The final hymn lingered like clouds in the rafters, long after the organ stopped. ‘Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.’ The congregation’s voices fell one by one until only the echo of the deacon’s baritone trailed off beneath the vaulted ceiling. Winter light, pale and distant, pushed through the stained glass in fractured bands of blue and gold, casting trembling halos over the polished pews.

  Noel stood, hair wrapped in a satin shawl, beside her mother, hands clasped in front of her, waiting for the benediction. The air smelled faintly of pine and perfume, a blend of starched coats and worn hymnals. The pastor’s words rolled over the congregation—steady, practiced, familiar. She bowed her head when she was supposed to, murmured her amen when the rest did, but her thoughts were already elsewhere.

  Outside, the wind knifed through the coats of parishioners as they shuffled across the icy parking lot. The Baptist church stood like an old guardian among the trees—white clapboard, steeple sharp against a silver sky.

  The cold had a glassy quiet to it that winter, the kind that turned the air brittle and made every sound sharper. Frost feathered across the windows of brownstones and old college buildings, trimming their edges like lace. The sky hung low and colorless, heavy with clouds that refused to snow. Bare oaks lined the narrow streets, their roots pushing up the sidewalks like arthritic fingers, the branches webbed with black ice.

  Noel and her mother walked arm in arm toward their car, the gravel crunching beneath their heels. “Let me get that, Momma.” Snow fell from the car as Noel opened the driver’s side door, helping her mother in, then carefully tiptoeing to the passenger side. Momma slid across the seat, reaching to unlock Noel’s door.

  The heater wheezed to life as they pulled out onto the county road. Bare trees blurred past, each field a wash of frost. Churchgoers waved from other cars; her mother waved back. Noel did too, out of habit.

  On Sundays, the town moved slowly. Church bells carried over the frozen neighborhoods, their echoes tumbling through the empty quadrants of the university. Cars idled in driveways, coughing steam into the gray light. You could smell woodsmoke and salt from the roads, and the faint sweetness of someone’s chimney fire.

  Along the Delaware and Raritan Canal, the water had begun to glaze over. Ducks huddled in the few remaining breaks in the ice, the current sluggish beneath them. The wind came in steady sighs through the bare trees, bending the brittle reeds that stood like sentinels in the snow-dusted marsh.

  Her mother spoke first, as she always did. “You were quiet this morning.”

  “Just tired,” Noel said, tugging her gloves tighter. “We’ve got the lab updates this week. Daddy left instructions, but…”

  Her mother smiled without looking at her, shifting gears with a mittened hand. “You and that lab. And now, even on the Lord’s day.” It was a playful tease.

  “It’s time to upgrade the systems. Actually, it’s been time. CRD got into a nasty contract with an outside vendor after Daddy passed. Seems it was a costly mistake. Sydney’s been dropping hints.” Noel spoke softly. “That means upgrades for the equipment there and home. Daddy left steps, but until I actually get down there and take stuff apart, I won’t be able to make sense of them.”

  “What’s been keeping you from it?” Momma’s eyes were trained on the pedestrians, straining to make out faces they passed. “It’s been, oh, say, eight months I reckon. Any reason you’ve been putting it off?”

  The sun reflected bright off the snow-banked hillsides. Noel lowered the visor. “It’s complicated. Literally. I studied advanced systems, but what Daddy has… it’s different. I’m afraid I’ll get in there and break something and not know how to repair it. Which would be bad news for everyone.”

  Wind whipped through, a flick, then smoke. Momma needed a smoke. “You’ll figure it out, child. You always do.”

  Noel nodded, her gaze on the road ahead. “This new device came in last week. It’s, well, foreign, maybe Asian. Executive White brought it in with him. You know, this is the first time I’ve seen him since I’ve been there? Sydney said it’s part of some new partnership. I don’t know.”

  Her mother’s smoke filled the car. “I don’t remember much of a ‘Mister White’. Then again, your father wasn’t a fan of discussing office politics too often.”

  “Yeah? Jax wasn’t too much help either. Said nobody’d seen White much after Vietnam started. Only the senior staff even knew what he looked like. He’d only seen him in passing once or twice, but he was always escorted by the CSS.”

  Familiar faces recognized her, and Momma with a big smile waved some more. “You be careful dealing with foreign contraptions and new partners, baby. Some folk shake your hand while hiding the knife.”

  Noel smiled faintly. “Well, Sydney doesn’t hide the knife. That’s for sure.”

  “She say anything about your locks?”

  With a light tug, Noel’s shawl fell to her lap, releasing her locks which lay across the headrest. Her fingertips dug deep into her scalp in a frantic scratch. “She wants to so badly. I can see it in her eyes.”

  They shared a laugh. “That woman still treating you cold?”

  “Girl, cold as ice! She’s ‘nice-nasty’,” Noel chuckled. “Can’t stand to address me directly in a group. She doesn’t realize they like me more. Though.”

  Laughter faded with the miles, the road narrowing through a tunnel of black branches, sunlight flashing between them like a strobe. Businesses and shops grew sparse, then disappeared, leaving only the residents of Witherspoon-Jackson. When they turned onto their lane, the world seemed to fall quiet again—the hum of the heater, the creak of the tires, the sound of wind across the fields.

