Episode 5

Alex walked towards the kitchen. The smell of burning immediately assaulted his senses as he approached the dining table.

"Mama Elise's signature toast. Black on the outside, soggy on the inside." Hesitantly, Alex picked up the toast and took a small bite.

"It tastes extremely bitter, mixed with an unpleasant hard texture." He carefully placed it back on the plate. The boy's face remained expressionless, as if he were used to the taste.

"Tch, I feel like I'm eating a brick," he added, looking at the toast with amusement and annoyance.

Then, Alex shifted his gaze to the chair across the table, where his mother usually sat. There, Elise would gulp down her morning coffee in a hurry before leaving for work.

Now, the chair was empty. Only a half-full coffee cup with pink lipstick marks on its rim remained.

Alex stared at the cup for a long time. There was something in his chest that was difficult to explain. A mix of longing and irritation. Longing for his mother's presence, irritated that she was always in a rush and never had time for herself.

"Alex will make Mama happy someday."

Alex shifted his attention to the small laptop in his hands. The screen was lit, displaying lines of code still open from his activity earlier that morning. Complex codes that only a handful of people in this world could understand.

But this time, a small message popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen:

Remote access attempt detected.

The boy's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Their reaction is quick," Alex murmured. His fingers began to dance on the keyboard, typing a series of commands with amazing speed.

He quickly cut off the access path and installed a signal diverter to mislead the pursuer, then hid his connection traces with high-level encryption techniques.

"Welcome to the game, whoever you are," a thin smile appeared on his usually expressionless face.

****

Thousands of kilometers away, in the heart of the magnificent city of Milan, a skyscraper with the words Moretti Corporation stood proudly under the gray sky.

On the 43rd floor, the atmosphere was tense.

The room was the cybersecurity control center of Moretti Corporation, where the best technology experts worked to protect the company's assets from cyber attacks.

"Sir! Someone breached the main network!" exclaimed Jimmy, the youngest cybersecurity operator in the company. Cold sweat drenched his forehead, his eyes glued to the six large monitors displaying rows of constantly moving green code.

Diego stood behind him. His ice-blue eyes stared at the screen with frightening intensity.

"How long was he in?" Diego asked flatly.

Jimmy swallowed hard. "Only twenty seconds, Sir. But enough to open your personal file."

The room suddenly fell silent. Everyone held their breath, afraid to attract Diego's attention.

Diego stared at the screen more closely, as if trying to see through the codes. "Which file?"

"The one locked with the Genesis protocol."

Diego's jaw tightened. The muscles in his face tensed. He stood up straight, turning around and staring at his reflection in the large glass window.

"Genesis," he murmured softly, as if mentioning a ghost from the past. A name long buried in his memory, now haunting him again.

Jimmy looked at him anxiously. He knew that the Genesis protocol was something very important to Diego.

"But he didn't take anything, Sir. Just looked. As if, they wanted to tell us that they could."

Diego turned slowly, his gaze sharp and piercing. "Source IP?"

"From a personal path, constantly moving between nodes. We only know one thing, the last location appeared in Eastern Europe. After that, it disappeared," Jimmy replied.

Diego snorted softly, then took a cigar from a silver box and lit it calmly.

"Connect me with Uncle Nicholas," Diego said finally.

A few seconds later, an old man's heavy voice was heard from the speaker. A voice full of wisdom and experience, but also full of calculation.

"Diego, it's been a while. What trouble is it this time?"

"Someone breached the Genesis protocol," Diego replied flatly. "And I want to know if there is any possibility that the seed is still alive."

There was a moment of silence.

"That possibility always exists," Nicholas replied.

Diego walked to the window, staring at the rain that was beginning to fall over the rooftops of Milan. Rain that seemed to reflect the chaos within him.

"Six years, Uncle. Six years I've been planting that seed, and until now I don't even know how it turned out and where. Also who that woman is. How ironic."

"Unfortunately, there is no complete record. Her personal data seems to be hidden," replied the uncle. "They only knew that she was chosen because her genetic condition was stable and her intelligence level was above average."

Diego clenched his fist. "And Uncle let it go?"

"The laboratory was attacked that night. They lost many people. I thought you had forgotten about that project."

"I will never forget my own seed, Uncle. I want to know where that woman is, and the child she was carrying."

"If he is still alive, that child should be about six years old now. If you find an extraordinary digital trace, maybe it's him."

Diego smiled wryly.

"So the genius kid who was brave enough to break into my server could be my own flesh and blood?"

"Possibly," Nicholas replied. "Still be careful, Diego. Don't let your emotions control you!"

Diego cut off the connection and turned back to Jimmy.

"Deploy all resources. I want to know who the hacker is, where he is, and who the woman is with him."

"Yes, Sir."

Diego stared at the Milan sky which was beginning to be covered in fog. The rain was getting heavier, its sound dripping on the glass, its rhythm like a long, held breath.

"That woman took half of me. And I will find her, even if it's at the end of the world."

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