fact.
I nodded. "That’s me. First day."
He motioned toward a vacant desk, its terminal already booted up and waiting. "Take a seat. We’ll get started."
I slid into the chair, placing my hands over the keyboard, letting the weight of the system settle in front of me. The screen flickered to life, unfolding encrypted pathways, firewall diagnostics, live traffic logs streaming across the interface like an endless river of code.
The others were still working, but I could feel them watching.
Malik sat in the farthest corner, his workstation a sea of shifting data streams. He had dark skin and the posture of someone who didn’t move unless absolutely necessary. His fingers flew across his keyboard in short, calculated bursts, never wasting a motion. He didn’t glance at me, but I had no doubt he had already processed my presence and moved on.
Across from him, Samantha was perched on the edge of her chair, arms crossed, her dark curls pulled into a messy but deliberate knot at the base of her neck. She had an expression that was both neutral and assessing, like she was waiting to see whether I was worth paying attention to.
And then there was Devon, the youngest-looking of the group, his sharp features softened by an easy grin. He was the only one who actually looked like he enjoyed being here.
"New blood, huh?" he said, rolling his chair slightly in my direction. "Hope you like staring at logs for hours."
I smirked. "That’s what I signed up for."
Devon leaned back, tipping his chair onto two legs. "Good attitude. Most people crack by week two."
Toby cut in before Devon could continue. "Alright, focus. We’re starting now."
Devon gave me a mock salute and spun his chair back around.
Toby wasted no time pulling up a real-time traffic feed, the network’s security architecture laid out in glowing, pulsing grids. "Your first task is simple—threat monitoring. Look for inconsistencies. Traffic that doesn’t belong. If something seems off, flag it."
I nodded, scanning through the interface. "Got it."
Samantha glanced over from her own station. "Biggest mistake rookies make? Thinking intrusions look obvious. They don’t. If someone’s inside, they know how to hide."
"Don’t chase ghosts," Malik added without looking up. "Unless you’re sure they exist."
I let their words settle in as I got to work. The system was clean, polished, precise—one of the best security architectures I’d seen. A fortress.
Which meant if someone was getting through, they weren’t brute-forcing their way in. They were already inside.
I worked in silence, getting used to the patterns, the normal rhythms of network activity. Every system had a flow, a rhythm. I just had to learn this one.
Then, about thirty minutes in, I noticed it.
A login request from a high-clearance terminal at an unusual hour.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
A data packet that didn’t match its encryption signature.
A system process that looped back on itself like it had been altered post-access.
It wasn’t a red flag…yet. But it wasn’t normal.
I exhaled, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"You see something?" Toby’s voice was calm, but there was a trace of expectation in it.
I glanced up, keeping my expression neutral. He was testing me. I knew that now.
I tilted my head, choosing my words carefully. "It’s small, but some logs don’t match timestamps. The cleanup is too precise. Feels… artificial."
For a second, the room was silent.
Then Samantha smirked. Devon let out a low whistle. Malik made a quiet sound that might have been approval.
Toby nodded once, pulling up a secondary log. With a few keystrokes, he overlaid the flagged anomaly with a second set of data. The moment the two feeds merged, I saw that the system tag labeled the event as an internal test.
It hadn’t been real.
I blinked. "This was a test?"
Samantha stretched, still smirking. "Not bad, rookie."
Malik finally spoke, his voice low and even. "Fastest one to spot it so far."
Devon groaned, shaking his head. "Well, there goes my bet."
I turned to him, raising an eyebrow. "Bet?"
Devon grinned. "I said you wouldn’t find it until lunch."
I leaned back, processing. They had planted it. A fake breach, deliberately placed in the logs to see how fast I’d pick it up.
Toby crossed his arms. "We run drills like this for every new hire. Keeps people sharp. If you’d flagged the wrong thing, I’d know you were guessing."
"So… did I pass?"
"You didn’t fail," he said simply. But there was a small flicker of approval in his expression.
Samantha shot me a glance. "For now."
I exhaled slowly and turned back to my screen. They had tested me, and I had passed. But that was just this job.
My other job, the one my father had assigned me, was still waiting.
