Story code: ST-000024
Part 2: The Shadow Proxy
Marcus stared at the black text box floating above his venture capital pitch deck. The number hovering beneath the sequence of offshore routing digits was not a random extortion demand. It was exactly $2.4 million. Marcus felt a cold bead of sweat slide down his ribs. That specific figure was the precise, to-the-penny valuation of his personal founder’s equity stake, assuming his Series B funding round closed successfully tomorrow morning.
He slowly pulled his hand away from the desk phone. If the saboteur knew his exact equity valuation and had the clearance to inject a denial-of-service loop directly into the prison’s hardware controllers, they were undeniably inside the internal network. They were likely monitoring his desktop activity in real-time. Picking up the receiver to alert the second-floor server room would be a fatal mistake. The moment he reported the anomaly, the saboteur could simply detonate the entire system, wiping the servers and leaving Marcus to take the blame for the catastrophic failure.
As he withdrew his hand, the white cursor inside the black box blinked. New text began to type out, character by character, in a crisp, minimalist font.
*Do not touch the phone, Marcus.*
Marcus froze, his breathing shallow. He leaned closer to the monitor, his fingers hovering over his mechanical keyboard.
*2.4M by 13:45 today,* the text continued. *Or the exploit logs go directly to the VC board, and the state auditors get a map of your vulnerabilities.*
The actual price wasn’t just a shakedown for liquid cash. The saboteur was holding his entire future hostage. If the venture capitalists saw proof that his proprietary logistics algorithm could be hijacked to starve an entire prison block, the funding would instantly evaporate. He would be ruined, likely facing federal negligence charges for deploying unsecured software in a high-security state facility.
Marcus typed directly into his terminal, forcing a command line through the black box’s interface. *I don’t have that kind of liquidity. The round hasn’t closed.*
The response came a second later. *You will pledge the shares. Execute a shadow proxy to the routing address attached. You wrote the backdoor script for the executive feed. You can write this. 13:45.*
The black box minimized itself, dissolving into a tiny, relentless digital timer in the bottom right corner of his primary screen. It was counting down from three hours and twenty-two minutes.
Marcus swallowed the dry lump in his throat. He had to break the denial-of-service loop himself. If he could crack the intruder’s code and manually open the food dispensers before the deadline, he wouldn’t have to surrender his life’s work.
He shifted his attention back to his secondary monitor, where his crude digital band-aid was still projecting normal consumption metrics to the warden’s executive dashboard. The line held steady, mimicking a perfectly average Monday morning breakfast service. But as Marcus analyzed the broader facility schematics, his stomach plummeted. He realized a massive oversight in his cover-up.
The script he wrote only spoofed the caloric output data. It did absolutely nothing to alter the secondary biometric metrics. Block D’s automated waste management, plumbing flow, and sewage sensors were still operating normally. If four hundred and twelve men weren’t eating or drinking, their biological waste production would drop to near zero. The prison’s central AI ran a mandatory cross-referencing audit every day at 14:00, comparing food intake to sewage output. The moment the mainframe noticed the massive discrepancy, it would trigger a Code Yellow lockdown.
He didn’t just have until 13:45 to pay the ransom. He had a hard, unchangeable limit on how long his fake data could fool the system.
His fingers flew across the mechanical keys, the rapid clacking echoing in his quiet office. He opened a new developer environment and began compiling a brute-force decryption script. Instead of trying to fix the algorithm, he targeted the physical hardware. If he could isolate the relay switch for Block D’s cafeteria wall, he could send a manual voltage surge to the dispensers. It would force the physical locks to drop open, releasing the food regardless of the software blockade.
He routed his attack through a dormant proxy server in the administrative wing, hoping to mask his efforts from the saboteur. The code was dense and heavily encrypted, demanding absolute focus. A green progress bar materialized on his terminal, estimating the time required to bypass the physical lock controllers.
*Estimated Time to Override: 2 Hours, 14 Minutes.*
It was going to be dangerously close to the saboteur’s deadline.
Suddenly, the plastic intercom on his desk buzzed with a harsh, grating tone. Marcus flinched, his hand jerking away from the keyboard. He pressed the flashing red button.
“Marcus?” It was Sarah, the warden’s administrative assistant.
Marcus cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice steady. “Yes, Sarah. I’m here.”
“Warden Hayes is reviewing the morning dashboard from the executive suite,” she said, her voice filtered through the tinny speaker. “He’s incredibly impressed with the predictive scarcity margins for Block D.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Marcus replied, staring at his fake data feed. “The algorithm is performing exactly as designed.”
“It’s doing so well that he wants to highlight it early,” Sarah continued. “He has his weekly regional sync with the state director at eleven. He wants to patch the live security camera feed from Block D’s cafeteria directly into the presentation. He wants to show the board how calm the floor is under the new caloric restrictions during their lunch service.”
Marcus stared at the digital clock on his taskbar. It read 10:14 AM.
“Lunch service,” Marcus repeated, the blood draining from his face.
“Yes. Eleven o’clock sharp,” Sarah said cheerfully. “Just make sure the high-definition video feed is routed to his primary display by ten-fifty. Thanks, Marcus.”
The intercom clicked off, leaving a dial tone hanging in the quiet office.
Marcus looked back at his secondary monitor. The fake dashboard still displayed a beautifully steady, optimal line. But in less than forty-five minutes, Warden Hayes was going to turn on a live camera and broadcast it to the state director. He wasn’t going to see calm, algorithmic efficiency. He was going to see over four hundred starving, furious inmates staring at locked steel slots, completely exposing Marcus’s fabricated data.
And the brute-force script on his main screen was still estimating over two hours to force the doors open.