The punching bag had taken a beating this morning.
Forty minutes of combinations, footwork, sweat soaking through my shirt until my arms burned and my mind finally went quiet.
I'd showered, changed, and was now back at my desk coffee steaming beside the laptop, the familiar hum of the system idling somewhere behind my thoughts.
I leaned back and stared at my wallet.
₦20,000.
I turned it over in my fingers.
Twenty thousand naira. Enough for groceries, transport, maybe a week of breathing room if I stretched it carefully. Not enough to build anything.
Not enough to matter.
*Legacy Protocol Phase 1 still pending,* the system noted quietly. *Zero clients acquired. 61 hours remaining.*
"I know."
*The wallet won't fill itself.*
"I said I know." I dropped it on the desk and reached for the coffee.
The city outside my window was already loud matatus honking, vendors calling, the general chaos of a place that never really slept.
Somewhere out there were people with problems. Tech problems. My kind of problems.
I opened the laptop and pulled up the Fix It dashboard.
Then the notification hit.
Not a soft ping. A hard, urgent pulse that rattled through my skull like an alarm.
*PRIORITY ALERT.*
*Incoming Request Severity: Critical.*
*Classification: Cyber Incident Active Threat.*
*Client: Meridian General Hospital.*
*Location: 4.2km from current position.*
I sat up straight.
*Incident Summary: Hospital network breached at 03:14 this morning. All critical systems locked. Patient records, ICU monitors, surgical scheduling, pharmacy dispensing all encrypted and inaccessible. Perpetrators have demanded $10 million within 48 hours or data gets wiped permanently.*
*Current Status: Doctors operating blind. Life support systems on manual backup. Two surgeries suspended.*
*Request: Immediate technical intervention.*
My coffee went cold without me noticing.
"People could die," I said quietly.
*Correct. Four ICU patients are currently at elevated risk due to monitor disconnection. Every hour of delay increases that number.*
I stared at the screen. The numbers, the locations, the severity rating blinking red at the corner of the dashboard.
"This isn't a router."
*No. It is not.*
"I'm one person. Nineteen years old. With a laptop."
*Also correct.* A pause. *Do you want me to pull up your qualifications instead? We can spend the remaining 47 hours and 51 minutes admiring how underqualified you are.*
I exhaled sharply. "What are we dealing with?"
The system shifted immediately all business now.
*Ransomware strain: Modified Blackout variant. Military-grade encryption layered over the hospital's existing network. The attackers exploited an unpatched vulnerability in the hospital's outdated patient management software entry point was a phishing email opened six days ago by a staff member. The malware has been dormant since, mapping the entire system before activating.*
"Smart," I muttered despite myself.
*Exceptionally. These are not amateurs. The $10 million demand, the timing activating at 3am when skeleton staff are on duty this was planned.*
"Can we beat it?"
*Possibly. The Blackout variant has one known weakness. It encrypts in layers but the decryption key is generated locally before being sent to the attacker's remote server. If that key was cached even partially in the hospital's system memory before the lockdown completed, it can be reconstructed.*
"And if it wasn't cached?"
*Then we find another way. We always find another way.*
I was already pulling on my jacket.
"What do I need?"
*Your laptop. A network isolation tool I'll walk you through building on-site. Physical access to the hospital's server room. And Brandon*
I paused at the door.
*Do not let them know how young you are. Walk in like you've done this a thousand times. Confidence is half the battle in a room full of panicking adults.*
I almost smiled. "And the other half?"
*Competence. Which fortunately, you have. Now move. Every minute you stand in that doorway is a minute someone's monitor stays dark.*
I grabbed the laptop bag and stepped out.
*Quest Accepted: Code Blue.*
*Objective: Neutralize ransomware. Restore hospital systems. Protect patient data.*
*Bonus Objective: Identify attacker origin point.*
*Reward: 1500 XP + Network Specialist Badge + something far more valuable than experience points.*
I hit the stairs at a run.
"What's more valuable than XP?" I called out.
*A reputation,* the system replied. *The kind that money can't manufacture.*
Outside, the city roared around me. I cut through it with my head down and my mind already three steps ahead, the system feeding me data like a navigator reading a map in real time hospital layout, server room location, staff contacts, network architecture.
Twenty thousand naira in my wallet.
A hospital on its knees four kilometres away.
And sixty one hours left to prove I was worth something.
Let's go.
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