Chapter 1 The Birthday Code Breach
# Chapter 1: The Birthday Code Breach
Walter Craig was the last one in the office, as usual. The fifty-story glass tower that housed Craig Technologies' headquarters gleamed against the night sky of downtown Manhattan, most of its windows dark except for the top floor where the CEO's corner office still blazed with light.
At forty-two, Walter had built his tech empire through relentless work ethic and ruthless business acumen. Tonight was no different as he reviewed quarterly projections until well past midnight. His angular face, illuminated by the blue light of multiple monitors, showed no signs of fatigue. The financial press often called him "the machine" - not just for the technological revolution his company had created, but for his seemingly inhuman capacity to function without normal human needs like sleep or personal relationships.
Walter glanced at his watch—2:17 AM—and finally decided to call it a night. He was shutting down his computer when his phone vibrated with an urgent message from Marcus Chen, his head of cybersecurity.
"System breach in progress. Core database under attack. Need you to authorize emergency protocols."
Walter's body tensed instantly. The company's core database contained everything: proprietary algorithms, client information, and the blueprints for their next-generation AI framework that would put them years ahead of competitors. A breach wasn't just a security issue—it was potentially an extinction-level event for Craig Technologies.
"Initiating lockdown," Walter typed back, his fingers flying across the screen. "On my way to the security center."
The elevator ride to the 38th floor where cybersecurity was housed took exactly 42 seconds—Walter had timed it countless times. Tonight, it felt like an eternity. When the doors opened, he was greeted by chaos. The normally quiet, dimly lit security center was ablaze with activity. Screens flashed red warnings, and a dozen technicians hunched over keyboards, frantically typing commands.
"Talk to me, Marcus," Walter demanded, striding toward the chief security officer who was orchestrating the defense.
Marcus, a former NSA specialist whom Walter had personally recruited with a salary that made government officials blush, looked up with an expression Walter had never seen before: genuine concern.
"It's unlike anything I've ever seen, sir. They bypassed sixteen layers of security in under four minutes. They're not stealing data—they're just... looking at everything."
Walter's eyes narrowed. "Looking?"
"Yes. They've accessed personnel files, financial records, R&D databases, even your private server. But they're not extracting anything substantial. It's more like they're... searching for something specific."
Walter moved to the main console, scanning the intrusion patterns displayed on the screen. "Can you trace it?"
"We're trying, but they're bouncing the signal through servers across six continents. Very sophisticated. But..." Marcus hesitated.
"But what?" Walter pressed.
"There's something odd about the attack signature. It's... personal."
Walter's steely gaze fixed on his security chief. "Explain."
Marcus pulled up a code window, pointing to a recurring sequence. "This is the master key they used to break through our initial firewalls. It's a date, converted to hexadecimal."
Walter's blood ran cold as he recognized the numbers. "November 17th."
"Yes. Your birthday. And not just the month and day—the exact year too." Marcus looked at him questioningly. "This isn't random, sir. They specifically chose your birth date as their primary attack vector."
Walter's mind raced. His birthday wasn't public information. He'd always been intensely private, eschewing the celebrity CEO lifestyle that many of his Silicon Valley counterparts embraced. Even within the company, only a handful of people knew his actual birth date—his executive assistant, the HR director, and perhaps...
His thoughts were interrupted by a young technician's voice. "Sir, we've got movement on the security cameras!"
They turned to a large monitor showing the building's exterior feeds. The timestamp read 2:43 AM. The camera focused on the rarely-used rear service entrance showed three small figures slipping out into the night. They moved quickly, heads down, faces obscured by baseball caps.
"Zoom in," Walter ordered.
The image enlarged but remained frustratingly grainy. The nighttime infrared mode of the cameras rendered everything in ghostly green hues. What was clear, however, was that these weren't adults—they were children, or at least adolescents, judging by their height and build.
"Children?" Walter muttered in disbelief. "Are you telling me we just got hacked by kids?"
Marcus shook his head. "Not just any kids. Look at how they move—coordinated, precise. They know exactly where the cameras are positioned. They're avoiding direct facial exposure."
Walter watched as the smallest of the three figures—probably no taller than four feet—paused briefly at the corner of the building. For just a moment, the child looked directly up at the camera, as if delivering a deliberate message, before disappearing into the shadows.
