She stared at the screen. Version 18.7.4 wasn't supposed to exist. The official release was 18.7.1. Someone had rebuilt the MSI—signed with a valid Microsoft certificate, but carrying something extra.
Her phone buzzed. A text from the lead: "Good work. Don't tell anyone about the extra table. Welcome to Chimera." msoledbsql_18.7.4_x64.msi
But something felt wrong. The logs showed the driver had registered itself—then opened a secondary connection. Not to the production SQL cluster. To an IP in a decommissioned subnet. Subnet 10.0.47.0, last used by the old "Project Chimera" team, disbanded three years ago. She stared at the screen