The conference room lights snapped on. The door hissed open. Two men in janitorial jumpsuits stood there, but their shoes were brand new leather, and their hands were empty of mops.
The data was analyzing him. And it had already drawn its conclusion.
He had installed the update himself. It was supposed to be collaborative whiteboarding software. Screen sharing. Video conferencing. Not… this. MaxHub
Not because Ethan drew them, but because the board drew them for him .
The board flickered. For a split second, the reflection in the black glass wasn't his own. It was a woman. Older. Stern. Wearing a headset. The conference room lights snapped on
He tapped the tempered glass surface with his stylus. A satisfying clack . The board recognized his pinch, zoom, and swipe with zero latency. The latest firmware update had promised "AI-driven predictive overlays," but what Ethan saw was something else.
The glare of the sixty-inch MaxHub was the only light in the conference room at 11:47 PM. Ethan Cross, senior analyst at Aethelgard Capital, watched the pixels shift, a slow, hypnotic dance of blues and grays. On the screen was a global market heatmap—red for losses, green for gains. Tonight, the screen was a bruise of crimson. The data was analyzing him
The lines connected themselves.
Slowly, he reached out and pressed "N."
Orlov was supposed to be dead. A ghost. A rumored puppet master who controlled three percent of the world's rare earth minerals.