Chapter 4

The next morning, the adrenaline had worn off, leaving a grim determination in its wake. I sat in my motel room, which now felt more like a command center, a whiteboard propped against the wall covered in names and connections. Brenda, Jake, Henderson. They were pawns. The real players were still in the shadows. Why my house? I pulled up the county zoning maps on my laptop. The answer was disappointingly simple. My parents' property sat on the edge of a large, undeveloped parcel of land recently rezoned for major commercial development.

My small house was a key piece of a much larger, more valuable puzzle.

My phone buzzed, shattering the quiet. It was an automated notification from my company's HR system.

`Subject: Confirmation of Your Resignation`

I stared at the screen, my blood running cold. I clicked it open. It was a formal email, thanking me for my years of service and confirming that my resignation, effective immediately, had been accepted. My access to all company systems would be revoked within the hour.

I hadn't resigned.

I immediately called my direct supervisor, a man named Peterson. He picked up on the second ring.

"Alex? I was surprised to see your resignation email this morning. Everything okay?" His voice was laced with a false concern that set my teeth on edge.

"I didn't resign, Peterson," I said, my voice flat. "I'm in the middle of a family emergency. I never sent any such email."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Well, that's awkward. We have the email right here. Sent from your account yesterday evening. It was very... heartfelt. Said you needed to step away to focus on your family."

The 'family' narrative again. They were coordinating this. The smear campaign wasn't just public; it was being used to dismantle my professional life as well.

"Peterson, that email is a forgery. I need you to lock down my account and start a trace on that email's origin. IP address, metadata, everything."

"Alex, calm down," he said, his tone shifting to one of condescension. "Maybe you're just stressed. People do things they don't remember. Besides, the board has already accepted it. It's done."

"It's not done," I said, my anger rising. "I built the core architecture of that company. I am a major shareholder. You can't just 'accept' a forged resignation."

I hung up and immediately booked the first flight back to San Francisco.

Six hours later, I walked into the gleaming glass and steel headquarters of my company. The place I co-founded. The place that felt more like home than anywhere else. But today, it felt alien. The receptionist looked at me with pity. Colleagues who would normally greet me with a handshake or a pat on the back now avoided my gaze, whispering to each other as I passed. My keycard didn't work on the elevator to the executive floor.

I had to be escorted up by security.

I walked into Peterson's office without knocking. He sat behind his large desk, looking uncomfortable.

"Alex, this is highly irregular."

"Show me the email," I demanded.

He slid a printout across the desk. It was crafted to look like me, using phrases I might use, but the sentiment was all wrong. It spoke of a secret family I had to return to, of responsibilities I could no longer ignore. It was a masterpiece of character assassination, disguised as a resignation letter.

"I didn't write this," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "And you know it."

"The digital signature is valid," Peterson said, refusing to meet my eyes. "It came from your encrypted company laptop."

"Then give me the logs," I challenged. "Give me the VPN access logs for my account for the last 48 hours. Show me the timestamp of the last login and the IP address it came from. Our security protocol, the one I designed, logs every single keystroke. Prove it was me."

Peterson squirmed in his chair. "Alex, this isn't necessary. There's been... talk. About your situation back home. The stories online... about you abandoning your wife and child..."

So that was it. They weren't just using a forgery; they were using the smear campaign as justification. They wanted me out, and this was the perfect excuse.

"The stories are lies, Peterson. Part of a coordinated attack against me. And you're letting it happen."

I pulled out my personal tablet, my fingers flying across the screen. I still had back-end access through a personal failsafe I had built years ago. It was for emergencies. This qualified.

"I'm still working," I said, turning the tablet to face him. I showed him the code I had committed to a private server just last night, work for our next-gen project. "These are timestamps from last night. I was working on Project Chimera. Does that look like a man who resigned?"

Peterson stared at the screen, his face pale. He had no answer. He had been caught in a lie, relying on a narrative that I had just proven false. The air in the room was thick with his betrayal. He wasn't a mastermind, just a weak man taking the path of least resistance, throwing me to the wolves to avoid a hassle.