Hacker Zero

Chapter 4: System Echoes

>> SYSTEM TIMESTAMP: [ - 5 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS ]
>> LOCATION: UNKNOWN NODE // TERMINAL LINK ACTIVE
>> THREAT LEVEL: UNCLASSIFIED / MONITORED

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They think silence is the same as obedience.
They think if they erase your name from the system, you disappear.
But that's the thing about ghosts.
They don't vanish.
They linger.

And I've been haunting the Accord from the shadows for years.

The terminal room was colder than usual. A single fan groaned from the back of the rack, sending weak bursts of recycled air through the wires. Lyra sat cross-legged on the steel-mesh floor, her legs numb beneath her, her hoodie sleeves rolled up, leaving fingerprints of sweat on the keyboard. The monitors cast her face in shifting shades of cold blue and gray, like a ghost being remembered by a machine.

On one screen: code.
On the other: live traffic cam from District 6.
On the third: a decrypted satellite ping she shouldn't have been able to access.

Her eyes darted between them, unfocused.
Too many windows open. Too many threads running. Too many hours without food or rest. But that's when she saw it.

An anomaly.

A corrupted cluster of metadata, hidden inside a routine weather transmission. Lyra blinked hard, leaned in. Her breath fogged the lower edge of the screen, and her pulse spiked so fast she had to close her eyes for a second just to breathe.

ARCHIVE_23.BH-NULL

She rerouted power to isolate the file. Fingers shaky now. Her body suddenly aware of the cold metal beneath her. Her joints ached, but her brain hummed.

The screen flickered. Then: a still frame. A room. Empty. No windows. No doors. Just white walls... and a mirror.

Ornate, old, definitely pre-Accord.
Something from a time before glass was filtered and made compliant.

Across the top, barely visible in the dim compression:

"Stability is a reflection. Break the glass, and you see yourself."

Her stomach twisted. The words hit like a memory she didn't know she had.

Her reflection hovered in the corner of the monitor, just a blur at first. Hood up. Jaw tight. Hands trembling over the keys. She looked... older. Not in age. In exhaustion. In grief. Like someone trying to remember who they were before the world demanded they forget.

Lyra reached toward the monitor, fingertips ghosting the screen.
Her breath caught.
A flicker.

For a second, the mirror in the file seemed to shimmer.

Was that her reflection?
Or someone else's?

She forced herself to snap out of it.

A blinking prompt appeared on her command line.

     TRANSMIT Y/N?

She didn't hesitate.

     Y

The broadcast went out.
23 seconds. No voice. No visuals. Just static layered with binary code that read:

     THE SYSTEM IS NOT WHO YOU THINK IT IS.

She leaned back, trying to catch her breath. Her chest rose too fast, her lungs resisting the rhythm she was forcing. There was a pounding behind her eyes now, too much screen time, too little water. She reached for the bottle on the floor. Empty.

Lyra sat there, panting lightly, her palms damp and gloved fingers flexing unconsciously. The room felt smaller suddenly. The walls were sweating with condensation. She couldn't shake the image of the mirror. The line etched into it.

Break the glass.

She touched her face.
She hadn't even realized her mask was still on.

⸻

Online, chaos spread like fire.

Forum threads erupted with theories. Half-baked conspiracies. Citizen fear. Accord loyalists called it a terrorist signal. Others whispered, "He's back."

They thought Hacker Zero was a man.
That's what made hiding easier. That's what made watching bearable.

Let them look in the wrong direction.

Lyra smirked and shut the forums off. She leaned forward, about to open the next sequence, when the screen blinked.

Once.
Twice.

But then...

     COMMAND LINE OVERRIDE DETECTED

Her entire body froze. She hadn't touched anything. She watched as a new line typed itself out.

     YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WATCHING.

Her mouth went dry. She stood up too fast, the back of her knees locking, vision tunneling for a moment. Her hands gripped the sides of the desk as the blood rushed to her face.

The terminal lights dimmed.

You're clever. But not invisible.

The cursor pulsed, waiting.

She reached for the hard shutoff, but the screens went black before she could. All three monitors died at once.

The silence that followed felt wrong. Not quiet. Muffled. Like the world had been pushed behind glass. Then, a click. From somewhere inside the wall.

Lyra's heart was a drumbeat in her ears. Her throat was tight. She backed away slowly, eyes sweeping the room. Every cable. Every flickering diode. Every inch of concrete and steel.

Something had changed. And she didn't know what. Then came the sound she feared most... A soft buzz from behind the server rack. Followed by, a red blinking light. A camera? No. A recording node. Had it always been there? Her mind raced. Had she missed something? Had they been here first?

Suddenly, it wasn't just about what she had seen. It was about who had seen her.

⸻

>> END OF NODE TRANSMISSION