-Diary Log 4/29/2050-

Dear Diary,

Today, I got lost in Biotechnica Tower. It wasn’t dramatic—no panicked searches, no alarms blaring. I had wandered away during one of my father’s meetings, slipping through the maze of polished floors and glass walls, thinking I knew my way back. But the deeper I went, the more everything blurred together. Every hallway looked the same, every office was locked, and no one walking past even glanced at me. I wasn’t scared, just… invisible. Eventually, I found an empty conference room, climbed into one of the oversized chairs, and waited. Someone would come. Someone always did.

As I sat there, I heard two employees walking past, their conversation drifting in from the hall. They mentioned my father in passing, talked about work, then something about me—nothing important, just an observation. I don’t remember the exact words, only the feeling behind them. I wasn’t a missing kid. I was just another part of the building, another name in a file, another minor detail that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t cruelty. It was indifference.

When my father’s assistant finally found me, she didn’t ask if I was okay. She just took my hand and led me back like I had been exactly where I was supposed to be all along. I never told my father. Maybe because I knew it didn’t really matter. Maybe because, even then, I understood that getting lost in Biotechnica Tower wasn’t the same as being missing. It was just… being overlooked.

See you tomorrow,

Ellia

-Log end-

- 2064- One month Later -

You would think that the knowledge of war on the horizon would change well something. In reality, I couldn’t really do much. So Mi being directly under the NUSA means that she’s untouchable. I could contact Netwatch and tell them about So Mi breaching the blackwall, but that would just cause another massive corporate war, so what did I do? I just kept my head down and followed orders like a good corpo.

I never liked the hum of Biotechnica’s main lobby. Most visitors found it reassuring, a gentle thrum of well-maintained servers and advanced filtration systems, but to me it was a reminder that this building was always listening—always watching. From the time I was a child wandering the daycare halls to my current role as a mid-level cybersecurity lead, I’d known there were no secrets here. Only illusions of privacy, illusions of choice.

That morning, I arrived earlier than usual. Officially, I wanted to prep a presentation for the weekly threat analysis meeting. Unofficially, I just needed a moment of quiet to think about the logs I’d stumbled on the night before. Someone had been poking around restricted R&D servers using credentials that traced back to me. Obviously, it wasn’t me, so I spent half the night verifying that my account hadn’t been outright hacked. But the data suggested a more deliberate trick: a partial clone of my ID, used sporadically at weird hours when I was nowhere near a terminal. It left behind minimal footprints. If I hadn’t cross-correlated the timestamps with door logs, I might have missed it completely.

Stepping past the glass security gates, I greeted the bored guard at the desk with a polite nod. She scarcely looked up from her console. The elevator ride to the 66th floor took half a minute, and as I rose, the hum changed pitch—like the building recognized me, adjusting to my presence. Maybe that was just my imagination, but in a place as high-tech as Biotechnica HQ, it felt too real.

I left the elevator and walked into a wide corridor lined with polished floors that gleamed under the overhead lights. Workers hustled in from other wings, some wearing crisp suits, others in casual corporate attire. Over by a row of tinted windows, Toby from my team was balancing a coffee cup and a cluster of data-slates, trying not to drop either. He looked up, spotted me, and grinned.

“Ellia! Saved you a seat in the conference room. Also, saved the only tolerable coffee,” he said, hoisting a sealed cup my way.

“You’re a lifesaver.” I took it gratefully. The coffee—some synthetic hazelnut blend—smelled sharp enough to jolt me awake. “You’re here early, too.”

Toby shrugged. “Had a weird feeling about those logs we found. The infiltration attempts. Something kept bugging me, so I wanted to run a fresh diagnostic.” His hazel eyes flicked around to ensure no one else was eavesdropping. “It’s big, right?”

“Potentially,” I admitted. “If the infiltrator’s forging my credentials, they either want to set me up or just hide behind my name. Neither option’s great.”

He exhaled, nodding for me to follow him toward the conference room. “Samantha’s already inside, got her forensics rig going. We can double-check everything before we update the director.”

