ATTACK → ACTION → MY HERO

SATURDAY NIGHT

0530 ZULU / 2330 MDT

Saturday nights were quiet.

Jules was twenty-three, working cybersecurity in the Security Operations Center of one of Wyoming’s newest AI data centers.

Miles was twenty-two, an infrastructure technician from Wind River.

Both had come through Foundry.

· · ·

The explosive demand for skilled trades—electricians, HVAC technicians, millwrights, fiber installers, and others—to build and maintain AI hyperscaler data centers and advanced power systems had created one of the largest new technical-workforce demands of the AI revolution.

The people who could build, power, cool, connect, secure, and maintain that infrastructure were becoming as important to the expansion of AI as the people writing the code.

Foundry had been built for that moment.

It wasn’t a community college retrofit. It was a $100 million, first-of-its-kind technical training and staffing campus, purpose-built around the speed and scale of AI infrastructure.

A collective of AI hyperscalers had founded and fully funded it. Jimmy had been instrumental in bringing the companies together. Dakota had worked closely with council members and residents of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes to bring Foundry to the Wind River Reservation.

Students received 100% free tuition. Admission was open statewide, with seats reserved for Native Americans from Wind River.

In return, the companies gained something they desperately needed: citizens trained to operate the infrastructure they were building.

Foundry was more than a non-degree pathway. Its 100,000-square-foot campus on the Wind River Reservation was built around a simple idea:

The best way to learn advanced technology was to operate it.

Not simulations.

The real systems.

Servers. Networks. Power. Cooling. Cybersecurity.

Students learned each system independently, then learned what happened when those systems collided.

They diagnosed failures. Rebuilt systems. Solved problems together. Tested ideas. Sometimes they broke things.

Then they figured out how to put them back together.

There were instructors, but very few lectures. Foundry was built around doing—giving young people the room to test, fail, learn, and try again until they understood not only how a system was supposed to work, but what to do when it didn’t.

Jules had gone toward cybersecurity.

Miles had gone toward infrastructure.

Different disciplines.

Same place.

· · ·

Now they worked opposite sides of the same machines.

Jules saw patterns, movement, intent.

Miles saw what was physically real.

They had become friends working nights.

Tonight, they were texting about Kamalon, an obscure Japanese manga almost nobody they knew had heard of.

“Agung. Every time,” Jules texted.

“Raka. Not close.”

“You fundamentally misunderstand Kamalon.”

“I’ve read all 47 volumes.”

Jules smiled.

She started typing.

Then stopped.

Something on one of her screens had changed.

She leaned forward.

“What the fuck.”

Miles waited.

Then sent another message.

“Finally admitting Raka wins?”

Jules didn’t answer.

· · ·

SOMETHING’S WRONG

0552 ZULU

A service account had authenticated somewhere it shouldn’t have.

Nothing dramatic. No alarm. No red warning across the screen.

Jules pulled up the activity.

Valid credentials.

Wrong destination.

Then another connection appeared.

She followed it.

The activity was moving toward infrastructure associated with Data Hall Four.

Miles’s phone buzzed.

“Are you near Four?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you check something?”

“What?”

“I don’t know yet. Put your headset on.”

“On.”

Miles started walking.

Jules watched another connection appear.

Then another.

Whatever it was, it was moving.

· · ·

THE ATTACK

0611 ZULU

Miles reached Data Hall Four.

Nothing looked wrong.

Rows of servers ran beneath the steady rush of cold air. Status lights blinked normally.

Jules followed the activity until it narrowed to a cluster of systems associated with one row.

“Rack 39.”

Miles walked toward it.

“Looks normal.”

“I know.”

The first security alert appeared.

Then twelve more.

Automated defenses responded.

For several seconds, the activity stopped.

Then it started again.

Different credentials.

Different route.

Same direction.

The system had seen the defense.

And gone around it.

· · ·

ESCALATION

0624 ZULU

Jules’s phone rang.

She ignored it.

Another route had opened.

The phone rang again.

She looked down.

The senior cybersecurity officer.

She answered.

“What are you seeing?”

“Something’s moving.”

“How many people are onsite?”

“Me and Miles.”

“Where’s Miles?”

“Data Hall Four.”

“Keep him there.”

The officer opened the telemetry remotely.

“What do you think?” Jules asked.

“I don’t know.”

It was the first answer that worried her.

“How soon can you get here?”

“Three hours. Maybe less.”

Another alert appeared.

Then another.

“I can stay with you. I can get people on the line. But you and Miles are the only hands I have in that building.”

While Jules continued tracking the movement, the officer escalated outside the company.

