Chapter 41:


    Grayson stood up abruptly. His chair scraped loudly against the floor. His face was a mask of thunder. He knew. He knew instantly that “Sophia” was right. It was a rookie mistake, a cost-cutting measure that no real engineer would ever approve.


    Belle looked at him, pleading for help. Grayson turned his head away, refusing to meet her eyes.


    Isolde cut the feed. The screen went ck for a second, then lit up with her design.


    There were no ss domes. No gardens.


    It was a honeb structure, squat and ugly, half-buried in the Martian regolith. It looked like a bunker.


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    Isolde began to speak, the mechanical voice narrating the schematic.


    “The Sophia Habitat utilizes a liquid metal coolingyer within the walls,” she exined. “It mimics the vascr system of a living organism. It does not fight the environment; it adapts to it.”


    Effie stood up and ced a 3D-printed model of a single honeb cell on the judges’ table. She pressed a button, and blue liquid pulsed through the transparent veins of the model.


    “Thermal regtion is passive,” the voice said. “Zero energy cost. Zero sensor drift risk.”


    The logic was brutal. It was elegant. It was undeniable.


    Professor Nelson, sitting at the end of the judges’ table, tried to hide a smile. He looked at the woman in the mask and nodded once.


    Grayson stared at the stage. He stared at the masked figure.


    The style. The aggression. The absolute refusal topromise function for form.


    It hit him like a physical blow. He had seen this before. Years ago, during a joint review with the Department of Defense, an anonymous technical assessment from a consultant codenamed “Valkyrie” had torn apart apetitor’s prototype with this exact same ruthless efficiency.


    He looked at the woman’s hands as she typed. Long fingers. No rings.


    A strange, cold feeling washed over him. He couldn’t connect this terrifying, mechanical genius to Isolde, the woman who baked cookies and organized charity gs. Isolde had abandoned her engineering studies at Columbia right after they were married. Isolde cried when he raised his voice.


    This woman was a shark.


    Belle sank into her chair on stage, her face buried in her hands. She knew it was over.


    Isolde typed one finalmand. The simtion ended with a green checkmark: Survivability: 99.8%.


    She stood up, took Effie’s hand, and bowed.


    The apuse started slowly, then erupted into a roar. It wasn’t polite pping. It was the sound of engineers recognizing a master.


    The trophy was heavy. It was a solid gold cast of a Martian colony, mounted on a piece of meteorite.


    Isolde held it in one hand, Effie’s hand in the other. They stood on the podium, the stage lights blindingly bright. Isolde kept her mask on. Her eyes, visible under the brim of her cap, were cold and unsmiling.


    Effie beamed. She hugged the base of the trophy, waving at the crowd with her free hand. She looked like she had just conquered the universe.


    Below the stage, the SkyLine team was in shambles. Belle had disappeared, reportedly locking herself in the venue’s bathroom to sob.


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