The new passive skylight design was an act of quiet rebellion. It felt right, philosophically pure, but proving its thermal and structural performance to Gail and the Harrington’s exacting engineers required data. Beautiful sketches weren’t enough; they needed a model. Not a conceptual one, but a detailed, testable section model of the central atrium at 1:20 scale.
The only place with the space, the tools, and the secrecy they needed was the Sterling & Grey model lab. Using it was a risk, a trespass into enemy territory, but it was a necessary one. Marco, who still had friends in the IT department, secured them after-hours access for a “private, confidential client presentation,” a thin fiction that wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny but might buy them a night.
They entered the building like t