  The Stowers home came into view at the crest of the hill—two stories of brick and wood, its windows glinting with frost. The smell of chimney smoke hung faintly in the air. Her mother parked beneath the oak tree, killed the engine, and sat for a moment with her gloved hands on the wheel.

  “Go on,” she said finally. “I know that look. You won’t rest till you’re elbows deep in wires and plastic. I just hope you ain’t too busy for Jesus’s birthday!”

  Noel smiled, kissed her mother’s cheek, and stepped into the cold. “Hey, it’s my birthday, too.” The wind caught her coat as she climbed the stairs to the front door. The path was slick with ice, her breath rising like steam. Inside, the door groaned open, casting a dim ambient ray across the room, stopping on the doorhandle to her father’s lab. The realm of quiet hums and waiting machines.

  At the Stowers home, the season settled in like a guest who never left—thick drapes, the hiss of the radiator, the smell of lemon oil and starch. Noel’s mother kept the house warm enough to grow orchids on the windowsill, but through the glass, earth stayed the color of pewter.

  While the world outside was a snow-slick winter wonderland, the lab was purely a sanctuary. Still a two-toned chamber of grey and white, Noel’s safe-haven from a realm gripped in war and conspiracy was always a pleasant 72 degrees. Her feet carried her down the familiar steps, across the same path it did every day. Right where she’d left it, the most cryptic of her father’s journals sat. Waiting for her to decode.

  Most of it made sense, from a practical engineering perspective. Diagrams and schematics; math and other logic were sound. Noel always started from the beginning, trying to deduce if she overlooked anything, but it was always the same outcome: the journal would end up on the desk with a thwack, and Noel’s fingers would grip at her hair in confusion.

  “Why would I unhook the ‘terminal’ from ‘inside the primary terminal’, what does that even mean?“ She thumbed back through another book of schematics, “this isn’t describing something you made. It’s not how you’ve done anything else. You’ve been following the—“ her nose hopped from book to book, trying to make sense of what she was missing. “What do you mean by ‘master power terminal conduit’? What is that?” More questions surfaced.

  From her desk, she followed all the connections through the lab, through the built terminals and data processing systems. She knew her main desk was powered by the lab, that much seemed obvious. Through the evening, she pulled each machine away from the wall to inspect. She’d been in this lab every night for 8 months, yet there was no change to their electric bill. Two months ago, a storm rolled in and knocked out power for the town for a week — but not the Stowers residence. How? She recalled similar stories growing up, assuming it was because her father had such an important job. ‘He needed to stay connected,’ she’d tell her friends. To thicken the plot, none of the processing units were plugged into the wall. They were only connected to her built-in desk.

  None of this made sense. Noel’s lab coat was hung neatly on the hook, her dreadlocks tied back, sleeves rolled. The lab came with tools to rebuild and maintain it. Within moments, she was inside the service panel, flashlight in hand, face first in a rat’s nest. Who knew how long it had been since anyone had been down here? She’d never taken part in any of the upgrades to the lab, and had no frame of reference for how often they occurred.

  Noel’s entire body fit into the crawl space beneath the desk. Despite all the electronic components, it was remarkably cool. Cold even. Strange. She was certain that this portion was underground. Tangles of coils and cords led to a moderately sized lockbox. “That’s rather impractical of you, Dr. Stowers.” Noel was annoyed, leaning as close as she could. “It wants a key, does it?” Shifting her weight, plopping down on her bottom, she rummaged through her pockets in search of her key ring, actually suspended from a lanyard around her neck.

  To her dismay, the first lock only removed the lockbox from its fixed location. Backing out carefully, making sure not to decouple any cables, she left the crawl space and sat the box down on her desk. Masses of thick, multi-pin data bundles with big blocky connectors snaked back into the service hatch. From her key ring, there was one more unused key, which now seemed to have a purpose.

  The hinges on the box needed lubricant, but that was the least of her concerns. “Now, let’s see what you’ve been up to, Daddy.” Noel recognized the types of cables and the adapter that had been crudely rebuilt from a combination of other devices, but the thing they adapted to — for a lack of better words — was alien. About the size of a notebook, and about as thin, Noel held a sleek device whose alloy was beautifully coated in a deep ebony finish, but still translucent, like the little cyan ‘gifts’. The device trembled in her hands as she inspected her surroundings.

  The machine was light, almost as light as air. She ran her fingers over its surface, activating the display, emitting lights she’d never seen from something so fine. Its user interface glowed under her fingers, triggering a golden glow of light, an audible chime, and another sound. A voice. His voice. Her father. His face was on the tablet, speaking, addressing her directly.

  “Hello, Noel. I see you’ve found one of my little secrets. Well, it’s our little secret now, isn’t it? I hope it’s you, in any case. As I can’t be sure who will find this, I’ll keep the nature of this discussion cryptic, as always. You hold what my friend called a ‘plan’kent.’” She inspected the machine, front and back, as she listened. “I can’t tell you who that friend was or where the machine comes from; but I can tell you it’s nothing you’ve ever encountered before.”

  Her legs wobbled, weak under the weight of realization. Who was her father involved with? Why couldn’t he tell anyone about it?

