One evening, as Isaac prepared to execute another small infiltration, his screen flickered. For a second, everything went dark. Then a message appeared on his monitor:
"You think you're untouchable?"
Isaac froze. His heart pounded in his chest as the message dissolved, replaced by a crude binary code, slowly forming words on the screen:
"We're watching you."
Someone had hacked into his system. Isaac's mind raced. He hadn't detected any breaches, no vulnerabilities in his network. Whoever was behind this was sophisticated—possibly more than Isaac had expected. Could it be CipherNet? A government agency? Someone who had noticed the algorithm's breaches?
For the first time since Isaac had begun his digital conquest, he felt vulnerable. His world had been secure, controlled. Now, someone had cracked his armor, and they knew about him.
Isaac's fingers flew over the keyboard as he activated every defensive protocol he had in place. Firewalls, encryption layers, digital decoys—everything he could think of to seal himself off. He launched the algorithm at full power, sending it on a mission to track the source of the message, find the hacker who had dared to challenge him.
Minutes passed, but there was no response. The hacker had disappeared, leaving only a trace of binary code in their wake.
Isaac swore under his breath. This was the first real threat he had faced. He had always been the one in control, but now, someone was watching. And they were waiting for him to make his next move.