Chapter 4 — Shadows in the Code

Lyra

Lyra’s fingers hovered over her keyboard, her gaze fixed on the streams of code cascading across her monitor. The pale, sterile light of the office cast long shadows over the rows of empty desks, exaggerating the stillness of the space. It was well past midnight, and the hum of the building’s ventilation was the only sound, like a distant, unrelenting whisper in the quiet. She had told herself she was staying late to get ahead on the next sprint, but deep down, she knew better. The app’s behavior had gnawed at her all day, and the encrypted section she’d stumbled upon earlier was a splinter lodged in her mind.