Hello, and welcome to your weekly dose of the real world, where truth
is stranger than fiction and things are not always as they seem to. Day's
job is a thrilling journey into the world of cyber security and a race against
time to decode a cryptic message and prevent a powerful digital weapon from triggering a
global cyber war. They call me the Ghost. I'm an independent dark operative
on the dark Web, taking on the mysterious and outrageous jobs that no one
else will or can. And this is one of our adventures. Take a
listen and enjoy, all right, so I know you like to hear the
request. Here is what came in encrypted sent via our secure channel. It
said, dear Ghost, this is Max, a name from your past during
your time with the CIA. We find ourselves crossing paths again under circumstances I
wish were different. The digital world stands on the brink of chaos. In
the heart of this impending storm lies Quantum Core, an entity we once trusted,
now implicated in clandestine endeavors that threaten our collective digital existence. Quantum Core's
darkest secret project KGDI, has surfaced as a digital weapon with the power to
dismantle our reality. We received the following cryptic message that appears to be a
direction or a mission. It says Orpheus descends, lost, echoes, resound,
shadows, entwined, seek the origin. And that was it. And
then the requester continued, we would like to utilize your specialized skills to help
understand and stop this potential catastrophe. We cannot risk compromise should we uncover a
mole on this. There can only be a select few agents that even know
about this. Should you take the job, and I hope you do,
we need your expertise. Please respond as soon as possible. The fate of
the digital world may rely on this. Signed Max. Okay, so wow,
right, Well, after I received this cryptic message from Max during my
late night vigil, I called an emergency meeting and pulled everyone out of the
various things they were doing. The atmosphere was a little tense as I relayed
to them the contents of this request. I pull the message up so we
can all see it now. My team and I may not quite realize what
all is going on here at the start of this, but we definitely know
that this message it's a riddle. Let me explain what we saw when we
saw that message. The cryptic part is what talking about inside of the request?
Okay, so Orpheus descends, Okay, Well, In Greek mythology,
Orpheus was a legendary musician and poet who descended into the underworld to retrieve his
wife. So we read that as it's a difficult journey or mission into a
dangerous place for us in this project. We could be talking about the dark
web here for instance. All right, how about lost echoes resound? Now?
This phrase might suggest that something from the past is coming back, or
maybe old information thought to be maybe lost or irrelevant is becoming important again.
All right, shadows entwined. This phrase implies a deep connection. Maybe they
mean alliances, secrets, obscured information. We can only guess at this point.
Lastly, seek the origin. This likely means that we as a team
need to uncover are the roots of whatever this situation is something clearly with Project
kg D. I now, given my previous association with the CIA. If
you're listening and you don't know, by the way, I left the CIA
to do what I do now, okay, all right, but so I've
already I already have limited knowledge about quantum Core's secret projects. And I did
have to change the name of this company for this story so I could tell
it to you, But it's the same idea. You'll get the picture anyway.
Now. The CIA has always been watching these guys, and I knew
a little bit about Project KGDI, just from things that I knew over time
and in the past. I don't know all of the specifics, but I
do know enough I immediately reply and accept this job. You know, for
this, I don't need to go in first. I clearly know the client.
We are going to work on this, and it was time to get
started immediately. And one of the great things is that with all of this
making place in the same city as our warehouse, it made it a lot
easier. We could work right from there, which was majorly convenient. Now,
before I get into everything that we do about this job, though,
and all of that, let me tell you a little bit about what I
knew about Project KGDI. This was a landmark innovation in the field of quantum
computing. Okay, a really big deal. Quantum Core had been a leader
in quantum tech, and kgd I was meant to be their crowning achievement.
It was developed as a sophisticated quantum encryption and decryption system. Okay, so
a tool that would revolutionize the way we protect and access information in our digital
age. Sounds great, right, Well, we thought so. But we
know what happens, don't we to great things? You know, somehow someone
gets this bright idea to change it, or you use it in a way
that they feel it needs to be used instead of how it was originally meant
to be used. And this was a really sophisticated deal. It allowed quantum
computers to process information at a speed and complexity that would make a traditional computer
look like some kind of ancient tool. Quantum computers, quantum bits or cubits,
lots of stuff like that, but you can get the picture. This
project was something great and it was supposed to capitalize on its strengths, and
its strengths basically made it unbreakable. But it was powerful, which meant that
any secret out there, if used in the wrong way, could now be
accessible. So you can see where malicious minds could and would want a piece
of this. This could be used in a few different ways, and it
was kind of like a double edged sword that in the right hands would have
the potential to transform global security and information sharing, which we all count on
and we need in today's world. Just think about medical records though, okay,
privacy countries and their security. The security we get from our digital world
within our world is something we pretty much take for granted every single day.
It would be a catastrophe on the other side to lose it, and that
is our danger here. Somewhere along the way the mission of Project KGDI shifted.
The power to decrypt any encryption was just too enticing for this one group.
Quantum Core, or rather certain individuals within Quantum Core, saw an opportunity
here to create something far more sinister, a quantum digital weapon. Instead of
something securing and accessing information, they wanted to use KGDI to control and manipulate
it, to infiltrate secure systems worldwide and cause unparalleled chaos. And you have
to know the transformation of Project KGDI from a tool of security to a weapon
of mass destruction. It wasn't sudden. This was a very gradual change driven
by greed and power. And by the time Joshua realized what was happening,
and you'll learn about him in a minute, he was already too deep into
it to simply walk away and this is how we would find him. Okay,
but first we ended up calling Max, you know, for any other
information that we would need. And one thing I wanted to know was why
was he calling on us? You know, they are the CIA. While
in essence he explained that this mass was basically a quantum key to any digital
lock. Okay, capable of bypassing any existing cybersecurity measures as if they didn't
even exist. Okay, do I have your attention yet? Well there's more
more. This thing didn't stop it just infiltration. It could also reprogram what
was going on in the system that it was in. This meant it could
alter data, disrupt power grids, manipulate defense systems, etc. Etc.
