Location: Somewhere between an FBI Safehouse and an Unsecured Wi-Fi Café
The forums lit up like a Christmas tree in July.
A new user—handle: NUKE—popped up on the old black-hat carding boards. No intro. No bravado. Just raw, blistering code that made even NullSyntax's old exploits look like beginner Python.
"Where the hell did this kid come from?" Kodi muttered, half-awed, half-threatened.
He sat back, hoodie still up despite the Caribbean sun outside his villa. His burner laptop buzzed with thread notifications.
NUKE just posted a zero-day exploit for a military-grade encryption algorithm.
NUKE just unlocked an old Eden node… blind.
Kodi's heart skipped.
"This… kid… is me," he whispered. "Ten years ago."
And he wanted him.
Cut to: Evan – FBI Office, 4th Floor, Washington
Evan was eating soggy noodles out of a cup when the email hit.
Subject: "Re: NUKE?"
From: Kodi [encrypted message]
"I need you to find NUKE. Kid's a nuke for real. Recruit or neutralize. Preferably recruit. If he's real, I want him. If he's fake, we ghost him."
Evan sighed.
"Of course. Recruit the next digital nuke from my cubicle," he said sarcastically, clicking back into FBI's internal network.
Then the second email hit.
Subject: TERMINATION
From: HR
"You are hereby relieved of your duties, effective immediately. Your badge is revoked. Your clearance is being reviewed. Please return your government-issued laptop."
"Wait what—"
Security was already at the door.
Back to Kodi – Villa turned Panic Room
He got the alert on his burner.Evan fired.FBI logs tagged "Kodi Incident" in motion.Subject: 'Ferret Protection Protocol.'(Side note: Kodi still hated that they called it Ferret protection—some agent once typo'd 'Federal' and it just stuck.)
His encrypted line buzzed again.
Incoming Call: UNKNOWN (Possibly NUKE?)
He answered.
The voice was synthetic. Slightly modulated. Young. Confident.
"You were looking for me, weren't you? Kodi Grey."
"Kid, either you've got balls or you're incredibly dumb."
"You ever wonder what it feels like to beat yourself at your own game?"
Click.
Kodi stared at the screen.
"Okay," he said to himself, cracking his knuckles. "Let's find out."
sidenote
Evan sits outside an airport bar, scrolling through memes Kodi sent him titled "Fired but Fabulous."