Chapter 6 - The Digital SiegeThe digital clock on the hospital wall ticked past 3:00 AM. The room was silent save for the steady, rhythmic hiss of Oliver’s breathing machine. The little boy had finally fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep, his cheeks flushed with a fading fever.
Ryan’s eyes were bloodshot as he stared intensely at his phone screen. Two-factor authentication prompts flashed in red and blue. The Whitmore Group’s corporate firewall was a digital fortress guarded by military-grade encryption, designed to keep corporate raiders and government investigators at bay.
"Is it working?" Maya whispered, leaning in so closely her shoulder brushed against his.
"They’re blocking my second-layer bypass," Ryan gritted through his teeth, his thumbs flying across the keyboard. "Arthur’s legal team must have already contacted the IT department to initiate a remote data purge. If they wipe the server before I extract the video file, it’s gone forever."
"Try the legacy backdoor," Maya said suddenly.
Ryan paused, looking at her in surprise. "What legacy backdoor?"
"Your mother is methodical, but she’s also creature of habit," Maya said quickly, her eyes alive with focus. "Remember when you told me about the old family trust server you helped set up back in college? The one with the encryption key based on your grandfather’s birthdate combined with the address of the old family summer house in Maine?"
Ryan’s breath caught in his throat. He had completely forgotten about that system—a relic from a decade ago that his mother had insisted on integrating into the new corporate infrastructure because she refused to trust modern cloud systems entirely.
Without wasting another second, Ryan deleted his current script and typed in the legacy key combination: 1944-OAKRIDGE-ESTATE.
For three agonizing seconds, the screen froze. The progress bar stalled at 98%.
Then, the screen flashed a brilliant, blinding green.
ACCESS GRANTED.
A folder appeared instantly on the screen, labeled: NURSERY_SURVEILLANCE_ARCHIVE_LIVE.
May you like
Ryan’s hands shook slightly as he tapped the folder. A list of video files popped up, categorized by date and timestamp. He scrolled down to tonight’s date—right around 8:45 PM, just thirty minutes before he arrived home to the nightmare.
He pressed play.
