Page 70 of Hollow Code
"Burn clock started the second AEGIS stamped us," Gideon said. "How long is the fuse?"
"Based on the sweep data, we've got eleven minutes and change before the log sweep cycles back and flags the first credentials." She pulled up the credential shell from the portable drive and positioned it beside the live data stream.
"Go for it."
She dove in. The live encryption keys populated on her screen. They were dynamic, unique to this moment, and generated by the system at the exact instant of access. She'd never seen them before, and she'd never see them again. She copied the first key set into the shell framework. "Seated. Running interrogation check." She held her breath. "It’s clean. "First key injected and moving to permission tokens."
"The tokens sit under the authentication header, third tier down."
"Got them. Interjected and continuing."
"Two down. Four to go."
The ventilation unit rattled overhead. The server racks hummed. Gideon’s breathing came in choppy pants. It all kept her calm.
"No movement on the access road. No air traffic," Neve said.
"Copy that," Zadie murmured out of habit.
She found the third key set. Her rhythm was building, and the muscle memory of code work took over.
"Seven minutes on the burn," Gideon said.
"Fourth key found. Dropping it into the shell and running…what the fuck?"
Zadie's hands froze over the keyboard.
"What is it?" Gideon leaned closer.
"The fourth key didn't seat." She pulled up the error log. "AEGIS is requesting a secondary authentication on this partition. A verification layer that wasn't in any of the traffic data we studied."
"That's not possible. We mapped every checkpoint."
"Well, there's a new one." She scrolled through the request parameters. "It's asking for a time-stamped credential verification against the original authentication."
"That's a trap." Gideon slapped a fist into his palm. "Isaac must have added a manual verification node. If you answer the challenge with the original credentials, AEGIS logs a second stamp. That accelerates the sweep cycle."
"Are you sure?" She scanned the screen.
He pointed to the line in the code. "It could cut the fuse in half. Maybe more."
"So, instead of seven minutes, I might have three." Her breath hitched. Sweat beaded at her hairline. "Can I route around it?"
"Not without leaving the partition entirely and re-entering through a different branch. That costs you ninety seconds, minimum."
She stared at the challenge request blinking on her screen. The system wanted proof, like a border guard who'd already checked her passport but decided to check it twice.
"What if I spoof the timestamp?" she said. "Feed the checkpoint a cached copy of the original authentication with a current timestamp, like an echo. The sweep cycle might not register it as a second event."
"It could work," he said. "But if AEGIS reads it as a duplicate instead of an echo, it flags immediately. Instant alert."
"What's the probability?"
"I don't know. Isaac's code is unpredictable. That's the whole problem."
"Best guess."
"Seventy-thirty in our favor."
