Mel spent the early evening of the next day doing something she hadn't done since the RFP landed: eating a normal meal. She had promised Jenna they would grab dinner to discuss her upcoming internship applications. Jenna, a law student miles away, met her at a campus café known for its comfort food and terrible wifi. The café was warm, smelling of garlic knots and stale beer. Students sat in loud, happy clusters, their laptops closed.
"So, the Kallen project," Jenna said, tearing a piece off a garlic knot. "It's all anyone in your business school can talk about. It's brutal."
"It's intentionally impossible," Mel muttered, swirling the ice in her plastic cup. "I'm expected to deliver a full corporate strategy in three weeks using data that requires a corporate-level budget."
Jenna leaned forward, her voice dropping. "Look, forget the strategy for a minute. Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Everyone knows Kallen's real test is how fast you break. It's a purge to weed out anyone who isn't psychologically ready to sell their soul."
"I can't afford a soul right now," Mel said, the humor dark and thin. "I can only afford tuition."
"Listen to me," Jenna insisted, placing her hand on Mel's. "I meant what I said: the sacrifice is mandatory. This is when the distractions start to look appealing. Don't fall for it. Guard your focus."
Mel nodded, appreciating the blunt warning. Jenna knew the world Mel was stepping into, and Mel knew Jenna represented everything the Kallen challenge was trying to erase.
Suddenly, Jenna's face brightened as she spotted someone across the room. "Oh! There's my study partner, I gotta run over this brief with him. Promise me you won't sleep in the library again."
"No promises," Mel said, forcing a faint smile. She watched Jenna rush away, blending into the crowd of students whose biggest problem was a late assignment or a bad grade.
The normal atmosphere—the scent of food, the sound of easy laughter—felt like a fragile glass shell that Mel was about to shatter. She felt a profound sadness for the easy life she was giving up, but the moment was fleeting.
Mel finished her water and looked down at the table. On a napkin, Jenna had doodled a caricature of their demanding professor, complete with devil horns and a pitchfork. It was a silly, comforting image, a reminder that the world contained more than just spreadsheets and impossible deadlines. The simplicity of the moment was a narcotic, and Mel felt the pull of its temptation. Just one evening, the voice in her head whispered. Just a few hours of normal.
She stood up, pulling on her coat. Her mind, however, was already halfway back to the Kallen project. She was juggling three core problems: the lack of verifiable market data (now mitigated by Leila's key), the ethical quandary of the proposed supply chain, and the impossible timeframe. The strategy was the easy part; finding a way to present it without sacrificing her core integrity felt like the true challenge.
As she reached the café's exit, the bell above the door jingled, and she bumped shoulders with someone stepping inside. "Oh, sorry!" she murmured, stepping back.
"Mel?"
She looked up and her breath caught. Standing in the doorway, framed by the cold, dark streetlights outside, was Chloe. Chloe was not wearing her usual sharp, tailored clothes, but a simple cashmere sweater and jeans that somehow still looked custom-made. Her expression was unreadable—a careful blend of surprise and calculated ease.
"What are you doing here?" Mel asked, the question coming out sharper than intended. Her internal alarm system, which had been blissfully dormant during dinner with Jenna, was now screaming. This café was miles from their usual haunts.
Chloe offered a tight, almost predatory smile. "Let's just say a good consultant always knows where her competition eats. I was in the area, meeting with a firm that does pro bono work for the Law School." She gestured vaguely into the café. "Looks like I missed your friend. Pity. I love comfort food."
She stepped closer, lowering her voice so that the cheerful student noise became a distant backdrop. "I wasn't looking for you, Mel. But since you're here, let me save you a trip back to the library. The data you need on Kallen's European supply chain—the stuff that's intentionally buried in their non-profit reports? I found it. It's a disaster. It breaks every regulation you're worried about, and if you use it, you win. Instantly."
Mel felt a cold dread settle in her stomach. "And what do you want for it?"
"Nothing," Chloe purred, her eyes gleaming with something Mel couldn't quite decipher. "Not a thing. Just a word of advice. You don't beat a corrupt system by being honest; you beat it by being better at the corruption. Take the data. Use it. Win the RFP. And then we can talk about the next step."
Chloe reached into her slim, expensive leather bag and pulled out a small, encrypted USB drive. She pressed it into Mel's palm. The plastic of the drive felt surprisingly warm.
"The clock is ticking, Mel," Chloe said, her voice dropping to a seductive whisper that cut through the noise. "This is the moment before the Fall. What are you willing to sacrifice for the summit?"
Without waiting for a reply, Chloe turned and slipped into the crowd, leaving Mel standing in the chilly doorway, clutching the USB drive. The garlic knots and easy laughter inside the café suddenly sounded hollow and distant. Mel looked down at the drive, then out at the dark street. The path back to the library and her lonely, principled work now seemed agonizingly long. The distraction Jenna warned her about hadn't been a friend or a party; it was a shortcut, a silver bullet handed to her by the very person she was trying to outmaneuver. The clean life she cherished was dangling from a single, thin thread, and in her hand, she held the tiny, powerful scissors.