“Why is our target funding the competition’s golden goose?” Zofia didn’t answer Barty. Her mind, usually a fortress of logic and algorithms, fractured. The polished glass partitions, the hum of servers, even the distant murmur of traffic below, faded into background static. The present dissolved, replaced by a cold, sterile room and a memory she fought daily to keep buried. *** The flickering fluorescent lights of the Novus Health Institute cast stark shadows across Ilona’s gaunt face. Her sister, usually vibrant and quick with a joke, lay tethered to a dozen wires, her breath shallow. Zofia held Ilona’s hand, tracing the fragile bones under her skin. Dr. Agnieszka Pienkowska, her face a mask of practiced neutrality, stood at the foot of the bed, a tablet clutched in her hand. “The foundation has made a decision, Ms. Nowakowska,” Dr. Pienkowska began, her voice low. “Ilona’s current treatment protocol, the experimental gene therapy… it’s being discontinued.” The words hung in the air, leaden. Zofia’s grip on Ilona’s hand tightened instinctively. Ilona stirred, her eyelids fluttering open. “Zofia?” she whispered, her voice raspy. Zofia forced a bright smile, though her insides were screaming. “Just a little update, sweetheart. Nothing to worry about.” She turned a fierce gaze on the doctor. “What do you mean, ‘discontinued’? We were seeing improvement! The latest markers—” “The funding has been reallocated to a different research branch, one focusing on neural regeneration,” Dr. Pienkowska interrupted, her tone detached. “We understand this is difficult, but the resources… they are finite. We can offer palliative care, of course.” Palliative care. A death sentence wrapped in medical jargon. Zofia's breath locked behind her ribs. “No. You can’t. There has to be another way. We can get more funding. I’ll sell everything, I’ll work twenty jobs, I’ll—” “Ms. Nowakowska, please. The decision is final.” The doctor offered a sympathetic, yet utterly useless, glance before retreating from the room, leaving Zofia alone with her dying sister and a crushing silence. Hours later, Zofia sat slumped in a dimly lit diner, the lukewarm chicory brew tasting like stale tin. She had called every contact, emptied her meager savings, hit every digital wall. There was nothing. Ilona had perhaps six months, if they were lucky, without the treatment. “A difficult day, I presume?” a smooth voice purred from the seat opposite her. Roman Orlov, impeccably dressed as always, slid into the booth without invitation. His eyes, dark and knowing, held a predatory glint. Zofia glared, sliding the mug away. “What do you want, Orlov?” He smiled, a slow, deliberate unveiling of perfectly even teeth. “I heard about your sister. Such a tragedy. The Novus Institute can be… selective with patient allocations.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But I have certain… connections. Resources of my own.” Zofia’s heart gave a painful lurch. “What kind of resources?” “The kind that could reinstate Ilona’s treatment and ensure private ward placement for as long as needed.” He paused, letting the implication sink in. “Kestrel Corp, you see, has an interest in Veridian Dynamics. A very particular interest in a project Marek Kosminski is developing. I need someone on the inside. Someone with your… particular skill set, Ms. Nowakowska.” His gaze was unwavering, a challenge. “All you have to do is acquire certain… proprietary algorithms. And your sister lives. Fail, and well… the Novus Institute’s generosity might just run out again.” Zofia’s stomach churned. It was blackmail, pure and simple. A deal with the devil. But looking at Roman’s self-satisfied face, then remembering Ilona’s pale, hopeful smile, she knew she had no choice. Her pride, her ethics, her very soul… they were insignificant next to Ilona’s life. “What do I have to do?” she asked, the words tasting like ash. *** “Zofia! Did you hear me?” Barty’s voice jolted her back to the present. “Novus Research Center! It’s the same place! What are we going to do?” Zofia ran a hand over her face, the memories still sharp, a fresh wound. Marek Kosminski, funding the very foundation that Roman used to twist her arm. The irony was a bitter pill. “We continue,” Zofia said, her voice flat. “We find out everything.” Her resolve, however, was about to be tested. The soft office chatter outside Marek’s glass office suddenly escalated. A broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard and a severe dark suit strode purposefully towards her desk. This was the company's head of asset protection, notorious for purging anyone suspected of internal leaks. “Ms. Nowakowska,” he barked, silencing the bullpen. He planted wide-set brogues in front of her partition. “A word, if you please. Somewhere private.” Zofia blinked innocently. “Oh, hello, Mr. Kalski! Did you need help with the espresso maker again? Marek taught me the ‘sum’ function, so I’m really good with numbers now!” A snicker escaped from a nearby cubicle. The man's brow furrowed. “This isn’t about beverages or spreadsheets. My system flagged an anomaly. Your temporary clearance, issued by ‘Prestige Staffing Solutions,’ contains fabricated records.” He leaned down, dropping into a clipped murmur that carried across the desks. “We believe you’re an outside operative. An infiltrator. And I’m walking you down to the lobby myself.” Keyboards ceased clacking across the floor as analysts gaped. Alerted by the noise, Marek stepped out from his glass corner, studying the standoff with flat curiosity. He had been about to intervene, a frown already