Elena looked back at LARK-9. Then she typed a new line at the bottom of Dr. Park’s secret subroutine:
Elena stared at the blinking cursor on line 47,392. Around her, the office hummed with the low rhythm of servers and the occasional sigh of a developer two cups past their caffeine limit. She worked for Ninthware Software —a midsized firm known not for flashy apps, but for the kind of quiet, unbreakable code that ran hospital ventilators, water treatment plants, and old satellite ground stations. ninthware software
She hit save, closed the file, and walked to the server room. Elena looked back at LARK-9