A small weight lifted from my chest. Toby and Samantha had proven reliable, and as far as I knew, they had no hidden ties or vendettas. In a place like Biotechnica, trust was rare currency. Sometimes, the only reason no one stabbed you in the back was that they were too busy with their own ambitions. Toby and Samantha, though, seemed genuinely invested in the job—maybe even in me, in the sense that they treated me as a colleague, not just “Ian McCallister’s daughter.”

As we entered the conference room, a set of holo-screens lit up automatically, sensing the presence of my ID badge. Samantha, a no-nonsense analyst in her early forties, was seated at the polished steel table, tapping away on a wrist-mounted deck. She glanced up, saw Toby and me, then gave a curt nod.

“Good, you’re both here,” she said. “I’ve run cross-checks overnight on the infiltration logs. It’s definitely someone inside the building. The activity never pings from an external IP. The internal clearance used is partial, but piggybacks on your legit privileges, Ellia.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’ve changed my passcodes three times this week. Next step is revoking everything and requesting brand-new clearance from the board. But that’d raise questions and probably tip off the culprit.”

Samantha frowned. “True. We want to keep them in the dark until we know who they are.”

Toby took the seat beside me. “Or who they’re working for. Could be a rival faction. We all know the R&D spats going on behind closed doors.”

He wasn’t wrong. My father’s name carried weight in Biotechnica. He helmed critical research branches, meaning that if someone wanted to sabotage or blackmail him, they might come after me or my credentials. A flicker of unease passed through me. My father had warned me: Careful, Ellia. Rivalries here aren’t a game. I’d always rolled my eyes at that, but now it felt uncomfortably relevant.

We spent the next half hour analyzing lines of code. Samantha identified a recurring pattern: a user session that began exactly four minutes after I logged out each evening. The infiltrator likely waited for me to leave, then hopped on some internal relay with the cloned fragment of my ID. Toby cross-referenced building camera logs, but strangely, there were blind spots in the relevant corridors. As if someone had deliberately cut the feed or replaced it with looped footage.

“High-level infiltration,” Samantha muttered, tapping her stylus on the table. “This isn’t just a bored coworker. They have resources.”

Toby rubbed his temples, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “We should escalate this to Director Alexa, or even your father. But do we have enough to name names?”

I pursed my lips. “No direct proof of an individual. If we go to Alexa with half-formed accusations, she might bury it. Or worse, the infiltrator catches wind and goes underground.”

“So we watch them,” Samantha said. “Set a trap, track them in real time the next time they log in.”

I nodded, feeling the tension in my jaw ease slightly. “Yes. Let’s do that. If we can catch them in the act, we’ll have leverage.”

We hashed out the specifics: Toby would code a disguised honey-pot file. If the infiltrator tried accessing it, it would quietly ping back to a secure channel Samantha and I controlled, giving us the location and system ID of the intruder in real time. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than blindly chasing ghost footprints.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“All right,” Samantha said, closing her holo-interface. “We present the usual threat analysis in the weekly meeting, keep this off the official record for now. Agreed?”

Toby and I concurred. With that decided, we filed out of the conference room, the day’s routine overshadowing our secret plan. I told myself we were on the right track. A small voice in the back of my head, though, kept whispering: “If they’re brazen enough to forge your ID, they’ll have no qualms stepping up their tactics once cornered.”

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At precisely ten o’clock, we joined the weekly threat analysis briefing on the 70th floor. Director Alexa DuPont, a tall, immaculately dressed woman with piercing eyes, stood at the head of the table. Her posture exuded confidence. Around her, half a dozen departmental leads took their seats, exchanging polite nods and forced smiles. The large tinted windows provided a panoramic view of Night City’s sprawl—skyscrapers glowing in the morning sun, heavy air traffic weaving between them like metal bees.

One by one, the leads presented their updates. A mild attempt at infiltration last night—blocked by standard firewalls. A suspected competitor rummaging in public patent records. Routine stuff. I waited my turn, aware that Toby, Samantha, and I had chosen not to mention the deeper infiltration yet. Not until our trap was set.