This was a company who inside it had a team of geniuses that in a
way became you know, this one little group became this rogue faction, and
it was operating in secret among everyone else who was trying to do a good
thing. And these guys, they were good at what they did. They
were ghosts kind of like us, but operating on the other side of the
law. At the end of the day, this was a very delicate situation,
and Max called on us because they would not expect us at Quantum Core,
and we could work under the radar, dig into everything, break out
all the ugly stuff, and then when it's all said and done on that
front, we would hand it over to the CIA to take it from there.
So we were going to I don't know, this isn't really the right
term, but I guess we'd be the muscle behind the suits. We're going
to go in and get some things done and then we're going to hand it
over to them to handle all of the legalities and things like that. This
would be a battle of wits, a chess game. In a way,
this whole thing actually made us as a group kind of ticked off. I
mean, there's a point when you're doing some of these jobs that it gets
taken too far. People just they go wild with new technology and new information.
It's something, you know, it clicks in their brain. They lose
all logic and sense of what is right and wrong. And in a way,
guys, it's those people that you're dealing with that can be the dangerous,
the most dangerous of all, because they are in control of what's going
on and they're not right at the time. So it is a lot to
deal with. We get started right away. We first start looking into any
digital footprints that were still traceable. In the world of cybersecurity and digital forensics,
a digital footprint would be the trail of data left by a user while
using the Internet. And you're hearing more and more about this today. It's
more open. The information's out there, you know, things like IP addresses,
log in and logout times, the websites someone visited, the emails they
sent, you know, all the stuff they look for when you commit a
crime. You know, you see it when you're watching all those crime shows.
That's what we're looking for now. That said, it can also encompass
a coding style in the case of a programmer or a hacker. So basically
a digital footprint is a record of a person's activity as well as some of
their habits, usage, style patterns, things like that. So we do
all of that then, and this thing took a long while. We went
over everything that we had and we were able to locate an orpheous echo that
was out there a user. We notice that they are using a specific set
of tools and methods they do to carry out their lovely hacking activities. As
we got deeper into different open source intelligence and reports of cyberattacks, we start
to notice a pattern that gets our interest. As we started to cross reference
the time stamps of these attacks, we notice that they're predominantly happening during a
specific for our window, which is between two am and six am. All
right, so this orpheus is active during those times. We have to know
that this could be the hackers local time. If we are to consider that,
then it would mean that they have open time during these hours and they
would be up. Then we start to look at the coding and we discover
even more. We can see that somewhere someone is exploiting certain esoteric vulnerabilities that
really only a handful of individuals in our entire world would even know about and
follow me here, okay, but by having access to these vulnerabilities, it
actually would provide someone away to bypass quantum encryption algorithms, and it would make
sense that they're using it here and that it could be crucial to the workings
of Project kg DI. It may not seem like a lot yet that we've
uncovered here, but it actually is quite a bit. We are now ready
to plunge into the digital ocean of quantum Core and their data. We specifically
target any evidence of abnormal activity during those hours of two and six am of
the employees who had access to the servers that were affected, who is orpheous
Well, we are slowly able to uncover suspicious actions that were tied to a
quantum Core employee named Joshua Klein. This guy appeared to be a talented quantum
computing scientist. The intrusions that we found that were aligned with Joshua's late night
work sessions and his use of esoteric vulnerabilities to bypass quantum cores advanced security measures
were the same methods that we found used by Orpheus Echo. So of course
we kept going and we find even more ties between Joshua and Orpheus. We
find out that Joshua, who is by the way, a very well regarded
expert in quantum what we find out that he just happens to be a fan
of Greek mythology. So this is all because of an interest. He has
this secret message in the words he's using. He's all over the forums discussing
his interests, and when he's josh of course I find posts signed off on
from Echo of the Underworld and this ties exactly to our Greek myth that I
told you about earlier. Joshua even hints at the fact that Orpheus Echo is
his alter ego. So now this is making sense, right. I don't
know if you guys know a lot about alter egos, but when someone does
have an alter ego, it's oftentimes that they are incredibly serious about it.
