Morning at headquarters started like it had for the past few weeks, calm on the surface but stretched thin underneath. The corridor operations room was already awake before most of the staff arrived. Screens flickered with route updates, freight logs, and maintenance alerts that never fully cleared anymore. Everything looked stable if you didn't know where to look too closely.
Elena arrived without announcement. She didn't speak to reception. She didn't stop for updates. She went straight to her office, dropped her bag on the chair, and was already scanning the table before she fully sat down.
That was when she saw it.
A sealed file sat in the center of her desk. No courier tag she recognized. No internal dispatch code. Just a stamped legal envelope with a thin red line running across the seal, marking it as urgent in a way that didn't need words.
Alexander was already inside the room when she opened it. He hadn't touched it yet. That alone meant something was off.