When Director DuPont finally gestured for me to speak, I delivered a succinct summary: “We’ve identified small anomalies in user sessions, but nothing conclusive. Our team is monitoring. As of now, no major security breaches to report.”

She arched an eyebrow, as if weighing the truth behind my words. “Keep an eye on it,” she said evenly. “We need to maintain a flawless record this quarter. The board is particularly sensitive to any sign of internal sabotage.”

I offered a bland smile, trying not to show how uneasy that statement made me. Were we the ones sensitive? If only she knew I was single-handedly chasing someone forging my ID. Or perhaps she did know, and was testing my reaction. Biotechnica’s culture thrived on half-truths.

The meeting concluded with the usual pleasantries, and we all dispersed. I sensed Toby’s gaze flick toward me as we exited. He, Samantha, and I shared a silent understanding: we’d keep playing the official game while investigating under the radar. I could only hope we’d have enough time to unmask the infiltrator before they turned the tables.

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Late that afternoon, my father summoned me to his office on the 72nd floor. The corridor leading there was lined with biometric scanners, each pass requiring retinal checks or voice confirmations. My father’s domain was a fortress within a fortress. He oversaw a range of R&D projects that kept Biotechnica on the cutting edge of biotech and neural interface research. Tech that was far more advanced than the typical employee gear.

When I entered, he was standing by a large holo-display showing swirling protein structures and chemical readouts—likely part of a new project. He barely glanced my way. “Ellia, you’re here. Good.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He rarely said hello or asked how I was doing. That wasn’t his way. “You asked for me?”

“Yes.” He tapped a command on the console, and the holo-display vanished. Then he turned, arms folded, dark hair combed back in perfect corporate style. “I’ve heard rumors that you’re chasing a security risk in the building. Something about your credentials being cloned?”

I blinked. So he’d caught wind of it. “Yes, I found evidence of unauthorized usage. I didn’t want to raise an alarm until we had proof of who was behind it.”

He studied me with an expression I could only describe as calculated neutrality. “Good. Keep it that way. The moment you make it public, the culprit might bolt or, worse, take drastic steps.”

A sliver of bitterness twisted in my chest. Of course he expects me to handle it quietly, to keep Biotechnica’s pristine image intact. “I have a plan,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “We’re setting a trap. Just be prepared if I find out it involves high-level people.”

His gaze flickered. “If it does, you bring that information directly to me. No one else.”

“So you can bury it?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He narrowed his eyes, a faint twitch of displeasure. “I can manage it. There’s a difference, Ellia. Sometimes, direct confrontation isn’t the answer.”

I swallowed back further retorts. He wasn’t entirely wrong; corporate politics rarely favored direct calls for justice. “Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Good,” he said and turned away.

I exhaled, turned on my heel, and left without another word. My father’s concern was as close to paternal warmth as he ever got, but it did little to soothe the uneasy knot in my stomach. For all his warnings about cornered rats, I couldn’t help suspecting he was as dangerous as any other faction head in the building. If push came to shove, how far would he go to protect his research—and how far to protect me?

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The rest of the day was routine, though my mind wouldn’t let go of the infiltration puzzle. After my normal shift, Toby and Samantha parted ways. Toby had an evening shift, and Samantha needed to pick up her kids. I told them I’d handle final checks on the new honey-pot script. By eight o’clock, the floor was nearly deserted, the overhead lights dimming to night mode.

I stayed at my desk, scanning for anomalies. Every so often, I sipped from a fresh coffee cup, ignoring my jittery nerves. If the culprit was bold, maybe they’d strike again tonight.

At nine-thirty, just as I was about to pack up, a silent alert flashed across my monitor. The honey-pot file had been accessed. My heart leapt. The script showed a location on the 62nd floor—a seldom-used lab storeroom. I pulled up camera feeds, but the entire corridor was blacked out, no signal. Whoever’s in there planned this. They either jammed or looped the video feed.

