ValeTech hummed with the usual noise.keyboards clicking, screens glowing, deadlines breathing down everyone's neck. But something felt off.
Her chair sat empty.
Her monitor dark.
The aura she carried sharp, precise, untouchable was gone.
People whispered. Eyes flicked toward her desk, then away, embarrassed to admit how much they noticed her absence.
"Where is Nyra?" one intern finally asked, voice small.
"Out sick?" someone else guessed.
"No," muttered a third. "I heard… she just… vanished. Not even a heads-up."
A ripple of unease ran through the team. Nyra didn't do vanishing. Not without reason.
Adrian noticed first. Of course he did. His chair squeaked as he leaned back, arms crossed, gaze sharp as ever. He didn't like gaps. Gaps meant unpredictability. And Nyra's absence? A gap that gnawed at the edges of control.
He scanned the floor like a predator hunting a phantom. No signs of panic. No mistakes made yet. But he felt it anyway something off. Something wrong.
Elias, unaware of how closely Adrian tracked her, tried to cover her absence with small interventions picking up tasks Nyra usually handled flawlessly. But even he noticed: no one could fill her place. No one could read the code the way she did, anticipate problems before they appeared, or calm the room with just her presence.
Rumors started. Whispers of "overworked" and "crazy smart, too much for ValeTech" circled. Jealousy and awe mingled. And as always, her hybrid genes, her locs, her effortless aura of control people noticed. People envied.
The missing deadlines weren't missing yet, but her projects stalled ever so slightly, enough for attention to prick. Adrian caught himself pacing near her desk, mind spinning through possibilities, the corner of his mouth twitching like he wanted to call her.
He didn't.
He couldn't.
Because in her absence, Nyra's presence was felt more strongly than ever. Her silence filled the spaces she had left. The code she had written echoed on screens still running. Her name floated like a ghost, sharp, intelligent, untouchable.
And somewhere in the mix, someone finally muttered under their breath:
"She's dangerous."
Yes.
She was gone. But ValeTech knew without her, the edges were exposed. And everyone, in some quiet corner, realized: when Nyra came back, things would never be the same.