And I mean, I could go on about our research forever, guys,
but really this kind of sums it up. Joshua Klein is a guy who
appeared to be a very introverted employee who is also a genius scientist. The
guy works at Quantum Core. However, from what we can tell, he
is also the elusive hacker Orpheus Echo. After days of combing through this data,
visiting Max twice, and going through everything again, we were able to
start unraveling at least part of this mystery. For the next bit, we
continue to monitor Joshua Klein's activities both at Quantum Coore and in his digital realm
as Orpheus Echo. And let me just give you a couple of the highlights,
because I mean, there was a lot going on here. First off,
we had constant surveillance that we set up around this guy, and during
all of that we started to pick up clues about Joshua and interestingly, about
his mental state. So what we found is that online, when he's orpheus
echo, Joshua comes across as very confident, dan resolute. Oh, when
Joshua is just Hua, this private guy behind the famous hacker, well,
that's a different story. We find a series of posts that Joshua made in
a private forum under a pseudonym, which is a name that he used that
was not his own. People use those all the time when they write books
and things. But okay, now these entries showed us something we did not
expect. We saw a man who was torn between what he was doing and
how it was affecting his conscience. In a post, Joshua is detailing his
sleepless nights, the paranoia that's growing inside of him, as well as an
increasing sense of regret for things he's done so far and fear for what will
happen because of what he's done. It started to become clear to us that
even though he's talking, you know, not really explaining anything to others,
it's clear to us that Joshua is a deeply troubled person, conflicted about his
role in the world and who he thought he was, and then his role
in Project KGDI. He even vaguely alluded to his involvement in something potentially destructive,
but then he stopped just short of giving out any details. This would
have been his fear stepping in. We also found a private, encrypted blog
where Joshua seems to like to express his escalating disillusionment with Quantumcore and the vision
that the company has. Joshua talked about the company's drive for technological advancement,
casting all ethics aside, and how it led to the creation of something as
threatening as KGDI. His disillusionment and fear began to paint a picture of a
man who just might be willing to help dismantle the very project he's a part
of. Does that make sense, guys? This would be a decision that
we would have to make. But in diving into who Joshua was, we
found more than we expected. You know, he's sort of applying all that's
happening to Quantumcore itself, but he's even conflicted on that whoever he's working with
is really who he's targeting here. And to be clear, and actually don't
even know why I said that, because we hear that all the time on
the news, don't we. To be clear, quantum Core was meant to
be a good company, and in general it is a legitimate and innovative technology
company. It's known across the world for its advancements in quantum computing, and
they've made significant contributions in their field. They've brought about more security and positive
change and improvement to things, you know, like healthcare and finance and cybersecurity.
So it started out great, virtually unbreachable, and this would have provided
tremendous benefits and it still can. However, the same technology that was making
it so awesome also is what here can be a potential weapon of mass destruction
in the digital realm. And so that is what's going on here. They
are using this great company and what they're doing and turning it into something that
they feel somehow will benefit them. I mean, if you suddenly have no
security and there's one small group in charge of it all, yeah, they
have a lot of control. They could make a lot of money. And
since they'd be in control of the digital realm basically all of it, they
could be anonymous, not a pretty picture to think about, is it.
Now. While Quantum Core as a whole remains a reputable company, there are
evidently some bad actors in there right who are manipulating this project KGDI for their
own sinister goals. And that's what I wanted to make sure I was clear
on. These individuals are the real threat, not the company itself. Okay,
for Joshua, that makes this situation even more complex, as he's caught
between his duty to the company and his own ethical standards. It's not hard
to tell by what Joshua is posting and saying that he's deeply troubled by the
direction KGDI is taking. And it's exactly his guilt and fear that make him
a value able ally to us in stopping the project from being misused. So
that's that. Now, moving on to some of the other bigger things we
found. We found this file filled with information on what project KGDI was,
so I intercepted this heavily encrypted file that Joshua was trying to send to an
unknown recipient. This took hours working on code breaking and decryption, and then
it was only a few of us left. At that point. I had
Jagger there and Rider and Scarlet. But between the four of us at the
very end there we were able to open this file and yeah, basically it
gave us a lot of the details to this project. We would find out
later that Joshua was sending that to a private file system. He was directing
certain things to this private space in case everything that he was doing started to
come back to bite him. So this was real and a good piece of
evidence, had some good information, and now we had it. It outlined
a complex quantum base digital weapon that was capable of simultaneous and widespread attacks on
the global digital infrastructure. This would be huge, guys, And I mean
we have to know that there are people out there trying to do this,
right, I mean, we just have to know that. Well. Anyway,
in this particular instance, it all described something designed to override all standard
encryption protocols, all of it infiltrate secure databases and either sea's control or if
they can't, just cause irreparable damage. The implications to what we were looking
at would be immediate upon its release, and that thought was terrifying. I
mean, everybody would feel this at the same time, everything from national security
systems all the way to the global economy, it all would be basically brought
to a halt. Now, in all of this, we were able to
identify the device's crucial components, which would be the quantum algorithms that power its
core, and most importantly, those vulnerabilities. We start to realize that the
weapon itself is linked to a central control module. If we can disable or
destroy this, it would basically render Project KGDI inoperable. So in figuring that
out, of course, that becomes our main goal of this mission. And
then when we can put a stop to this, we can pass it back
to the CIA. All right, sounds easy, right, Well, always
sounds easier when I'm retelling these jobs in these stories, because in all reality,
I have to leave so much out Otherwise, like I always say,
these stories would end up being hours and hours long. Okay, well,
we need in the story here in the job, we need to be very
methodical about everything that we're about to do. We approach the idea of getting
to Joshua in sort of a multifaceted attack, a combination of things, nothing
aimed at harming anyone, but it always meant to create a covert channel of
communication basically within this system, so that we can move around it more freely.
And we've done this before. You still have to be careful. People
like who we're dealing with, they'll have a very close eye on their things
and they will be looking for anyone trying to infiltrate anything that they're doing.
But we do get it done, and once inside, we start planting different
messages for Joshua, cleverly disguised of course, and hidden within the normal noise
of this system. So then by hiding in all of the metadata, for
example, our messages would look like a normal system notification to Joshua, normal
except we'd messed with it. I mean normally someone who's just working and not
really paying attention to things. Right, We don't sit and read all of
our error messages. They just ignore the message to click out of it.
But for someone like Joshua, they are going to read it all. One
of our messages to Joshua, it looked like an error message, right,
but it read Quantum Core System error ORPHEUS internal echo detected Please contact system admin.