I typed a quick message to Toby and Samantha: The trap’s sprung. 62nd floor. I’m going to investigate. Then, half thinking it was a bad idea to go alone, I rushed for the elevator anyway. The rational part of my brain said to call security, but they might be compromised. That same rational part said I was being reckless, that I had no clue if the infiltrator was armed.

But a stronger urge—maybe part pride, part anger—pushed me forward. This was personal. They’d used my credentials, threatened my job and my reputation. I wanted to see who they were before corporate forces swooped in to hush it up.

The elevator ride down felt agonizingly slow. My palm was sweaty on the stun baton I’d grabbed from the desk’s emergency kit. The baton could deliver a nonlethal shock if I got close enough. Not exactly standard procedure, but infiltration attempts were never standard.

When I stepped onto the 62nd floor, the corridor lighting was dim, as if half the overhead panels were offline. A faint hum filled the air—the same building hum I’d known my entire life, but more oppressive in the silence. Ahead, the lab storeroom door sat partially ajar. Light spilled out in a slant.

I crept forward, baton in hand, heart pounding so loudly it drowned out rational thought. I reminded myself: They don’t know I’m coming. I might surprise them. But as I neared the door, I heard a low voice inside, muttering curses. Then, a soft beep of a terminal being accessed.

I peeked around the doorway. A single figure wearing a hooded jacket stood at a console, hunched over a data terminal. They had a high-end portable deck plugged into a side panel, presumably copying or transferring data. In the gloom, I couldn’t see their face clearly. But I glimpsed one detail: an employee ID pinned on the jacket, half-obscured by the hood.

I inhaled, mustered courage, and stepped inside. I started to upload an optic reboot quick hack, but a strong ICE purged my hack.

The figure whipped around. In that split second, I saw their face—a man I recognized from finance, though I couldn’t recall his name. His eyes widened, panic flaring. Then he lunged for me. I lashed out with the baton, but he dodged, snagging my wrist in a painful grip. A surge of adrenaline coursed through me. I jammed the baton into his ribs. Sparks danced, and he spasmed, yelping as he stumbled back.

I readied a quick hack, but he kicked out, knocking me off balance. My shoulder clipped the edge of a metal shelf. Pain flared, but I refused to let go of the baton. I tried to pivot, but he shoved me from behind, and I fell to the floor. The baton skittered away, clattering near a half-open crate.

He stood over me, panting. “You should’ve stayed ignorant, little princess,” he hissed. “Now it’s too late.”

A swirl of panic and anger filled me. He called me princess. That single word told me he’d singled me out because of my father. I braced to roll away, or at least shield my head, but he suddenly froze. Beyond the door, footsteps sounded—multiple sets, hurried. Toby’s voice: “Ellia! You in here?”

My would-be attacker cursed, grabbed his portable deck, and bolted for a side exit. By the time Toby and Samantha burst into the storeroom, the guy was gone. I coughed, easing myself onto an elbow. They rushed over, eyes wide.

“You’re bleeding,” Samantha said, noticing a cut on my forearm. “We got here as fast as we could after seeing your message.”

I gritted my teeth, ignoring the stinging wound. “He…he was copying data.” I pointed to the console. “We know who it is now, though. He wore an ID from finance.”

Toby ran to the terminal, scanning it. “Damn. He wiped it. Might be a partial memory left.”

Samantha offered me a hand. I took it, letting her help me up. My body ached from the tackle. “We can salvage something from the system logs,” she said. “But we’ll have to do it quick. He’s probably wiping everything behind him.”

I nodded, feeling a shaky laugh escape. “He said I should’ve stayed ignorant. That could mean there’s something bigger behind this.”

We secured the area, called building security, and reported the attempted theft. An uneasy sense of victory swirled in me. We’d confronted the infiltrator. Even if we hadn’t caught him, at least we had confirmation. But I couldn’t shake the fear that he wouldn’t stop. That “bigger behind this” might come for me in a more direct way.