The good feeling from their first successful case was like a small, warm fire after a long time in the cold. For a day and a half, the team at Miller Holdings enjoyed a unfamiliar sense of purpose and accomplishment. It almost—almost—made them forget the constant, background fear that had been their shadow for so many months.
On the second morning, things felt almost normal. Kaito was at his desk, doing his usual check of the city's digital activity. It was a routine he had started to spot new threats early. He took a sip of coffee, his eyes calmly moving across the information on his screens. It was a quiet, ordinary moment.
Then he stopped dead. His coffee cup hung in the air, forgotten.
"That's... strange," he muttered. His hands immediately leaped to the keyboard, pulling up new search windows with frantic speed.
Ace, who was looking over plans for better office security, glanced up. "What's wrong?"
