Chapter 100:


    She spotted the w in their approach immediately. They were using a brute-forceputational method — reliable, but brutally inefficient. Her mind raced, connecting disparate fields of mathematics. She wasn’t solving their problem; she was building a new tool to make the problem obsolete. She found a redundancy in the fuel consumption algorithm and rewrote the code block in real time.


    Three hours.


    Isolde hit the Enter key with a decisive snap.


    The simtion on the main screen whirred to life. The satellite’s path corrected itself, red warning lines shifting to a steady, soothing green. Fuel efficiency climbed by fourteen percent.


    Isolde spun her chair around.


    “Done,” she said.


    The entire bullpen of engineers stared.


    ire walked over, her mouth slightly open. She looked at the timestamp. “That’s impossible. How did you run the regression so fast with one hand?”


    “I didn’t need to,” Isolde said, standing and stretching her stiff back. “The Euler method is too slow for this variable. I used a voice-activated script to apply a modified Runge-Kutta fourth-order method. It’s more elegant. Less work, better results.”


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    ire looked at the screen, then at Isolde. The skepticism in her eyes dissolved, reced by something closer to grudging respect.


    “I…” ire swallowed. “I’m sorry. I thought you were just… And’s friend.”


    “I am And’s friend,” Isolde said. “But I’m also Sophia.”


    “Sophia?” ire frowned.


    “Never mind,” Isolde said. “Just don’t give me busy work again, ire. My time is expensive.”


    “Understood,” ire said.


    Isolde felt a quiet rush of triumph. This was who she was. Not a victim. Not a wife. An engineer.


    Her phone rang — shrill in the quiet office. Not Grayson. A local number.


    “Isolde Carson,” she answered.


    “Mrs. Lancaster?” A woman’s voice, breathless and panicked. “This is Principal Meyers from St. Jude’s.”


    Isolde’s blood ran cold. “What happened?”


    “It’s Kaiden,” the principal said. “There’s been a serious incident. He brought a device to school. A drone. An industrial one.”


    “A drone?” Isolde’s hand tightened on the edge of the desk.


    “He lost control of it. He hurt another student. The police are on their way and the parents are pressing charges. You need toe. Now.”


    Isolde hung up.


    “Is everything okay?” ire asked.


    “No,” Isolde said, grabbing her bag. “The boy I raised. He’s in trouble.”


    “Do you need cover?”


    “Just tell And I had to go,” Isolde said, already running for the door.


    She sprinted to the elevator. A drone. Grayson had bought him that DJI Matricest week. Isolde had told him it was too dangerous. She had told him the carbon fiber des were like knives.


    He hadn’t listened. He never listened.


    And now a child was hurt.


    The scene at St. Jude’s was chaos.


    A police cruiser sat on the frontwn, its lights shing. An ambnce idled near the yground gate.


    Isolde mmed her car door and ran toward the cluster of adults gathered near the swing set.


    She saw Kaiden first. He was standing near the fence, gripping a massive ck remote controller. He wasn’t crying. He looked defiant — chin jutting, eyes wild.


    Belle was there, of course, talking to a police officer and waving her hands.


    “It’s just a toy!” Belle said, her voice high and shrill. “He’s six years old! You can’t arrest a six-year-old!”


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