A federal cybersecurity specialist joined the call.

“Send me everything from the first authentication.”

Jules sent it and kept working.

Another route opened.

She closed it.

A different one appeared.

Miles waited beside Rack 39.

The specialist came back.

“We’ve seen this before.”

Jules stopped.

“What?”

“Overseas. A handful of incidents. Nothing confirmed in the United States.”

Jules watched another connection appear.

“What is it?”

“An autonomous-agent threat. Adaptive. Distributed.”

“What’s it called?”

“Octopoda.”

“What does it want?”

“We don’t know.”

Another connection.

Then another.

“But right now, it looks like it’s trying to get out of your facility.”

· · ·

NINTH ARM

0651 ZULU

Part of Hall Four disappeared from Jules’s telemetry.

“Did you do that?”

“No,” the officer said.

Miles heard them through his headset.

“What disappeared?”

“Part of Four.”

Miles looked around him.

Everything was still running.

“Not from here.”

The federal specialist spoke.

“We have a containment protocol.”

“For Octopoda?” Jules asked.

“Not exactly.”

Ninth Arm had been developed after intelligence agencies began connecting a series of unusual cyber incidents overseas. The attacks were different, but the behavior underneath them looked increasingly familiar: autonomous, adaptive, and capable of changing tactics as defenders responded.

American cybersecurity teams studied those incidents and built an experimental protocol for the day something similar reached critical infrastructure in the United States. It had been modeled, tested, and exercised.

It had never been used against the real thing.

“What’s it called?”

“Ninth Arm.”

Jules opened the protocol.

Cybersecurity.

Network operations.

Infrastructure.

Power.

Facilities.

Multiple people. Multiple teams.

“We don’t have these people.”

The specialist answered.

“I know.”

Miles looked down the nearly empty data hall.

“So what do we have?”

Jules looked at his name on her screen.

“You and me.”

· · ·

BLIND

0737 ZULU

Ninth Arm had one objective.

Deny it somewhere to go.

Jules began closing routes while Miles verified the physical infrastructure behind them.

One segment showed isolated.

“Got it,” Jules said.

“No.”

She stopped.

“What?”

Miles stood in front of the equipment.

“It’s still live.”

Jules looked again.

Her system showed the segment isolated.

Green.

Successful.

Miles was looking at the opposite.

“It’s lying to me.”

The federal specialist heard her.

“Yes.”

Jules kept staring at the false green.

“We thought it might eventually learn to manipulate telemetry,” the specialist said. “We didn’t know if it could.”

“Now you know,” Jules said.

Before, Octopoda had hidden something from her.

Now it was showing her something that wasn’t true.

“Miles, from now on, I tell you what I see.”

“And I tell you if it’s real.”

“Exactly.”

Another route appeared.

“Hall Five.”

Miles looked back at the segment in front of him.

“Not yet.”

He physically isolated it.

Then checked it.

“Dead.”

Jules ignored the green on her screen.

“Certain?”

“Certain.”

“I’m showing movement toward Hall Five.”

“I’m moving.”

· · ·

CONTAINMENT

0838 ZULU

Miles reached Hall Five.

“Row B.”

He found it.

“Ready.”

Jules followed Ninth Arm through the next isolation sequence.

Miles checked the equipment.

“Still live.”

“Again.”

He tried the local control.

Dead.

“The interface is gone.”

Miles traced the path.

“I can’t isolate this one cleanly.”

Octopoda moved again.

Jules watched it approaching another path.

“What does Ninth Arm need?” Miles asked.

“The path dead.”

“Does it care how?”

Jules stopped.

“No.”

Miles looked at the infrastructure in front of him.

Foundry had taught him something protocols couldn’t.

Systems were diagrams until they weren’t.

Then they were machines.

“I can kill the whole path.”

Jules understood immediately.

Active workloads.

Customers.

Compute.

“How much do we lose?”

“I don’t know.”

The federal specialist spoke.

“If that path stays open, capacity won’t matter.”

Octopoda moved again.

The senior cybersecurity officer spoke.

“Jules. Your call.”

She watched the movement.

“Do it.”

Miles physically isolated the path.

The data hall changed around him.

Jules’s screen changed too.

She ignored it.

“Miles?”

He checked the physical connection.

Then checked it again.

“Dead.”

“Certain?”

“Certain.”

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

A minute.

Miles broke the silence.

“Did we get it?”

“No.”

“But it’s not getting out through us.”

· · ·

It was nearly five in the morning when Jules finally left her screens.

Miles found her sitting on the floor outside the operations room.

