Page 34

Above me, high in the gilt curve of the upper gallery, I saw a faint light. One of the private boxes was softly illuminated. Near the railing stood a solitary figure. Alone. Motionless. Looking down at the seats below. Too distant to identify, and too still to be heading anywhere. I watched the figure a moment longer, aware of a faint disquiet I couldn’t name.

The lights began to dim for the second half. Around me, conversations faded as everyone settled back into their seats. I glanced toward the box once more before turning my attention to the screen.

The second half drew me back into the film, and by the time the credits rolled, I had nearly forgotten about the figure above. No one seemed in much of a hurry to leave. People gathered and folded blankets, discarded their empty cups, and lingered in the aisles. Some debated the performance while others were already discussing what we should watch next.

Priya rose, gathering her blanket and tea before turning toward the aisle. Her scarf caught on the carved wooden arm of the chair. She didn’t notice. A man reached it before she did. Without a word, he carefully freed the fabric, smoothed it once between his fingers, and held it out to her.

“Your scarf, Dr. Shah.”

Priya looked up. “Thank you…”

He was already walking away. “Do I know him?” she asked quietly.

I looked after him. “I’m not sure. I don’t recognize him.”

Priya glanced back once more, then gave a small shake of her head. “That was unusual.”

Charlotte and I walked back through the residential corridor in comfortable silence, neither one of us in a hurry to end the evening.

“Same time next month,” she said at the turn toward her corridor.

“I’ll put it on the calendar now.”

“And the month after that.”

“I’ll add that one too.”

She smiled and disappeared toward her suite as I continued toward mine.

It was just past eleven and the building had gone quiet around me. I was mentally reviewing tomorrow’s schedule when my phone chimed. I checked it without thinking.

The email had arrived at three minutes past the hour. It appeared to come from a biomedical research organization I recognized, requesting information about one of Aurora’s sample-processing methods and proposing a possible collaboration. The organization was legitimate. The email appeared authentic too, down to the formatting and institutional signature.

But something was wrong.

The sender knew something about Aurora that we had never made public. There was no reason for anyone outside the project to know it.

I stood in the corridor and read the message again.

A familiar tension gathered in my chest. Years in research had taught me that the appropriate response was rarely panic. It had also taught me not to stand alone in an empty corridor while working out what to do next. I walked the rest of the way to my suite and closed the door behind me. I opened my contacts and called the security extension I had saved from the resident handbook when I first arrived here.

He answered on the second ring. “Barrett.”

“Mr. Barrett, this is Emilia Rossi. I’ve received an email I think you should see. I haven’t responded.”

“Don’t respond,” he said immediately. “Forward it to me directly. I’ll have someone review it within the hour.”

“The details it references are specific. Someone knew what to ask about.”

“I understand.” His voice was steady in the way of someone accustomed to managing alarming information without raising the temperature. “You did exactly the right thing. This will be handled. Please try to rest.”

I forwarded the email and put my phone away.

Something, or someone, was circling Project Aurora. They had not yet touched the center of it. I had learned that threats to research arrived in many forms: funding, politics, institutional failure, simple accidents. This was different. The email had been written by someone who understood enough about Aurora to make the request convincing. And they had known exactly who to send it to.

I changed, switched on the lamp beside the sofa, and turned on the television. The ambiance channels always helped soothe my nerves. The danger lay outside, and Project Aurora was protected by an institution I had come to trust.

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