That was our first message actually, and through the camera on his computer,
we were able to observe the look on Joshua's face when he got it
complete surprise as it should have been. He would now know, though,
okay, that some one else knows about his alter ego orpheus and to anyone
that would completely freak them out. And Joshua was no different. I mean,
the guy was completely wigging out right there at his desk. And then
of course we followed it up with more elaborate messages showing him our knowledge and
skills in quantum computing, because I wanted him to know that this is no
joke. This is someone that actually knows stuff that is communicating with him.
That would be me and the team were on to him, and we want
him to know it. I wanted to prove to him our depth of understanding
here he's dealing with a peer. I want to break down any ideas that
he has that he thinks he knows things that no one else could possibly know,
a lot of criminals they'd love to think that way, but never really
is all that true, is it? Over time, we started to show
our concerns about the possible outcome of this project, and this was our way
of testing his own doubt. Like here's an example of simple string that just
read kgdi colin Pandora's box it's dangerous to proceed alone. And believe me,
guys, the more messages that this guy got, the more uneasy he was
fidgeting at his desk, taking more breaks. Walking away. The guy was
sweating, so we knew that we had gotten to him. Now after a
small bit, he actually starts to accept us, kind of you know how
people accept Ai these days as someone an actual person you can converse with.
He starts to accept that we're there, that we just exist at all.
With him calming down, we start to subtly suggest that we're possibly looking for
help. We sort of reach out a way where it shows him that we
believe that we might be on the same side here. It would be a
huge help to us in the end if we could get this guy to work
with us. We're speaking at this point directly to his conflict. Which side
is he gonna pick? We had to have patience, But eventually we start
to build a rapport with Joshua. We keep subtly suggesting that we're looking for
help and trying to indicate that we could be on the same side, and
Joshua does start to respond in a positive way, which to us was a
crucial step in neutralizing this threat. Dealing with someone directly at Quantum Core was
extremely dangerous because if he was not on our side, or would not work
with us or lied to us, I mean, he could maybe alert the
wrong people and that would shut down everything that we were doing and we'd have
to completely start over. So we're banking on this working. We're also very
careful not to trigger him or any other alarms that we find and come across,
raise any other suspicions within quantum cores security systems. We had to be
stealth. I mean, really, we were in a game of digital cat
and mouse with very high stakes. But let's face it, we as a
team, we're no stranger to pressure like this. We work him more and
we finally get him to meet us face to face, and it was pretty
genius really, because we didn't want to be the ones to ask him to
meet us, so we worked it in a way psychologically where he actually ended
up asking us to meet him, which was perfect. He, of course,
though, picks a place that feels safe and for him as a place
where he can still feel in control, and this would be his loft.
We discover that he works an odd shift at Quantum Core where he gets home
at about one in the morning, So if he doesn't go hit a nightcap
afterwards somewhere, then he's all set to go home and do his thing between
that two and six am time frame. Another connection between him and Orpheus.
His loft is filled with compute us and tech equipment, clearly a place where
he spends pretty much all of his time that he's not at work. Yeah,
he's that guy. Meeting him wasn't exactly typical. I bring Harley and
Frankie with me for this meat and we show up a little bit late on
purpose. Wanted to keep him on edge just enough, keep the power tilted
toward us the mystery. So we get into his loft and we find that,
like his mind, it's all cluttered and chaotic. Like I said,
filled with computers. It's programs running code all over the place. We sort
of got to note the Joshua at Quantum Core, but now it was more
like entering the den of Orpheus, the world of his alter ego. But
hey, it took us weeks to get there, and we're going to use
it for every opportunity it had to offer. We get through introductions and as
we begin to talk. He reveals more about Project KGDI, the quantum based
weapon, and his role in its development. He confesses that he's been manipulated,
he's been coerced into participating, and now he's in too deep and he
can't find a way out. We believe him. He talks about the weight
he's been carrying, the fear of what KGDI could do if used in the
wrong way, and it becomes clear that our hunch was right. Joshua was
a man in conflict Quantum Core despite being a respected tech company, it was
housing a faction that's misusing the KGDI project, turning it from a tool for
data security into a potential cyber weapon. Joshua an integral part of this project.
He has begun to realize the risks and implications of this project's misuse.
It's causing a moral crisis within him. And let me just take a minute
here and talk about Joshua, because we're about to mess with his world.
So let's just I want to give you a good picture of what his world
is. In the first place, the guy held the deegious position of a
quantum computing engineer, and he was part of an elite group of individuals there
working on cutting edge technology. They specifically focused on encryption and security measures using
the principles of quantum mechanics. Yeah, this is big brain stuff, guys.
You know these things that you learn in grade school that you thought would
never matter. Well, for guys like this, it all matters. His
knowledge and skills put him at the forefront of Quantumcore's most ambitious project, which
was Project KGDI. It was a great project. Intelligis wasn't. Attacking the
global digital infrastructure on a global scale is nothing good. It would cause chaos
that we can't even imagine. Now Joshua's moral compass, it's something that we
needed to touch base on again to make sure that this was okay for us
to be working with him on this investigation. Okay, Well, we learned
that, Yes, he was very excited and enthusiastic for pushing the boundaries of
what was possible with technology. It excited him. He thought everything was good,
and he was excited and wowed by the tech. But then he started
realizing, he says, and becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of some people
morphing this and creating this digital weapon that would bring the world to its knees
and so as we learned, this is how Orpheus Echo was born Joshua's digital
alter ego. And we shouldn't really be surprised by this, really, right,
guys. I mean everything that we see out there on social media.