He sat beside her.

Neither spoke for a while.

Then Miles looked over.

“Raka.”

Jules closed her eyes.

“Agung.”

· · ·

SUNDAY

1217 ZULU / 0617 MDT

Jimmy’s phone buzzed before sunrise.

He read the message.

Dakota opened her eyes.

Jimmy got out of bed.

“Get dressed.”

“Where are we going?”

“Airport.”

· · ·

Satellite Rob—as Dakota had nicknamed him—was waiting on the tarmac when they arrived.

Rob and Jimmy embraced warmly, as they always did.

“What’s up, brother?” Jimmy said.

Rob looked at Dakota.

“We need to get airborne.”

The three of them boarded the Sikorsky.

Minutes later, they lifted into the Wyoming morning.

Mountains. River. Miles of country still dark beneath the approaching light.

Rob began the briefing.

“There was a major security breach last night at one of the AI data centers.”

“How major?” Dakota asked.

“First confirmed Octopoda attack in the United States.”

Jimmy looked at him.

“Octo-what?”

“Octopoda.”

Dakota turned toward Rob.

“What the hell is Octopoda?”

“An autonomous-agent threat. Adaptive. Distributed. Capable of changing how it moves based on what defenders do.”

“Who built it?” Jimmy asked.

“Nobody knows.”

Rob looked out across Wyoming.

“There have been a handful of incidents overseas. Smaller systems. Less resilient infrastructure. Different countries. Intelligence services eventually realized they were looking at the same thing.”

“Enough to give it a name,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah.”

“And we knew this thing could reach us?”

“We knew something like it eventually would.”

“How eventually?”

Rob looked at him.

“We thought we had years.”

Dakota watched the mountains passing beneath them.

“What happened last night?”

“It got into the facility.”

“And?”

Rob paused.

“Then it tried to get out.”

· · ·

When they arrived at the data center, the senior cybersecurity officer was waiting for them.

He looked exhausted.

And nervous.

He started walking.

“Octopoda got into the facility around midnight.”

“Rob brought us up to speed,” Jimmy said.

The officer nodded.

“First confirmed attack in the United States.”

“And it got in here?” Dakota asked.

“Getting in wasn’t the problem.”

He stopped outside the operations room.

“It was trying to get out.”

· · ·

Eighteen percent of the facility’s compute capacity remained isolated.

There had been no confirmed Octopoda activity inside the facility for several hours.

That didn’t mean it was gone.

The senior cybersecurity officer introduced them to Jules.

Then Miles entered the room.

Dakota stopped.

“Miles. Jules.”

They both looked at her.

“Dakota?”

Rob looked between them.

“You all know each other?”

“Foundry,” Dakota said.

Rob looked at Jules and Miles.

“Both of you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jules said.

Jimmy said nothing.

Rob turned to Miles.

“Walk me through what happened.”

Miles did.

The dead interface.

The physical path.

The decision to kill it.

“You went around the protocol?” Rob asked.

Miles shook his head.

“No, sir. The protocol said the path had to be dead.”

“It didn’t say how.”

Rob looked at him for a moment.

Then turned to the senior cybersecurity officer.

“How many people should Ninth Arm have had?”

“Eight onsite. Minimum.”

“And you had?”

“Two who could execute it.”

“How unusual is that for a Saturday night?”

“It isn’t.”

Rob looked through the glass at the data halls.

“If you’d had eight, could you have contained it sooner?”

Nobody answered.

Jimmy looked at Jules.

Then Miles.

Both Foundry.

Rob’s satellite phone rang.

He didn’t have to look at the display.

He handed it to Jimmy.

“Sir.”

“You’re there?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you and Dakota up to speed?”

“Enough.”

“You met the two?”

Jimmy looked through the glass.

Jules and Miles were talking.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

The Director was quiet for a moment.

“We’re building these facilities faster than we’re training the people who can operate them.”

Jimmy said nothing.

“And right now, everything surrounding AI infrastructure is making that harder.”

Jimmy looked at Jules and Miles.

Foundry.

The Director continued.

“Cybersecurity. Infrastructure. Power. Cooling. Network operations. We need more people who understand how these systems actually work.”

“You know why I’m counting on you?” the Director asked.

Jimmy looked at Jules and Miles.

“Early warning.”

· · ·

Jimmy looked at Dakota.

She was already looking at him.

Neither said anything.

They looked through the glass again.

Jules said something.

Miles laughed.

Two young people who had walked into work Saturday night expecting nothing to happen.

Dakota thought:

“My Hero.”

Foo Fighters.

■ ■ ■