The Woman on the Screen II
The medical suite was empty except for the low hum of refrigerators and the blue glow of sleeping monitors. Nora locked the door behind her, then pulled up the archive on the main workstation.
ACCESS DENIED.
She opened the local mirror.
File not found.
She checked the redundant backup.
Unavailable.
She went to the timestamp logs.
The top line blinked once and vanished.
Nora sat very still.
Someone had not merely rewritten the public page. Someone was cleaning the footprints.
Grant's office had moved fast, but Grant was not a systems man. He gave orders. Other people dirtied their hands making those orders look inevitable.
Nora opened the emergency cache.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then a narrow list appeared, stripped of file content but not of file behavior. It showed access requests, permission changes, and export events. No names, only user IDs.
She took a photo with her phone before the cache could refresh.
The first export had gone out at 8:11 p.m., before the third period ended.
Before Callum lifted the cup.
Before he dedicated it to Sloane.
Before Nora knew she had already been erased.
A second export at 9:39 p.m.
The author field changed at 9:42.
The public tribute package enabled at 9:43.
Version history restricted at 10:06.
Nora looked at the numbers until they made a shape.
This had not been panic.
This had been scheduled.
The press room speakers clicked on overhead. The media staff had patched the conference audio through the building system for late staff and overflow reporters.
Sloane's voice filled the empty medical suite.
"I know people see the glamour tonight," she was saying, "but behind every comeback is a private war. I was lucky enough to fight that war with him."
Nora stared at the workstation.
Private war.
Sloane had never seen Callum after the Montreal game, when the lights in the hotel lobby made him shake so badly Nora had to take him through the service elevator. Sloane had never held a basin under his mouth while he cursed her for pulling him from a skate. Sloane had never watched him fail the same balance sequence six times and break down on the seventh because champions were not supposed to be afraid of standing still.
Nora had fought that war.
Sloane had arrived for the victory portrait.
A knock sounded at the door.
Nora shut the cache window and stood.
"Nora?" Callum's voice came through the wood.
Every muscle in her body knew him. Even now. Especially now.
"Open the door," he said. "Please."
She did not move.
"I got away from them for two minutes."
Two minutes.
She almost admired the cruelty of that.
Three years of silence, and he had two minutes.
"I know what it looked like," he said.
Nora laughed once, silently.
What it looked like.
Not what it was.
"My father pushed the package before I approved it," Callum said. "Sloane was supposed to thank the staff, not take the whole program. I didn't know how far he had gone."
Nora picked up her tablet and opened the screenshot of the modified author field. Lead Medical Architect: Sloane Mercer. Contributing Consultant: N. Vale.
"Nora, talk to me."
On the overhead speaker, a reporter asked Sloane whether she and Callum had discussed wedding plans now that the championship was won.
Nora froze.
Sloane laughed softly.
"Tonight is about the team," she said. "But Callum and I have always believed the best promises are the ones you keep privately first."
Outside the door, Callum went silent.
Nora wondered if he heard it. If he understood what it sounded like from this side of the lock.
The woman on the speaker was not taking credit for a protocol. She was taking the shape of a life. Piece by piece, phrase by phrase, until the public could not imagine anyone else standing there.
Nora opened her private drive and checked the external upload again.
Complete.
Then she copied the cache photo into the same folder.
"I can fix the author line," Callum said through the door, lower now. "I can make them add you back."
Add you back.
As if she had slipped off a guest list.
Nora finally walked to the door.
She did not open it.
"Who exported the file at 8:11?" she asked.
Silence.
"What?"
"The archive was exported at 8:11. The author field changed at 9:42. Version history was restricted at 10:06. Who had access?"
Another silence, longer.
On the other side of the door, Callum breathed in.
"Where did you get that?"
There it was.
Not outrage.
Not horror.
Fear that she knew.
Nora closed her eyes.
The last small, foolish part of her that had been waiting for him to say the right thing went quiet.
"Go back to your press conference," she said.
"Nora, don't do this tonight."
"You keep saying tonight like it belongs to you."
He struck the door once with the flat of his hand. Not hard. Not violent. Desperate enough to make the metal tremble.
"I am trying to protect you."
Nora looked back at the screen, where Sloane's voice still spilled from the speakers, warm and adored.
"No," she said. "You are trying to protect the version of me that stays useful in the dark."
She heard him say her name again, but it did not reach the part of her that mattered.
Nora returned to the workstation. The emergency cache refreshed.
This time the 8:11 export line was gone.
The 9:42 modification line was gone too.
Only the public file remained.
Lead Medical Architect: Sloane Mercer.
Contributing Consultant: N. Vale.
Nora took one last screenshot of the empty log.
Then she created a new folder inside her private drive.
She named it:
THEFT - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHT.
For the first time all evening, her hands did not shake.
Then the system notification arrived.
VERSION HISTORY ACCESS REVOKED BY OWNER: PIERCE EXECUTIVE OFFICE.
