Chapter 6 - The Sabotage
Friday morning arrived, bringing with it a sudden, terrifying twist that nearly destroyed everything we had worked for.
I woke up at six o'clock to the sound of my phone buzzing frantically on the nightstand. It was a call from my primary freelance client, a regional logistics firm for whom I managed accounting records and server infrastructure.
"Marcus, we have a catastrophic emergency," the manager shouted over the line. "Our server database was wiped two hours ago! Financial logs, payroll files, client invoices—everything is gone! The system logs show the wipe was executed using your administrative login credentials!"
I sat up in bed, cold sweat bursting across my forehead. "What? That's impossible! I haven't logged into the server since yesterday afternoon!"
"The logs don't lie, Marcus!" the manager yelled. "We’re facing tens of thousands of dollars in lost data! We are terminating your contract immediately, and our legal team is preparing to sue you for gross negligence!"
"Wait! Please! Let me check my terminal—"
"Don't bother! Access revoked!" The line slammed shut.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my head spinning, horror washing over me in suffocating waves. My primary source of income—the very proof of financial stability I needed to show Judge Harris in seventy-two hours—had just been obliterated.
And then, the horrible, sickening realization hit me like a physical blow.
Two days ago, Richard Vance’s legal team had demanded a full digital audit of my home network as part of their discovery process, claiming they needed to ensure my working hours didn't interfere with Theo’s care. I had given their court-approved IT inspector access to my system.
They hadn't just audited my network. They had stolen my credentials and wiped my client's server to frame me for incompetence and destroy my financial standing right before the trial.
"No, no, no!" I slammed my fist against the mattress, tears of frustration blinding my vision. It was a masterclass in corporate sabotage. It was clean, devastating, and nearly impossible to prove in time.
A soft knock sounded at my bedroom door.
Theo stood there in his pajamas, holding his small tablet. He looked at my frantic posture, my pale face, and the chaotic state of my room.
"Marcus," Theo said, stepping inside. "Your stress level is at maximum. What has occurred?"
"Theo... I lost my main job," I choked out, covering my face with my hands. "Someone... someone hacked my account and deleted my work files. I don't have an income to show the judge anymore. They’re going to say I can't afford to take care of you."
Theo stood frozen for a few seconds. He didn't panic. Instead, he walked over to my desk, opened my laptop, and began tapping rapidly on the keyboard.
"What are you doing, Theo?" I asked listlessly.
"You taught me Python programming principles when I was thirteen," Theo said, his eyes scanning the lines of code on the screen with incredible speed. "You explained that when data is deleted from an active server, the raw binary clusters remain in the temporary drive cache for seventy-two hours unless an overwrite pass is executed."
I blinked, suddenly lifting my head. "What?"
"The person who executed the deletion was efficient, but human," Theo continued, his fingers flying across the keys like a professional programmer. "Humans make predictable errors. They used a simple script command: RM -RF. They did not execute a triple-pass military overwrite."
Theo hit a key, and a stream of terminal code began scrolling down the screen.
"Look," Theo pointed at a line of red text. "An external IP address accessed your router at 03:14 AM from a remote proxy server in downtown. But they forgot to clear the local router handshakes log. The MAC address matches a corporate network signature."
I jumped up from the bed, staring at the screen in absolute disbelief.
Theo had traced the hack. The MAC address registered on my home router belonged to a device registered under Vance Global Holdings.
"They left a digital fingerprint," I breathed, awe and fury surging through my veins simultaneously. "Richard’s team did this directly from his corporate headquarters."
Theo turned to look at me, a tiny, rare smirk forming at the corner of his lips.
"They assumed an autistic individual lacks the cognitive capacity to analyze network telemetry," Theo said softly. "They calculated incorrectly."
I grabbed my brother by the shoulders, pulling him into a hard hug. "Theo, you didn't just save my job. You just handed us the gun that’s going to shoot down their entire lawsuit."
"I have saved the log files to three encrypted flash drives," Theo noted, tapping his pocket. "And sent a backup copy to Sarah Jenkins’ secure email."
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I looked at my fifteen-year-old brother, amazed beyond words. Eleanor and Richard thought they were dealing with a helpless child and an overwhelmed young man. They had no idea that together, we were an unshakeable force.
"Get dressed, bud," I said, a dangerous confidence finally settling into my voice. "We have a court date to prepare for."
