The silence in the boardroom was deafening. Arthur’s hand remained suspended in mid-air, his smile beginning to falter as Marcus Vance ignored him completely. Instead, the man worth billions walked straight past the head of the table, past the CEO, and stopped right in front of my folding chair.
“Leo? Leo ‘The Ghost’ Miller?” Marcus laughed, his voice filling the room. “I haven’t seen you since you out-coded the entire graduating class and skipped the ceremony to go hiking in the Alps. What the hell are you doing holding a tray of water?”
I stood up, setting the tray down on a side table. “Just doing my job, Marcus. Or rather, my ‘assistant’ duties, as Mr. Sterling put it.”
Arthur’s face went from pale to a sickly shade of gray. “Mr. Vance… you two… you know each other?”
Marcus turned around, his expression shifting from friendly to ice-cold in a fraction of a second. “Know him? Arthur, this man is the reason I survived Advanced Algorithms. He’s the most brilliant architect I’ve ever met. And you just called him your assistant?”
Arthur scrambled, his voice going up an octave. “A-A misunderstanding! Leo is a vital part of the team, of course. He assisted me in the implementation of my Zenith project—”
“Your project?” Marcus interrupted, his eyes narrowing. He walked over to the laptop connected to the projector and tapped a few keys, bringing up the raw code window. “I’ve been tracking this project’s signature through the grapevine for months, Arthur. I know high-level architecture when I see it.”
Marcus pointed to a specific line in the sub-directory of the kernel. “See that line of code there? The one with the recursive loop optimization?”
Arthur squinted at the screen, sweating profusely. “Yes, well, that was a particularly difficult part to… uh… calibrate.”
“It’s a ‘Glitch-Trap,'” Marcus said, using my old college nickname. “Leo always hides a non-functional, aesthetic string of hex code in his work that spells out his mother’s initials in binary. If this is your project, Arthur, tell me: what does that string represent?”
The room went dead quiet. Arthur looked at the screen, then at the board, then at me. He opened his mouth, but only a dry, clicking sound came out. He had no idea. He hadn’t even read the code; he had just stolen the presentation slides.
The CEO stood up, his face reddening with fury. “Arthur, is there something you’d like to tell us? You told the board this was your personal intellectual property.”
“I… I oversaw the development!” Arthur stammered. “It was my vision!”
Marcus stepped back, crossing his arms. “Your vision? Arthur, I came here today to invest fifty million dollars into the person who built Zenith. I don’t invest in ‘visionaries’ who can’t explain their own logic. I invest in talent.”
Marcus looked at the CEO. “I’m still interested in the project. But I don’t do business with firms that bury their geniuses under the heels of liars. My terms are simple: I buy a fifty-one percent stake in this company. Arthur Sterling is fired immediately for ethical violations and intellectual property theft. And Leo Miller is appointed as the new Chief Technology Officer with a full equity package.”
The CEO didn’t even hesitate. He looked at Arthur, then at me. “Arthur, clear your desk. Security will escort you out in ten minutes. Leo… please, take a seat at the head of the table. I think we have a lot to discuss.”
Arthur tried to speak, but the words died in his throat. He looked broken, his expensive suit now looking like a cheap costume. He slunk out of the room, avoided everyone’s gaze, while Marcus pulled out the chair next to mine.
“You always were too humble for your own good, Leo,” Marcus whispered as the board began frantic negotiations. “Now, show them the part of the code you didn’t put in the slides. The part that actually makes the money.”
I smiled, opened my laptop, and for the first time in six months, I wasn’t a ghost anymore. I was the owner of my own future.
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