Version 1.07.0

  Wednesday October 12th

  Kate: I got something

  Me: what??

  I'd gotten so distracted I'd forgotten all about Kate. Guilt hit my stomach and sunk like a lead ball.

  Kate: meet me at your place in an hour. bringing wine.

  I spent the next hour pacing my apartment like a caged animal. What had she found? Was it enough? Had Daniel caught her? Was she in danger? When she finally knocked on my door, I yanked it open so fast I nearly pulled it off its hinges.

  "What happened? Are you okay? What did you find?"

  Kate held up a hand. "Wine first. Story second."

  She pushed past me into the apartment and headed straight for the kitchen. She looked tired but triumphant, the expression of someone who had accomplished something difficult and was eager to brag about it.

  I grabbed two glasses while she opened the bottle. We settled on the couch, and Kate took a long drink before speaking.

  "So. Dan.” She said with a dramatic sigh.

  “Daniel.” I corrected hopefully.

  "He's exactly as pathetic as I thought he'd be." Kate shook her head, something between disgust and pity in her expression. "He asked me out approximately thirty seconds after I congratulated him on his promotion. The promotion that he got because you were fired. He didn't even have the decency to wait."

  "Did you... go to his place?"

  Kate's smile was sharp. "Drinks at that bar on Fifth, then back to his apartment to 'see his new sound system.' Which, for the record, is mediocre at best."

  "Kate."

  "Nothing happened. God, Sam, I'm not that committed to the bit. I told him I was feeling the drinks and sat on his couch and while he was 'freshening up'"...she made air quotes..."I did a little exploring."

  "And?"

  Kate reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. She opened the photos app and turned the screen toward me.

  It was a photo of a pay stub. Vertex Communications was printed clearly at the top. Daniel's name was on the recipient line. And the amount...

  "Is that..."

  "Twenty thousand dollars." Kate's voice was tight with vindication. "Consulting fee, according to the stub. Paid last month. Right around the time your designs probably mysteriously appeared in their branding system."

  I stared at the photo. Twenty thousand dollars. That was what my career was worth. Twenty thousand dollars and a smug smile and a "routine backup" that just happened to catch my "suspicious" files.

  "This is proof," I said. "This is actual proof that he was working with them."

  "It's a start," Kate agreed. "It doesn't prove he stole your designs specifically. But it proves there was a relationship. It proves he had motive. And with a good lawyer..."

  "Kate, this is amazing." I grabbed her hand, squeezing tight. "You're amazing. I can't believe you did this."

  "Yeah, well." She squeezed back, looking pleased despite herself. "That's what friends are for. Now we just need to figure out how to use it without getting me arrested for mail theft."

  "You stole his mail?"

  "Technically the pay stub was just sitting on his kitchen counter. I didn't steal it, I photographed it. There's a difference."

  “Oh, there’s definitely a difference.”

  Kate finished her wine and reached for the bottle. "The question now is what to do with it. We could take it to the board, but they already showed whose side they're on. We could take it to a lawyer, but that's expensive and slow. We could leak it to the press, but that could blow up in our faces. I want you to get your job back, not everyone out of jobs because the shareholders are in a tizzy."

  I thought about the corporate systems I'd been mapping. The email servers. The file storage. The trails of data flowing back and forth between people who thought their communications were private.

  "Let me think about it," I said. "I might have some ideas.” And then after a beat, "Wait a second. How did you get out of there?"

  "Oh, I just left. Told him I started my period and needed to get home before I made a mess. The poor guy looked stricken. He avoided me all day."

  She sighed and closed her eyes. "It was almost so easy that I feel bad about it. Almost."

  * * *

  Thursday October 13th

  I spent Thursday at the coffee shop, going deeper than I'd ever gone before.

  Daniel's Dropbox was easy to find once I knew what I was looking for. His security was laughably bad, just a simple password that my ‘code-vision’, that's what I was calling it today, could read right off the encrypted data. Inside was exactly what I expected: design files, project notes, client presentations.

  And the Meridian deck. All 47 slides of it, ready to present to the clients he'd stolen from me.

  I sat back in my chair, coffee going cold beside me, and stared at the screen. I could see the code now, flowing through the computer, connecting to servers halfway around the world. I could see Daniel's files, his emails, his entire digital life laid bare before me.

