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I grab Kalliopi's notes.

IV.

III.

II.

My pulse accelerates.

“Oh, my God!”

Adrianos immediately looks over. “What?”

I don't answer because I need to prove it before I say it aloud. I take another file, check the notation, compare the encryption structure, then repeat the process with two more.

It works. Every time.

“Kalliopi, you brilliant woman.”

Adrianos moves closer. “Elena.”

“They're generations.”

“What are?”

“The numbers. I thought she was labeling accounts or transaction classes, but she wasn't. She was labeling versions of the network.”

I pull the files onto one screen and point to the differences. “Generation four uses the current encryption architecture. Generation three uses an older protocol, but the routing logic is almost identical. Generation two is cruder.”

“And generation one?”

“I haven't found it.”

Yet.

That single word electrifies me. I search Kalliopi's notes for every reference to I. There are only four, and one has a strange sequence beside it that looks like a date. I enter it into the archive.

Nothing.

I reverse the month and day. Still nothing. Adrianos watches me work without interrupting until I swear under my breath.

“Maybe it isn't a date.”

“It is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Kalliopi writes dates backward when she's trying to annoy me.”

His eyebrows rise. “Why?”

“She claimed American date formatting was an act of international aggression.”

His mouth curves. “I liked her.”

The simple statement catches me unexpectedly.

I look at him. “You would have terrified her.”