The smell of fresh, solvent-heavy white paint and industrial floor adhesive hung thick in the air of the raw, unfinished loft in Aurelia's northern commercial district. Strands of thick, gray Category 6 data cables snaked out from an unmasked server rack in the corner, spilling across the bare concrete floor like exposed veins.
Daphne Jin stood at the center of the room, her thumbs moving over her tablet screen as three brand-new Bloomberg terminals flickered to life on a makeshift desk composed of a heavy plywood sheet resting on metal sawhorses. Behind her, the remaining six former junior analysts from Vault Guard Financial were unboxing high-performance monitors, the sharp, rhythmic rip of packing tape echoing off the bare brick walls.
