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The second day of work started normally.
That alone should have made Noah suspicious.
He woke up in the same cheap motel room, the ceiling still stained in the same spots he'd memorized by now. The alarm buzzed on his phone, and he slapped it off with a groan.
"Five more minutes…" he muttered.
Five minutes became ten.
Eventually he dragged himself out of bed, stretched, and shuffled toward the tiny bathroom. The mirror reflected a guy who looked… surprisingly decent. Not rich. Not impressive. Just a guy who had somewhere to be.
Which still felt weird.
He washed his face, ran a hand through his hair, and grabbed the same set of office clothes from yesterday.
Nothing fancy.
Just enough to look like he belonged.
On the walk to work, Gotham felt the same as always—busy, noisy, slightly threatening. People rushed past each other on the sidewalks. Cars honked. Somewhere down the street a police siren wailed.
Noah shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Yep," he said quietly. "Still Gotham."
The office building looked exactly the same as yesterday.
Glass doors. Security desk. Receptionist who greeted him with a polite smile.
"Morning, Mr. Grey."
"Morning."
The elevator ride up was quiet except for the soft hum of machinery.
When the doors opened, the IT office was already alive with the sound of keyboards and printers.
Ms. Lin waved when she saw him.
"Morning, Noah."
"Morning."
Mr. Hayes looked up from his desk.
"Good timing. We've got a few tickets waiting."
Noah set his bag down and sat at his workstation.
Dual monitors flickered to life.
A list of maintenance requests filled the screen.
Nothing dramatic. Just office problems.
Printer not connecting.
Software crash.
Someone locked themselves out of their system.
Normal stuff.
Noah rolled his shoulders.
"Alright," he murmured. "Let's do this."
The morning passed quickly.
He fixed the printer problem in ten minutes.
Reset three passwords.
Cleaned up a corrupted spreadsheet someone had accidentally broken.
Every now and then he gave the code a tiny mental push—nothing obvious, just a subtle adjustment that made problems easier to solve.
The trick was keeping it small.
Too much and people might notice.
Too little and it would take all day.
By late morning he had already cleared half the tickets.
Ms. Lin leaned over the cubicle wall.
"You're fast," she said.
Noah shrugged.
"Guess I type quickly."
She laughed.
"You might ruin the rest of us. Hayes is going to expect miracles now."
Lunch came around.
Noah grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs and returned to the office break area.
A couple of employees were watching the news on a wall-mounted TV.
Gotham news, of course.
It was never anything cheerful.
"—another robbery overnight in the Narrows—"
"—police believe the suspects are connected to a larger gang—"
Noah took a bite of his sandwich.
Yeah… sounds about right.
He finished lunch and headed back upstairs.
That's when things stopped being normal.
The first sign was the network slowing down.
At first it was subtle.
A program took longer to open.
Files hesitated before loading.
Ms. Lin frowned at her monitor.
"That's weird."
Noah glanced at his screen.
"Yeah… that's not right."
A minute later the entire office started complaining.
"My files won't open!"
"The server's not responding!"
Mr. Hayes stood up immediately.
"IT team, check the network."
Noah was already moving.
He sat at the main server station and opened the system logs.
The problem appeared instantly.
Someone was accessing the system from outside.
Unauthorized.
And they weren't just poking around.
They were digging.
"Uh," Noah muttered.
Ms. Lin walked over.
"What is it?"
He pointed at the screen.
"Someone's inside the network."
Her expression tightened.
"Hackers?"
"Looks like it."
The logs scrolled quickly.
The intruder was moving fast, jumping between databases like they knew exactly where to go.
Employee files.
Financial records.
Security systems.
"Not good," Noah said.
Mr. Hayes stepped closer.
"Can we lock them out?"
Noah cracked his knuckles.
"Working on it."
Normally a situation like this would take hours to fix.
But Noah wasn't normal.
He leaned forward, focusing.
Code flowed across the screen.
He traced the intruder's path through the network like following footprints in snow.
Okay… you came through the firewall… bounced off the finance server… now you're probing the backups…
The hacker was good.
Really good.
But Noah had something they didn't.
A brain quietly supported by a little push from reality itself.
He started closing doors.
Redirecting pathways.
Creating fake data trails.
The hacker hesitated.
Then tried another route.
Noah grinned slightly.
"Oh, you're stubborn."
Across the monitors, the digital chase continued.
The hacker pushed deeper.
Noah blocked.
They rerouted.
He countered.
Ms. Lin watched, impressed.
"You're doing this fast."
"Trying," Noah replied.
Inside his head, he gave the system one small nudge.
Just enough.
Lines of code aligned faster.
Patterns became clearer.
Finally he found the intruder's connection point.
An external relay server bouncing signals through Gotham.
Noah typed quickly.
Three commands.
Two reroutes.
One trap.
The moment the hacker pushed forward again—
Lock.
The system slammed shut.
Connection terminated.
Silence filled the office.
Then the network came back online.
Files opened again.
Programs resumed.
The employees around the office let out a collective sigh.
Ms. Lin blinked.
"…You kicked them out?"
Noah leaned back in his chair.
"Looks like it."
Mr. Hayes looked genuinely impressed.
"That was excellent work."
Noah rubbed the back of his neck.
"Lucky timing."
Inside, his heart was racing.
That hacker had been good.
Too good for random cybercrime.
The rest of the afternoon returned to normal.
Mostly.
But Noah couldn't stop thinking about the logs he'd seen.
The intruder hadn't been looking for money.
They were searching people.
Employee records.
Contact lists.
Security clearance files.
That wasn't random.
That was targeted.
When the workday ended, Noah stepped outside the building.
The evening air of Gotham felt colder than usual.
He walked down the sidewalk slowly.
Something about today felt… off.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message.
From an unknown number.
Noah opened it.
The text was short.
"Nice firewall trick."
He froze.
A second message appeared.
"Next time try harder."
Noah stared at the screen.
Then a third message popped up.
"See you soon, Noah Grey."
The phone went silent.
Noah slowly lowered it.
"…Okay," he muttered.
He glanced up at Gotham's skyline.
"Now that's concerning."
Somewhere out there—
Someone knew his name.
And they had just started playing.
---
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