Chapter 4: Sable Vance Reviews the Roster

The briefing room on the forty-first floor of StreamBlood Tower had no windows, which was not an accident.

Sable Vance had made that decision herself, seven years ago, when she was still VP of Development and the tower was still under construction and someone on the architecture team had sent her a mockup with a panoramic view of the city. She'd looked at it for thirty seconds and written back: *Glass is distraction. Seal it.* The architect had pushed back with something about psychological wellness in high-pressure work environments. She had forwarded him Q3 engagement data from Season 3's finale week and he had not pushed back again.

The room they built her instead was clean, sealed, and entirely lit from within. Twelve screens on the primary wall, each segmented into four quadrants, each quadrant containing a face. Forty-eight faces total, but only twenty-four that mattered. The others were analyst stations—the people watching the people watching the people.