hecked the time. 7:51 a.m.
Right on schedule.
Noah preferred walking the last few blocks. The quiet helped him think -- or not think, depending on the day. The closer you parked to Aerodyne, the more cameras tracked your every breath.
He passed through the front lobby without a word. His badge buzzed green at security, granting him access to Sublevel 3: Systems Engineering.
The lab was colder than usual.
As he stepped inside, his eyes were drawn immediately to the main terminal at the far end of the room.
Dr. Elias Merren's desk. Empty.
Noah stopped walking.
Merren was never late. Never absent. Rain, sickness, earthquakes -- the man showed up. 6:40 a.m. sharp. Black coffee in hand, always.
Noah stared for a few seconds.
Then moved on.
By midmorning, the hum of the lab had settled into its usual rhythm -- clicking keyboards, murmured conversations, the occasional hiss of pneumatic doors. Noah sat at his workstation with his hoodie still on, staring at code he had already written three days ago.
He wasn't behind. He was never behind.
He toggled between windows just to look busy, fingers occasionally tapping a few keys to keep the activity light on his terminal blinking.
Ten feet to his left, two junior devs debated firmware updates like they were cracking a case. Behind him, someone was coughing endlessly into their elbow. Just another day.
At 12:30, a folded paper airplane landed on his desk.
Noah blinked once and looked over.
Jayce Ramírez, two desks away, leaned back in his chair with a smirk.
"That's the fastest I've ever seen someone write 200 lines of absolutely nothing," Jayce said. "You good, man?"
Noah didn't answer.
Jayce rolled over and perched on the edge of the desk. "You've been twitchy since eight o'clock. And no Merren? Feels weird, right?"
Noah gave a quiet nod. "Yeah. It does."
Jayce's grin faded a little. "You two talked a lot. You wanna talk--"
"No," Noah cut in. Then, a beat softer: "Thanks."
Jayce stood and tapped his desk twice. "Alright. Stoic mode: engaged. But if you wanna smash a printer later, I'm around."
Noah allowed himself half a smile. Almost.
The afternoon passed slower.
At one point, Noah noticed a K-10 drone prototype hovering inside the adjacent test room. Perfect motion, perfect silence. Its targeting system had been his team's last project -- something he'd worked on for three months.
But he knew the firmware had been tampered with after it left his hands. Line items vanished from the logs. Updates pushed in the middle of the night by unknown dev IDs. When he brought it up to Merren two weeks ago, the older man had said:
"Document everything. If it's what I think it is... we won't be fixing bugs anymore."
Now Merren wasn't here. And nobody could say why.
Noah finished the day without finishing anything.
He shut down his terminal at 5:00 on the dot and took the elevator back up in silence. Outside, the sky had gone gray -- Edgeport's version of nightfall.
His fingers hovered over his phone. Still no response.
Still no read receipt.
Maybe he's sick. Maybe he took a day off.
But Merren didn't take days off. Ever.
By 6:17 p.m., Noah stood in front of Merren's townhouse in The Verge. The porch light flickered. No sound from inside.
He knocked. Waited.
No answer.
He knocked harder. Still nothing.
The flower pot beside the door hadn't moved since the last time he'd been here. Underneath it -- still there -- was the spare key.
Noah hesitated. Then let himself in.
"Elias?"
The house was too quiet. Cold.
He walked past unopened mail, a dirty coffee mug, and an unfinished blueprint on the table. The office door was ajar.
He saw the foot first.
Noah froze.
The rest of the scene came into view slowly. Dr. Elias Merren slumped over his desk. Blood dried on the hardwood floor beneath him. A clean gunshot wound to the temple. A terminal screen blinking beside his hand.
Noah didn't speak. Didn't move.
Just... stared.
The world went still.
Sirens echoed faintly down the block, growing louder.
Noah moved quickly.
He wiped the keyboard and mouse with the inside of his hoodie sleeve, careful not to leave a trace. The flash drive was still transferring -- the progress bar inching forward. 74%... 89%... 100%.
He ejected the drive, tucked it under a stack of blueprints on the far table, and grabbed an empty coffee mug from the kitchen. He carried it with him and sat on the bottom stair, resting his elbows on his knees, heart thudding behind his ribs.
A minute later, two patrol officers pushed through the front door, guns raised.
"Hands where we can see them!"
Noah lifted both arms calmly, slowly setting the mug down. "He's upstairs," he said. "Office."
They moved past him, clearing each room. One officer gasped when she entered the study.
"Dispatch, confirm. Male, late sixties, apparent gunshot wound, no pulse."
More cars arrived. A paramedic unit. A third officer -- older, more deliberate -- approached Noah on the stairs.
"You the caller?"
Noah nodded.
"Name?"
"Noah Stroud. I work with Dr. Merren at Aerodyne."
The officer pulled out a notepad. "What made you come here tonight?"
Noah's jaw tightened slightly. "He didn't show up to work. He never misses a day. I... got worried."
"Did you have a key to the house?"
"He told me once where the spare was. I remembered."
The officer scribbled something down. "Did you touch anything inside?"
Noah gestured to the coffee mug beside him. "That's mine. From the kitchen."
"And upstairs?"
"No. I didn't go near him."
The officer studied him for a long moment. "You seem calm."
"I don't feel calm," Noah said flatly.
Inside the study, voices murmured behind the door. Words like "self-inflicted," "entry wound," and "nothing disturbed."
Noah stayed silent.
Another officer came out, arms crossed. "Gun looks clean. No sign of a struggle. Guy probably sat down and pulled the trigger."
Just like that?
The older one nodded. "We'll let corporate know. Aerodyne'll probably want their own guys on this."
Noah's stomach tightened.
As the officers moved through the home, Noah stood. Calmly walked to the kitchen. Took the mug to the sink and rinsed it.
Don't act weird. Don't rush.
In the corner, he spotted the flash drive still hidden beneath the blueprint stack. He stepped between it and the line of sight, casually straightening the table, folding the top sheet of the blueprint over it. His hands moved without shaking.
"Hey," one of the cops called. "We'll need your contact info."
Noah gave it without flinching.
"You okay to get home?" the officer asked.
Noah nodded again. "I'll walk."
"Alright. Thanks for calling it in."
Noah stepped outside into the cold air, heart pounding. Every breath felt heavier than the last.
He didn't look back.
He just kept walking, hands in his hoodie pocket... gripping the flash drive like it was a loaded weapon.