If it's not the names, it's the images everyone's using filters, all the
looks and stuff like that, so much of it is not real. It's
simply a representation of what we want people to see. And when Joshua created
Orpheus Echo, that's exactly what he wanted people to see, and that's actually
who he wanted to be. Orpheus was a digital badass and he had power.
Well, Joshua and his alter ego were about to get quite the ego
overhaul. And I have to say though his work was impressive. But then
when he realized that this project wasn't really in line with who he was,
he started to get past his ego and use his knowledge for a little bit
of good. In this decision, he started introducing these tiny, imperceptible flaws
into the quantum algorithms that powered kgdi's core. These were cleverly hidden, they
went unnoticed by even his colleagues. He did it so well, even his
superiors, but they were enough to slow the project's progress. And that's where
we were at the moment. So when he's in there messing around, he's
trying to slow things down, and in the meantime, he's sending out those
little encrypted messages hoping that someone who gets it will get it and want to
help. And that's why we're there, right. He passively just left just
enough out there that this might happen, and it did. You know,
he himself didn't quite have enough guts to really fully commit to his change of
mind. I mean, the guy was smart and intelligent, but he was
a bit wishywashy. But I needed to keep him with me if we were
going to engage with him. He needed to be on board with us to
help us stop this quantum weapon. So yeah, josh was instrumental to our
operation, but we also knew that we couldn't rely solely on his shaky resolve.
He could chicken out, and we knew this. We needed to take
control of the situation ourselves. In the digital world, knowledge is power,
and we were about to flex ours. We worked with Joshua to understand the
core architecture of KGDI better. We learned about the quantum algorithms, the encryption
layers, and most importantly, the imperfections Joshua had cleverly inserted into this system.
With this knowledge, we got set to work navigating the crazy maze that
was quantum Core's digital fortress. Basically, we moved fast, starting to take
advantage of some of the backdoors that Joshua had unintentionally created, and there were
a lot of them. One example among the many clever touches that Joshua had
unintentionally left behind was one that stood out. It was an algorithm he tweaked
during his development process. It was meant to optimize the data transfer rate in
KGDI well, Joshua had added a little bit of his own ingenuity to this
piece of code, essentially creating a quantum shortcut that the rest of his team
were unaware of. But while josh had created it to speed up the development
process, the shortcut also left the system vulnerable, and we found it.
This was one of those digital back doors, unintended perhaps, but incredibly useful
for us at that time for our purposes. So with that, I start
sending a series of quantum entangled packets to this algorithm an unusual sequence that the
system would attempt to optimize, and as it did, it opened a path
for us. The system focused on optimization overlooked the intruder that was now slipping
through this backdoor. That's me diving deeper into the infrastructure of KGDI and this
stuff, guys, it takes time. It's a giant puzzle basically. And
this is just one example, but a good example of a risky move.
If quantum core security systems caught onto our actions, we could trigger and alert
or worse, it could lock us out entirely. But with the stakes so
high, we could not afford to be overly cautious. We had to move
fast. And Joshua's little unintentional backdoors those were our tickets in as we infiltrated
deeper into the system using those backdoors. We were feeling pretty good at that
time until we started to notice something unsettling. Data was flowing in patterns we
hadn't seen before. High velocity packets of information were streaming into specific nodes of
the system, the epicenters of kgdi's capabilities. He was all too familiar for
Joshua. It was a pattern indicative of a beta test. He hadn't anticipated
they'd be this far along. Joshua sitting in front of one of his multiple
screens, he just went pale as he realized what was happening. They were
testing it. He just blurts that out. He was literally shaking. He
started to continue to speak. He said, they're actually testing KGDI. But
right then we see something else we had been noticed. So we have two
things happening that are just not awesome. The security systems within Quantum Core who
were advanced, and they detected us just this tiny part of our anomalies that
we were causing. But that's all it took. Alarms started going off with
in their security center, digital sirens echoing through the virtual corridors of their systems.
We thought this could happen. We knew it was a possibility by Joshua
being in there and now us. Things were off and in ways we could
not predict. We had to kind of learn a few things as we went.
But one thing we knew for sure right then was that the situation was
now far worse than we had feared. KGDI wasn't just a theoretical threat anymore.
They were operationalizing it. The Quantum core's malicious elements were further ahead than
any of us had anticipated, and they were confident enough in their progress to
start testing. That's what that tells us. And if these tests were successful,
it would mean that they were one step closer to deploying the full force
of KGDI onto the world. We had to stop them and fast. The
pressure was on. Joshua's unintentional back door had turned out to be both a
blessing and a curse. It allowed us access, but it also gave us
a glimpse into a terrifying feature that was all too close to becoming a reality.
We had come up with a revised plan. We had to and quick.
I'm just watching the data come in with Harley and Frankie and Joshua there.
The situation had definitely escalated. KGDI was no longer just a potential threat.
It was now an active one. We needed to move fast and with
precision. So our quick plan well stop the ongoing tests, hinder the full
launch of KGDI, and then laid down the groundwork for future safety measures.
That part would probably be up to the CIA. But first, first two
things we did was work to kill their skepticism of a threat. We want
quantum Core to think, oh, we thought it was a threat, but
it really wasn't. Okay, even though we did create this, and we
also want to send Joshua back into work, all right, So first,
all these alarms we were creating, okay, as they rang out across quantum
cores virtual environment, we knew that we had to act and the primary task
was to suppress the alarms, right, but we also needed to leave the
corporation's security team chasing shadows. We wanted to divert them. It gave us
a great idea, just keep them busy with something we're not even doing.
And I had just the tool for it. I call it the Ghost protocol.
You know, and you need it, but it's hard to explain.
