“You stopped it after the spike,” he says. “After the damage would have been done.”
“In a live test, we wouldn’t be running anything without hard fails in place,” I snap. “You know that. This was a simulation, not an open wound.”
“And you still didn’t verify the data source.”
“I was working off a set I’ve used a dozen times before. The export folder shouldn’t have had mislabeled data in it.” I pause. “That’s on me for not checking. But that folder should have been clean. And if someone corrupted the metadata?—”
“You think this is sabotage now?”
“I think something’s wrong,” I say, leveling my gaze at him. “And I want time to fix it?—”
“You need togo home, Lyn.”
I blink.
He doesn’t…he doesn’t ever use my first name.
He must bereally pissed.
“Excuse me?” I stutter.
“Forty-eight hours. No lab access, no sim runs, no late-night bugfixing with one eye open.”
“You’re suspending me?” I ask, and my voice sounds more hurt and less stubborn than I wish it did.
“I’m telling you to get out of your own way,” he says.
“I just told you Iwantto fix it. I’m not making excuses, I’m giving you exactly what I’ve got. If you think I’m happy about this, you’re not paying attention?—”
“Lyn.”
I stop dead.
“You’re too close to it,” he says. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
I cross my arms, trying to fold the ache in my chest into something sharp and defensive instead of…whatever this is. I don’t want to look like a petulant kid in front of the committee. I want to look like a goddamn genius. But the way he keeps saying my name is making it harder to breathe than the hangover ever did.
“I am thinking clearly,” I hiss. “I’m thinking about an error that could make all the data I’ve collected so far entirely pointless.”
“And I’m thinking,” he bites back, “about the fact that you didn’t notice it until it was on the wall in front of the entire board.”
“Because the system didn’t throw a red flag until it hit the end of the test! If I’d caught it at the top of the run?—”
“But you didn’t.”
My jaw locks.
The Merati murmur something behind us—probably a note about protocol or performance or the fact that I’m now one minor breakdown away from losing this entire damn clearance.
The Mlok flicks his gaze from me to Rhyss, then back again. I don’t know what he sees. I can’t even pretend to care.
“I’m not asking for a medal,” I say, quieter now. “I’m asking for forty-eight hours so I can figure out what went wrong.”
“No,” Rhyss says flatly. “You’re asking to solve it the same way you caused it. Alone. Sleep-deprived. Reckless.”
“I’ve always worked like that?—”
“And I’ve always covered for you,” he snaps.
