"Even people?" Lily asked. He looked at her over the rim of his mug. "Especially people." She seemed satisfied with that and returned to shading in the little workshop windows. Daniel finished packing her lunch, dropped the last of the strawberries into a container, and slipped a note beneath it that said, "Every big thing started with somebody trying."
After seeing Lily through the school gate, Daniel chose the sidewalk instead of the bus shelter. The twenty dollars he had given Harold the evening before had been his grocery and travel cushion, and he wanted to save the little credit remaining on his transit card for an emergency. He walked nearly two miles to Grant Technologies, past delivery vans unloading, a bakery opening for the day, and a corner shop where the owner was still arranging fruit outside. His boots rubbed against the backs of his heels, but he maintained an even pace. By the time the glass building appeared between the towers, he had decided the walk was worth the money saved and almost forgotten that his feet hurt.
At Grant Technologies, Victoria had been awake since four reviewing the documents for a major partnership meeting. The company was negotiating a contract with a regional network of hospitals that would expand its emergency operations software into several new states. If the contract succeeded, it would protect hundreds of jobs and support a new research division. If it failed, the board would demand immediate reductions in operating costs. Victoria knew those stakes better than anyone, and she treated every interruption that morning as a threat to something larger than the interruption itself.
The previous evening, the head of corporate security, Martin Kessler, had reported an abnormal entry event in the executive wing. An access reader registered a door opening without the sequence of