New Sumer's evening clouds softly adorned the black surface of its tallest superstructure. Goliath headquarters: Holographic terminals, white jumpsuits, the diligent fingers of overtime employees, and synthetic seats. Headphones, headphones, and more headphones linked engineer to client and coworker. Here lay the 7th floor, where David passed through the computational rows in his distinctive green coat and hat, stopping at the request of a woman. He distinguished her blonde bun.

"Director," she beckoned.

David honed in on her workstation. "Update?"

"More crashes and CrownSoft bugs."

"Again? Did you inform them we're investigating the issue and will implement fixes as soon as possible?"

"Yes, sir. There's something new in this report, however."

"What is it?"

"The user marked it as resolved but I noticed that—when the digital signature page was disabled—it happened during a mobile navigation blackout. Entire sections of the city were disconnected from the network."

David scowled. " How are the servers?"

Several keys led a graph onscreen. "Stable," she said. "No anomalies of any kind."

A beep from David's earpiece. He tapped to listen but caught static.

"David!"

His name called, he faced a man in a white suit down the row. "They are asking for you up top."

"'Up Top?'"

"The Overseer."

Confusion grabbed David's final glance as he leaned beside his subordinate's terminal. "We should get this sorted out soon. Proceed as usual, while I see what's going on."

"Yes, sir."

An invitation from up high seldom graced the lower offices. David pondered this as the numbers illuminated: 22, 23, 24... And with his brief meditation, the solitude somehow soured into languid thoughts. He rose, yet somehow dove, into a mystic place. Despite years clawing above the ranks, sowing the seeds of trust, the realm above his head was always detached and beyond. The elevator doors slid like portals to another world.

Dim lights. Walls of reflective polish enclosed the nearby secretary's desk. The entire workstation was floating. Everything else was whiteness, a streak-free lounge that preceded a set of double doors. To his right, past a transparent screen, lay a web of rainbows. By their very nature, holograms were supposed to be immaterial, yet the opposite was true in the darkroom, where orange anatomical maps, blue code logic, and red grids slithered through the fingers of upper floor personnel. Materialized from holo-braces, translucent gauntlets powered and illuminated through cuffs. David stared at the artificers in their white collars, characteristically long ears, and eyes of bright focus.

"Salutations!"

David was startled by the formal, high pitch. Behind him snuck a woman in a white one-piece, white hair in a bun and yellow eyes glistening like her wide teeth. She seemed rather short for an Azarean. "I'm expected by the overseer," he said defensively.

The Azarean woman sauntered around the desk, gait perfect. "What is your name?"

"David Morner: Director, Software."

A flick of her wrist and green light flickered above the desk. "Then you may enter. You are expected." The double doors slid open.

David nodded then noticed the room's great window to the city. It surrounded an ovular table with legless chairs on every side. Every corner held a vase on a column, home to a breed of orchid he'd never seen; their teal and white petals oddly swooned to an invisible wind, as if sapient.

He threw his attention to the dark-haired man in a matted suit; sleekness without a tie, cuffs, or even buttons. He sat in the chair closest to the entrance. Opposite the suit sat an Azarean, another white collar. The charcoal surface of his underlying chestpiece seemed synthetic and rough. A strange lens wrapped around his cranium, beneath his white widow's peak, and hid the direction of his gaze.

With David's arrival, the suit rose to his feet. The Azarean did nothing.

"Director." The suit offered his hand.

"Overseer Cohen." David felt the metal beneath his boss's grip.

"You're wondering why you're here." Stepping aside. "This is Malvis."

Automatically, David offered his hand when the Azarean rose.

The alien was tall, taller than he and the overseer by a few inches. In lieu of a greeting, he stomped upright and pounded his chest with a slight bow.

"I forgot." David reciprocated the salute.

"Malvis," the overseer continued, "is here on behalf of the CEO."

"Oh." David's face canted in multiple directions. "If that is the case, sir, then I hope you'll excuse my forwardness in asking why I'm here."

