by Rebecca Trifari
A call. A simple call is all that it takes to change the rest of Sarah’s life forever.
She usually puts her phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode, but tonight she feels unmotivated with her work and decides to scroll through her device to distract herself.
We have Claire. Do a little favor for us and she will be fine. You have five hours. Hack this system.
In panic, Sarah accidentally drops her MIT tea cup on her dorm floor, the pieces shattering around. Her heartbeat races as she looks at her laptop. It’s 1:00 a.m. She has until dawn.
With her fingers flying across the keyboard, Sarah works on bypassing the basic firewall of a secure government facility. She isn’t sure what this “job” is really about, only that her sister’s life is at stake. Her phone vibrates with another message from an unknown number: Nice progress, Sarah. Keep it up if you want Claire to see the morning.
She freezes. Whoever is orchestrating this is tracking her work in real time. She swallows hard and forces herself to keep working, her every move now guided by a lingering dread that she is walking right into a trap.
2:00 a.m.
Her screen is now filled with code, blinking, as if taunting her. She notices something strange in the system, though. Someone is rewriting her code, a ghost in the machine. She tries to trace them but finds only dead ends. The ghost has left a chilling message in her code: We’re watching you. Do not disappoint. Her mind races. Is this a hacker from the same group? Could Claire be closer than she realized? Sarah works faster, refusing to let this intimidate her or waste time.
3:00 a.m.
The hack keeps getting more challenging. Multiple firewalls appear, shifting like a labyrinth. Then her phone buzzes again. This time, it’s a video message. Her stomach churns as she presses play. Claire appears, blindfolded and tied to a chair in a dimly lit room, her voice muffled as she struggles to speak. A masked figure leans into the frame, whispering, “Time is ticking, Sarah. We’ll be watching to see if you have what it takes.”
A fresh wave of fear surges through her, but she will not let it stop her. At the end of the day, there’s a reason why she is the first ranked student in her whole major.
3:30 a.m.
As she works, she feels the presence of that other hacker again, actively sabotaging her moves. She has written a decoy script to lure them into a trap, but the ghost has countered, sending her back to the start. Her mind races: is this person part of the group, or are they another victim trying to send her a warning?
Another message comes from the unknown number: Finish it, or we finish her.
The timer on her screen ticks down. She has until dawn. She wipes the sweat from her brow and re-focuses, pouring every ounce of energy into finishing the hack.
She breaks through the penultimate firewall, only to find an unexpected firewall blocking her way, this one far more complex. Her heart sinks. It’s one she’s seen before, designed by her ex-mentor who vanished years ago under suspicious circumstances. Could he be a part of this? She keeps working quickly, deciphering the firewall’s weaknesses, her mind grappling with the idea that her mentor might be on the other side, watching her race against the clock.
4:30 a.m.
The final firewall looms. Sarah’s eyes burn, her hands ache, but she is almost through. Then, her screen flickers and goes dark. She slams her fists on the desk, panic setting in. Her phone buzzes. Another video, but this one is live. The masked figure grins into the camera, speaking directly to her. “Are you willing to die for her, Sarah?”
They pan the camera, revealing Claire crying. The captor’s voice continues: “If you don’t break through, you’ll never see her again. And if you do, well, let’s just say this isn’t going to end the way you think.”
The camera goes black. She clenches her jaw, willing herself to focus.
5:45 a.m.
With the final minutes ticking down, Sarah scrambles to reactivate her system. When she finally breaks through, her screen displays a live feed of a countdown that matches her clock exactly. As Sarah hacks deeper, a shocking realization occurs: this wasn’t just about Claire. The government system she’s been hacking wasn’t random, it holds classified data on high-profile officials. Her former mentor has been behind this all along. He has evidently resurfaced as part of an underground network, one bent on exposing government corruption at any cost. The ghost hacker in her system is his signature style, one she studied under him for years. He must have planted Claire as bait, knowing Sarah’s loyalty to family would push her to break into systems no ordinary hacker could access. She cries, realizing she’s been used as a pawn to execute his vendetta while he’s lurked in the background, ready to pounce the moment she finished the hack. It’s all been a trap to manipulate her talents and ignite his revenge against the state, and she nearly fell for it. If she completes the hack, she will be aiding an attack on her own country.
Another message appears: Do it, or Claire’s life ends with the sunrise.
She knows this is a hazard, but she has to do this. She codes a backdoor into the program and sets a time-delayed “kill switch” that will erase her work just after it’s completed, making it look like a system glitch.
5:54 a.m.
The final line of code goes in. The countdown on her screen shows fifteen seconds to sunrise. She initiates the self-destruct sequence and holds her breath. Then, silence. Her phone buzzes again. It’s a photo: Claire, safe and unbound, stepping out of a dark room into daylight.
Below the photo is a final message: Well done, Sarah. We’ll be watching you.
As dawn breaks, Sarah knows she’s made it through the worst all-nighter of her life. But she can’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning.
