The elevator that carried Silas upward was a private one—unmarked, keycard only, programmed to bypass the floors that ordinary staff used. Lena wasn’t in it, but she could feel the echo of its movement long after he had disappeared into the stairwell. The entire floor seemed to shift in his absence, as if part of the structure had been removed and everyone was waiting to see what collapsed.

Lena tried to return to her work, but her hands hovered above the keyboard without touching it. Her breathing stayed steady only because she forced it so. Her body had learned over the years to differentiate between danger she imagined and danger that pressed directly against her skin. Today, there was no confusion.

Something upstairs had decided to move.  

Something downstairs was already reacting.

Across from her, Tessa kept glancing toward the executive elevators.

“He shouldn’t go up alone,” Tessa muttered, more to herself than to Lena.

“He didn’t have a choice.”

“He always has a choice,” Tessa said. “He just makes the stupid ones when it comes to—”

She cut herself off, but the sentence hung there anyway.

Lena didn’t ask her to finish.

Her screen blinked—a new notification from Systems.  

**Data review in progress. Temporary slowdowns may occur.**  

Cold, concise, impersonal.

But it meant one thing:  

Someone upstairs was running a search deep enough to strain shared resources.

The same kind of search that would expose the model fragments she'd found.  

The signatures left behind.  

The initials.

Her pulse flickered painfully for a moment.

She closed the window.

Five minutes passed. Then eight. Then ten.  

Still no sign of Silas.

At 4:41, another elevator opened.

Lena didn’t look up at first. She didn’t want anyone reading her face. But the shift on the floor was unmistakable—analysts straightened, voices thinned, air tightened. She looked up.

Two men stepped out.

Both from upstairs.  

Both with the kind of expression that suggested they rarely descended below Floor 38 unless something had gone wrong.

One of them scanned the room, his gaze passing briefly over the row where she sat. He wasn’t searching for her. But the look that lingered on her section was too aware, too calculating.

Tessa whispered, “They’re hunting something.”

Not someone.  

Something.

And Lena suspected what.

The model.  

The signatures.  

The leftover code that didn’t erase cleanly.

Her father’s fingerprints.

She turned back to her screen and forced her breath steady.

Just stay visible.  

Stay still.  

Stay—

Her phone buzzed.

For a split second her stomach dropped, expecting J.D. again.

But it was a name she didn’t recognize.

**R. Marrow:**  

Stay at your desk. Do not move.

Her breath hitched.  

She had never seen that name.

She typed: Who is this?

No reply.

She locked the phone immediately, every nerve tightening from throat to spine.

Tessa leaned closer. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Lena said softly. “Nothing yet.”

She didn’t believe it.  

Neither did Lena.

Another minute passed before the elevator behind the executives opened again.

This time, Silas stepped out.

Relief hit her body so abruptly it felt like a physical impact, but she kept every visible muscle still. She watched him through the reflections on her monitor, careful not to draw attention.

He was composed.  

But he wasn’t the same.

His posture was tighter, shoulders angled slightly inward—not in defeat, but in containment. Like he was holding something back that didn’t belong on this floor. His gaze swept the room once, sharp enough to cut through noise.

Then his eyes found hers.  

Just for a second.  

The smallest second.

But it was enough.

He walked toward her pod with the kind of measured pace that told her two things:

He was choosing every step deliberately.  

And what happened upstairs was worse than what he’d expected.

He stopped at the end of the aisle. People looked up. He ignored them.

“Lena,” he said.

Her pulse jumped.

“Can we speak for a moment?” His tone was neutral, but the undercurrent wasn’t.

Tessa’s eyes widened, but Lena stood without hesitation.

Silas didn’t touch her. He didn’t even gesture. He simply turned toward a side office—one of the small glass rooms usually used for quick check-ins. This one had open blinds and two chairs. No mirrored glass.

Visible.

Safe, relatively.

She followed him inside.

The moment he closed the door, the world narrowed.

“What happened upstairs?” she asked.

Silas exhaled through his nose, not a sigh, but the kind of breath someone took when calculations were shifting faster than expected.

“They know,” he said.

Her chest tightened. “Know what?”

“That the anomaly wasn’t an accident.” His eyes met hers. “And that someone helped your father embed it where no one would look.”

Her fingers clenched. “Who?”

“That’s the problem,” he said. “No one will say the name. They’re refusing to put it on record.”

“Then what were they doing?”

“Looking for who might still have access to the pieces.”

“And they think it’s you.”

“They think it’s either of us,” Silas said quietly. “You because you were in the file. Me because I pulled the last audit.”

Her breath stilled.

He continued, lower: “And because someone upstairs is pushing a narrative that we’re working together.”

“Are we?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Silas didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Something shifted in her ribs—small, tight, dangerous.

She tried to steady her voice. “What’s their next step?”

“They want to isolate the file. And the people who touched it.” His jaw tightened. “Which means they will come at us separately.”

“So what do we do?”

“For now?” Silas said. “We make them believe we’re cooperating.”

Lena looked at him. “With them?”

“With each other,” he corrected. “Openly. Predictably. No surprises. They will monitor everything now—where you walk, who you speak to, which systems you access.”

She swallowed. “And if I make a mistake?”

“Then they will use it to remove you.”

He didn’t soften the words.  

He didn’t need to.

Her breathing thinned. She pressed her fingers lightly against her wrist, grounding herself.

Silas saw the movement. Something in his gaze tightened.

“You’re not alone in this,” he said quietly.

It shouldn’t have steadied her.  

But it did.

Then his phone buzzed.

He didn’t look at it. He simply reached for the door handle.

“Lena,” he said, “whatever they ask today—don’t volunteer information.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t deny anything either.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Because they haven’t decided what version of the truth they want yet.”

Her stomach hollowed.

Silas opened the door. The noise of the office spilled back in.

He stepped aside for her to exit.

Just before she crossed the threshold, he added, so quietly only she could hear:

“They’re not looking for mistakes.”  

A beat.  

“They’re looking for leverage.”

Lena returned to her desk.

The floor felt different now.  

Heavier.  

Sharper.

Somewhere upstairs, someone was assembling a narrative.  

Down here, she could feel the pieces sliding into place.

The silence wasn’t silence anymore.

It was building toward something.