The library hummed with tension, the kind that made silence louder than voices. Screens lined the long walls, spilling sterile blue light that painted the room in shadows. Engineers hunched over terminals, their fingers frantic, voices colliding in a chorus of urgency.
“The mainframe’s been accessed,” someone blurted, too fast, too pale.
Ava’s heels clicked against marble as she strode in, sharp as a blade. Her presence cut the room into order. Conversations faltered, heads turned. She was a woman who had seen empires collapse and walked away with the crown, and every engineer in the room felt it when her gaze swept across them.
“Accessed how?” she demanded.
A young analyst—barely old enough to look like he —looked up, his face bleached of color. “Not hacked. Bypassed.” His Adam’s appl