  “These ‘things’, they function on some sort of high-level, neural frequency. I can’t tell you just how it works, but I can tell you how I’ve been told to use it for the safest results. I was given a task, but I feel I’ve long since failed at that mission. I fear for humanity, and for all life. I never wanted you to join CRD, but I knew it was a matter of time. They have their hands in everything, don’t trust them. This is, if this is you….” For a moment, Joseph shielded his face before continuing. “Near the Plan’kent is another one of my journals. I’ve taken the liberty to draft out several years of theoretical upgrades, schematics, and diagrams for the systems. I make sure not to push the envelope very far, as to not bring attention to myself. That Plan’kent will do the work, just show it the page from the book.” He raised a stern finger, wagging it. “Never take the Plan’kent out of this lab, and never connect it to systems in the outside world. I love you. Good luck.”

  Moments like these always moved her to tears. When her eyes were dry, she pulled the new journal from the lockbox, thumbing through it. Dated years out, Joseph planned incremental hardware and software changes that stretched into the next millennia. Sketches of new components, shapes, and sizes. Speeds, capacity — all the objective attributes of compute systems, detailed in his way. Perfectly outlined. His instructions included removing the Plan’kent from its adaptor, which Joseph warned would temporarily disrupt the power in the house and lab, as well as powering down all the systems.

  The warning was more of a promise. Noel heard the house’s humming stop, the lights in the lab flickering off before everything buzzed back to life. Everything but the computers. “Shut up!”She was unable to control this outburst. “This thing was powering the lab and the house all these years?!” Her mind raced, hands trembling more. Words on the page began to jump as she struggled to follow the directions.

  They led her to the anomaly enclosure, cables labeled meticulously, for good reason. More warnings, laid out by Joseph, spelled trouble if the steps were not heeded. “The anomaly and the Plan’kent are meant to be used together, but not at the same time. From the anomaly’s terminal, the Plan’kent is to be attached to the special data line I’ve prepared. Remove the anomaly data lines first, then plug the anomaly back in only after the Plan’kent is done.”

  Easy enough, the instructions were straightforward. Noel carefully cradled the anomaly, unseating it from its dock, and placing it back in its enclosure. From underneath, the Plan’kent’s data line needed to be fed through its conduit before it could be properly seated. A ripple of lights cascaded across the lab machines, just as the instructions stated they would. She held up the schematic journal over the Plan’kent, triggering the golden flash, and the device chirped once more.

  Behind her, the room changed. Popping plastics, crumpling components twisting and contorting like a bag of glass and copper was being smashed. There were no lights from panels, no hum of machinery. Only the remolding of plastic and silica.

  What was Noel paying witness to? Was this magic? Was her father involved in sorcery or devil worship? Within moments the event was over, but long from forgotten. Her eyes looked on in silent amazement, legs carrying her through the maze of contraptions, fingertips grazing the unexplainable. Nothing was the same. Everything was new, slightly more advanced — just as her father specified — but what had she done, other than plugging in that strange sheet of glass?

  Her built-in monitors, larger; reels, faster. DACs, more robust; she needed to know what the interface looked like. Across the room, the anomaly enclosure stood open, but even it was more advanced in its appearance. In her left hand, she held the anomaly connector, grasping the chip in her right, anxious to take the plan’kent back to the mainframe from where it came. Resetting the anomaly always resulted in a satisfying click.

  The chip began to glow a deep crimson, the plan’kent doing the same. The crinkling of plastic behind her made her drop the devices, but that was the least of her worries. The room around her vibrated, not violently, but noticeably. The instruments and components began to glow a bright gold, and the popping persisted. Louder, and for much longer.

  “What—“ she looked around for answers, spying the journal on her desk. “THE CONNECTIONS!” Her back turned to the lab, she scrambled for the plan’kent, fumbling. She wasn’t quick enough to prevent whatever change occurred, as the room stabilized; her fist clinched around the cords. “What have I done?”

  Slowly, she decoupled the adapter and strolled back through her lab. Everything was white, sleek, sterile. The room was silent now, motionless. Dead again. On her desk was the journal, lockbox, and her bag. Across the room, the clock registered bedtime. “I think that’s enough for tonight.” Her tone was barely a whisper, hardly louder than the sound of the journal and plan’kent sliding into her bag, and the shuffling of her feet up the stairs.

  #

  Daylight couldn’t come soon enough. Her morning routine was hastier than normal; pacing down the stairs and out the door in record time. Fate was on her side, granting her continuous green lights on her commute and light traffic, muttering to herself “what did you get us into, Daddy,” as she passed the cemetery.

  Sydney wasn’t at the reception desk these past few weeks, but Noel wasn’t worried about that. Nobody was in the building this early most days. Nobody but—

  “Doctor Stowers! The prodigal child in the flesh!”

  From over her shoulder, a man’s voice called to her, the accent fresh from foggy London, just before she’d reached security. She didn’t have to turn to know who it was, but she did. “Executive White. An honor.” Her hand was extended, sheepishly.

  “Nonsense, Doctor, the honor is all mine.” His grip was what you would expect from an ‘executive’. He extended his pointer finger to Noel’s wrist, gripping tightly in his handshake. “You know, I was excited hearing that we were able to finally bring you aboard!”

  “Yes, sir, well—“

  “Yeah, I started talking to the other execs. It didn’t make sense that we’d spent all that money on your education, and you not be on the team. And with you being the offspring of the big brain himself,” he pulled her in close. “Your old man made us a lot of money. Put this enterprise back on the map. Singlehandedly, I might add.”

