Mel spent the next seventy-two hours living entirely on adrenaline, stale coffee, and the cold, unyielding pressure of the Kallen debt.
She and Chloe had initially claimed a large study booth in the library's fifth-floor archives, a place so dusty and cold it felt outside of time. For the first two days, they worked in parallel silence, driven by shared, desperate terror. Chloe grappled with the market-entry analysis, and Mel struggled with the financial modeling and the impossible legal prerequisites.
The initial hours were a blur of crashing failure. Mel needed five years of verifiable economic stability data for the emerging market, the kind of information only expensive, corporate subscription services offered, not the basic university database. She hit the wall hardest when trying to even conceptualize the legal brief for the mandated tax evasion loopholes. It wasn't information in a textbook; it was operational, dirty knowledge.
Around the fifty-hour mark, Chloe began to crack. Her posture slumped, her furious typing slowed, and she started taking frantic, useless breaks, pacing the cold aisle.
"I can't even get past the paywall for the political volatility metrics," Chloe muttered, rubbing her eyes raw. "This isn't a class, Mel. This is a hazing ritual designed to bankrupt us for trying."
Mel, whose focus had narrowed to a cold, single, brilliant point, barely looked up from her screen. "It's a prerequisite. If you can't solve for access, you can't solve the problem."
"But how do you solve for access? Steal a corporate login? Kallen is asking us to be criminals," Chloe argued, frustration turning her voice sharp and brittle. "I'm done trying to scale a locked wall. I'll focus on the elements I can control. I'll make the market analysis pitch impeccable. I have to get some sleep."
Chloe was facing a destroyed GPA, a black mark on her record for recruiting, and potentially being cut from the finance track. For Mel, failing meant all of the above, plus the immediate, life-altering loss of her scholarship and her education. The cost of failure was fundamentally higher.
Mel finally slammed her laptop shut. The math was definitive. She could not do this project alone. Kallen hadn't just made the project difficult; he'd intentionally put the required resources behind a financial paywall. Her low-income scholarship meant she was culled before she even started.
Chloe slowly packed her expensive leather bag, her eyes full of genuine concern. "Mel, come on. You've been here for three days. You look like a ghost. This project won't be worth it if you burn out completely."
"Go, Chloe," Mel said, her voice quiet but absolute, like a promise. "I told you. Everything else is a distraction. I don't need sleep, I need a solution."
Chloe hesitated at the booth entrance, her lips tight. "Don't do anything reckless," she warned, and then slipped out, leaving Mel alone in the deepening, cavernous gloom of the archives.
Furious and shaking with cold, Mel pivoted. If she couldn't research the project, she would research Kallen.
She spent the next few hours digging deep into the university's ancient, poorly maintained digital archives. She ignored news articles and focused on student and faculty history: awards, long-forgotten departmental newsletters, and honors society rosters. She was looking for anyone who had survived an impossible Kallen assignment.
Finally, at 4:17 AM, she found a mention in a 2018 departmental award announcement. A student named Leila Vaughn had won the 'Kallen Merit Prize' for a final project that was simply described as "unparalleled in scope." Mel followed the digital trail until she found an obsolete student forum dedicated to 'Finance Survivors.' Tucked deep within a thread titled 'The Year Kallen Asked Us to Build a Nation,' was a post from a frantic junior, followed by a single, curt reply:
It was an old, defunct email, but it was a path. Mel pulled out her phone and transcribed the address. Everyone on campus knew the stories about Leila Vaughn—a legendary but invisible figure, rumored to be a shadow consultant for tech start-ups, still occasionally seen late at night in the darkest corners of the library, hoarding rare texts. She was an oracle, but an extremely expensive one.
It took Mel an hour to track down Leila's current, working contact information using her alumni association profile and a quick social engineering trick she'd learned in an old cybersecurity elective.
She stared at the number on her phone, her thumb hovering over the 'Compose New Message' icon. Reaching out was an admission of defeat. It meant appealing to a power she didn't understand, begging for a shortcut. But the alternative was a certain, brutal failure.
Mel took a ragged breath and tapped the screen.
To: L. Vaughn Subject: Kallen's RFP (2025) Message: I need access to political volatility metrics and the specific corporate legal brief on the regional tax incentives. I know you can get it. Name your price.
She hit send. Five tense minutes later, the phone vibrated in her hand, the sound deafening in the silence.
From: Leila Vaughn Subject: RE: Kallen's RFP (2025) Message: Atrium stairwell. 10 PM. Come alone. Don't waste my time.
Mel felt a cold dread settle in her stomach, but it was matched by a fierce, driving, almost electric hope. Leila Vaughn was the key. Mel carefully tucked her phone away and stood, ready to meet the one person who understood Kallen's cruel, high-stakes game. The desperate pursuit for success was now fully underway.