You Mocked Me I’m The One You Fear Chapter 01
My boyfriend, Ethan Cole, and my best friend, Vanessa Reed, were known around Westbridge University as the golden duo of cybersecurity.
He was famous for offense. She was known for defense.
And me? I was the engineering and computer science student who barely scraped by.
Whenever the three of us walked together, they talked about protocol vulnerabilities, privilege escalation, and ways around access controls while I kept my head down and walked beside them.
Every now and then, Vanessa would glance back at me with a smile.
“Maya, do you have any idea how many people at Westbridge envy you? You get to hang around Ethan and me and listen in whenever you want.”
Ethan would laugh. “She can barely tell a port from an interface. Listening isn’t going to help.”
I never bothered answering.
I’d known the difference since I was thirteen.
That was also the year I wrote a little program that tore through nearly every simulated node in a closed cyber range shared by dozens of security labs. It took six hours.
But before my grandfather died, he left me with one instruction.
“Keep your blade sheathed.”
Then came the International Collegiate Cyber Defense Invitational, where Westbridge was shut out by Kestrel Institute.
Kestrel’s captain looked straight into the livestream camera and smirked.
“If this is what Westbridge calls a top-tier security program, maybe it’s time to take the sign down.”
The color drained from Vanessa’s face. Ethan clenched his fists. Not one of them had an answer.
Finally, I spoke.
“They’re disguising probes as normal requests, and you’re accepting every one of them. Your perimeter’s already been bypassed, and you’ve lost core privileges.”
I looked at the warning panel still sitting there in silence.
“And you’re waiting for a traffic alert? What, do you need them to send you a business card first?”
The chatter around us died down.
I took off my headphones and walked toward the main console.
“Move. I’ll do it.”
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