It's just something that we do. It's basically a highly sophisticated digital mirage program
that's designed specifically for situations like this. It's a non invasive piece of software
that infiltrates the host system and then subtly alters the output data. So it's
going to create false trails, phantom alarms, and seemingly random system failures.
Think of it as saying, hey, look here, not over there.
While we would be doing our actual work. You know. There I get
into the security matrix and as it began to take effect, random alarms sprouted
across the system, drawing the attention of security. False system anomalies popped up
one after the other, distracting them from the real threats that we were posing.
It was the digital equivalent, I guess of a smokescreen. Right,
so all was good once again. Meanwhile, Joshua raced into work, got
in and started to do what he had to do quickly. We sent him
in to create an intricate algorithm that would introduce noise into the KGDI system.
We needed false data that would start muddling up the current tests that they were
doing and then provide us so much needed time, you know, trying to
mess this up, sort of like we messed up the alarms. Every second
mattered At this point with the test starting, it was stressful, you know,
when you're hyper focused because you know you have pretty much no time to
get so much done. You know, that was us right then, with
Joshua at Quantum Core discreetly injecting roadblocks into the tests and us manipulating the system
from afar, we had successfully halted their progress for now the virtual mayhem caused
by the ghost protocol was keeping Quantum Core security team preoccupied, providing us with
a much needed window of opportunity. And I don't think I mentioned this yet,
but this was in the same town as our warehouse. Okay, so
we're going back and forth. Here. We went to Joshua's. We have
Quantum Core and we have our warehouse, so we all can be involved,
but we all aren't going to be on site exactly at the same time.
So we came to realize that we would need more than just Joshua Actually at
Quantum Core, we were going to have to have at least a couple of
us go there with him. We needed more hands in house to get things
done more directly and quickly. There was a specific piece of hardware, this
central server, heavily and crypted and carefully isolated from external networks that we needed
to physically access. Its isolation made it pervious too remote hacking attempts. It
perfect fails safe for Quantum Coore, but it ended up being a significant roadblock
for us, so we have to handle it. Joshua had shared with us
its location, tucked away in a high security vault in Quantum Coore's basement.
At this point, you might be wondering, you know, why can't Joshua
just co work on this, I mean, he is already there. Well,
despite Joshua being on the inside, there was a considerable risk involved if
he were to attempt to access the server himself. Joshua was a known person
and employee at Quantum Coore. His actions were often monitored and his access rights
were always under scrutiny. If he were caught attempting to access a high security
server that wasn't a part of his usual purview, it would undoubtedly raise immediate
red flags, leading to an internal investigation. And you know, that could
just expose everything. Plus they've now seen him at work, right, so
he can't be wandering around in other places. Additionally, again, Joshua as
a software genius, but he wasn't a field operative. He lacked the physical
training and experience that Frankie and I had, especially when it came to bypassing
you know, physical security systems or handling hostile situations, all of which were
possible. The basement vault was rigged with numerous security measures that required a particular
set of skills to navigate. You know, laser security grids, biometric locks.
So with all of that and more, it's going to be me and
Frankie that go in. In the worst case scenario, if Frankie and I
were caught, we were outsiders, okay, our connection to Joshua would be
non traceable. Joshua could deny any knowledge of our actions and protect his own
position within the company, and it would also leave him free to continue to
sabotage KGDI from the inside. This is also a good reason to keep him
away from this and us at this time not to mention the fact that he
could simply just fold under press or should anything happen. I mean, if
he was caught, would he just brake immediately? We didn't know, and
that wasn't good enough. Frankie and I planned our operation meticulously. We had
to wait until most people had left for the day. Some would stay for
some of the round the clock stuff, but the place was pretty much empty
after about six or six thirty. Joshua was able to provide Harley with internal
blueprints of Quantum Core, and this allowed us to chart the least risky path
to the basement vault. Harley is the one that will be the owner of
that, and she will keep an eye on our paths as we move about
and our routes in case we needed to change anything up or we needed a
new route, things like that. That night, Joshua then kept himself conspicuously
present at work related at this event that they were having, and he wanted
a solid alibi, wanted people to see him. Frankie and I we were
wearing all black, were armed with a bunch of tools and things designed to
bypass security systems. We move stealthily under the cover of darkness, entering quantum
Core through a side entrance that Joshua knew was not monitored. Our adrenaline was
pumping as we bypassed the cameras. I mean some were working, some were
not, But we were disarming alarm systems, navigating through the crazy maze of
corridors of quantum Core. Despite our careful planning, the unexpected happened. We're
halfway to the basement when we hear voices coming towards us. Hidden in this
corner, all darkened, full of shadows, this corner of hallway. We
saw them. Members of quantum Core's security team, the ones aligned with the
project. They were patrolling the building probably due to the anomalies in their system
that we had been causing, and I mean they want to protect this at
all costs. So there they were, there we were, I mean,
we had no choice but to engage. We were able to incapacitate them quickly
and thankfully silently, but our good luck to last, I mean somewhere in
the process and alert had been triggered, sealing off many of the building's sectors.
Now not only was quantum Core aware of our intrusion, but our way
to the basement was now also blocked. We immediately get in touch with Harley,
who was back and monitoring the situation, to help us figure out an
alternate route to the basement. It was riskier going straight through the heart of
quantum Core, but it was our only chance at that point, and so
Frank and I head out again. And believe me, we were feeling it.
We were. It seemed just an inch away from getting caught, and
an inch away from them figuring out the testing and continuing on with the real
deal. Not much room between us and a major catastrophe. Really, we
had to reach that server before quantum Core had the chance to bring KGDI online.