The Overseer nervously glanced at the Azarean's quiet posture. "There's an alleged backdoor in CrownSoft's latest security update, one caught by your branch."

"The cryptographic functions accompanying our software," David clarified. "Not an exposed backdoor... yet."

"SK-3's algorithm was implemented by the higher levels and reviewed by your own team. No recent records indicate near susceptibility to compromise."

"Until collisions were detected yesterday," replied David, trying his hardest not to sound contradictive.

"Not plausible," Malvis stated. The alien's wooden voice had enough apathy to reflect absolute confidence. "Conceptually, SK-3 is invulnerable, without so a slight gap in its digests, and such is less likely revealed by human endeavor."

David scowled. "Conceptually. What is that supposed to mean? I've input the collisions myself. The data are already in the archive if you want to see."

Malvis remained stoic."You input them yesterday, yes?"

The overseer lightly tugged David aside. "It is not in your best interest, or mine, to contradict him," he whispered. "Act like you're talking to the CEO."

Meanwhile, Malvis tapped the panels of his holo-brace.

"Overseer," David whispered, "essential networks could be utilizing a compromised software."

"That's why you're here. Think about it – According to the program engineers, you'd need a quantum machine and someone with a robust knowledge of cryptanalysis to crack that code. Even if you had the latter on your team, where do you get the TPU? They're not exactly fresh on the market. So—"

"Are these the collisions in question?" Malvis interrupted. David and the overseer turned, beholden to a bright grid projected from Malvis' gauntlet, parallel panels of red and green characters.

David nodded nervously. "From what I can tell, yes."

"Your branch's limited data provide no grounds for the discontinuation of SK-3."

"Even the remote probability of a hack constitutes a high-risk application, especially in this case."

"SK-3 utilizes SmartBit cryptography," said Malvis, de-materializing his gauntlet and folding his hands behind his back. "The higher levels shall remedy this in due course. The lesser room for error. It need not be reviewed by your branch."

David unknowingly clenched his fist. "What are you trying to imply?"

Overseer Cohen stepped in front of David. "It will be done," he said, then sternly eyed his director. "There's more. I decided I'd let you know, personally; direct oversight of your branch is falling to Malvis."

The hair on David's skin rose as blood rushed to his face. But as he hit the fringe of outburst, he realized it was far beyond his station. Therefore, he met Malvis with the Azarean salute. "We are honored by your appointment, whatever your opinion of us." And with that, the director turned to the door.

"One last query," exclaimed Malvis, stopping David in his tracks. "I would very much like to meet whoever discovered these so-called collisions."

David quietly cleared his throat. He started to suspect his informant, Lynx, was a moonlighting Azarean. Telling Malvis seemed like a terrible idea. It was one thing to answer the overseer, something else entirely to answer an overlord.

Malvis continued, "Hypothetically speaking, director, collisions should be undiscoverable within networks of law-abiding citizens."

"I had a freelancer," he blurted.

Cohen's bewildered stare confirmed his own ignorance.

"That is to say, you enlisted an outsider for the diagnosis of Goliath's cryptography?" said Malvis, who seemed less startled than Cohen. "That is less than standard procedure but fits within the prerogative of your station. What is their identity, and what clearance level did you grant them in the endeavor?"

"Malvis. I'm saying they found the collisions independent of Goliath resources."

Silence. Malvis could have been staring at nothing, for all David knew.

"Interesting," the alien hissed, "but impossible. Who are they?"

"I cannot relay that information because I do not know."

Malvis started pacing back and forth slowly, the tap of his knee-high boots resounding from the pristine floor. Meanwhile, Overseer Cohen incessantly rolled his gaze between the alien and his subordinate.

"Your third party, did they receive compensation?" said Malvis.

"Yes, but there is virtually no chance of tracing the payments."

Malvis stopped and steered his perfect posture. "By what devices?"

"He was paid in cryptocurrency, likely anonymized by now."

"Then what of this third party can you inform?"

A sharp chill down his spine, David hunched forward. "The hacker goes by an alias."