The OrionX building rose from the California landscape like a monument to human ambition, all glass and steel reaching toward a sky that seemed both invitation and challenge. At 6 AM, the parking lot was already half full with the cars of engineers, technicians, and support staff who measured their lives in countdown sequences and delta-v calculations.
Eli badged into the main entrance, nodding to Security Guard Martinez who'd been working the morning shift for three years and still called him "Mr. Drake" despite Eli's repeated attempts at first-name basis. The lobby's centerpiece was a scale model of the Saturn probe—sleek, silver, and deceptively simple for something designed to survive the gravitational maelstrom at the edge of ring systems.
"Eli!" The voice belonged to Dr. Sienna Vale, OrionX's Chief Medical Officer, who was emerging from the elevator bank with a tablet in one hand and a coffee that smelled infinitely better than yesterday's gas station offering.
"Morning, Sienna."
"Are you feeling alright? You look..." She tilted her head, studying him with the clinical attention that made her invaluable for astronaut psychological evaluations. "Different."
"Different how?"
"Less like you're carrying the weight of the entire mission on your shoulders. It's a good look." She fell into step beside him as they waited for the elevator. "Speaking of the mission, Isabel Crowe wants to see you. Something about timeline adjustments."
Eli's good mood evaporated. Isabel Crowe was OrionX's primary investor representative, the woman who held the company's financial future in her perfectly manicured hands. Her meetings were never social calls.
"Did she say what kind of adjustments?"
"The kind that make accountants happy and engineers miserable, I'd guess." The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside together. "Floor 12?"
Eli nodded, watching the numbers climb. OrionX's hierarchy was literally vertical—administrative offices on the lower floors, engineering and research in the middle, and executive suites at the top. He'd always appreciated that his lab was positioned exactly in the middle: close enough to the ground to remember what reality looked like, high enough to glimpse the sky.
"Sienna," he said as they passed the eighth floor, "if someone you care about had a medical condition—something serious—would you want them to tell you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "This is rather philosophical for 6 AM."
"Hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, yes. Even if—especially if—the knowledge might change how you interact with them." The elevator dinged at the twelfth floor. "Truth is usually better than uncertainty, even when it hurts."
The doors opened to reveal the engineering floor in its morning chaos. Three dozen workstations hummed with activity as the day shift took over from the skeleton crew that maintained round-the-clock monitoring of the probe's systems. Wall-mounted displays showed telemetry data, weather patterns at the launch site, and the slowly ticking countdown: 41 days, 14 hours, 27 minutes.
Eli's workstation occupied a corner position with optimal sight lines to both the main display and the coffee machine. His three monitors were already active, having been running simulations all night. The night shift had left him a note: "Orbital insertion parameters look good. No anomalies detected. Maria says the guidance system is singing like a bird. —Jake"
"Drake." The voice cut through the morning bustle like a laser through atmospheric scatter. Milo Harlan approached with his characteristic mixture of confidence and barely concealed hostility, carrying a tablet that undoubtedly contained problems disguised as suggestions.
"Milo."
"Heard you're finally doing that CNN interview. About time we had some positive press coverage." Milo's smile was sharp enough to cut titanium. "I've been fielding a lot of questions from the technical press about our backup systems architecture. Thought you might want to coordinate our messaging."
Translation: Milo wanted to make sure he got credit for his contributions to the mission. Eli couldn't entirely blame him—Milo's redundancy protocols were genuinely brilliant, even if his interpersonal skills needed work.
"I'm sure whatever you tell them will be accurate," Eli replied diplomatically.
"Oh, it will be." Milo's smile widened. "I always believe in complete transparency. About technical specifications, project timelines, personnel decisions..."
There was something in his tone that made Eli look up from his monitors. Milo's expression was carefully neutral, but his eyes held a glint that suggested he knew something he thought Eli should be worried about.
"Is there something specific you wanted to discuss?"
"Just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page. Team unity is so important for mission success, don't you think?" Milo gestured toward the main display. "Especially when there are so many... variables... that could affect performance."
Before Eli could ask what that was supposed to mean, his desk phone rang. The caller ID showed an internal extension from the executive floor.
"Drake."
"Eli, it's Marcus. Isabel wants to see you in Conference Room A. Now."
"What about?"
"She didn't say, but she brought lawyers."
Eli's stomach dropped. In aerospace, lawyers meant one of three things: contracts, lawsuits, or congressional investigations. None of them were good news six weeks before launch.
"I'll be right up."
He hung up to find Milo watching him with something that might have been sympathy if it hadn't been coming from Milo.
"Problems?" Milo asked.
"Nothing I can't handle."
"Of course not. You're Eli Drake, the man who solved Saturn's gravitational mathematics. I'm sure whatever's waiting upstairs is just another equation to balance."
Eli gathered his tablet and access badges, ignoring the way Milo's words felt like a challenge wrapped in false encouragement. Around them, the engineering floor continued its morning routine, oblivious to the political currents that could sink the entire project.
As he walked toward the elevator, Eli caught sight of the countdown clock again: 41 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes. Time enough to solve a thousand technical problems, but possibly not enough to navigate the human ones that seemed to be multiplying like orbital debris.
The elevator rose toward the executive floor, carrying him away from the safety of pure mathematics and into the messy realm of corporate politics, where even the most elegant solutions could be overruled by people who measured success in quarterly reports rather than successful orbital insertions.
His phone buzzed with a text from Noah: Good luck today. Remember: you're not just good with numbers. You're extraordinary with them.
Despite everything, Eli smiled. Maybe Sienna was right—maybe some truths were worth the uncertainty they brought. And maybe, just maybe, the gravitational pull of one person's faith could provide enough stability to weather whatever storms were waiting on the executive floor.
The elevator doors opened, and Eli stepped forward to face whatever Isabel Crowe and her lawyers had in store for him.