She had been in his building enough times that the security detail on the ground floor no longer reached for the visitor log. They simply nodded—the particular nod of people who had categorized her and found the category unremarkable. Aurora Castillo. Rora AI. The alliance.
She was expected here, in the broad sense. She belonged here, in the professional sense.
She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.
The ride up was quiet, the mirrored walls returning her reflection in triplicate—the navy shirt tucked precisely into black corporate pants, the black tie sitting straight at her collar, the briefcase in her right hand, her hair drawn back into a ponytail that left the line of her jaw clean. She looked like what she was here to do: work.
That was the first thing she had decided this morning. Whatever else this visit was—and she had not examined the whatever else too carefully—it was work.
