Chapter 4 4

The atmosphere inside the Payne Corp headquarters the next morning was not just tense; it was apocalyptic. People were running. Actually running.

Adam stepped out of the elevator on the 40th floor, expecting the usual hushed reverence. Instead, he found chaos. Phones were ringing in a discordant symphony. His secretary, Jean, looked like she had seen a ghost.

"Mr. Payne!" Jean rushed forward, clutching a tablet. "Thank God. The R&D team is panicking. The manufacturing line in Jersey just shut down."

Adam frowned, striding toward his office. "Shut down? Why? Is it a power outage?"

"No, sir. It's the formula. The synthesis machines... they rejected the code."

Adam threw open the double doors to his office. Inside, his VP of Research, Dr. Aris, was sweating through his shirt. He was pointing at the massive wall monitors that usually displayed stock trends. Today, they displayed a giant, blinking red padlock icon.

"What is this?" Adam demanded.

"It's the Daedalus enzyme, Adam," Dr. Aris stammered. "The system says 'License Invalid.' We can't synthesize the serum. The machines are locked out at the firmware level."

"That's impossible," Adam snapped. "We own that enzyme. It's the core of the Q4 revenue!"

"We don't own it," Aris corrected, his voice trembling. "We license it. From the Haley Trust. I called legal. They said the license had a 'withdrawal' clause executed by the primary trustee."

Adam stopped. The room seemed to spin. Haley Trust. Jessye.

He remembered the shredder. He remembered her calm voice saying, "I'm taking back what I came with."

He thought she meant her clothes. Her books. He didn't know she meant the company's blood supply.

"Get her on the phone," Adam ordered, his voice rising to a shout. "Call her lawyer! Tell them this is a breach of contract!"

"We did," the General Counsel said, stepping out from the shadows of the corner. "They sent back a PDF. It's the trust deed. Clause 44. It's ironclad, Adam. She pulled the plug. Legally."

Adam slumped into his leather chair. The stock ticker on his desk caught his eye. Payne Corp (PYN) was down 8% in pre-market trading. The rumors were already leaking.

"Fix it," Adam whispered, rubbing his face. "Just... find a workaround."

"There is no workaround," Aris said quietly. "She wrote the code. It's encrypted with a chaotic algorithm. Only Dr. Haley can unlock it."

Dr. Haley. The name sounded foreign in Adam's mouth. He knew his wife as Jessye, the woman who organized his sock drawer. Who was Dr. Haley?

Across the city, in the sterile, white-walled sanctuary of W.D. Labs, the atmosphere was reverent.

Jessye walked through the main lobby. She wore a structured white blazer and wide-leg trousers that swished with purpose. She approached the high-security turnstiles.

A young security guard stepped forward. "ID, please, ma'am. This is a restricted area."

Before Jessye could reach for her bag, the Head of Security, a massive man named Miller, sprinted from the desk. He shoved the young guard aside, not gently.

"Stand down!" Miller barked. He turned to Jessye, straightening his uniform. "Dr. Haley. My apologies. He's new."

Jessye smiled, a small, genuine curve of her lips. "It's fine, Miller. Good to see you."

She leaned forward. A blue laser scanned her iris.

Beep.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED: DR. JESSYE HALEY. CLEARANCE: TOP SECRET / PROJECT LEADER.

The glass gates slid open silently.

As she walked into the main atrium, heads turned. Scientists in lab coats stopped their conversations. A hush fell over the room. It wasn't the silence of fear; it was the silence of awe.

Professor White, an elderly man with wild grey hair and a Nobel Prize on his shelf, hurried over. His eyes were wet.

"Jessye," he choked out. "You came back. We thought... we thought the suburbs had swallowed you whole."

"I took a detour," Jessye said, grasping his hand. "But I'm back. How is Project Icarus?"

"Stalled," White admitted. "We needed your brain on the protein folding sequence. No one else can see the patterns like you do."

"Let's get to work," she said.

For the first time in three years, Jessye felt her brain waking up. It was like stretching a muscle that had been cramped for too long. She wasn't Mrs. Payne here. She wasn't a prop. She was the architect.

Back at the penthouse, the domestic ecosystem was collapsing just as fast as the stock price.

It was lunchtime. The new private chef, a man Karly had recommended, was eager to impress. He prepared a peppercorn-crusted wagyu steak.

Joshua sat at the table, swinging his legs. He missed his mom, though he wouldn't admit it. The house felt too big today. Too quiet.

"Here you go, little man," the chef said, placing the plate down.

Joshua took a bite. It was spicy. He liked spicy. He took another.

Three minutes later, he started to cough.

"Grandma?" Joshua wheezed. He clawed at his throat.

Eleanor looked up from her magazine. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Josh."

"Can't... breathe..." Joshua's face was turning red. Hives were erupting along his jawline.

Eleanor dropped her magazine. She screamed. "Help! Someone help! He's choking!"

The housekeeper ran in. "It's not choking! It's an allergic reaction! The pepper! He's allergic to black pepper oil!"

"Get the medicine!" Eleanor shrieked. "Where is the medicine?"

The housekeeper ran to the cabinet where the first aid kit was kept. She dumped it onto the counter. Band-aids. Aspirin. Gauze.

No EpiPen.

"It's not here!" the housekeeper cried. "I can't find the reserve box! Mrs. Payne always kept one in her purse, and she... she took her purse! The backup supply... I don't know where she hid it!"

"Useless!" Eleanor screamed. "You're all useless!"

Joshua slid off the chair, gasping for air, his eyes wide with terror.

Adam's phone rang in the boardroom. He ignored it. It rang again. Mother.

He picked up, annoyed. "Mother, I'm in the middle of a crisis-"

"Josh is dying!" Eleanor wailed. "The ambulance is coming! That woman took the medicine! She tried to kill him!"

Adam dropped the phone. The screen shattered completely this time.

He stood up, his legs feeling like jelly. The patent crisis vanished. The stock price didn't matter.

Jessye hadn't taken the medicine to hurt them. She had taken her own belongings. The backups were somewhere in the house, hidden safely away from humidity and light, just as the manual instructed. But no one had ever read the manual.

And for the first time, Adam realized that his "automated" life wasn't automated at all. It was manually operated, twenty-four hours a day, by a woman he had called a prop.

And the prop was gone.