  Words overcame Noel like a tidal wave of unsorted emotion. What did he mean about ‘all that money on her education’? “Yes, thank you, sir.” She choked out.

  “— And when I heard about your breakthrough earlier this year? And in the pinch, no doubt.” He kissed his fingers, “Chef’s kiss. Delicious. You’re going to go far. We’ve got big plans for you. And your friend, too.”

  Noel made out the rigid shape of the director over his shoulder, then heard the infamous throat clear. “Executive? We really should be going over these notes before the briefing.” Her voice echoed down the hall.

  “Oh yes,” there was a glint in his eye, then they narrowed on Noel. “I trust you’re going to be there?”

  Noel was lost in the sea of her thoughts. “Sir?”

  “Today? At the briefing. A lot of big plans in store for the company rolling down straight from the top.”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “That’s what I like to hear!” He slapped her hard on the arm and proceeded back down to the reception desk where Sydney’s stare stretched limitlessly across the lobby, broken only by a slow procession of employees into the building. What extra time she’d attempted to buy herself was spent.

  The smell of him lingered long after he was gone. Cheap cologne buried beneath the bite of cigar smoke. Smoke that could cling to wool and skin no matter how many showers followed. That was Executive Edgar White; the man who seemed to wield power like it was another set of hands. Even without the smell, he still lingered.

  From the break room emerged two suits; his entourage, no doubt. Sunglasses and black suits. His personal guard, not CaliberOne like the people protecting the building, but Caliber Security Services. The private military company.

  Noel adjusted her scarf, turning back to the security doors. “Morning, Bill.” She flashed her badge.

  His face leaned in close, the same maneuver every morning. “Morning, Dr. Stowers. Gone be a long one, huh?”

  “Not as long as your day, though.” She stepped past him, swiping her badge on the magnetic reader, disengaging the locks.

  “Shoot, ma’am,” Bill laughed quietly, “you know they just pay me to stand here and look pretty.” The pair chuckled. It was a morning ritual.

  Through the doors, there wasn’t time to drop her bag off in her office, only to grab her lab coat, throw it over her shoulders as she pushed into the laboratory. She only had a handful of moments to gather what she needed. They made a path to the back of the lab, dropping her bag on her desk as she passed. She’d brought the adapter, but needed a specific cord to connect it to her desk terminal, then she’d need another cable to be routed to the supercomputer.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Jax usually gathered the supplies for them, but she couldn’t wait for him and risk him asking what the experiment was. Grey, steel, cabinets, taller than she was, housed their cables and other peripherals. She wasn’t tall enough to see into all the drawers.

  “Damn it.” From the lab’s main door, Noel fetched a step ladder and resumed her search. Four assistants entered, talking loudly about their weekend and settling in. “It’s begun.”

  As if someone turned on a faucet, a steady trickle of people flowed into the lab. She was out of time. Her eyes darted between the faces, looking for Jax, but he wasn’t among them. “Hmmm, it’s not like him to be late…” There were still 4 more cabinets to check before she could say she’d look through them all. All she needed to find was just two— “Bingo.”

  Located together, in the second-to-last storage locker, were the exact cables she needed. The container was labeled ‘terminal cords misc’. A twist of her wrist revealed 12 minutes until 10, which meant 12 minutes until the meeting. Just enough time. Noel’s feet shuffled over to her desk, depositing the cables in a drawer, and placing her bag on top of it.

  From Jax’s office, there was a glow. He’d at least been in there. “I’ll probably see him at the meeting then. Back through security, a friendly nod at Bill, then a right up the stairs, where she stopped. Executive White had been here. The stairwell reeked of his odor, a sour trail that led Noel straight to the conference room on the third floor.

  The conference room was already half full when Noel stepped inside. Rows of folding chairs lined the walls beneath faded portraits of Caliber’s founders and former US politicians, their gilt frames catching the sterile light. At the head table sat Sydney Billings, notes arranged with military precision, her pen angled to the margin like a compass needle.

  Noel found her usual seat by the door, where the junior scientists and aids, gathered, just in time to hear Sydney’s voice cut through the low chatter.

  “Let’s begin,” Sydney said, rising. Her tone carried the clipped rhythm of a teacher who’d rehearsed the scolding in her head. “Today’s briefing covers infrastructure upgrades across all CRD research divisions. Dr. Jackson’s team will be leading the conversion of the core systems. That is, all software and hardware— to support the new batch-processing architecture necessary for CRD’s coming growth. The scientists of the ‘Anomaly Project’ will assist, of course, with calibration and data continuity.” A quick glance found Noel.

  Of course. Noel smiled politely as a few eyes flicked her way, then back to Sydney. Assist. Never lead. It’s my team, for Christ’s sake.

  Sydney continued, pointer tapping the board behind her. “This transition will better align CRD’s output with Caliber Holdings’—“The doors at the rear hissed open, slicing her sentence in half.

  Executive Edgar White entered like he owned the air. Two CSS officers flanked him, their black suits immaculate, their expressions empty and hollow. He carried his cigar between two fingers, ignoring the ‘No Smoking’ sign as if it were meant for lesser species. The smoke wrapped around him, rippling across the ceiling vents.

  “Forgive the interruption,” White said, his voice smooth as oiled steel. “Please, do carry on, Director.”

  Sydney stepped aside, her jaw tightening. “No, I was just warming them up. The floor is yours, of course, Executive.” Air escaped from her seat as she plopped back down.

