Her every keystroke, every query outside the newly restricted Delta parameters, was potentially logged, analyzed, reported upwards by Umbra, or worse, by Sterling’s incoming internal security team – the corporate equivalent of secret police. She straightened up slowly, water dripping from her chin onto the pristine porcelain sink, blinking droplets from her eyelashes. She forced herself to meet her own gaze in the wide, unforgiving mirror above the sinks. Pale face, drawn tight with tension. Dark circles stark beneath her eyes, smudged like bruises. Hair escaping its usually neat ponytail in frantic wisps. She looked like hell, like someone running on fumes and fear. She forced a weary sigh, the sound small in the humming silence, and blinked again, slowly, deliberately, trying to clear he
