The makeshift command center inside Vale Tech's conference room buzzed with activity as intelligence agencies from seventeen countries tried to process the data Sophie had unlocked.
But Sophie herself sat alone in a corner, staring at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Sophie." Aria knelt beside her daughter, speaking softly. "Talk to me, sweetheart."
"I don't understand how I did it, Mama." Sophie's ten-year-old voice was small, frightened. "The encryption was built on protein folding sequences combined with quantum probability matrices. I've never studied quantum mechanics. I've never taken advanced biochemistry. But when I looked at the pattern..."
She trailed off, her eyes distant.
"It just made sense. Like reading a children's book. Like it was the most obvious thing
