The CTO stepped closer.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I’ve spent thirty-nine hours proving it isn’t.”
Alexandra finally looked closely at him.
Bloodshot eyes.
Hands trembling slightly.
Coffee cups beneath the desk.
Three empty energy-drink cans.
A blanket rolled beneath another chair.
She looked toward the Chief Operating Officer.
“You knew he was here?”
The man hesitated.
“I knew the incident team was working overnight.”
“How many nights?”
No answer.
Daniel answered.
“Two.”
Alexandra looked toward him.
“You stayed here forty-eight hours?”
“Thirty-nine so far.”
“That’s not better.”
He shrugged.
“I slept twenty-three minutes.”
Her fingers loosened around his badge.
Daniel pointed toward another log.
“This is where the malware tried to move into settlement.”
“Blocked.”
“This is where it tried backup.”
“Blocked.”
“This is where it attempted privilege escalation.”
“Blocked.”
Alexandra looked at him.
“You did this manually?”
“Not alone initially.”
He glanced around.
“Team rotated.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He did not answer.
The CTO did.
“Daniel’s the only person who understands the legacy settlement bridge well enough to isolate it without triggering automatic failover.”
Alexandra slowly turned toward him.
“You just told me you didn’t know there was an internal attack.”
The CTO’s face tightened.
“I knew Daniel suspected one.”
“Suspected?”
Daniel muttered.
“Nice.”
Alexandra heard.
“So he raised it.”
The CTO said:
“We disagreed with his interpretation.”
“Who is we?”
“Security.”
“Architecture.”
“My office.”
Alexandra looked toward Daniel.
“What did they want to do?”
“Restart Core.”
“Why?”
“Clear the corrupted session state.”
“And you refused.”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Twenty-one hours.”
Alexandra looked toward the CTO.
“You wanted to override him?”
“We had customers experiencing degraded settlement.”
“Restart is standard.”
Daniel leaned back against the console.
“Standard is what the attacker expected.”
Alexandra looked toward the warning still glowing on his monitor:
DO NOT RESTART CORE SERVICES — ATTACK WILL ACTIVATE
She felt something unpleasant settle inside her.
She had entered the floor certain she was seeing negligence.
Instead, she had almost removed the person preventing catastrophe.
Daniel swayed slightly.
Alexandra instinctively reached toward him.
He steadied himself against the desk before she touched him.
“I’m fine.”
“No.”
She looked at him sharply.
“You’re not.”
He glanced at the badge still in her hand.
“Is that concern before or after termination?”
A few employees suddenly became very interested in their keyboards.
Alexandra deserved that.
Still irritated her.
She stepped closer.
Their bodies were separated only by the narrow edge of the workstation.
Daniel was taller than she expected.
Even exhausted, broad shoulders filled the wrinkled shirt.
His eyes were gray-blue.
Sharp despite fatigue.
Alexandra lowered her voice.
“You tried telling me?”
“Yesterday.”
“I wasn’t CEO yesterday.”
“Your transition office was.”
“What happened?”
“I sent the escalation at 2:11 a.m.”