“It’s a profitable one,” he countered, standing and walking back to the smartboard.“We need to reframe Aura’s value proposition. Not as‘saving the world,’but as‘saving money.’”
“That strips it of its entire purpose!”
“Its purpose, under my leadership, is to generate revenue!” he snapped, turning on her.“Or did you forget the guillotine my father has hanging over our heads?”
The word“our” hung in the air. It was the first time he’d acknowledged their shared predicament so directly.
Frustration boiled over. She stood and marched to the board, snatching a red marker.“Fine. You want a profit-driven model? Let’s give you one.” She began slashing aggressive numbers onto the board, her handwriting a furious scrawl.“We tier the service. A basic, free version that offers minimal energy savings—your‘gateway drug.’Then premium tiers with advanced analytics and automation for businesses and wealthy homeowners. We use the profit from the premium tiers to subsidize the rollout in developing nations.”
Xan watched her, his arms crossed, a skeptical frown on his face. But he didn’t interrupt.
“It’s a Trojan horse,” she said, turning to face him, her eyes blazing.“We get your precious profit, and we still fulfill the mission. We just have to sell our souls a little to do it.”
A slow, calculating light dawned in his grey eyes. He picked up a blue marker and approached the board.“The tiered model has merit. But your pricing is naive.” He began adjusting her numbers, increasing the premium costs, tightening the features on the free version.“The goal isn’t to be accessible. The goal is to be aspirational. We want the early adopters, the ones who will pay a premium to be first, to fund the R&D.”
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder now, the board a chaotic tapestry of red and blue, of her idealism and his cynicism clashing and merging.
“We’ll need a brutal marketing campaign,” Xan said, his marker squeaking as he outlined a launch timeline.“Focus on the luxuryand convenience angle.‘Aura: The Smartest Home You’ll Ever Own.’We’ll target high-net-worth individuals in tech hubs first.”
“And we partner with a major environmental nonprofit for the philanthropic arm,” Elara added, writing furiously next to his timeline.“To give it a veneer of heart. To make the pill easier to swallow for my team… and for me.”
He glanced at her, a flicker of something that might have been respect in his gaze.“Practical. I’m surprised.”
“I learned from the best,” she said dryly.“You taught me in Stanford that sentiment doesn’t win arguments. Data does. Well, this,” she gestured at the hybrid model taking shape on the board,“is the data we need to survive.”
The night wore on. The city outside his window transformed into a blanket of glittering lights. They argued over every detail—pricing tiers, partnership candidates, launch cities. But the arguments were different now. Less about philosophy, more about tactics. The battle lines had been redrawn not between their opposing worldviews, but around them, a fragile fortress they were building together against a common enemy.
At around 2 a.m., exhausted, Elara slumped into a chair, rubbing her temples. Xan was still standing, staring at their completed, multi-colored battle plan.
“It could work,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“It has to,” she murmured, her eyes closed.
When she opened them, he was looking at her, his expression unreadable in the dim light of the office. The animosity was still there, a banked fire, but it was now sharing space with something else—a grudging, professional acknowledgment.They had created a monster, a beautiful, profitable, compromised monster. And they were its only parents.
“Get some sleep,” he said, his voice rough.“The couch is comfortable. We start again at six.”
He tossed her a blanket from a closet and retreated to his private adjoining bathroom, leaving her alone in the vast, silent office. Elara lay down on the expensive leather couch, the blanket smelling faintly of him. She stared at the glowing smartboard, at the evidence of their temporary truce. The enemy was asleep in the next room, and for the first time, that thought didn’t fill her with dread. It felt, terrifyingly, like a fragile kind of safety.
Chapter 6:
The Leaked Memo
The blare of an alarm from Xan's phone shattered the fragile peace at 5:45 a.m. Elara jolted awake on the couch, her body stiff, her mind fuzzy with exhaustion. For a disorienting second, she didn't know where she was. Then she saw the smartboard, a chaotic monument to their all-nighter, and it all came crashing back.
Xan emerged from the bathroom, his hair damp, already dressed in a fresh, impeccably tailored suit. He looked as if he'd slept eight hours in a five-star hotel, not on a bathroom floor. He barely glanced at her as he strode to his desk, his focus already on the three tablets he was booting up.
"Coffee's there," he said, nodding to a new carafe that had magically appeared. "We have fifteen minutes before the first wave of emails hits."
The temporary alliance of the night before felt like a dream. The professional mask was back, firmly in place. Elara sat up, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, and poured a cup of coffee, the bitter brew jolting her senses awake.
The "first wave of emails" was an understatement. By 6:15 a.m., their inboxes were flooded. The entire company had seen it.
It was an internal memo, leaked anonymously to the all-staff distribution list. The subject line was brutal: "The Lyon-Vance 'Compromise': Selling Aura's Soul for Profit."
The body of the email contained photos of their smartboard from the night before. Someone had taken them through the glass walls of her office. The photos were crystal clear, highlighting every red and blue annotation. Her "Trojan horse" comment was circled in a mocking red digital pen. Xan's "aspirational pricing" strategy was underlined with the caption: "Making the world a better place... for the 1%."
The leak was a masterstroke of corporate sabotage. It perfectly captured the most cynical aspects of their plan, framing their hard-won compromise as a corrupt bargain. It pitted Elara's loyal Aethel team against the Kronos old guard before they'd even had a chance to present a unified front.