  I could destroy him. Right now. I could delete everything, corrupt his files, send his secrets to everyone on his contact list. I could…

  No. But there was another option.

  What if, instead of destroying his presentation, I replaced it with something better? Something that told the truth instead of the lies he'd carefully constructed?

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I thought about Kate's photo of the pay stub. I thought about the emails that must exist somewhere in Holloway's system, the conversations between Greg and Rebecca about why they'd chosen to believe Daniel over me. I thought about all the evidence that was probably just sitting there, waiting to be found. And I started to plan.

  * * *

  The emails were harder to find than I expected.

  Holloway's internal systems were better protected than Daniel's personal accounts. Multiple layers of encryption, monitoring software, the works. But I was getting better at this, learning to read the code like a second language, finding the gaps and weaknesses. And eventually, I found what I was looking for.

  An email chain between Greg and Rebecca, dated one day after my 'suspension'.

  Subject line: "SM Situation."

  Rebecca,

  I've reviewed the files IT recovered. The metadata is compelling, but I'm concerned about the timeline. The file data is inconsistent and the overarching conclusion is that it has been faked. Additionally, SM has been with us for seven years with an impeccable record. This seems out of character.

  That said, frankly, Samantha's salary has been a point of contention for a while. Daniel's been doing comparable work at half the cost. If we handle this right, we can use the investigation to justify a restructuring.

  Let me know your thoughts.

  Greg

  And Rebecca's response:

  Subject line: “RE: SM Situation."

  Greg,

  I understand the concern, but I think we need to focus on protecting company assets. Samantha had full access to those files, and we have no evidence that anyone else was involved. The fact that she didn't catch this earlier, didn't protect her own work from being compromised, suggests a lapse in judgment at minimum.

  I recommend we proceed with the suspension and let the investigation run its course. If Sam is innocent, that will come out. In the meantime, we need to ensure Meridian doesn't walk.

  Daniel has offered to take over the project. His work on similar accounts has been solid. I think we should let him run with it. He's been working closely with Samantha already and I feel like he could finish the project strongly without it causing too many hurdles.

  Rebecca

  I read the emails three times, feeling cold. They'd known. Maybe not consciously, maybe not explicitly, but they'd known something was wrong. And they'd decided it was easier to blame me than to look too closely at Daniel. Easier to "restructure" my position than to admit they'd been fooled. This was going in the presentation. All of it.

  * * *

  Friday October 14th

  The Meridian presentation was scheduled for 2 PM. I was at the coffee shop by noon, laptop open, coffee untouched. I'd been up most of the night, putting together the new presentation. It was beautiful, if I said so myself. A clean, professional deck that started with Daniel's original slides and slowly transformed into something else entirely.

  Slide 1-15: Daniel's work. The designs he'd stolen from me, repackaged with my- now Vertex's branding elements.

  Slide 16: The Vertex pay stub. Twenty thousand dollars for "consulting."

  Slides 17-30: A selection of emails showing the timeline. Daniel asking about my file organization. Daniel offering to "help" with the Meridian project. Daniel's "routine backup" that just happened to catch the planted files.

  Slides 31-40: The Greg and Rebecca emails. The discussions about salary. The decision to protect company assets by throwing me under the bus.

  Slide 41: A simple question. "Who is Holloway- really?"

  It was petty. It was vindictive. It was probably going to destroy any chance I had of ever being hired back. I uploaded it to Daniel's Dropbox anyway.

  The manipulation took more out of me than I expected. Swapping files was more complex than changing numbers or colors. I had to navigate security systems, avoid detection, make sure the replacement was seamless. By the time I was done, my head was pounding and my hands were shaking.

  But it was done. Now I just had to wait.

  * * *

  Kate called at 3:47 PM.

  "Sam." Her voice was tight, controlled. "What did you do?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Don't. Don't pretend you don't know. The Meridian presentation. What. Did. You. Do."

  I closed my eyes. "I take it the meeting didn't go well?"

  "Didn't go..." Kate laughed, but there was no humor in it. "The Meridian execs watched Daniel present evidence of his own fraud for forty-five minutes before someone finally pulled the plug. Greg is having a meltdown. Rebecca is in full crisis mode. Daniel is in the conference room being questioned by legal. And everyone is asking how the hell this happened."

  "Sounds like justice to me."

