Chapter 2

Before Rachel could say anything, Eric started to yell at me. "Drop the act, Zachary!" he barked.

I turned toward him and said, "Keep your voice down, Mr. Lawson. You'll scare off your brand-new Maserati."

His expression darkened.

Lisa, on the other hand, simply lowered her head and pretended to be invisible.

Rachel pulled out a chair and took a seat.

"Explain," she demanded.

I sat back down and responded, "I developed the first version of Stormshield while participating in an open-source competition during my second year of community college. After I joined Stellar Technologies, I built the enterprise version on top of the original framework."

Eric scoffed.

"The company paid you, and you developed it on a company computer. Naturally, the end-product should belong to the company," he said.

"I'm not a company employee, though." I shrugged. "You said that yourself."

Eric was at a loss for words.

Rachel shot him a look. She didn't look particularly angry, but she managed to shut him up immediately.

I pulled up several screenshots on my phone and slid the device across the table toward Rachel.

"This is the record showing when the source code repository was created. This is the software copyright registration receipt, and this is the patent application filing notice," I declared.

Then, I added, "The name of the applicant is Zachary Carter."

Rachel picked up the phone. As she looked through the screenshots, her expression gradually turned cold.

"Why didn't the company's legal team file these?" she asked.

I laughed. "Maybe they thought that I was just a temporary worker as well."

Lisa grew anxious and could no longer sit still.

"We can talk about this, Mr. Carter. Please don't get worked up and do anything rash," she urged.

"I'm not worked up," I said as I pointed at the termination notice on the table. "I'm actually in a very good mood today."

Eric slammed his hand on the table. "Are you trying to extort the company?"

I met his gaze.

"When did I ever mention anything about money?" I asked.

"What exactly do you want then?"

"I want to go back to my desk, pack up my things, and leave," I stated.

Eric stared at me and warned, "If you take any company materials with you, I'll call the police immediately."

"Don't worry," I said as I got to my feet. "I have no interest in taking anything that belongs to Stellar Technologies."

When I reached the door, I abruptly stopped walking.

"However," I added, "The company won't be keeping anything I own either."

"Zachary, wait," Rachel stood up and called after me.

I turned around.

Rachel held my gaze, her tone softening as she said, "Let's talk in private."

Eric immediately started to panic.

"Ms. Scott, you can't indulge someone like him. He's just trying to extort money from the company over a few old files," he urged.

"Eric, leave," Rachel demanded as she turned toward Eric.

"Ms. Scott—"

"Leave."

Clenching his jaw, Eric grabbed the documents from the table and walked out of the conference room.

Before he left, he shot me a glare.

I waved at him and said, "Take it easy. I wouldn't want you to trip and damage the car you just took out a loan to buy."

Once the door was shut, Rachel pushed the termination notice aside.

"What do you want?" she asked immediately.

I met her gaze and replied, "You're making this conversation sound like a negotiation, Ms. Scott."

"That's because it is."

I nodded.

"I wouldn't have expected anything less from the CEO herself."

She ignored my joke and continued, "Stormshield currently generates 70% of the company's revenue. Next week, we're signing a Series C agreement with Stanford Capitals. It's estimated to be a two-billion-dollar contract."

I whistled in awe. "Congratulations."

Rachel's gaze remained fixed on me as she added, "If an intellectual property hiccup comes to light right now, the company will fall apart."

"I wouldn't call it a hiccup," I corrected her.

Her eyelid twitched.

I picked up the acknowledgement and tore it in half. Then, I tossed everything into the trash.

"I'd call it a catastrophic vulnerability."

When I returned to my desk, everyone in the technology department was staring at me. News had traveled incredibly quickly.

Liam Sutton, a front-end developer, leaned over and said in a hushed voice, "I heard you got fired, Zach."

I responded with a noncommittal hum.

"How much is the severance pay?" he asked.

"The company stated that I'm not an official employee," I replied.

Liam froze. Next to him, Susie Paige, our colleague from Quality Assurance, stood with her mouth hanging open in shock.

"Not an official employee?" Eric repeated after me. "You've worked here for three whole years! What do they think you were doing here?"

I grabbed the mints from my desk drawer and shoved them into my pocket.

"Who knows? Maybe they thought I was just visiting."

Liam anxiously ran a hand through his hair. "What are you going to do now? Eric just accused you of stealing company assets in the group chat."

When I turned on my computer, the login screen showed that my access had been suspended.

The staff sure worked pretty fast.

I took out my phone and checked my personal email.

I had received more than 20 system alerts.

"Failed to change source code repository administrator permissions.

"Certificate authorization failed.

"Failed to pull from the image repository."

Well, well, well.

The company had just deactivated my employee badge, and the system was already starting to malfunction.

Before my amusement faded, the large screen in the technology department suddenly turned red. Subsequently, a series of alerts began to appear on the screen.

"Risk management API timeout.

"User credit approval failed.

"Partner bank callback error."

The flashing wall of red text looked like the fireworks on New Year's Eve.

At that moment, Donald Lloyd, the senior operations engineer, rushed out of the server room.

"Who made changes to the live system?" he demanded.

No one said a single word.

Eric strode out of his office.

"Why are you panicking? Just restart the entire thing," he instructed.

"We've already restarted it three times," Donald said as he turned to look at him. "The authorization check keeps failing."

Eric's expression shifted. "Isn't the authorization server on the company's internal network?"

"No, it's not," Donald replied. "The core authorization has always gone through Zachary's personal cloud node."

The entire department fell silent.

Meanwhile, I casually packed the cactus on my desk into a cardboard box.

"Zachary!" Eric whipped his head around and yelled.

I looked up and met his gaze.

"What do you want from me? I'm not a company employee," I said nonchalantly.

He stormed over. Suppressing his anger, he demanded, "Restore the access."

"Why should I?"

"The system is down. If our clients suffer any losses, do you think you can afford to compensate them?"

After thinking about it, I replied, "No."

Eric visibly relaxed.

I continued, "So please don't use any of my stuff."

Before he could stop himself, Liam let out a snort.

Eric looked furious.

"You're disrupting the production system on purpose!" he roared.

I picked up my cardboard box.

"Don't throw around baseless accusations, Mr. Lawson. The company revoked my access and even denied that I had ever been a formal employee," I said.

After a brief pause, I added, "I'm just a temporary contractor."

Just then, Rachel walked over from the elevator lobby. Judging by the look on her face, she must've overheard everything.

"Zachary. Conference room," she instructed.

I glanced at the time.

"It's 5:40 pm. I have to leave by six."

She stopped in front of me and declared, "Ten minutes."

"Fine," I replied.

Eric tried to follow us, but Rachel turned around and stopped him from doing so.

"You're not needed here."

Color drained from Eric's face as he replied, "But Ms. Scott… I'm the technology director."

Rachel scoffed.

"From this moment onward, you're suspended from your duties."