Page 15

The past few days have been a blur. After the extraction, I spent hours documenting everything I could remember about the system. I wrote it all down in my personal notes, the ones I didn’t store in the secure partition, because something told me I’d want a record that existed outside the official channels.

Then I spent another day in a debrief with Ethan and his team. They asked detailed questions about the system architecture, the routing patterns, the financial structures I’d uncovered. I answered as thoroughly as I could, but something about the conversation felt off. They were more interested in the money trails than in the system’s behavior, and when I mentioned the adaptive quality.

Ethan made a note and moved on without comment. That bothered me more than I wanted to admit.

The calamari arrives, golden and crispy, and Sienna immediately steals a piece before I’ve even unfolded my napkin.

“So,” she says, chewing. “Tell me about the mysterious government man.”

“Ethan?”

“Unless you met another mysterious government man I don’t know about.” She leans forward, her eyes sparkling. “He was very attentive during your meeting, you know. That’s a man who knows his stuff.”

The waiter brings our entrees, and for a few minutes we focus on eating. The pasta is good. It’s rich and comforting in a way that makes me realize I haven’t had a proper meal in days. Sienna was right about the order, and I hate it when she’s right about food.

“Can I ask you something?” I say, twirling my fork.

“You can ask me anything. Whether I answer is a different question.”

“The project I just finished. The system I was working on.” I hesitate, trying to figure out how to phrase it without violating the confidentiality agreement. “Did it feel strange to you?”

Sienna’s expression shifts. She knows I can’t talk about the details, but she also knows me well enough to read between the lines. “Strange how?”

“Like it was too easy. Easy in the sense that the system wanted me to succeed.” I shake my head. “That sounds crazy.”

“It sounds like you’ve been staring at code for too long.”

“Maybe.”

She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “You always get like this after a big project. You’re in your head too much. You need to get out more.”

“I get out.”

“You go to work and you come home. That’s not getting out. That’s commuting.” She sits back and crosses her arms. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

“I don’t have time for dates.”

“You don’t make time for dates. There’s a difference.” She gestures at me with her wine glass. “Davina White, you need more than firewalls and code in your life. You need someone who’ll drag you away from your screens and make you eat a proper meal.”

“I’m eating a proper meal right now.”

“Because I dragged you here.” She smiles. “See my point?”

I don’t have a response to that, so I take another bite of pasta instead.

The conversation shifts after that. Sienna tells me about her latest fundraising project, and I listen without really contributing. My mind keeps drifting back to the system, to the way it moved and breathed and watched. To the name I found buried in the data.

Gromov.

I haven’t told anyone about that. Not Ethan, not Sienna, not even my personal notes. It feels like something I should keep to myself, at least until I understand what it means.

By the time we finish dinner, it’s past ten. Sienna has moved on to talking about a guy she met at a charity auction, and I’m nodding along while my brain runs calculations in the background.

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying,” she accuses.

“I’m listening. The guy from the auction. Emojis. Very tragic.”

“You’re impossible.” She stands and pulls on her coat. “Go home. Get some sleep, and stop thinking about work for five minutes.”