Derek stood perfectly still, watching the empty gateway.

I walked over to him and placed my hand on his arm.

His muscles were still shaking slightly under his sleeve.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracking. “But I think I can breathe now.”

I squeezed his arm, feeling a deep sense of relief.

“You did great,” I said.

He looked at me, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through his tension.

“We still have a presentation to finish,” he said.

I smiled back. “Yes, we do.”

We turned back to the board members, who were all watching us.

Dr. Thorne stood up from his seat, holding a tablet in his hand.

“Dr. Mitchell,” Thorne said, his deep voice breaking the silence.

“The bypass worked, but the secondary load bank is still showing a minor variance.”

I stepped back to the console, my mind shifting back into analytical mode.

“That’s because the inverter is adjusting to the new thermal baseline,” I explained.

“Derek, can you pull up the thermal modeling on the tablet?”

He didn’t hesitate.