From Sneers to Cheers: Anthea’s Ascent ( Anthea )

It was a first for Sherman.

And unexpectedly, a rejection followed.

Rubbing his temples in frustration, he glanced at Anthea. "Our subsidiary's website has been under a nasty cyber-attack lately. If you're looking to make amends, maybe you could help me out with that?" "Sure, no problem," Anthea replied. "Just send me the login details once you're back."

"Will do."

After getting home and taking a shower, Anthea received the login credentials from Sherman. Logging in, she realized she'd been given the keys to the kingdom: the main admin account.

Raising an eyebrow, she wondered, did he really trust her that much? Sherman didn't seem the type to be careless.

Drying her hair with a towel, Anthea's fingers flew over the keyboard, a blur of English letters filling the screen, line after dizzying line.

After a brief digital skirmish, it became clear she wasn't up against one person but a team of five, working together seamlessly. Thankfully, the Christensen Group had a top-notch firewall, bolstered by a crack crisis management team. Otherwise, they wouldn't have lasted this long under such an assault.

Ten minutes later, Anthea shut her laptop and messaged Sherman, "Hacker issue resolved. I've beefed up the firewall too. Let me know if there's anything else."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

Sherman replied at a casual pace, "It's getting late. Time to rest. Goodnight."

Goodnight?

Anthea glanced at the time. It was only half-past ten. Raising an eyebrow, she mused, do older people always go to bed this early?

"Goodnight, grandpa."

Grandpa?

Sherman frowned at the message. Did he really seem that old? Adhering to his disciplined routine, Sherman prepared for bed. His life had been a series of punctual sleep and wake times for a decade, unbroken by anyone or anything.

Somewhere in the city, in a sealed room with five computers, a group of four men and one woman were busy at their keyboards. Suddenly, blue screens of death appeared on their monitors! "Boss! Someone's hacked my computer!"

"Mine too!"

"Damn, mine's gone as well!"

The team leader, a man with tattooed arms, snapped, "What's going on? I thought you were top-notch hackers?"

A chubby team member stood up, "We were about to break through their firewall, but then it's like they switched players on us..."

"That's your excuse?" the leader roared, incredulous at being outplayed. Being professional hackers and getting hacked in return was a disgrace.

The room fell silent until the leader spoke again, "Wasn't their top hacker W supposed to be on vacation abroad? Apart from W, who else could take you all down?"

They had chosen this time to strike, believing W to be out of the picture. Yet, they'd been countered.

"We've clashed with W before. This doesn't feel like his work."

"Definitely not! W's good, but against all five of us, he couldn't just hijack our systems."

"You're all worthless!" the leader exploded in anger, immediately ordering new computers for another attempt.

But this time, they couldn't even log in.

"Boss, my account's been stolen..."

"Mine too!"

The leader, feeling something was terribly wrong, checked his own computer, only to find his account hijacked and the appeal date set a century ahead!

"Son of a gun! We've hit a snag!" he cursed, tossing aside his cigarette. He hadn't participated in the attack, which could only mean one thing: their adversary had traced their IP and wiped them out in one fell swoop.