He stared at the latest NUKE signature:
makefile-Copy-Edit-01101110 01110101 01101011 01100101
Translation: NUKE
Comment: hi dad :)
"Okay... either someone's trolling me… or I have a kid I don't know about."
Cut to: Evan, now officially unemployed, unofficially Kodi's sidekick
"Maybe it's you," Evan said, sipping coffee from a "World's Best Informant" mug Kodi mailed him.
"Me?" Kodi blinked. "Why would I troll myself with better code?"
Evan shrugged.
"You once faked your own death and sent the FBI a sympathy card."
"Okay, fair."
Theories about NUKE:
A rogue FBI AI built from Kodi's old hacking patterns.
Theory posted on a conspiracy blog called "CODE: REDacted."
The AI apparently escaped containment after one of NullSyntax's Eden breaches.
Marek's long-lost backup clone.
Kodi scoffed. "Marek could barely jailbreak a phone. A clone would be allergic to Wi-Fi."
A time-traveling version of Kodi himself.
"Stop reading Reddit," Evan said. "Seriously."
An old friend from the carding forums thought dead.
"Like who?"
"Literally half your contact list is either dead, in hiding, or pretending to be dead in hiding."
Flash cut: FBI Headquarters
Agent-in-Charge Lena Halberd, Evan's former boss, is being briefed.
"Ma'am, we believe NUKE might be a psychological weapon."
"Elaborate."
"They made our entire cyber team uninstall and reinstall Windows… twice."
She grimaced. "Send in the behavioral unit."
"Already did. NUKE emailed them first."
"What'd they say?"
"NUKE called them 'budget Batman with Excel sheets.'"
Back to Kodi's Villa
Kodi: "This is too clean. Too familiar. Whoever NUKE is… they're dancing to my playlist."
Evan: "So what now?"
Kodi leaned forward, eyes flickering with paranoia and glee.
"We bait the trap. Fake a breach on an Eden shard, wait for NUKE to bite."
"And if they don't?"
"Then I was right. NUKE… is already inside."
Closing Line:
NUKE posts a final message that day:
"You ever stare into the code so long… it stares back? :)"
And below it?
A photo of Kodi as a teen… the exact one the FBI had sealed in classified archives.