Beneath the table, Grey’s warm hand finds my knee, his touch steady and reassuring, grounding me in the present.
I’m safe.
“We’ve just witnessed Dr. Langley assault Dr. Stanley and steal her work,” Jamie’s voice cuts through the tension, and a red dot on the screen highlights my laptop under the intruder’s arm as he unlocks the door and flees the apartment, leaving me unconscious on the floor with the door wide open.
Langley cuts in, sharp and defensive. “I already told Miss Stanley that I’m sorry she was hurt by an intruder, but to accuse me of this is outrageous! This could have been anyone! There’s nothing that identifies this person as me, or that what was stolen is the lensless AR project.”
The CEO nods, his expression cautious. “There’s no definitive evidence linking Dr. Langley to this incident. As it stands, there’s no way to conclusively prove that he was the one involved. This is a case for the police, not for a meeting.”
Grey’s hand tightens just a fraction on my knee, a silent signal that he’s with me, that we’re not backing down.
Jamie rewinds the footage to the moments just before I walk inside. “This is a critical moment,” he says matter-of-factly. “Listen carefully.”
The audio plays, and the room holds its breath. The intruder is silent, but when there’s the click of the door as I unlock it, a single word slips out, clear as day.
“Fuck.”
The guys weren’t able to catch it despite watching the footage over and over. It wasn’t audible to the naked ear, but Jamie was able to detect it and enhance it until Langley’s nasal voice was unmistakable.
Jamie continues, “Using advanced voice recognition technology, I have matched this voice to recorded conversations of Dr. Langley.” The screen splits, showing a comparison ofLangley speaking during a meeting and the voice from the break-in. The match is undeniable. I feel a small surge of satisfaction as murmurs ripple through the room. Langley’s fists clench on the table, his knuckles white.
“This is not proof,” he snaps, his composure cracking completely. “Four letters aren’t enough to prove a speech pattern. This is a ridiculous attempt to pin something on me.”
Jamie doesn’t miss a beat. “During the night of the attack, Dr. Stanley’s health tracker recorded a distinct irregularity in the intruder’s heartbeat pattern. It resembled the heartbeat pattern of someone with a slight cardiac irregularity.”
“Hasn’t he mentioned his heart issues before?” one of the board members whispers to another, casting a sidelong glance at Langley.
Langley’s eyes narrow, but a flicker of panic crosses his face.
Gotcha.
“After detecting this unusual heartbeat pattern during the attack, I cross-referenced it with data from Dr. Stanley’s health tracker for every person who had ever entered her apartment. This particular irregularity is uncommon, and only one individual matched it. The data strongly indicates that the person who attacked her was Dr. Langley.”
The room erupts into a flurry of whispers, the board members visibly shaken by the evidence presented. Langley’s face drains of color, his earlier bravado crumbling under the weight of the undeniable proof.
Hendricks steps forward. “I can confirm that the footage is authentic,” he states. “Dr. Langley coerced me into providing him the spare key my daughter had to Dr. Stanley’s apartment.”
“This is all fabricated!” Langley’s composure shatters completely. “You think you can frame me?” he shouts, desperation etched in every word as he glares at the guys. “Justbecause you can’t handle not being the golden boys of Elysium anymore?”
Misha meets my eyes for a brief moment before speaking up. “You’re the one who couldn’t handle not being the golden boy,” he says coolly. “You stole from Dr. Stanley because you knew her work would outshine anything you could ever produce.”
The chairman leans forward. “Dr. Stanley, if what you claim is true and you can prove your ownership, we will take immediate action.” He retrieves a laptop from his briefcase, quickly navigating a few screens before sliding it over to me.
My heart skips a beat.
This is it.
Oliver leans in, connecting this laptop to the conference room’s display, too, so everyone can see what I’m about to reveal. My hands tremble as I enter the access codes, but the guys are right beside me, their presence grounding me as I dive into the core of the AR project.
Seconds stretch into what feels like hours as I dig deeper into the code, meticulously searching for the marker I left behind. And then, there it is—the sequence, my signature, hidden in plain sight, unmistakable and irrefutable.
“There. That’s my copyright marker. It’s been there from the beginning, embedded in the core code,” I announce as I type in the final command.
‘Ctrl-Shift-A-S.’
The room falls silent, every eye glued to the screen as they wait for what’s to come.
