On the forty-second floor of LyraNova Tower, the conference room floor was made of glass.
Everyone said it was symbolic: transparency, accountability, a clear view from the top. Mara Venn thought it was a threat. Beneath her heels, the city looked small enough to step on.
She had been summoned at 7:10 a.m., which meant something had gone wrong before the market opened. Mara was Director of Internal Integrity, a title that sounded decorative until a scandal appeared. Then she became the woman no one wanted to see standing in their doorway.
At the head of the table sat Adrian Vale, interim CEO, sleeves rolled up, tie abandoned, expression calm in a way that irritated her immediately. He was too composed for a man whose company’s flagship product had been linked overnight to the death of a whistleblower.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said.
“I didn’t come quickly,” Mara replied. “I came exactly fast enough to preserve the chain of custody.”
A few executives shifted. Adrian almost smiled.
On the wall behind him, a muted news feed looped footage of Elian Shore, former LyraNova systems analyst, smiling awkwardly at some charity gala three months earlier. Beneath the image was the headline: TECH WITNESS FOUND DEAD HOURS BEFORE TESTIMONY.
Elian had been scheduled to appear before the National Ethics Tribunal that afternoon. His testimony concerned Aurora, LyraNova’s predictive decision software used by banks, hospitals, and public agencies. Officially, Aurora optimized outcomes. Unofficially, according to Elian’s encrypted message to regulators, it had been trained to bury certain kinds of people.
Poor applicants. Elderly patients. Single mothers. Anyone whose lives were statistically inconvenient.
“Was it suicide?” asked Nella Cross, the Chief Legal Officer, in a tone that suggested she preferred the answer to be yes.
Mara placed a sealed evidence pouch on the table. Inside was a silver access card, its corner melted black.
“This was recovered from Elian Shore’s apartment by our security liaison before police arrival,” Mara said. “It belongs to this building. Executive level. Someone used it to enter his unit at 11:46 p.m. last night.”
The room went cold.
Adrian leaned forward. “Whose card?”
“That,” Mara said, watching every face, “is the interesting part.”
Nella stood. “We should not discuss this without outside counsel.”
“We should not have collected evidence from a death scene before police arrived,” Mara replied. “But someone did, and now I need to know why.”
Adrian’s phone vibrated on the table. He glanced at it, and for the first time his composure cracked.
“The tribunal has moved up the hearing,” he said. “They want me on record in two hours.”
Mara looked through the glass floor at the miniature traffic below. Elian Shore was dead. The company was already controlling the story. And the only man with the authority to open every locked door in LyraNova was looking at her as if she were the last honest thing in the building.
She hated that her pulse noticed.
Then the conference room lights flickered, and every screen in the room turned black except one.
A video appeared: Elian Shore, alive, pale, terrified.
“If you’re watching this,” he said, “the first woman in the room is the only one you can trust.”
Mara stopped breathing.
Everyone turned to look at her.
