Chapter 1 - Forty-Five SecondsThe 22-year-old sports captain ripped the metal crutch away so hard that Leo Mercer lost his balance before he understood what was happening.
His shoulder twisted painfully.
Then the floor rushed toward him.
Leo struck the linoleum of Hallway A with his palms and hip, his injured left leg sliding awkwardly behind him.
A few students gasped.
Nobody stepped forward.
Trent Holloway stood over him.
At six-foot-three, captain of Westbridge University’s football team, Trent had spent four years learning that people usually moved when he entered a room.
Professors knew his name.
Administrators smiled when they saw him.
Freshmen asked for photographs.
Alumni bought him dinners.
And students who disliked him generally kept those opinions private.
Leo had never been good at keeping things private.
That was why Trent hated him.
“Give it back,” Leo said.
Trent looked at the forearm crutch in his hand.
The hallway was packed with seniors waiting for the Apex Global recruitment portal to confirm their applications.
At exactly noon, applications would close.
Apex Global was offering twelve executive-development positions.
Starting salary: $120,000.
Signing bonus.
Housing assistance.
International placements.
For students carrying debt, supporting parents, or hoping to escape uncertain futures, Apex represented something much bigger than a job.
It represented a door.
Fifty seniors in Hallway A had been refreshing their phones, tablets and laptops for nearly twenty minutes.
Trent raised Leo’s crutch.
“Let’s see how tough you are without your little prop.”
Leo’s expression changed.
“Trent.”
Something in his voice should have stopped him.
It didn’t.
Trent turned toward the gray fiber-optic distribution box mounted beside the computer science offices.
He swung.
The metal crutch struck the enclosure.
Plastic cracked.
A second strike crushed the lower casing.
Indicator lights disappeared.
A few tiny sparks snapped beneath the damaged cover.
Then every Wi-Fi access point in Hallway A went dark.
Silence.
Trent dropped the bent crutch onto Leo’s chest.
“Oops.”
He smiled.
“Clumsy me.”
Leo didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he pushed himself upright against the wall.
His breathing was controlled.
Almost too controlled.
Trent laughed.
“You going to cry?”
Leo looked toward the damaged box.
Then at the wall clock.
11:59:15.
A strange laugh escaped him.
Quiet.
Disbelieving.
It made Trent’s smile fade.
Leo lifted his chin toward the ruined equipment.
“Do you know what that was?”
“Trash.”
Trent shrugged.
“Just like you.”
Leo checked his watch.
“That was the dedicated fiber uplink for North Academic Hall.”
Nobody moved.
Leo continued.
“Everything submitted through this wing routes through that node before crossing the university gateway.”
A student nearby stopped typing.
“What?”
Leo looked down the hallway.
“Anyone currently uploading through this building just lost their connection.”
Suddenly fifty people began looking at their screens.
11:59:27.
A girl in a sorority sweatshirt named Brooke Jensen tapped frantically.
“No, no, no…”
A student beside her refreshed his laptop.
Another lifted his phone toward the ceiling.
“No signal.”
Trent’s face changed.
Leo looked directly at him.
“The Apex portal closes in thirty-three seconds.”
“What are you talking about?” Trent demanded.
“I’m talking about every application still uploading.”
Brooke’s screen froze at ninety-seven percent.
Marcus Bell’s showed eighty-eight.
Someone shouted from farther down the corridor.
“Mine stopped!”
11:59:42.
Students ran toward the stairwell, hoping to find cellular reception.
The concrete structure blocked most of it.
Others switched hotspots.
Nothing.
11:59:51.
Leo sat against the wall.
He watched the clock.
Trent looked around as panic spread.
11:59:57.
Brooke whispered, “Please.”
11:59:58.
11:59:59.
Noon.
Fifty screens changed almost simultaneously.
UPLOAD FAILED.
SUBMISSION WINDOW CLOSED.
For two seconds, nobody reacted.
Then the hallway erupted.
“What did you DO?”
“My application!”
“I spent three months on that!”
“Trent!”
Brooke looked at her phone as though someone had just erased four years of work.
“My dad lost his job last month.”
Her voice cracked.
“This was supposed to be my chance.”
Another student pointed at Trent.
“You destroyed the network!”
Trent backed away.
“Hold on. I didn’t know.”
“You smashed the box!” Marcus shouted.
“I didn’t know what it did!”
Leo gave him a cold look.
“That sentence isn’t going to help you much.”
Trent stared at the crowd surrounding him.
For the first time in years, nobody looked impressed by the football captain.
They looked furious.
And frightened.
Then another voice cut through the chaos.
“Everyone stay exactly where you are.”
Professor Elena Ward stood at the end of the hall.
Behind her were two campus security officers.
One was already looking at the damaged fiber box.
The other looked at Leo.
Then at the bent crutch.
Then at Trent.
Professor Ward’s face hardened.
“Someone tell me what happened.”
Fifty people pointed at Trent.
At once.
Professor Ward closed her eyes briefly.
When she opened them, she looked at Leo.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’ll manage.”
Then she noticed his crutch.
“You can’t walk without that.”
“No.”
The professor turned slowly toward Trent.
“Mr. Holloway.”
Trent lifted his hands.
“It was a joke.”
Professor Ward stared at the fifty failed applications.
Then at the disabled student sitting on the floor.
“A joke?”
Leo reached into his jacket.
Trent tensed.
But Leo only removed his phone.
He opened the university network-monitoring application.
Professor Ward frowned.
“You still have access?”
Leo nodded.
“I helped build the diagnostics system.”
He looked at the damaged node.
Then his screen.
A new alert appeared.
Leo’s expression changed.
Professor Ward noticed.
“What is it?”
Leo enlarged the warning.
The damaged fiber line had not merely disconnected North Hall.
Something else had happened eleven seconds before the physical strike.
A manual routing command had been entered.
From an administrator account.
Leo whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
Leo looked up.
“Someone rerouted every Apex upload through this building right before Trent destroyed the node.”
Professor Ward stared at him.
“You mean this wasn’t normally the only route?”
“No.”
Leo turned his screen toward her.
“There were three.”
The hallway went quiet again.
Leo looked at Trent.
The football captain had gone pale.
Because destroying one network box through stupidity was bad.
But if someone had intentionally concentrated fifty applications through that box first…
Then Trent hadn’t just ruined a deadline by accident.
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Someone had prepared the disaster.
And Leo suddenly suspected the crutch had never been the real target.
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