Chapter 583

Chapter 583:

They stepped out of the car and entered the main atrium. A giant glass dome arched high overhead, and intricate, full-scale models of satellites hung suspended from the ceiling by nearly invisible wires, rotating slowly in the climate-controlled air.

Belle craned her neck, scanning the vast space for a directory.

Then she stopped. She raised a manicured finger toward the second-floor mezzanine. “Look,” she whispered, a cruel smirk twisting her lips.

Grayson followed her gaze.

On the glass-paneled walkway above, a woman in a simple beige trench coat walked alongside a man in a white lab coat. She carried a thick stack of manila folders pressed against her chest.

It was Isolde.

Belle let out a short, mocking laugh. “I knew it,” she said, shaking her head. “Look at her. Even as the great ‘Sophia,’ she cannot shake her old habits—still running around like an assistant, fetching files. Some things never change p>

Grayson stared up at the second floor. His chest tightened.

Fetching files?

𝗡o𝘷е𝘭𝘴 𝗶𝗻 𝘵𝗿𝘦𝗇𝘥 𝗼n ѕ.𝗰𝗼m

He looked at the heavy steel doors Isolde was moving toward. The sign mounted above them read: Advanced Orbital Mechanics — Level 5 Clearance Required.

You did not need Level 5 clearance to fetch files.

He said nothing to Belle. He simply lengthened his stride and moved faster toward the stairs, driven by a desperate, burning need to see what was about to happen.

The core laboratory on the second floor of The Institute was dead silent.

Fifteen of the most brilliant aerospace scientists in the country stood in a tight semicircle, staring at a massive, floor-to-ceiling glass whiteboard. Its transparent surface was covered in dense, chaotic strings of orbital mechanics equations—the final sequence left conspicuously blank. They were stuck.

Professor Eldridge Nelson stood at the front, rubbing his temples. “If only Sophia were here,” he muttered, his voice carrying slightly in the sterile room. “This is a direct variant of the Phantom Algorithm she proposed four years ago. We are missing the final variable p>

Isolde stood at the back of the crowd, a black dry-erase marker held loosely in her right hand.

She stepped forward.

“Excuse me,” she said softly.

She eased past a senior researcher in a white coat. The man’s expression flickered with annoyance for a fraction of a second—until he saw her face. He stepped back immediately, his eyes widening.

Isolde walked directly to the glass board. She did not hesitate. She did not pause to study the previous equations. She simply pressed the tip of the marker against the glass, and the sharp squeak of the felt tip cut through the absolute silence of the room.

She began to write.

Her hand moved with blinding speed. Complex calculus and fluid dynamic variables flowed from the marker like water, each number set down without a moment’s hesitation or doubt. The quiet murmurs of the scientists faded entirely. The only sound left was the frantic squeaking of the marker against glass. Several researchers drew sharp, audible breaths as the mathematics unfolded before them.

Isolde slashed a final, definitive line beneath the last equation and drew a clean circle around the result. She turned and tossed the marker into the aluminum tray. It landed with a sharp clatter.