"I want that footage enhanced. Get facial recognition on it immediately," Walter ordered.
"Already on it," Marcus replied, "but it'll take time. They knew exactly how to stay in the blind spots."
Another technician called out from across the room. "Sir, we've contained the breach and are rebuilding the firewalls, but I think you should see this."
Walter moved to the technician's station, leaning over to view the screen. A simple text file had been left behind by the intruders, its contents displayed in stark white against black:
"Happy early birthday, Mr. Craig. Consider this a gift. The truth has many layers."
Walter's jaw tightened. "They're taunting me."
"There's more," the technician said. "They left this image in your personal drive."
The screen changed to display a photograph Walter hadn't seen in years—a group picture from a company holiday party five years ago. Walter stood in the center, wearing a rare smile, surrounded by his executive team. But someone had circled a figure in the background—a young woman with striking features and intelligent eyes, holding a champagne glass and looking slightly out of place among the executives.
Walter felt an unexpected tightness in his chest. "Who is that?" Marcus asked, peering at the screen.
"No one," Walter replied tersely. "A former employee."
But his mind was racing back five years. Jade Annable. His mother's personal assistant who had briefly worked as a nanny in the Craig household. The woman who had disappeared overnight after being accused of stealing his mother's precious family heirlooms. The woman he had chosen not to believe despite the nagging doubt that had persisted for years.
"Sir," Marcus interrupted his thoughts, "the system audit shows they accessed one specific file repeatedly—your mother's guest list from her charity gala last month."
Walter's expression darkened. His mother, Eleanor Craig, was a formidable presence in New York society, using the family's wealth and influence to maintain her position among the elite. Her monthly charity events were exclusive affairs, meticulously documented and secured.
"Show me the access pattern," Walter demanded.
The screen displayed a visual representation of the hackers' movements through the system. They had methodically examined the guest list, cross-referenced it with several other databases, and then—most alarmingly—accessed Walter's private calendar.
"They were looking for an intersection," Walter realized aloud. "They wanted to know when I'd be meeting with someone on that list."
"But why?" Marcus asked. "Corporate espionage? Blackmail?"
Walter didn't answer immediately. His mind was working through possibilities, each more troubling than the last. The birthday code. The children. The photograph of Jade. It all pointed to something deeply personal—not a random attack or typical corporate espionage.
"I want a full security detail starting immediately," Walter finally said. "And I need everything you can find on any children associated with guests at my mother's last event."
Marcus raised an eyebrow but knew better than to question his boss. "Yes, sir. And what about the board? They'll need to be notified of a breach this severe."
Walter's expression hardened. "Tell them it was a security drill. I authorized it to test our vulnerabilities."
"But sir—"
"No one hears about this, Marcus. Not until I understand what we're dealing with." Walter's tone left no room for argument. "And I want the full dossier on Jade Annable on my desk by morning. Everything we have."
As Walter strode back to the elevator, his mind was already formulating a plan. Someone had just declared war on him in the most intimate way possible—using his birth date as a weapon and leaving breadcrumbs that led to a past he'd tried to forget.
The elevator doors closed, and Walter caught a glimpse of his reflection in the polished steel—the face of a man who controlled a technology empire worth billions, yet suddenly felt like he was losing control of something far more valuable. For the first time in years, Walter Craig felt genuinely unsettled.
Back in his office, he pulled up the enhanced security footage of the three small figures escaping into the night. The technicians had managed to extract a slightly clearer frame of the smallest one—the child who had looked directly at the camera. Though still blurry, something about the eyes struck Walter with unsettling familiarity.
He opened his desk drawer and removed a small, leather-bound notebook—one of the few analog items he still kept. Flipping through it, he found an entry from five years ago with a phone number that likely no longer worked. Below it, he had written a single question mark.
Walter stared at his own handwriting for a long moment before closing the notebook. Tomorrow would bring answers, one way or another. And Walter Craig had never been a man who tolerated mysteries—especially ones that threatened everything he had built.
As dawn broke over the Manhattan skyline, Walter was still at his desk, reviewing security footage frame by frame, searching for the faces of the children who had somehow breached one of the most secure systems in the corporate world. Children who seemed to know him in a way that made his typically steady hands clench into fists of apprehension.