  "Justice?" Kate's voice rose. "Sam, this wasn't the plan. We were going to build a case, go through proper channels, get you reinstated. Now the whole company is on fire, Meridian is threatening to sue, and I'm sitting here with the pay stub photo that could get me arrested for..."

  "You're not going to get arrested."

  "You don't know that! You don't know anything! You just blew everything up without telling me, without asking me, without even… We talked about this. We wanted to get your job back, not cause me to lose mine. I thought we were a team.” She stopped. Took a breath. "How did you even do this? How did you get into Daniel's files?"

  "I have my ways."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only answer you’d believe.”

  Silence. A long, terrible silence.

  "Sam," Kate said finally. "What's going on with you? And don't say 'nothing.' Don't lie to me. Something is different. Something has changed. The walls, the money for shopping, the fact that you completely cut me out.”

  “Kate…”

  "Are you involved in something? Something illegal? Because if you are, if you've done something that could come back on me…”

  "I haven't done anything that could hurt you."

  "You already have." Her voice cracked. "Don't you get it? I put myself on the line for you. I dated that creep, I stole evidence, I spent my whole week trying to help you. And you just... you went around me. You didn't trust me enough to tell me what you were planning. I thought we were closer than this. You were my best friend. Did you think I would be against destroying Daniel? Did you forget it was my idea to start with? Now you cut me out. You lied to me. You know with everything that’s gone on lying is the one thing I just can’t handle. I thought after talking about Sarah you really felt like you could trust me.”

  I didn't have an answer for that. Because she was right.

  “You know what. Don’t say anything. Just sit there silently, it’s what you do best after all. I need some time," Kate said. "I need to figure out what this means. For the company, for my job, for... for us. I'll call you when I'm ready."

  “Kate…”

  The line went dead.

  I sat in the coffee shop, surrounded by the normal noise of normal life, and felt the weight of what I'd done settle onto my shoulders. I'd destroyed Daniel. I'd proven I was right. And all I could hear was Kate's voice cracking on the phone. The giddy triumph I'd expected curdled into something that tasted a lot like bile.

  * * *

  The call from Holloway came at 5:15 PM. It wasn't Rebecca. It was someone above her, someone whose name I vaguely recognized from company-wide emails. A VP of something or other.

  "Ms. Marion? This is Patricia Wix from Holloway Design. I'm calling about your case."

  "My case?"

  "Yes. As you may be aware, some new information has come to light regarding the allegations against you. The investigation is taking a new direction, and we've decided that your suspension will be converted to paid administrative leave while we sort through the situation."

  "I see."

  "I want to be clear that this is not an admission of wrongdoing on the company's part. We're simply... reevaluating the evidence. I'll be in touch when we have more information."

  "What new evidence?"

  "That's really all I can say for now, Ms. Marion. I'll be in touch."

  "Oh, I see. Thank you."

  I hung up and stared at my phone. Paid leave. The investigation was "taking a new direction." They weren't apologizing, weren't admitting they'd been wrong, but they also weren't firing me anymore.

  It should have felt like a victory. Instead, it felt hollow. I thought about Kate's voice on the phone. The anger. The hurt. The betrayal. I thought about the code shimmering around me, visible now without even trying. The underlying structure of reality, waiting to be reshaped. I thought about the $28,500 in my bank account. Money I'd created from nothing. Money that meant I didn't need Holloway anymore. Didn't need anyone, really.

  Outside the coffee shop window, the sun was setting. Orange and pink light painting the buildings. Normal people going about their normal lives. I closed my laptop and started the walk home. To my newly decorated apartment. To my ice blue walls and my brown blanket and all the evidence of the person I was becoming.

  Kate was mad. Holloway was in chaos. Daniel's career was probably over. And I felt... nothing. Just a strange, electric awareness. And if I was honest with myself, which I probably wasn't, I felt lonely.

  The code shimmered around me as I walked, visible in every surface, every object, every person I passed. A language I was only beginning to understand. I didn't need Holloway. I didn't need anyone's permission or approval. I had the code. I had power.

  The question was what I was going to do with it.

  main page and hit follow and favorite, or leave a rating. Reviews keep small authors alive (emotionally, if not financially. Your support means more than my emotionally repressed self will ever properly articulate.)

  Want to read ahead? My has the rest of book one and a bonus prequel chapter. Patience is overrated anyway.