Chapter 4 - The Uploaded Life
The silver casing of the smartphone lay in three distinct pieces near the hearth, the screen spiderwebbed with fractures that caught the overhead recessed lighting. Marcus stared at the ruined device, his chest rising and falling in harsh, uneven rhythms. The raw fury that had fueled him moments before began to curdle into a sickening sense of dread. He looked up, following the line of Elena’s outstretched finger.
High in the corner of the room, nestled discreetly against the minimalist white molding, a small black dome camera stared back at them. Its glass lens was dark, but dead center in its housing, a tiny red LED light pulsed with a steady, metronomic rhythm. Blink. Blink. Blink. It felt less like a security measure and more like a living pulse, monitoring every heartbeat in the room.
"What did you upload?" Marcus asked, his voice barely above a whisper. The anger had drained out of him, replaced by the chilling realization that their entire existence—their home, their finances, their history—was entirely out of their control.
Elena straightened her shoulders, smoothing down the front of her burgundy silk cowl-neck dress with agonizing slowness. The panic that had gripped her earlier was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating assurance that sent a shiver down Coley’s spine from where she still lay curled on the marble floor.
"Everything, Marcus," Elena said smoothly, her voice dropping into an eerily calm cadence. "The patent designs for the neural interface. The clinical trial data that proves the prototype causes severe neurological degradation. And, of course, the personal journals where you admitted that you knew about the side effects six months before the FDA trials began."
Marcus staggered backward half a step, colliding lightly with the edge of the glass console table. His face went completely slack.
"That’s... that’s impossible," Marcus stammered, shaking his head in frantic denial. "The trial data was stored on an air-gapped server in the subterranean lab. It’s physically disconnected from any external network. There’s no Wi-Fi down there."
"There isn't," Elena agreed with a thin, mocking smile. "Which is why I had to physically copy the drives onto a secure drive yesterday afternoon while you were at the board meeting."
Coley groaned, pushing herself up onto her elbows, ignoring the sharp spike of pain in her abdomen.
"You absolute monster," Coley breathed, her voice shaking with pure hatred. "You set up the whole thing. You framed the data leak so that if the board ever found out, Marcus would take the fall for corporate negligence while you walked away with the buyout from Vanguard Industries."
"Vanguard is paying twenty million for the exclusive rights," Elena replied matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather. "And since I hold the power of attorney over Marcus’s corporate shares, the transaction executes automatically the moment the data packet hits their secure server."
Marcus stared at her, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.
"Power of attorney?" Marcus whispered. "I never signed a general power of attorney. I only signed the medical proxy when you had that minor surgery last fall."
Elena’s smile widened, reaching her dark, predatory eyes.
"Check page four of the medical proxy, darling," Elena purred, stepping around the shattered phone on the floor. "You signed it right after we had that celebratory dinner with the investors. You were a little tired, a little drunk, and entirely too trusting."
May you like
Before Marcus could lunge at her, the heavy double white doors at the end of the hallway clicked, and the smart-lock engaged with a loud, final thud.
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