Somewhere inside Biotechnica’s research division, someone was leaking information.
And unlike the test I had just passed, this breach was real.
I tapped a few keys, setting up a secondary tracker, watching for repeat anomalies. If someone was covering their tracks, I’d find them.
----------------------------------------
With the test behind me, I settled deeper into my chair, letting my fingers hover over the keyboard as the system hummed around me. The others had gone back to their work, the quiet atmosphere of the room resuming its steady rhythm. The netrunning rigs in the back of the office remained idle, their faint glow casting a soft blue tint against the walls. For now.
But my work wasn’t done yet.
I flicked through the open system pathways, moving beyond my assigned security monitoring to what I had really come here to do—pulling up the research division’s personnel files.
My father’s directive was clear: Find the leak. Someone within his team had been siphoning data, slipping information out of the company, careful enough to avoid detection by even the most advanced security measures. If they were getting through Biotechnica’s fortress-like defenses, it meant they weren’t just hacking in from the outside. They were already inside.
I keyed into the database, pulling up the employee roster for my father’s division. The eight-person research team appeared on my screen, their personnel files stacked neatly in front of me.
> THE RESEARCH TEAM
>
> Dr. Darius Chen – Senior Researcher
> Meticulous. Highly respected. The kind of scientist who double-checked everything five times before approving a single test. If he was selling information, he was doing it in a way that no one would ever trace.
>
> Helena Ruiz – Biochemical Engineer
> Smart. Analytical. But her file had data inconsistencies. Her project logs sometimes mismatched with actual timestamps, creating gaps in recorded work hours. That didn’t necessarily mean she was guilty—scientists got sloppy with admin work all the time. But if someone was manipulating records, she’d know how to do it.
>
> Liam Foster – Systems Biologist
> The kind of person who was quiet in meetings but never seemed completely present. His access logs showed a pattern of late-night entries into the lab, always outside regular hours, always after the main systems had gone into automated lockdown mode.
>
> Marisol Gomez – Experimental Chemist
> She had a flagged comms history. Multiple outgoing messages to unlisted external contacts. That alone wasn’t a smoking gun—corporate scientists talked to outside vendors all the time. But what stood out was the frequency. More often than the others. More than would be considered routine.
I leaned back slightly, rolling my shoulders. Four names. Four potential leaks.
But suspicion wasn’t proof. I needed more than just anomalies; I needed connections.
I pulled up the live security feed of my father’s boardroom, watching as the meeting began. The glass-walled conference room was just as cold and clinical as the rest of Biotechnica’s architecture, with nothing but polished steel, dark reflective surfaces, and sleek, minimalist design. There were no windows. It was an enclosed, high-security environment where secrets were meant to stay.
My father sat at the head of the table, straight-backed, expression unreadable. He had always carried himself that way—like someone who never needed to raise his voice to command attention. Around him, the researchers took their seats, the dull hum of the holo-table flickering to life as confidential documents and projected models hovered in the air.
I activated the audio feed.
The voices filtered through my earpiece in a steady stream of corporate professionalism.
“We’ll begin with the latest stability trials,” my father’s voice came through first, calm and clipped as always. “Dr. Ruiz, your report.”
Helena Ruiz sat forward, bringing up a set of molecular analysis charts. “Preliminary testing has yielded consistent results, but we’re still refining the absorption rates. We had to adjust the compound ratios to prevent degradation under extreme conditions. The latest sample shows a thirty-eight percent efficiency increase, but…”
I tuned out the specifics. I wasn’t here to evaluate research progress. I was here to see who looked nervous.
The security feed split into multiple angles, with different room views, each camera capturing the researchers in real-time.
Helena was calm and composed. She spoke with the ease of someone who knew exactly what she was doing. No hesitation. If she was guilty, she was a damn good liar.
Liam Foster, on the other hand, kept fidgeting. His fingers tapped lightly against the table, a rhythmic, subconscious movement. His eyes weren’t fully focused on the holo-displays, more on his own lap, where I was willing to bet he had a personal interface device running under the table.
