Chapter 16 - Forty-Eight Hours
Victor scheduled my memorial service for Thursday night.
The shareholder vote was Friday morning.
The cruelty of the timing was deliberate.
First he would fill Hayes Technologies headquarters with flowers, photographs, and people grieving my supposed death.
Then, less than fourteen hours later, he would ask the board to surrender emergency control because I was no longer there to stop him.
The memorial became our opening.
Hundreds of employees would enter the building.
Security would be focused on guests, media, and executives.
Victor's own people would be moving constantly.
And somewhere beneath all of them sat my father's offline audit server.
Maya drew the route on a paper floor plan because we no longer trusted digital copies.
"The original research wing connects to the main tower through a utility corridor."
"Cameras?"
Nora asked.
"Two in the corridor."
"Can you loop them?"
"For ninety seconds without creating an obvious audit event."
"We need more."
"Then we create an obvious audit event somewhere else."
Maya looked at me.
"The memorial is being streamed from the auditorium."
"If the stream fails, corporate security will flood the media control room."
"That gives us three minutes."
Evelyn hated the plan.
Dr. Park hated it more.
I was still bruised from the fall.
My ankle was only partly healed.
The baby had been stable, but stress contractions continued whenever I pushed too hard.
"You are not crawling through utility tunnels."
Dr. Park said.
"I am walking through one corridor."
"That sentence becomes less comforting when you are the patient saying it."
"I need to be there."
"No, you want to be there."
She was right.
Maya could retrieve the server image without me.
Nora could protect her.
My presence added risk.
But the offline audit server used my father's biometric recovery system.
Maya believed the final encryption layer might require a Hayes family voiceprint or fingerprint.
My father was dead.
I was not.
That made the decision for us.
At seven thirty Thursday evening, employees filled the headquarters auditorium.
I watched the public stream from a maintenance van parked three blocks away.
My photograph covered the stage behind a row of white flowers.
Richard sat in the front row.
Lauren sat two seats away wearing my mother's emerald bracelet.
She had worn it deliberately.
The camera caught it each time she lifted a tissue to her face.
Victor stood at the podium.
"Natalie Hayes was more than a chief executive."
I muttered at the screen.
"Then stop trying to steal her company."
Nora almost smiled.
Victor continued speaking about my father's vision, my leadership, and the responsibility of those left behind.
Every sentence sounded like theft.
At seven forty-two, Maya triggered the stream failure.
The auditorium screens went black.
The public webcast froze on Victor's face.
Security radio traffic spiked immediately.
"Go."
Nora said.
We entered through a loading entrance using maintenance badges Maya created from inactive contractor accounts.
I wore an oversized utility jacket and cap.
My stomach was impossible to hide completely, but employees rushing toward the auditorium barely looked at us.
The utility corridor smelled like dust and cold concrete.
Maya reached the first camera.
"Loop active."
Ninety seconds.
We moved.
My ankle protested with every step.
At the sealed data-room door, Maya inserted a hardware diagnostic device.
The old lock rejected it.
"Come on."
She whispered.
The camera loop timer reached forty-two seconds.
Nora watched the corridor behind us.
"Maya."
"I know."
The diagnostic light turned green.
The door opened.
We slipped inside.
The room looked frozen in time.
Old server cabinets lined the walls.
A framed photograph of my father stood beside a terminal.
Someone had placed it there years ago and never removed it.
For a second, the sight of him almost stopped me.
Maya powered the console.
A simple message appeared.
AUTHORIZED AUDIT RECOVERY ONLY.
Then a prompt.
VOICE AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.
Maya looked at me.
"Try your name."
I leaned toward the microphone.
"Natalie Hayes."
ACCESS DENIED.
"Try Thomas's recovery phrase."
"What phrase?"
Maya shook her head.
"I hoped you knew."
The screen displayed a hint.
WHAT DO WE DO WHEN THE MAP IS WRONG?
I stared at it.
My father used to ask me that question when I was a child.
Whenever we got lost hiking, he would unfold the map and deliberately pretend it was wrong.
I always gave the same answer.
"We trust the mountain."
The system chimed.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Maya exhaled.
"Your father was impossible."
"You have no idea."
The server contained everything.
Original Helix invoices.
Bank transfer records.
Northstar contracts.
Board communications Victor had deleted years earlier.
And a protected directory called SEPTEMBER EIGHTEEN.
Maya connected an encrypted drive.
"Copying now."
Nora's radio clicked.
"Security just noticed the corridor camera loop."
"How long?"
"Two minutes."
The transfer showed twenty-eight percent.
"We need all of it."
I said.
"I know."
Forty-two percent.
Footsteps sounded outside.
Nora moved beside the door.
Sixty-one percent.
The handle turned.
Locked.
A security voice sounded through the door.
"Maintenance, identify yourself."
Maya kept copying.
Seventy-four percent.
Nora answered.
"Cooling fault."
"Open the door."
"System is in thermal isolation."
Eighty-three percent.
The guard tried his master badge.
The lock flashed red because Maya had placed it in diagnostic mode.
Ninety-one percent.
Another voice joined the first.
Then a woman's voice.
Lauren.
"Override it."
My entire body went cold.
Maya looked at me.
"She should be in the auditorium."
Ninety-six percent.
The door shuddered as someone hit it from outside.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
Transfer complete.
Maya pulled the drive.
Nora opened a maintenance panel at the back of the room.
"This way."
The panel led into a cable passage barely four feet high.
I stared at it.
Dr. Park was going to kill me if Richard did not.
Lauren shouted outside.
"I know you are in there."
We crawled.
The passage descended beneath the corridor and emerged near an electrical room fifty yards away.
My knees hurt.
My back screamed.
The baby kicked so hard I had to stop once and breathe.
Nora touched my shoulder.
"Can you keep going?"
"Yes."
We reached the electrical room.
Maya opened the outer door.
The corridor beyond was empty.
Then every alarm in the building began sounding.
Not fire.
Security lockdown.
Heavy doors closed at both ends of the hall.
Maya looked at her handheld device.
"Someone activated executive containment."
"Who has authority?"
I asked.
"Victor."
"Lauren."
Maya's face tightened.
"And Richard."
The intercom clicked.
Richard's voice filled the corridor.
"Natalie."
I stopped.
Maya looked at me.
Nora's hand moved toward her jacket.
Richard continued.
"I know you can hear me."
He knew.
No more theory.
No more suspicion.
No more advantage of being dead.
"You have something Victor wants."
His voice came through every ceiling speaker.
"If he gets to you first, he will kill you."
I looked up at the nearest camera.
"And you would know."
I said.
The camera light turned toward me.
Richard was watching.
For the first time since he pushed me from the helicopter, my husband and I looked directly at each other through a live lens.
Then he said something that changed the entire night.
"Do not go to the loading dock."
"Lauren is waiting there."
A gunshot cracked somewhere beyond the sealed door.
Nora pulled me behind the electrical cabinet.
Maya killed the lights.
May you like
The building went dark around us.
