Miles’s hand trembled over the mouse. Outside, the wind moaned against the skyscraper’s windows. He looked at his half-finished design. Beautiful, elegant, deadly.

The server room hummed a low, mournful C-sharp. Miles Chen, a senior structural engineer at Hara-Moriya Construction, stared at his screen. The deadline for the San Remo Viaduct’s foundation plans was 6:00 AM. It was 3:00 AM. He was only halfway done.

The problem wasn't the math. It was the paperwork. The monster of paperwork. Every beam, every rebar tie, every cubic meter of concrete needed a corresponding submittal log, a transmittal, a request for information. The client, the state DOT, demanded "Pype-ready" data—a proprietary format linked to Autodesk's acquisition, Pype, an AI meant to automate this exact hell.