Chapter 44
"Not even a basic slideshow? Is Northstar Architecture planning to just talk their way through this?"
"This is the highest‑level architecture competition in the world. They don't even have a presentation video. Are they trying to insult the judges?"
Whispers rippled across the auditorium, spreading like a rising tide. Designers who had been waiting to watch Northstar Architecture embarrass itself were already smirking, unable to hide their delight.
Up in the VIP section, however, James sat perfectly still. His dark, cold eyes never left the lone, slender figure standing onstage.
Under every stare filled with doubt, mockery, and irritation, Isabella walked toward the center.
She didn't offer a single opening remark. Instead, she tilted her head slightly and gave her assistant, Nora, a clean, sharp gesture.
The crowd went silent.
Then, to everyone's stunned disbelief, Nora and two tall security guards pushed out two massive whiteboards—each nearly ten feet high—and positioned them dead center on the stage.
On the tray beneath them sat only a neat row of thin black markers.
"She's lost her mind!" An elderly judge in the front row burst out, ripping off his reading glasses. His face had gone red with anger. "A whiteboard? She's using a whiteboard at a global summit?"
"If this is Northstar Architecture's attitude, they can walk out right now!" From The Genesis Group's section, Ryan immediately raised his voice, eager to jump in. Inside, he was ecstatic. Without the data files they stole, Isabella really was finished.
But onstage, Isabella showed no hint of panic. Her expression remained cool and striking, untouched by the uproar swelling beneath her.
She almost laughed.
A bunch of mediocrities hiding behind computational power, stealing the discarded scraps she threw away, and thinking that somehow made them masters of the craft?
Today, she would make these rats crawling in the dark, lift their heads, and face a reality they never imagined.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Isabella finally spoke. "Real architecture has never been confined to cold metal servers. It breathes. And the breath comes from here."
She lifted one slender finger and tapped her temple, casual and precise.
As soon as the words fell, Isabella turned sharply. She plucked a marker from the tray.
The cap clattered as she flicked it aside.
Then her wrist snapped.
The black tip streaked across the whiteboard in a long, decisive line.
No ruler. No compass. No laser guides.
The scraping sound filled the now‑motionless auditorium as Isabella's hand moved so fast it left faint after‑images.
On a perfectly blank whiteboard with no grid, no reference points, she began sketching a complex structural decomposition—freehand. Every line was sure, every angle exact.
For a second, it felt as if the entire hall forgot how to breathe.
People stared at her like she wasn't human.
"That… that's impossible…" The elderly judge who had snapped earlier stood up. His hands braced against the table, knuckles white. His voice shook. "Pure three‑dimensional spatial perspective… blind drafting on this level hasn't existed since the Renaissance. It shouldn't be possible in the modern age!"
But Isabella wasn't even close to finished.
She drew while speaking—her voice level, her breath steady.
A stream of complex calculations spilled effortlessly from her lips, numbers so precise they sounded almost unreal. She recited base formulas, adjustments, correction factors—everything that should have taken a supercomputer days to simulate—while drawing faster than most machines could plot.
James's breathing turned uneven.
He watched her command the whiteboard like it was an extension of her own body, watched the radiance pouring off her, fierce and mesmerizing and impossible to ignore.
She was beautiful. Dangerously beautiful. The kind of beauty that made him want to walk onto that stage, pull her into his arms, and hide her from the world.
Within ten minutes, the first giant whiteboard was filled with intricate diagrams and parameters—dense yet perfectly aligned.
Isabella swept one last stroke across the surface.
Silence crashed down over the room.
She turned slowly, the nearly dried marker dropping into the tray. Her frost‑bright gaze slid past the judges and locked onto the center section—onto The Genesis Group.
"My primary framework explanation is complete," she said, her lips lifting in a cold, sharp curve. "Now, let's talk about the masterpiece The Genesis Group claims is award‑worthy."
Dennis jerked as if struck. He forced himself upright. "Isabella! Stop with the theatrics! You think drawing on a board can beat us?"
"Beat you? No." Isabella's voice had no warmth. "I don't compete with architectural trash."
The words hit like a slap.
Before Dennis could explode, she picked up a red marker and walked to the second empty board.
In less than ten seconds, she sketched the core load‑bearing base of the 'Wings of the Oasis' design that The Genesis Group had presented earlier.
"You bragged about your curved load distribution," Isabella said as her pen paused at a crossing point. "Yes, pushing that polymer to its tensile limits is impressive."
Then she slashed a bright red X across the structure's anchoring node.
"But your limited brainpower forgot one fatal detail."
"Every pound of downward force collapses onto this C‑4 grade anchor. You stole an abandoned prototype and never ran a deep reverse simulation. If this building were constructed on the Tech Harbor coastline, a category‑four hurricane would snap this anchor in an instant."
She struck the red marker against the table. The crack echoed across the room.
"What you presented isn't a landmark building. It's a coffin. One storm and it collapses—burying hundreds of lives."
The auditorium erupted.
Cameras swung toward The Genesis Group's section like a firing squad, flashes popping in a dizzying storm.