  White took her place without waiting. “Now then, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, pacing. “You’ve heard about ‘system upgrades’ and ‘efficiency metrics’—important work, no doubt. But what’s really driving those upgrades?” He let the question breathe, and took a puff from his cigar. “Breakthroughs. From right here in Princeton. The Anomaly Project has set new benchmarks for neural computation, thanks to the legacy of the late Dr. Joseph Stowers and the fine continuation of that work by our very own team and his predecessor.”

  A faint warmth crept up Noel’s neck. He never looked at her directly, yet every word felt aimed straight through her.

  “Dr. Stowers envisioned a world where processors didn’t just calculate—they interpreted,” White went on. “That vision led to the semiconductor revolution and now to the next step: microprocessors capable of real-time global management.”

  He gestured toward the projector as slides flicked past: circuit blueprints, data streams, a silhouette of the world overlaid with glowing grids. “This technology—your technology—will drive the medical advancements underway at our research facility in Indiana, under Doctor Ducks’ SythiDermis initiative. Synthetic dermal replication, regenerative grafts—skin that not only protects, it thinks, coupled with a revolutionary automated surgery, thanks to the work done by this team—millions of lives will be saved. Including, perhaps, that of our Caliber Holdings CEO, who remains in recovery as we speak.”

  The room shifted with murmurs, part admiration, part unease. Sporadic applause broke out, briefly.

  “Global climates regarding health, safety, and technology are driving us to adapt to a world with new issues to solve.” Images of black and brown-skinned people from foreign lands flashed across the screen. “CRD is in a position that no world government is in. We can make changes, outside of UN policy, out of politics, to help the people who need us right where they are. That’s why, effective immediately, CRD is creating a new division dedicated specifically to medical research, development, and advancement.” He paused for dramatic effect.

  Even Noel found it hard to contain her excitement, caught up in the energy of change. Every face now glowed, empowered. Every face but Jax’s, who still had yet to be seen.

  “But we won’t stop there,” White said. “The CaliBoring Corporation has uncovered a new metal, a rare composite found in only two locations on Earth. A material that is speculated to exist from the collision of the planet that crated our moon, yes, cosmic metalloids from another world.”

  The crowd was eating out of his hands, some were even on their feet before he could finish his statement. Even Sydney’s face wore an expression of hope and optimism.

  “Initial samples suggest properties beyond our current scientific understanding—perfect conductivity, zero decay, infinite potential.” He smiled thinly. “Shipments will arrive within weeks. I expect CRD’s finest to determine its applications quickly. Quickly.”

  He stubbed out his cigar in an empty glass. “In short, gentlemen—and ladies—we are entering an age where chemistry, biology, and computation converge. Departments will no longer operate in silos. Expect rotations, cross-assignments, new faces in your labs. Especially within the medical attachment. Expect deployments. Trips to the ‘field,’” Edgar White laughed now, with the crowd, as if some had whispered a joke for his ears only.

  Sydney cleared her throat. “To clarify, Executive White—”

  He raised a hand. “No need. The top brass already approved the reorganization. You’ll all receive the memo by the end of the week. For now, focus on integration. These systems are the foundation of the future. Fail to keep pace, and you’ll be replaced by someone who can. As is this organization; as is the world, Director.”

  A few uneasy chuckles followed, the sort that died before reaching the throat. Noel felt the pressure in her chest grow tight. Jax’s chair beside her remained empty.

  She scribbled a few notes she’d never read again, packed her pad into her satchel, and slipped out through the side door as White turned to address a question about foreign partnerships. The sound of his voice followed her into the hall—smooth, rehearsed, and full of promises that never said who they were really for.

  The door clicked shut behind her, swallowing the sound of Edgar White’s applause. The hallway outside felt cooler, emptier, the buzz of fluorescent lights flattening the air. Her heels echoed in the corridor, a hollow rhythm that seemed too loud.

  Jax’s office was the first stop. His blinds were drawn, the light still burning under them. She nudged the door open. The smell of old coffee greeted her, bitter and familiar. His brown-bag lunch sat neatly on the desk, still sealed, next to a stack of punch cards and a half-drained mug; its very presence taunted her.

  “He’s on campus, that much I’m sure of,” she murmured under her breath.

  The desk drawers were locked. The waste bin—empty. A single chair was pushed back just slightly, like someone had left in a hurry. The radio on the shelf clicked softly between stations, murmuring static.

  Her next stop was the lab. The halls were growing louder now—shoes on tile, doors opening, distant chatter from the other research labs. Noel pressed the handle and slipped inside.

  Assistants had begun their morning routines, coats tossed on stools, beakers steaming faintly on the far counter. Nobody noticed her enter. Jax’s station sat untouched—no fresh log entries, no notes.

  Then a sound: the creak and metallic snap of a stairwell door closing down the hall. She froze, her head tilting.

  “Jax?” she whispered, but it was already shutting. She crossed the lab, her heels light on the tile, pulling the stairwell door open. The air that came up was damp and cold, laced with the scent of metal and ozone. Faint footsteps echoed below.

  Noel gathered her coat tighter and descended.

  The stairwell lights buzzed weakly. The further she went, the heavier the air became, like stepping into a lung that had couldn’t exhale. On the third landing, she found him, one hand on the rail, a satchel slung across his shoulder.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she whispered. “You missed the meeting.”

