Chapter 217:


    “Right,” And said, shooting a cold look at Daron before following her.


    Isolde strode toward the building, leaving Grayson staring at her retreating figure. He watched as she approached the security gates — expecting her to wait for And to sign her in. Instead, she pulled a badge from her pocket and swiped it.


    The gate beeped green.


    Grayson’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of confusion stirring in his chest. A Level 1 visitor pass. That clearance was restricted to top-tier engineers and board members.


    Inside the elevator, the doors slid shut, cutting off the noise of the lobby. And exhaled slowly.


    “Are you sure you can handle Sullivan?” he asked, his voice low. “That man is stubborn. He’s notorious for looking down on female engineers.”


    Isolde adjusted her cor, her reflection in the polished metal doors showing a woman ready for war. “In this industry, code is the onlynguage that matters,” she said calmly. “As long as my code runs, he’ll have to kneel and beg me — whether he looks down on me or not.”


    The elevator chimed and opened onto the top floor.


    The CyberNet control center was in absolute chaos. Red emergency lights pulsed in a slow, ominous rhythm, bathing the room in crimson. rms red from every direction.


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    Manager Sullivan stood in the center of the room, sweat beading on his forehead, shouting into a headset. “Where is the Orbital team? Why aren’t they here yet?!”


    Isolde walked straight up to him, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. “I’m here. Switch the terminal to me.”


    Sullivan spun around. His eyes widened when he saw her. He looked past her to And, incredulous. “And, are you joking? We need an engineer, not a PR representative!”


    Isolde didn’t waste a second on argument. She stepped past a stunned operator and dropped into the main terminal chair. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a fraction of a second before descending in a blur.


    “Satellite attitude control is lost,” she announced, her voice cutting clean through the panic. “Gyroscope data is overflowing. This is a ssic deadlock.”


    She typed furiously, lines of code cascading down the screen like a digital waterfall.


    “If I don’t reset the kernel immediately, we collide with the space station in three minutes.”


    Sullivan stared at the screen, watching the technicalmands roll off her fingers with terrifying precision. “You — do you even know what you’re doing?”


    Isolde didn’t turn her head. Her eyes were locked on the data stream, her reflection shifting in the monitor’s glow.


    “I’m saving your lives,” she said. “Now shut up and watch.”


    The observation deck was separated from the control floor by a wall of soundproof ss. Grayson and Daron stood there, watching.


    “She’s faking it,” Daron muttered, though he sounded less certain than usual. “She’s just mashing keys. And probably set up a script for her to run.”


    Grayson didn’t answer. He watched Isolde’s hands.


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