We still had to get to the basement, and we do get there
finally, the basement of Quantum Core. You know, it's a stark contrast
to the offices above. It was a cool, quiet place with just this
quiet hum of activity in the background. Despite the lack of human presence,
there was a sense of life there, an undercurrent of activity that was generated
by all those servers that just lined the room, their indicator lights blinking rhythmically
in semi darkness. The space itself was very large, the servers arranged in
neatly organized rows. It was kind of like a creepy digital forest. The
air was cool, but the servers were putting out this subtle heat. It
so a little mix of both. I mean, despite its functionality, you
know, it's all organized and set up, there was something unsettling about being
in this room. There was like a sense of intrusion. It was as
if we had stepped into the digital heart of Quantum Core, a place where
humans were not meant to linger. And if any of you ben to one
of those a bigger company's server location, you know, if you have it,
it's giant, just lined with servers. It takes a lot to hold
and process all the information that we're using. Out There in the center of
this room, enclosed in a glass case, was the primary server, the
core of quantum cores operations, very powerful. We moved quickly, both of
us focused on our tasks. Frankie was working on disarming the biometric locks protecting
the server, while I was downloading the main kgdi's protocols under this portable drive.
Time was a luxury we could not afford. We had to work so
fast, but more importantly, we also had to be quiet. And that
part was actually kind of hard, because normally, you know, we'd be
talking and things. Well, anyway, we're doing what we're doing. And
then suddenly a low hum echoed through the basement, the sound of a door
opening nearby. Well, Frankie and I, you know, we look at
each other a little worried we were not alone. I quickly tucked the portable
drive into my pocket and I gestured to Frankie to continue working on the lock.
I mean, for sure, if they saw the server had been tampered
with, it would raise immediate alarms. Well, the footsteps grew louder,
a single pair echoing ominously in the cavernous basement. I moved away from the
server, stepping into one of those dark, shadowy corners of the room.
The best case scenario was that they'd see an empty room, become satisfied,
Anne leave, but had to be ready just in case they weren't so easily
fooled. Well, Suddenly a figure stepped into the room, one of Quantum
Corps high level security personnel. Face hidden behind this sleek digital advisor, but
you could tell he was scanning the room. He was looking for something or
someone. I watched as he neared the server. My heart was pounding.
I have to say Frankie had managed to reassemble the lock and was hiding in
another corner. I'm holding my breath. I'm praying that this guy will not
note anything's off, But not so. He turns his head and his eyes
directly met mine. What are the odds, I ask you. I could
see the shock, then suspicion, then realization happened, all in order,
right on his face. I could see it through that visor. He immediately
started reaching for his communicator because of course, now he's going to call in
some troops right while I react fast. I jump a kick off from the
wall and I rushed the guy, but he was ready like really ready,
and he threw me back. I fall down. The portable drive slips from
my pocket and slides across the floor, no kidding. His eyes flickered to
the drive and then back at me. While now he knew. Before he
could do anything, though, Frankie bursts out from his hiding spot and tackles
this guy to the ground because you know, of course he would. I
scrambled at my feet while they're struggling with each other, I get the portable
drives snatched that up. I had to get rid of that thing. I
needed to get it too, Harley. With one powerful shove, Frankie manages
to knock out this security guy, but not before he hit a button on
his communicators. So they both got something done here. And now red lights
are starting to flash. This high pitched alarm is going off. The entire
building is now on alert. So basically exactly the opposite of how we wanted
this to go, right, and this was just how the job was going.
We didn't know a ton going in, we had to go in farther
than we wanted, and we weren't exactly planned out and ready for any of
this. And now we finally get to the inside and we're having issues again.
It doesn't stop us, though, we have to get this done.
Definitely slowed us down, though, and it made us more alert to the
fact that there are people out there that know exactly what we were trying to
do. We got the guys secured, the ones that had already tried to
take us down. Frank and I lock eyes in. The situation had spiraled
out of control. We had what we came for, but getting out was
going to be a little tough. The rescue mission had now become more of
an escape mission. The basement was suddenly just felt alive with that loud shrill
of alarms, and then a mechanical voice droned over the building's intercome, belting
out this alert that stated intrusion detected, lockdown in progress. So after I
take in the plaring sound, I look over to Frankie, because you know,
we need a change of plans. I grabbed the unconscious security officer's access
card and I get his gun. And as you know, we normally do
not like to use regular guns and weapons like that that can cause forever harm
or take a life. But we are taking this gun because even by showing
the guards that we have it, it could have an effect. We need
it. We had to get out of there, and Frankie totally agreed.
But you know, as he's wiping sweat from his forehead, we're both looking
around at the lockdown doors. They're all over the basement now because the place
is on lockdown. It felt like the walls were literally closing in on us.
We get Hardly on the line with our computer watches and we let her
know that we've been compromised and that we need an extraction and we need it
as out. She does some checking and while she's doing that, I send
her the contents from my zip drive, so now it's also secured back at
the warehouse and it's not just relying on being in my pocket anyway. While
we're waiting there, we hear the chilling sound of the private security force now
trying to enter our space. And these guys okay angry because the private security
force is the last defense, so they know there are big issues here and
they want to get their intruders. They're armed, they're heavily trained, and
they're merciless, so you know that's super for us. We hear this loud
series of metallic locks and then doors in front of us they just burst open
and a squad of armored men stepped through. I mean, we were literally
so close to getting out, and now we have all these men with their
weapons trained on us, So now we are trapped again. We are literally
stuck between them and the security force that is closing in on us from behind.