  Jax turned, his glasses catching the fluorescent flicker. “Did I miss it? Seemed like nothing but dog and pony to me. I’m going to the source.”

  “What source?”

  Jax turned his attention back to his journey. “The mainframe.” His voice was low, deliberate. “Three floors down. If they’re hiding something, it’s down there.”

  She followed down the spiraled cement corridor. “Jax, that’s restricted. You could be fired. Or worse.”

  He smiled without humor. “Then I guess you’d better keep watch.”

  Her pulse jumped. “What are you looking for?”

  “Answers. That ‘foreign device’—the one White dropped in our laps a couple of weeks ago? It’s not ours.”

  “Obviously. I assumed about the same.”

  “I want to know who’s feeding us tech we didn’t invent.” Their feed shuffled lightly against the concrete, echoing faintly across the walls.

  “And you think it’s on the mainframe?”

  “I know it is. Everything is on the mainframe.” His words were spoken with a certainty and conviction she’d never heard before.

  “I didn’t know you were on the Operations team. You never told me that before. Why’d they—“

  “I wasn’t on the Operations team.” He snarled over his shoulder, offended, as if she’d taken some great accomplishment from him. ”I helped your father install it.”

  The words hit her harder than the next step. “You—what?”

  “Dr. Stowers designed the early Caliber architecture,” he said over his shoulder. “Every anomaly log, every device report, every operation, that goes for the whole organization, goes through that system. He left a backdoor, though. Another one of his ‘gifts’. I still have access.”

  Noel hesitated, torn between terror and the pull of curiosity. “You’re insane,” she muttered, still close in tow.

  The final door required a keycard and an old brass key; Jax had both. He punched in a code, twisted the handle, and the door groaned open into darkness. Rows of humming cabinets stretched into the gloom, their indicator lights pulsing like stars in a dead sky.

  “This is it,” Jax whispered. “The Caliber Master Mainframe.”

  They crossed the grated floor, weaving through the aisles until he stopped at a console. The monitor flickered to life in ghostly green, bathing their faces in phosphor glow.

  “We can’t move anything,” he said, setting down his satchel. “Read-only. If we move a file, they’ll see it.”

  He plugged in a portable keyboard and began typing, the clack of keys echoing like distant gunfire. Lines of code scrolled past.

  Windows and text flashed before her. “What are you searching for?”

  “Recent uploads. Last sixty days.” His index finger reseated his glasses.

  The results spilled across the screen—thousands of file names. He refined the query, narrowing it by division. “CRD… Signals… CSS.”

  He scrolled, eyes darting. “Here. Operation: BLEMISH.” Jax opened it. Reports filled the screen; briefings, communiqués, manifests. He read aloud in fragments. “Vietnam… recovery operation… Executive Caliber on-site…” His voice slowed. “Objectives: retrieve artifact designated WPU—‘Wartime Processing Unit’.”

  He paused. “Whoa…”

  Noel leaned closer. The file referenced “subject cooperation minimal” and “specimens transferred to C.H. custody.” It also mentioned a detainment site—Korean Revolt Facility—flagged under CSS jurisdiction. “So, our hands weren’t the first to touch it…”

  “There’s more,” Jax said, opening the next document. “CSS-Signals attempted integration—device non-responsive. Engineers cite ‘foreign command protocols.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means they couldn’t operate it.”

  The next file opened automatically, cascading across the monitor: Medical Expansion Directive. A sidebar listed names: “—Doctor Ducks, Executive White, Nancy Caliber… You know, he mentioned ‘Ducks’ at the meeting? The initiative in Indiana, too?”

  Jax frowned. “Nancy’s name is on everything: Not as an executive, she’s a patient. Look, medical notes. Experimental regenerative program. ‘Subject C—rapid cellular degradation following exposure to Agent Orange.’”

  He looked up at her. “They’re trying to save her.”

  Noel swallowed hard. “By using the device?”

  “No,” Jax said quietly. “Look at this.” Detailed troop movements and weekly briefings popped up. “She stole that thing…” they read through details from Operation: Blemish together.

  “So, the new partner added to the fold…. Is the Vietcong?”

  “And that’s not all. They’ve contracted other foreign labs—Soviets, Cubans, even some of the Chinese. It’s all here. They’ve been setting up fronts all over South and Central America; Columbia, Panama. They even have operations in Africa.”

  He leaned back, rubbing his temple. “This isn’t research anymore. It’s war logistics.” His fingers danced over the keys, graceful, like a dancer in a ballroom.

  Noel felt her chest tighten. “Jax, we need to leave.”

  “Not yet.” He ran another query. “Let’s see what your father hid.”

  The cursor blinked, then a directory appeared: STOWERS / LEGACY / ANOMALY.

  Jax hesitated. “He left this folder locked. I don’t remember that.”

  “Can you open it?”

  He typed, slowly and carefully. The terminal clicked once. The screen split, revealing lines of notes. Schematics. Dated almost 6 years earlier—long before she started at CRD.

  “There’s nothing here,” she whispered.

  Jax nodded. “All this started after he died. That’s good. I don’t know if he’d have wanted all our work to go towards war.”

