Chapter 3 - The Phantom Board Meeting
By New Year's Eve, the panic at Vance Global was palpable. The board had called an emergency virtual meeting. Julian had assured them it was a routine technical hiccup, but investors are easily spooked, especially when an anonymous whistleblower claims the company's primary asset is fraudulent.
I sat in my motel room, tapping into the secure Zoom conference. I remained invisible, an unlisted participant cloaked in layers of VPNs.
"Julian," an older board member barked, his face red on the screen. "We are hemorrhaging clients. The Pentagon contract is on hold until we can verify our security integrity. What is going on?"
Julian smiled, his charisma stretched thin. "Gentlemen, please. We traced the micro-outage to a legacy bug in Marcus's original code. It’s being scrubbed as we speak."
He was blaming the dead guy. Classic Julian.
Elena leaned in next to him, playing the grieving-but-strong widow perfectly. "Marcus was brilliant, but he was messy. Julian has spent the last year cleaning up his infrastructural mistakes."
It was time to speak up.
I didn't use my voice. I used the screen share function. I hijacked the feed, forcing every monitor in the boardroom—and Julian's office—to go black. Then, a document appeared on their screens.
It was the original, undisputed patent filing for the Aegis Algorithm. But the owner wasn't Vance Global. It was Tartarus Holdings. Beneath the document, a text box began to type out in real-time, white letters on a black background.
THE CODE IS NOT FLAWED. IT IS STOLEN. VANCE GLOBAL ENTERPRISES HAS 72 HOURS TO CEASE AND DESIST ALL OPERATIONS USING TARTARUS HOLDINGS IP, OR FACE FEDERAL INDICTMENT FOR FRAUD.
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Julian’s face on the webcam went ghostly white. "Cut the feed! Cut it!" he screamed at his IT director.
But they couldn't. I had them locked in a digital cage. The board erupted into chaos. Julian looked at Elena, and for the first time, I saw genuine, unadulterated terror in her eyes.
