“I am,” I said, thinking of the tiny life growing inside me. “We have to finish this.”

We left the penthouse through the secure freight elevator.

The drive to the Fifth Street facility was quiet, the city lights blurring past the armored windows of the SUV.

The air inside the vehicle was cool and smelled of leather.

When we arrived, Koko was already waiting in the lobby, clutching her backpack to her chest.

Her eyes went wide when she saw my soot-stained clothes.

“Elila, oh my god,” she whispered, rushing over to hug me.

“I am fine, Koko,” I said, holding her tight. “But we have a lot of work to do.”

We entered a small, windowless briefing room equipped with high-speed terminals.

Koko set up her laptop, her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard.

I plugged the hard drive into the main terminal.

The cooling fan whirred to life, a steady hum in the quiet room.

“The files are encrypted with a dual-key system,” Koko explained, pointing at the monitor.

“Julian used a corporate administrative bypass,” I said, pointing to the code lines.