  They stood in silence, the hum of the mainframe filling the air. The enormity of it pressed down on her: the secrets, the buried deals, the way her father’s work had become their cage. Noel wondered about her father’s secret mission that he’d mentioned in the recording. She wanted to show Jax what she’d found, include him in all the secrets, but she couldn’t. Even after he’d shown her the Master Mainframe, and all of Calibers’ secrets.

  Finally, Jax shut off the monitor. “We’ve seen enough.”

  “What happens if they trace this?” she asked. “Can they log your keystrokes?”

  He slung the satchel over his shoulder. “I was using an administrative account that still runs system checks and validations.It won’t register anything out of the normal, trust me. You just keep quiet.” He placed his finger over his lips.

  Noel nodded, but her pulse wouldn’t slow. As they stepped back into the stairwell, she looked once over her shoulder at the glowing cabinets, their lights blinking like eyes in the dark. She couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody already knew.

  They said nothing as they climbed from the sub-basement. The weight of what they’d seen in the mainframe chamber clung to them like static—unspoken, electric. Every echo of their footsteps down the service corridor reminded Noel that they’d seen too much, and that silence was the only thing keeping them safe.

  “We don’t talk about what’s down there,” he said finally, his voice quiet but firm.

  “I wasn’t planning to.” Her own tone came out sharper than intended. Her feet stopped, rubbing her temples. “Wartime processing units? We’re building weapons, Jax. What the hell does that make us?”

  The stairwell spat them back into the dim corridor behind the lab. The air there was warmer, but only barely—thick with the hum of power lines and the faint antiseptic bite of ozone. Jax swiped his badge and pushed the steel door open.

  “You ever think,” he said, “that maybe it’s not about war? Maybe they don’t even know what they’re building yet?”

  Noel looked at him, his eyes tired. “I think they know exactly what they’re building.”

  The familiar light of the CRD laboratory spilled around them—white tiles, glass panels, the low rhythmic pulse of monitors. It should have felt safe. Instead, it felt smaller, like something watching them had already followed them up from below.

  Sydney Billings was waiting.

  She stood near Noel’s desk, her arms crossed, her coat still buttoned. The kind of stillness that made other people apologize before they spoke.

  “Doctors,” her tone was dry as chalk. “I trust you both enjoyed your little field trip?”

  Jax froze halfway to his workstation. Noel’s pulse jumped.

  “We were—” Jax began.

  “—off-schedule,” Sydney finished for him. “Executive White’s schedule, in fact.” Her eyes snapped to Jax’s neck. “He’s asked for immediate system verification on the neural interface and their effects on ecological stimulations, before the new researchers arrive from Indiana.” She took one step closer, her heels clipping the tile as she was breast to breast with Noel. “You’ll start the diagnostics on the WPU, now. We need to understand its full specifications and components. If I smell even a hint of instability in these readings, both your clearances are revoked. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Noel murmured.

  Sydney’s eyes lingered on him a second longer than necessary—calculating, suspicious—and then she turned sharply for the door. “You have one hour. Don’t waste it.” The latch snapped behind her.

  For a long moment, the room held its breath.

  “Guess that’s permission,” Jax said finally.

  Jax rolled his chair back from the anomaly bay, pencil between his teeth, a tangle of leads draped across his lap. “Theory first, deliverables later,” he muttered, ignoring the task Sydney had thrown down for White. “The anomalies push back EM when the bus pings them. If I feed a controlled stream into one processor lane, I should see proportional return—if it’s adaptive, the spectrum should shift.”

  Noel nodded, grateful for the cover his tinkering provided. “So we’re measuring the return, not the load.”

  “Exactly.”

  They shared one supercomputer—rows of drives and tape reels, the steady churn of air over fins. She slid into her station, set her satchel beside the drawer, and palmed the slick, dark thing that had slept there since dawn. The terminal—her father’s Plan’kent—never touched open air for long. She kept it low and out of sight, the drawer cracked just enough to slip the cable through.

  Jax leaned over his readouts. “Running sequence A,” he said. The anomaly’s soft blue halo brightened, settled, brightened again.

  Noel pretended to busy herself with the Wartime Processing Unit—casing open, panels lifted. The WPU’s leads went to her desk interface, neat as any lab manual could wish. The Plan’kent’s line made the quiet, secret connection—terminal to WPU—and lay coiled, waiting, at the jack that fed the shared mainframe.

  “Sequence B,” Jax said, eyes on the scope. “Don’t switch buses yet.”

  “Copy,” she murmured—but her fingers were already on the plug.

  The room was noise and white tile and the easy hum of a place that had forgotten to be afraid. Assistants traded jokes at the far bench; a kettle hissed over a hot plate. Noel glanced once at Jax—head down, glasses slipping—and slid the connector home.

  The world blinked.

  Light rose under her hands—first a thin thread, then a sheet. The WPU’s UI warped on the monitor: columns bending, glyphs re-mapping, system strings melting into legible shapes she had never taught it. The casing underneath took on a low inner glow, as if the device were lit from marrow.

  At Jax’s desk, the anomaly went from soft blue to a deep, living crimson.

  “Jax,” she breathed.

  He spun, froze. “You left the anomaly tied in,” he said, his voice too calm. “You left it live.”

  The hum thickened, climbing into the bones of the room. Reels spooled themselves awake. Plastic crackled in the walls. Beneath the benches, the power bars clicked in a stuttering chorus. Something like a chime—not a tone so much as a harmonic pressure—settled over everything, and then the glow spread.