Marisol Gomez barely spoke, nodding at the appropriate intervals, but her holo-pad blinked twice in the span of a few minutes. Incoming messages. She was reading something.
Darius Chen was harder to read. He kept his hands folded in front of him, his posture relaxed, expression unreadable. But his gaze flicked toward my father too often. Not in a normal, attentive way. Like he was waiting for something.
I exhaled, fingers hovering over my keyboard.
I didn’t have proof yet. Just details. Pieces of a larger puzzle I had to put together.
But if I kept watching, if I kept digging deeper into their records, eventually, one of them would slip.
And I’d be there when they did.
I kept my gaze locked on the security feed, tracking each subtle movement, each flicker of hesitation, each glance that lasted just a fraction of a second too long.
Liam Foster’s restless fingers drummed against the table in an uneven rhythm. His eyes flicked to the corner of his holo-pad, his pupils dilating slightly. I tapped into his terminal’s activity log from my end—no active programs open, no messages sent, but a hidden process running in the background.
Something cloaked.
Marisol Gomez was next. She barely moved, but the flicker of a notification on her holo-pad had been fast. Too fast for casual conversation. Was she expecting something?
Darius Chen was harder to pin down. He looked composed, but the way his gaze trailed over my father’s movements made me uneasy. Like he was waiting for a tell.
Helena Ruiz, though? Clean. Controlled. Almost too perfect.
I exhaled slowly, my fingers hovering over my keyboard, debating my next move. This wasn’t enough to call anyone out. Not yet.
But I needed more data.
I switched from passive observation to active tracking. A few silent keystrokes and I had accessed the internal data logs for each researcher. Every file they had touched, every restricted folder they had accessed, every external connection they had established within the last six months.
My screen filled with overlapping timestamps, security authorizations, and encrypted activity trails.
I narrowed my focus to off-hour access patterns. If someone was leaking data, they wouldn’t be doing it in broad daylight with full company surveillance.
The first irregularity surfaced fast.
Liam Foster. His name appeared eight times in restricted access logs—all between midnight and 3 AM.
Most of his entries were flagged as ‘Routine File Verification.’
Which was a lie.
Biotechnica didn’t schedule manual verification processes in the middle of the night. It was all handled by the system’s automated integrity scans. If he was logging in manually at those hours, it was because he didn’t want anyone else knowing exactly what he was doing.
I checked where he had been going.
His access logs led to the central project directory, but something wasn’t right.
Normally, when an employee accessed a research database, the system recorded which files they opened and for how long. A full access path. But Liam’s trail had gaps. He logged in, stayed for an average of fifteen minutes, then logged out without leaving any indication of which files he had actually looked at.
That meant one thing.
He was using an external device.
I tapped into the security protocols governing data transfer activity. No flagged alerts. No unauthorized exports. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t doing it. If he was good, he would have hidden the transfer under a legitimate process—one that blended seamlessly with normal system behavior.
I was still running the deeper scan when something on the security feed caught my attention.
Marisol shifted in her seat. Subtle, barely noticeable. But her holo-pad lit up again. A message?
I switched tracks. Who was she talking to?
I dug into her outgoing communication history. The system logs scrambled for a moment, data processing sluggish. That wasn’t normal.
Someone was running an encryption cycle over her records.
Someone didn’t want me looking.
Someone was running an encryption cycle over her records.
Someone didn’t want me looking.
I froze, fingers hovering over the keyboard, pulse steady but focused. This wasn’t a firewall or an automated security measure—this was active. Someone knew I was checking these logs and was trying to bury the data in real time.
The encryption was fast, almost surgical. Not sloppy, not rushed. A professional was doing this.
I had two options: force my way through and risk setting off every security alarm in Biotechnica, or shadow the process and let them think I hadn’t noticed.
I took the second route.
Keeping my keystrokes light, I ran a ghost trace—a passive program designed to mimic standard system monitoring while secretly logging the encryption cycle’s origin. If I couldn't see what they were hiding, I'd at least see where it was coming from.
The encryption finished in under five seconds. Too fast.
I inhaled slowly, a ghost in the system.
A name flickered in the background processes before vanishing:
Access Override Request: Unknown User [Songbird]