The message from Romy screamed across Cosima’s phone, obliterating the last vestiges of her fury at Lazar. Miles wasn’t just deleting her work; he was burying it, torching the earth behind him. He wasn’t covering tracks; he was paving a road straight to Cosima’s professional grave. “Miles, you bastard,” she muttered, shoving her phone into her pocket. The divorce papers, still clutched in her hand, suddenly felt flimsy, irrelevant. This wasn’t about a manipulated marriage or a vengeful ex anymore. This was about survival. Her entire future was being incinerated while she stood on a construction site, arguing with a man who thought her career was his personal plaything. She broke into a run, the gravel scattering under her boots, ignoring the shouts of the foreman. The Stratum campus, with its gleaming chrome and glass, blurred into a single, terrifying monument to her impending doom. She burst through the sliding doors of the main building, skidding to an abrupt halt in the buzzing lobby. Romy was crouched by a deserted information kiosk, practically vibrating with agitation. “Romy! Where is he?” Cosima demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders. “What’s happening?” Romy’s usually cheerful face was pale, smeared with what looked suspiciously like grease. “The mainframe vault! Level Gamma! It’s locked down tighter than a billionaire’s tax returns. Code Epsilon-7 protocol. No one in, no one out. Miles must have triggered it when he started purging.” “Purging what, exactly?” Cosima’s voice was dangerously low. “My drafts, or the whole database?” Romy wrung her hands. “Every folder bearing your name! The Zylos Expansion files, your thesis, the conceptual sketches for Project Chimera… he’s scrubbing the system clean, like you never existed! And the backup drives are gone from the file room. He must have taken them.” Cosima cursed under her collar. Miles was thorough. Desperate. But she refused to concede defeat. “Okay,” Cosima said, her mind racing. “Vault. Locked. Can’t go through. So, we go over.” She gestured upwards to the impossibly high, polished overhead, a network of discreet vents visible only if you knew where to look. “HVAC. The old way.” Romy grabbed her own hair. “You’re insane! These aren’t some dusty old academic ducts, Cosima. This is Stratum. They’ll have laser grids, pressure sensors, probably a miniature dragon with a flamethrower!” “We’ll risk the dragon,” Cosima retorted, already pulling Romy towards a maintenance access panel she’d spotted earlier behind a potted ‘Veridian Fern’—a particularly spiky, unyielding plant that matched Stratum’s aesthetic. “Help me get this open.” Minutes later, grunting and straining, they finally pried the panel free. A blast of cool, recycled air greeted them. The interior was surprisingly spacious, a gleaming, tubular labyrinth of brushed aluminium and reinforced conduits, humming with unseen energy. Romy eyed the dark opening with trepidation. “I swear, if this leads to a giant fan… I’m blaming you.” “Just make sure you don’t fall out,” Cosima said, already hoisting herself up. Romy, after a moment of comic hesitation, followed. The metallic clang of the panel swinging shut behind them echoed through the confined space, plunging them into near darkness, save for the faint glow of emergency strip-bulbs along the roof of the ductwork. They crawled, scraped, and shimmied through the labyrinthine ventilation system, the rhythmic whir of air circulation a constant companion. The air grew progressively colder as they neared the data vault, a chill that stiffened their knuckles against the tin. Cosima navigated by memory of architectural blueprints she’d merely glimpsed, relying on instinct and the subtle directional hum of the air currents. “Are we even going the right way?” Romy whispered, her voice strained. “I think I just ingested a dust bunny the size of a pigeon.” “Quiet!” Cosima hissed. A faint buzz of voices filtered up from below, growing louder. She peered through a perforated vent cover. Below them, bathed in the cool, sterile light of a conference room, a high-stakes board meeting was in full swing. One of the acoustic tiles right beneath them sagged precariously. “Oh, no, no, no,” Romy whimpered, just as a particularly portly board member, Ewald Rostova, slammed his fist on the polished obsidian table, making the entire room vibrate. The plaster directly under Romy’s elbow gave a groan. She froze, jaw slack, a flake of gypsum drifting down onto Rostova’s perfectly coiffed silver hair. “—and I maintain, Vice-President Vance, that these projected Q3 losses for the Solara Project are entirely unacceptable!” Rostova boomed, oblivious. Cosima grabbed Romy by the ankle, yanking her back with all her might. The tile shivered, but held. They lay there, utterly still, until the immediate danger passed. Romy exhaled with an audible rattle. “My entire life just flashed before my eyes. It was mostly embarrassing selfies.” Cosima ignored her, pressing forward. The hum of the machinery was a low thrum now, vibrating through the metal. Finally, they reached it – a large, unadorned vent cover positioned right over the main data vault. Cosima used a stray piece of conduit to pry it open. The space below was a cavern of blinking lights, humming machines, and, in the center, hunched over a main console, was Miles Crofton. He was typing furiously, his face illuminated by the sickly green glow of the terminal. His fingers hovered over a command prompt. Cosima steadied her ribs, shoved the grating aside, and dropped with a sharp thud onto the cold, tiled floor. Romy landed with a less graceful, but equally effective, clatter beside her. Miles whipped around, mouth agape, his hand still suspended over the keyboard. “Cosima! Romy? What… what are you doing here? How did you get in?” “Get away from that console, Miles,” Cosima snarled, advancing on him. “You think I’d let you erase years of my life with a few keystrokes?” Miles scrambled backward, his face a mask of fear. “I… I didn’t mean to, Cosima. I had no choice. They were going to fire me. The CEO… he knows about the Zylos audit. He’s going to review everything, and if he finds out I used your work… my sister, Cosima. She won’t last without the treatments.” His voice cracked, tears welling in his eyes. “You think deleting my files will save you?” Cosima scoffed, reaching for the keyboard. “It’ll only make it worse. You’ll be found out, Miles. Just like you always are.” “No, you don’t understand!” Miles cried, pushing her hand away. “It’s not just deletion. Look!” He gestured frantically at the monitor. Cosima scanned the open window. It wasn’t just a purge protocol. It was a complex series of ledger entries, forged invoices, and dummy accounts. Each one routed straight to a newly created shell account explicitly tied to Cosima Fentaro. “What… what is this?” Romy whispered, her voice barely audible. Cosima felt a cold dread seep into her bones. The realization hit her like a physical blow. “You… you planted false financial records,” she whispered, fingers curling into tight fists. “You’re framing me. For embezzlement.” Miles nodded, a single tear tracing a path down his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Cosima. I tried to just delete, but then… the system logs. It was too easy to trace. This… this is the only way. If I go to prison, my sister dies. But if they find *this*,” he jabbed toward the monitor, “they’ll blame you. You’ll take the fall. They’ll never look at me again. It’s enough time to get her through her next few rounds of treatment. Please, Cosima. You have to understand.” His finger, still hovering, moved inch by agonizing inch towards the ‘Execute’ button. Just as his fingertip brushed the key, the reinforced glass doors of the vault blew inward with a deafening crash, showering them with fragmented shards. Lazar Toros stood framed in the wreckage, flanked by a squad of heavily armed personnel. His gaze, fixed on Miles, was utterly murderous.

The Server Room Sabotage