"The HPC is down!"

"But the competition just started!"

Our high-performance computing cluster (HPC) blinked red on the big screen. Minutes ticked by.

"Get it up! Get it up! We're losing points!"

"Working on it!"

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Red team had been circling since the day before, hawks swooping and diving. They'd been scanning and probing all day Friday, but weren't allowed to attack until the checkered flag dropped Saturday morning at 8 a.m. We'd hoped to evade their talons, but they wasted no time, and now one of our critical assets blinked out–a meal for a hungry predator.

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