They're getting closer, So again, nothing's awesome. These guys were focused
on us and giving us commands like drop our weapons and things like that,
but we don't give up that easily. I look over to Frankie. He
gives me a slight nod. We understood each other. As the security force
moved to apprehend us, we sprang into action. Frankie went low, tackling
two of the guards at once, while I took aim at the light fixtures
that were above us. The room got sucked up into the darkness as the
lights exploded, showering sparks just everywhere. But the good thing was confusion erupted
exactly what we wanted. So when they got confused, we just ran straight
into the belly of the beast. I mean, sometimes you just have to
go for it. It really was our only option. We fought our way
through those guards one by one. We actually got them secure, so they're
not going anywhere. And you know, of course it was lucky for us
that all of the guards of the whole place, they didn't show up as
one big mob. You might not have had quite a good a chance.
Then we sort of kind of ran into them every little bit of the way.
So we got some and then we'd get some more. But like I
said, there were more right behind us. They would be there soon,
so we didn't have time to sit around and admire our work. We had
to find our way out. Originally, our exit plan relied on the elevator
and the stairwell, both of which, of course we're now locked down.
But Harley she gave us what we needed, watching out for routes for us,
so we had a plan B hidden amidst the server racks, away from
you know, the casual over's look, if you're looking around, you wouldn't
see it. You'd barely notice it. There was this service door back there,
and this led to a forgotten, rarely used service tunnel built for infrastructure
wiring and pipes. All over time, as Quantum Core expanded upwards with their
towering skyscrapers, this subterranean path, you know, all of this, It
was mostly forgotten. The tunnel was dark and narrow, and it just echoed
with our breathing. I mean, we were breathing pretty heavily. That's really
all you could hear, the echo of us. The air was pretty thick,
you know, damp, concrete, metal, lovely. We drove away
from Quantum Core, though, and we headed back to the warehouse. Joshua
was already there. He slumped over back in his chair, drained, but
he did have a victorious look on his face. The guy was stressed,
but he was relieved that it went okay in the end, probably more relieved
that he got to stay back, because as the guy didn't really have what
it took to face all of that, he probably would have broke ben held
and the project would have been carried out. We were also pretty exhausted,
but we were relieved at the same time. Frankie and I shared a brief,
satisfied glance before I turned my attention to our secure, encrypted phone.
It was time to call Max again. I get him on the line and
I let him know that it's done. I leaned back in my chair,
looking at Frankie and everyone else is standing behind him. His expression mirrored mine
really quiet pride of actually accomplishing this against the odds. Max was silent for
a moment on the other end, like he was processing the magnitude of what
we had achieved. This was the beginning of our handoff we had. Joshua
confirmed the details in the secret message he put out his call for help.
That was really the last thing we needed to tie this up. What did
all of that mean anyway, well, he explained, Orpheus descends it represented
the disturbing revelation of kgdi's existence and the quantum Core's factions plans for disaster shadows
entwined, while that symbolized the high risk infiltration needed within quantum Core at the
time, and seek the origin. He said that this phrase encapsulates the ultimate
goal, which would be to get to the heart of this project, the
server holding KGDI, the origin of this threat, which we did together.
We managed to halt the project by infiltrating quantum Core's secure network. We went
through those backdoors created by Joshua, and therefore we were able to disrupt the
ongoing tests, plant the ghost protocol to further hinder any progress. We also
assessed a physically isolated, heavily encrypted central server within quantum Core's premises to neutralize
its functionality. Thus we successfully have prevented the full launch of this sinister KGDI
project. We completed the mission and it did all make sense. Everything was
covered, everything was done, and now Max would dispatch his own team then
to secure quantum Core and if all was good, we were done. It
didn't take long to get that confirmation. We had done our job. The
biggest part of this whole issue had been stopped, and now they would have
to deal with the employees who were basically raging a war against the world digitally,
and they would have to be dealt with as would quantum Core's security processes
when it comes down to their own employees. Unfortunately, you just can't know
when there's just that one bad seed in the bunch. And and that's how
quick these jobs can go, guys, how it how quickly it seems they
go, right, I guess what goes quick are the hours, the one
hour at a time that I spend with you guys, retelling the job story.
You know, you go through so much and then all of a sudden,
the story is done, and when I retell these stories, I realize
how compact it all becomes when I try to fit it into a decent timeframe.
But a lot happens, a lot happens to us. We're never brought
into a situation though, so that we can hang around. Right. So
this job, we kind of we left it an awkward time in a way.
We didn't get to see it to the very end. But that's how
some of these jobs are, you know. I wanted to point that out.
You know, our piece of this is to go in and save the
day or stop something from happening. There's probably someone else in charge of the
situation, though here it's Quantum Core and the CIA. So when our piece
is done, just what we do, we handed off to basically the rightful
owners, if you will. I mean, Max knew the drill. I
could follow up with him just in general another day, but as far as
this mission was concerned, our job and our communications around it were done for
now. With the final goodbye, I ended the call with Max and I
let out a breath. I didn't even realize I'd been holding. We had
done it, We really did. We had stopped KGDI from causing havoc,
big havoc that we all would have felt, and literally right when we were
all just sitting there, just amazed that everything happened so fast and it was
over. We heard that request ding at my computer station. We had just
gotten another request, so the one job just ended and it was already instantly
time to check out what was next. And that's all for this story,
guys, and this episode today, but no, there are many more jobs
and stories to share. Thank you so much for listening today to this job.
I always appreciate you taking the time to be here with me. Until
next time, guys, and I will talk to you all soon.