Ethan stood a few steps back from the counter, eyes fixed on the middle-aged man working behind it. The shop felt smaller than before. Not because anything had moved, but because the air had changed. The soft hum of electronics pressed closer, like the walls were listening.
The man's hands moved fast across the keyboard.
Lines of code filled the screen, paused, rewrote themselves, then shifted again. He wasn't just blocking something. He was building something new in the middle of a fight.
"A firewall?" Ethan asked quietly.
The man nodded without looking up. "A temporary one. Not pretty. But it'll hold."
Ethan didn't understand the code, but he understood effort. Sweat had formed at the man's temple. His shoulders were tight, posture leaning forward as if pulling the laptop closer would give him more control.
The phone lay on the counter between them, connected by a cable that looked suddenly fragile.
Outside the shop window, a bus passed. A woman stopped to check her reflection in the glass. Normal things. Ordinary movement. The contrast made Ethan uneasy.
Across the street, three black vans rolled to a stop in front of Unity Bank.
They parked cleanly. No hesitation. Doors opened in sequence.
Men stepped out, dressed in dark jackets, moving with practiced coordination. Each van bore the same white letters:
FBI
People near the entrance slowed. Some stopped. Phones came out.
The agents didn't acknowledge the attention. They entered the bank without breaking stride.
Inside, the atmosphere was tense. Staff stood in clusters, whispering. Screens that had gone dark earlier now flickered back to life, systems rebooting as if nothing had happened.
The bank manager spotted the agents immediately and hurried forward.
One of the men stepped ahead of the others. Tall. Calm. His movements were measured.
He flashed his badge.
"Special Investigation Agent Austin," he said evenly. "FBI Counter-Intelligence."
The manager exhaled in relief. "Thank God. We've been locked out of our servers. Headquarters too. Everything went down at once."
Agent Austin looked around the bank, eyes scanning quietly. "We were alerted before that. That's why we're here. We need access to your server room."
"Of course," the manager said quickly. "This way."
They moved together, the agents following the manager past the main floor, toward the secured area behind the bank.
Back in the ICT shop, the man hit a final key.
The scrolling stopped.
He leaned back slightly and tapped the screen twice.
"There," he said.
Ethan stepped closer. "Did it work?"
"For now," the man replied. "Whoever it is won't get clean access again through your phone."
Ethan let out a slow breath. "Can they still—"
Before he could finish, the man's eyes narrowed.
"That's strange."
"What?"
The man turned the laptop so Ethan could see. A new set of logs appeared. Different pattern. Different entry points.
"They're gone," the man said slowly. "But not because they gave up."
Ethan frowned. "Then why?"
"They got cut off."
Deep underground, far across the ocean, a man stared at his screen.
The room was quiet except for the low buzz of cooling fans. Concrete walls. No windows. No clocks. Time here was measured in tasks completed, not hours passed.
Ryan sat alone.
He leaned forward, eyes narrowed, fingers hovering over the keyboard. The code on his screen was clean, layered, structured. He had designed it himself.
And now someone was rewriting it.
"What…?" he muttered.
Lines of his own malware were being bypassed. Not brute-forced. Not erased. Cleanly redirected, like someone knew exactly where to step without triggering alarms.
That shouldn't have been possible.
He pulled up secondary monitors, checking the security layers he had placed around the phone. Every one of them intact.
PX herself couldn't have done this.
Ryan knew that for a fact.
He had built systems she respected.
And yet—
His connection stuttered.
He typed faster, tracing the source. The bank server link flashed red.
"Impossible," he said quietly.
Days earlier, he had been given a contract.
A name.
Ethan Iver.
Full digital footprint. Location tracking. Financial access.
Easy work, he thought at first.
The kid moved openly. No caution. No digital discipline. Even when assassins were sent after him, Ryan had tracked him easily. He had fed the location. Watched the attempt fail.
Annoying, but not surprising.
What surprised him was losing Ethan afterward.
Even with PX's protection layered over the phone, Ryan was better. He had always been.
That was why he accepted the second part of the contract.
Direct access.
Through the bank.
And now—
His screen flickered.
Something pushed back.
Ryan leaned back slowly, jaw tightening.
"This isn't PX," he murmured.