Chapter 7
“What is your price?” she asked bluntly.
The consultant, Marcus, shifted his weight. He opened his mouth as if to advise her on strategy, then closed it. He knew better.
“My price for what, Olivia?”
“For the source code. The complete transfer of the Aegis Engine, including all repositories, documentation, and the full perpetual license to operate it without your oversight.”
I leaned back in the chair. For the first time that morning, I felt the dull ache in my lower back—the legacy of eighteen months spent crawling under conveyor belts and splicing junction boxes with cold fingers while George Whitman stood above me holding a flashlight.
“It’s not for sale,” I said.
Her eyes flared. “Everything has a price, Harold. Don't be theatrical. Two million? Three? We can structure it as an asset acquisition through our private equity sponsor. You can retire today.”
“I’m forty-nine years old,” I told her. “I don't want to retire. And Aegis isn't just running your four plants. It runs three other industrial clients across the Midwest. It’s my life’s work. I’m not selling my brain to a management firm so your consultants can rebrand it, break it during the first quarter update, and blame the original developer when Line 1 crashes into a scrap heap.”
Olivia’s face tightened until her skin looked translucent around the cheekbones.
“Then what are you proposing?” she whispered. “You sit here looking at the clock. You know we cannot let this floor go dark. A single hour of downtime across these four facilities costs this company one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in tier-one contractual penalties with our automotive customers. If we miss the three o'clock delivery to the Detroit assembly plant, they will pull our supplier certification by midnight.”
“I know the Detroit contract,” I said. “I was here when George signed it. I’m the one who told him we could meet the sixteen-minute delivery variance window.”
“Then you know what’s at stake!”
“I do,” I said. “The difference is, you only learned about it when it threatened your quarterly bonus. I’ve been living with it every morning since 2021.”
I reached into my briefcase, which sat on the floor beside my feet, and drew out a second folder. This one wasn't creased. It was fresh, white cardstock, containing three identical sets of printed documents prepared two days ago, right after Olivia’s second email arrived in my inbox.