Chapter 234

As the words fell, her slender fingers flew over the control panel's keyboard, moving so fast they practically blurred. The big screen split in two. On the left-there was a minimized internal diagram of the Aether System. On the right-another nearly identical diagram popped up. The programmers watching instantly sucked in a sharp breath. The code on both sides wasn't just "similar"-it was completely identical. But here's the kicker-the timestamps on Aether's side stretched back three years, sprinkled with updates showing an evolution. On the right, though? Every single timestamp was crammed into one timeframe-exactly a year ago. The perfect alignment of dates practically screamed: this was a straight-up copy-paste job. ***** Meanwhile, over at the hospital. Angelina was watching the livestream, ready to see Calliope crash and burn. But the second those two matching diagrams showed on screen, all the color drained from her face. She lunged for her phone and frantically dialed Oliver. "O