Jackson's POVThe war room was abuzz with activity as I stared at the bank of screens in front of me. On each monitor, streams of code rolled by in endless scrolls, illuminated maps mirrored real-time market data, and secure comms channels fluttered with incoming traffic. The consortium, reeling from our previous counterattacks, was striking back—and hard.I tapped my headset. "Maria, what's the word on the encrypted nodes?"Maria's voice was composed. "Node 14 and Node 27 are active. They're routing through at least five offshore servers—key tags are 'SUNDOWN,' 'ECLIPSE,' and 'NIGHTFALL.' Traffic patterns match the consortium's known layering methods."I nodded, even though she couldn't see me. "Arun, can you intercept content on those channels? I want time stamps, destinations, transaction IDs—everything."On it," Arun replied. "Decrypting now. There are also fragments of audio—plans to hit commodity markets and then crash tech stocks."I felt a knot tie up in my chest. "How soon?"
Last Updated : 2025-05-12 Read more