The hum of the facility never truly ceased, for even in the stillest hours the machines whispered, the servers breathed, and the screens flickered with silent data that never slept, never slowed, never asked permission to reveal what men wished to keep buried.
Adrian Holt sat before the central console, shoulders curved forward, elbows braced upon the desk, his fingers hovering above the keyboard without touching it, as though the smallest input might shatter something he was not yet prepared to name.
His eyes were rimmed with the kind of fatigue that did not come from sleeplessness alone but from watching too much, understanding too late, and remembering failures that did not fade with time.
A faint reflection of the display lit his face in cold blues and greens, the glow highlighting the slight tension in his jaw and the way his lips pressed together whenever the data shifted without explanation.
"…this isn't normal," one of the technicians muttered.
The voice was low.
