THE CYBERSECURITY operations center at Keller Capital never truly slept.
Even at six-thirty in the morning, the room hummed with quiet activity. Analysts monitored live network traffic from behind curved rows of illuminated screens, while automated threat dashboards continuously updated with streams of data from offices spread across three continents.
Sophie had grown accustomed to the rhythm of the room over the past several weeks. It was a different kind of battlefield, one fought with algorithms instead of engines and fire.
She had barely finished her first cup of coffee when an alert appeared on the primary monitoring screen.
The notification was subtle. Most people would have dismissed it as another routine authentication log.
Sophie didn't.
She immediately opened the event rec