forming on his face, when Zofia, with a sudden, clumsy gesture, ‘accidentally’ knocked her oversized, brightly colored thermos off her desk. It hit the floor with a loud clatter, its contents – a sickly sweet, fruit-flavored drink – sloshing across the pristine white floor, heading directly for the man's polished oxfords. “Oh, dear! Oh, no!” Zofia exclaimed, scrambling to retrieve it, her movements exaggeratedly awkward. As she bent down, her elbow swung wide, catching the side of Dariusz’s expensive suit jacket. A small, almost imperceptible *clink* sounded as a tiny, flat device, no bigger than a thumbnail, detached from her sleeve and adhered itself to the fabric of his jacket, just below the lapel. “My apologies! I’m such a klutz! I hope I didn’t… oh!” Her hand brushed against his chest as she fumbled, her fingers brushing the device. “Is this a new badge? It’s so… discreet!” In one swift, fluid motion, hidden by her flailing, she palmed a small, slim data chip from his breast pocket. Splattered with artificial guava syrup, the guard bristled. “That’s it! You’re coming with me right now!” He grabbed her arm, his grip surprisingly firm. Zofia shrank back, putting on an exaggerated look of panic. “But I just wanted to show you the new firewall update I found! It’s in my email, from a really nice man who said Veridian’s system was… ‘super open to bad guys’?” She whipped out her tablet, tapping furiously. “See? It says here, ‘Critical Flaws Detected in Main Perimeter Defense, Exploitable via Unsecured Biometric Gates.’” She held up the screen, clearly displaying a forged email, complete with glaring red alert symbols and a generic, alarmist subject line. The security chief froze, his florid cheeks blanching. His ‘biometric access points’ were his pride and joy, recently installed under his direct supervision. The email was obviously fake, but the mere mention of it, *in public*, was a disaster. More critically, as he watched, Zofia scrolled down, revealing what looked like a direct link to a data repository. “And it says here that Mr. Kalski’s personal login details are… ‘easily compromised’?” she added, reading with an air of bewildered concern. “Is that… bad?” Marek stepped into the circle. “Dariusz. Is there a defect in our biometric systems? And your access keys?” His voice was dangerously calm, devoid of his usual quick temper, which somehow made it more chilling. Dariusz stammered, his gaze darting between Marek’s steely eyes and the accusatory red text on Zofia’s tablet. “No, sir! This is… an absurd fabrication! She’s trying to distract us!” “A fabrication that references my personal login details and an architecture fault before you even ran a diagnostic,” Marek countered. “And before the entire floor, you managed to validate an unverified vulnerability. Again.” He gestured to the email Zofia was still holding up, practically beaming with ignorant pride. “Surrender your badge to HR for an administrative inquiry. Go home. We’ll be in touch.” Kalski stood paralyzed, pink syrup dripping off the toe of his right shoe. He shot Zofia a look of pure loathing, then turned and stalked away, his carefully constructed career crumbling around him. Zofia beamed up at Marek. “Oh, goodie! Does this mean I get a promotion for finding the bad emails?” Marek stared at her for a long moment, a flicker of something unreadable – stunned respect? – passing across his features before he turned away. “Just… try not to start a fire, Ms. Nowakowska.” By midnight, the floor had emptied out, leaving only the dull drone of ventilation fans. Wearing an authorized badge loaded with cloned admin tokens, Zofia slipped through a service stairwell. The air grew colder, heavy with ozone and the scent of heated metal. She descended a flight of utilitarian stairs, the sound of her sensible flats echoing in the deserted corridor. The door at the bottom, marked with a stark red sign, slid open with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of amber LEDs stretched down the dark aisles, server towers standing like steel monoliths. The main server room. The cloned authorization levels on her token unlocked every terminal without a hitch. He truly had been arrogant enough to believe his own systems were unhackable. “Barty, I’m in,” she muttered into her collar mic. “Full access to the core network.” “Clean touch,” Barty’s voice crackled over the line. “Now see what Kosminski buried in that core partition, especially regarding Novus.” Zofia walked deeper into the labyrinth of servers, the cold air raising goosebumps on her arms. Here, in the heart of Veridian Dynamics, with the data of a thousand secrets at her fingertips, she would uncover the truth. The truth about Marek. The truth about Novus. The leverage required to preserve Ilona, or ruin everything. She plugged a sleek, custom-built interface into an available port, watching the familiar cascade of code fill her vision. Her fingers danced over the holographic keyboard, already searching, already digging. The information she sought was here, buried deep, waiting. And she was going to rip it all out, byte by byte, until there was nowhere left to hide. Her gaze fell upon a directory labeled ‘Project Aetherium’ – protected by a triple-layered encryption she hadn’t anticipated. It was heavily secured, more so than anything else she’d encountered. Her target, she realized with a surge of adrenaline, was right behind this digital lock, screaming for her attention. This was it. This was where Marek Kosminski kept his most guarded secrets. And she was about to lay them bare.

A Private War