Eighteen months. My head spun. Under Richard, I’d been fighting for incremental funding and small-scale tests. Eighteenmonths to full deployment was ... ambitious didn’t cover it. It was insane. It was exactly what I’d dreamed about.
“That’s aggressive,” I said, refusing to let him see how much that timeline excited me.
“I don’t do things halfway.”
“Neither do I.” I stepped closer to his desk. “But let me be clear about something, Mr. Pierce. You bought a company. You didn’t buy me. My team is good, but SEAS is my baby. If you want it to work, you need me. Not as an employee you inherited, but as the person who built it from nothing. Which means I need to know that my input matters. Not Richard’s ghost. Not whatever corporate strategy your board is pushing. Mine.”
The room was very quiet.
“Prove it,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“You say SEAS is your baby. That you’re the one who makes it work. So show me.” He leaned back in his chair. “I want a full civilian implementation plan. I want specifics—target industries, a deployment timeline, cost projections, risk assessment, staffing needs. Everything.”
“When?”
“Six a.m. tomorrow.”
I almost laughed. Twelve hours to produce what would normally take weeks. It was a test, and we both knew it.
“Fine.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite respect—more like recognition. Like he’d expected me to push back on the timeline and was recalibrating now that I hadn’t.
“Use whatever resources you need,” he said. “The building’s yours tonight.”
“It was mine every night for the last ten years.” I turned to leave, then stopped. “One more thing. My team. Every person on the SEAS project stays. Non-negotiable.”
“I already announced that no one’s losing their job.”
“You announced a transition period. I’m talking about permanent positions, with the budget to do this right. If you want eighteen months, I need people I trust.”
A beat. Then: “Put it in the plan.”
I walked out without another word.
I made it to the parking garage before I called Mia. The concrete walls and fluorescent lights felt appropriate—cold, hard, real. No room for feelings down here.
Mia answered on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
I told her everything. Richard’s sabotage. The memos. Storming Asher’s office. The six a.m. deadline.
There was a long pause when I finished.
“So let me get this straight,” Mia said slowly. “Your old boss was screwing you over behind your back for months. Your new boss is the hot stranger from last night who lied to your face. And now you have twelve hours to produce a plan that would normally take a month.”
“That about covers it.”
“And you’re going to do it.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, Charlie. You could walk away. Find another company. Let someone else fight this fight.”
“No. I can’t.” I leaned against the cold concrete wall. “SEAS is mine, Mia. Not Richard’s, not Pierce’s. Mine. And if I walk away, it dies. Or worse—it becomes something watered down and useless, and people get hurt because I wasn’t willing to fight for it.”
Another pause. Then she said quietly, “You’re actually going to pull this off, aren’t you?”
