The last place Ethan Blake wanted to be was a tech conference named "Inspire 2.0."
He had just left a room full of industry bigwigs who wanted a piece of his name, his legacy, or his guilt. He wasn't sure which. They threw buzzwords like confetti—integration, innovation, investment—and all Ethan could hear was static.
He ducked out before the panel ended, slipping past a line of camera drones and badge-wearing interns. He needed air—or a power outage.
Instead, he found a quiet hallway labeled Maintenance and Technical Staff Only. It was roped off, but a loose panel caught his eye.
He pushed through.
The hum of active servers greeted him, low and pulsing like a heartbeat. He stepped into the dim light of the server room, where lines of blinking blue lights cast digital shadows across the floor.
And there she was.
Crouched behind a cooling unit, tangled in data cables and wearing mismatched socks, sat a girl.
Her hair was short, asymmetrical, dyed the color of cherry soda, and she was muttering to herself in a language that was half tech-speak, half profanity.
"Can't you just behave like a decent protocol, you arrogant little—"
She looked up.
Paused.
Frowned.
"…You're not security," she said flatly.
"No," Ethan replied, amused. "And you're not maintenance."
She grinned. "Not officially."
Her fingers danced across a portable console balanced on her knee. "One of the routers was overheating. I got bored waiting for the IT guys to fix it, so I did it myself."
"Just like that?" he asked.
"Just like that," she echoed, without looking at him. "Who are you?"
He hesitated. He always did.
"Ethan."
She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
"You're not going to ask for my last name?" he added.
"I don't care about last names. I care about how many command lines you can write without Googling."
Ethan smiled despite himself. "Fair."
"Ivy," she said, finally standing. "Not maintenance. Not interested in networking—unless it's literal."
They stood across from each other, surrounded by humming servers and cables like digital vines. She was shorter than him by a head, but her energy filled the room like voltage.
"You don't recognize me?" he asked, tilting his head.
She squinted. "Should I?"
He didn't answer. He liked the way that felt—anonymous. Like he was just Ethan. Not Blake. Not Neal. Just… someone curious.
"Well," she said, brushing her hands on her jeans. "Since you broke into my workspace, the least you could do is not touch anything important."
He leaned against a terminal. "Like this?"
She lunged forward. "That's a temperature regulator—if you mess with it, we both get a very expensive haircut from thermal surge."
He lifted his hands in surrender. "Duly noted."
She stared at him for a second longer, then smirked. "You're not as clever as you think, Ethan Whatever."
"And you're not as chaotic as you pretend to be."
"Oh," she grinned. "Stick around. You'll change your mind."
He did.
But neither of them knew then that this moment—this glitch in the system—was the beginning of something far bigger than code or chaos.
It was the spark that would become the fire.
Ethan stayed where he was, arms casually crossed, watching Ivy return to her work like he didn't exist. It wasn't arrogance—more like effortless focus. She typed with a rhythm that reminded him of old jazz: unpredictable, but fluent.
He waited a full thirty seconds before speaking.
"So what are you doing in here, really?"
"I told you," she said without looking up. "The heat regulation's messed up. Server Four's spike nearly fried the whole lower hub."
"And you just happened to be here to fix it?"
She turned, finally, and gave him a crooked grin. "I'm not here to fix anything. I'm here to test the system. They gave out temp access passes to student engineers. I just… extended mine."
He blinked. "That's not allowed."
She shrugged. "Neither is gatecrashing the VIP panels, Ethan."
His name sounded different coming from her—like it didn't belong to a family feud or a newspaper headline. It just belonged to him.
"Touché," he said, smirking.
She stepped closer and leaned against the adjacent console, crossing her arms. "So what's your deal?"
"My deal?"
"You wandered into a locked tech wing and found me mid-fix like it's normal. You've got expensive shoes, a tailored jacket, and a weird vibe like you're trying to be mysterious but secretly hoping someone recognizes you."
Ethan blinked.
"…Nailed it, didn't I?" she asked, proud.
"More than I'd like to admit."
"Thought so." She pushed off the console and unplugged her portable unit with a flick. "You're lucky I didn't throw you out."
"I'd like to see you try."
"Oh?" She stepped closer. "You think I wouldn't?"
He was taller, stronger, and probably better trained in self-defense. But she had this way of tilting her head and looking straight through people, like she saw every weak point behind their confidence.
"Okay," he murmured, amused, "maybe you'd succeed."
"Damn right I would."
They stood like that for a breath too long—static hanging between them.
Then the hallway lights flickered. A power fluctuation.
Ivy moved immediately, typing a quick override.
Ethan stepped back, impressed.
She caught his look and gave him a side-eye. "What?"
"Nothing. Just... it's rare. People who see a system cracking and don't panic."
"I don't panic," she said flatly. "I patch."
The server room light stabilized. She packed up her gear in silence.
"You gonna report me?" she asked, not looking at him.
Ethan hesitated. "Would you care?"
She met his eyes. "Only if you do it out of pride."
He shook his head. "No. I won't. I'd rather keep the secret."
She smiled again—just a twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Good. Secrets are better when they're shared."
And then she was gone—vanishing through the same maintenance door she entered from, leaving only the faint trace of cherry-soda hair dye and ozone in her wake.
Ethan stayed behind, staring at the server hum, wondering what the hell just happened.
And why, for the first time in months, his chest didn't feel so heavy.
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End of Chapter 1