8:45 The clock just blinked, and the link is live.

I’m jacked into the secondary cooling manifold, & the data is pouring in like liquid mercury raw, encrypted, & beautiful. Evo’s internal grid is a cluster of black ice & heavy duty logic gates, but compared to the silence of the last three weeks, this is a symphony. I can hear the hum of the facility’s core, a rhythmic, deep-bass throb that’s practically singing to my deck.

I dropped a silent ping into the mainframe. No response from the security sub-routines yet. I’m ghosting through their sectors like a virus in a clean system, tracing the breadcrumbs Mouse used to leave when we were just kids dreaming about the big time. It feels like she’s guiding my hand, nudging the cursor toward the backdoors, whispering the bypass codes through the static in my ears.

The cherry blossom scent is back, faint & sweet, layering over the sharp smell of my own cooling gel. It’s not a glitch tonight.

It’s a sign.

Evo’s got their precious bio-tech locked down behind triple redundant encryption, but I’ve got the key, & I’m ready to snap the lock. They wanted to play with the foundations of life? Fine. I’m here to rewrite their source code & turn their entire operation into a digital bonfire.

If I don't signal out in an hour, assume I’ve burnt the bridge. The APDS is ready, the data bomb is primed, & for the first time in a month, I’m not running from the shadows, I’m the one casting them.