Chapter Four

By the time Cathy reached their apartment, the weight of the day had settled into her bones. Her shoes were dusty, her shoulders ached, and the image of Alex destroying her project refused to leave her mind. She pushed it aside and knocked.

Her mother opened the door. “Cathy? You’re home late.”

“School kept us longer.”

Her mother studied her face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

Cathy stepped inside and dropped her bag beside the couch. The faint hum of the oxygen machine came from her father’s room. Before she could take another step, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out. A message from her highest-paying client filled the screen.

Client: Are the security logs from the European servers fully audited? Why is there a latency spike in the firewall protocols? I need a complete patch on the main infrastructure by midnight. Do not fail me.

Cathy’s exhaustion disappeared. She opened the secure message thread. The contract had started with a simple firewall audit and grown into a lucrative retainer. The client still had no idea that the cybersecurity expert behind the screen name was his seventeen-year-old son’s classmate—a girl named Cathy.

Another notification appeared.

Bank Alert: $5,000.00 credited to your account.

Cathy stared at the amount. Five thousand dollars. Enough to cover her father’s treatment and medication for now.

“Mom.”

Her mother came closer. Cathy showed her the screen. Her mother’s eyes widened. “He paid you?”

“Yes.”

“We can book Dr. Scott.”

“I already checked his schedule. Tuesday morning, nine to ten.”

Her mother nodded quickly. “Do it.”

Cathy made the appointment. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then her mother squeezed her shoulder. “Your father is lucky to have you.”

Cathy glanced toward the bedroom. “I just want him better.”

Her phone vibrated again. She looked down.

Client: I need the patch live before midnight. If you can’t handle it, tell me now.

Cathy’s expression hardened. “I have work.”

Her mother sighed. “At least eat something.”

“I will.”

“You said that yesterday.”

Cathy managed a tired smile. “Tonight I mean it.”

She opened her laptop. The moment the security dashboard loaded, she knew the problem was worse than the client had described. The latency spike wasn’t random. Someone was testing the network. Cathy pulled up the incoming traffic and narrowed the search.

There.

A series of carefully spaced requests had slipped through the firewall without triggering the automated alarms. She frowned. That wasn’t normal traffic. She isolated the requests and traced their access points. The moment she blocked one route, another request appeared.

Cathy froze. Someone was watching the system. She checked the timestamps. The new requests were appearing seconds after every defensive adjustment she made.

“That’s impossible.”

She opened another security layer and began tracing the connection manually. The attacker had found a secondary access point. Cathy’s fingers moved faster. She built a temporary filter and pushed it into the affected section of the network. The traffic stopped for three seconds.

Then another alert flashed.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT.

Cathy sat upright. “They’re still in.”

She pulled up the logs. The attacker wasn’t trying to overwhelm the system. They were searching for a way deeper into the infrastructure. Whoever was behind it knew what they were doing. Cathy isolated the compromised access point and started constructing a patch. She couldn’t simply shut everything down; the client’s company depended on the infrastructure, and taking the entire network offline would create a bigger problem.

The clock read 11:08 p.m. Less than an hour.

She tested the patch in a controlled environment. It failed. Cathy stared at the error message. “Come on.” She adjusted the code and ran the test again. This time, it held. She deployed it. The suspicious traffic disappeared. Cathy exhaled.

Then the screen flashed red.

NEW ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED.

Her eyes narrowed. The attacker had changed tactics, trying to enter through another server. Cathy immediately redirected the traffic into a monitored sandbox and traced the route back through the network. She found the breach.

“Got you.”

She closed the access point, strengthened the firewall rules, and pushed the final patch across the affected servers. The alerts stopped. Cathy waited. Thirty seconds. Nothing. One minute. Still nothing. She refreshed the security logs. Clean. She ran another diagnostic. Clean.

Only then did she lean back. The clock showed 11:52 p.m. She sent the client a brief report: Patch deployed. Unauthorized access routes blocked. Network stability restored. I’ve isolated the compromised access point and strengthened the affected firewall protocols.

The response came less than a minute later.

Client: Received. I’ll review the report in the morning.

Cathy closed the message. Her shoulders finally dropped. She looked toward her father’s room. The $5,000 would help. Dr. Scott would come Tuesday. She shut the laptop.

Her phone buzzed again. A notification from the school group chat appeared on the screen. She stared at it, and her heart skipped.