  Every station in the lab brightened, as if it remembered a different year. The supercomputer’s faceplates shimmered; the old phosphor displays filled with code that moved too fast for human eyes. For an instant, the lab became her basement—a perfect echo—gold light and the crisp sound of components reforming, the air charged and clean, the hair on her arms lifting.

  She heard herself whisper, “The connections,” but she didn’t move. The system was already moving for her.

  Then, silence.

  Monitors went dark. Fans coasted. The crimson in the anomaly cooled through ember shades back toward blue.

  On the main display, white text appeared on black:

  HELLO. I AM HIVE.

  Noel’s breath left her in a small, startled laugh. She pulled the Plan’kent cable with shaking fingers, slid the device back into the drawer, shut it, then shoved the whole satchel into the well beside her knees. The room steadied at once, as though a held breath had been let go.

  Down the bench, two assistants argued about solvents. No one looked up.

  “Did you see that?” Jax said, his voice hushed.

  “Every second,” she said.

  They worked quickly, as if speed might disguise cause. Jax captured logs and spectrum traces; Noel took the WPU’s new interface through its paces. The device responded like a thought practiced once and never forgotten. Where she leaned, it leaned. Where she looked, it opened.

  “Thirty years,” Jax whispered, watching the anomaly’s graphing routine scroll cleanly for the first time in his life. “And today it speaks back.”

  “Not just back,” she said, eyes on the main screen. “With us.”

  They didn’t argue about who would make the call. Jax lifted the receiver, dialed the director’s extension, and got as far as “Dr. Billings—” before the office door banged open.

  “I heard the line drop,” Sydney said, already halfway to Noel’s chair. “What do you have?”

  Jax gestured, a little helplessly, to the monitor where the reconstructed GUI pulsed with new geometry—delicate latticework folding and unfolding like a living diagram.

  “HIVE,” Noel said, swallowing, keeping her voice even. “We downloaded the WPU’s instruction set into the mainframe and ran an autonomous routine to map the anomaly’s returns. The system reorganized its architecture. It’s… making logic we didn’t write.”

  Sydney didn’t blink. Her eyes tracked the display, then the anomaly bay, then the WPU’s quiet glow. “Printouts,” she said. “Diagnostics. Process tables. Memory maps. Everything with timestamps. Physical copies only.” She glanced back toward the hall. “Executive White will have them within the hour. Do not touch anything you cannot instantly re-create.”

  “Understood,” Jax said.

  Sydney was gone before the paper warmed the rollers. The lab filled with the rat-tat of dot-matrix printers, fanfold spilling in white streams across the benches. HIVE’s header marked every page: H1V3 / SYSTEM ONLINE / 12–1975.

  Through the glass, Noel saw a shape pause in the corridor—cigar clamped in two fingers, smoke shouldering its way under the door. Edgar White didn’t enter. He watched, one hand in his pocket, as if confirmation were best when stolen.

  The rest of the afternoon disappeared. They tested. They failed to break things that would have shattered yesterday. The anomaly’s crimson came and went in soft pulses aligned to query; the WPU took on a logic scaffold that tracked her intent like a loyal animal. Each time Noel risked a glance at the drawer where the Plan’kent slept, a pressure moved through her chest—a quiet, guilty ache that sounded like her father’s warning.

  By five, the printers had gone quiet. The stack on Sydney’s desk block was high enough to cast a shadow.

  They walked their packet up, signed what needed signing, handed off what couldn’t be trusted to a messenger, and returned to the lab to shut down what could be shut down. HIVE did not exactly power off; it idled, like a mind pausing between thoughts.

  Noel slid her satchel strap over her shoulder and clicked off her task lamp. The winter light outside had gone flat and steel-gray. She stepped into the corridor and nearly collided with White.

  “Doctor Stowers,” he said, as if they were meeting between courses at a private club. The smoke from his cigar curled around the ceiling and refused to leave. Up close, his cologne warped beneath it—something floral gone acrid.

  “Executive,” she said.

  “Good work today,” he said mildly. “Very good.” His gaze flicked once to her bag and back. “I’m told the room glowed.”

  She didn’t answer. He smiled anyway.

  “Don’t let Billings frighten you,” he went on. “Your clearance, your employment—those have never been hers to grant or revoke. Caliber Holdings makes those decisions.” He tapped ash into an empty paper cup, as if it were a crystal tray. “And as far as I can tell, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Her mouth was dry. “Jax and I—”

  “—will continue doing exactly what you did today,” he said. “And you’ll keep me apprised.” The last word landed like a paperweight.

  He stepped back, enough to let her pass. “Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

  She moved past him, the stale smoke following like a hand at her back. In the lab, the supercomputer’s main display had dimmed to a soft, waiting glow. A single word winked into life and out again as she looked over her shoulder:

  HELLO.

  Noel tightened her grip on the satchel until the strap creaked. Her father’s voice, the golden light, the two rooms that had changed themselves for her—home and here—braided together in her mind until she could not tell which breath belonged to which machine.

  “What did we just make?” she whispered, but only to herself.

  HIVE did not answer. But she felt it listening—patient, unblinking. It didn’t need to speak; the silence was confirmation enough. Her thoughts drifted down the ice-slick streets to the basement lab, where she had built it once. Or was it again? The memory folded in on itself, and with it came the first tremor of unease: what else had she already done?