Chapter 176

No.1

The wails of Meredith Hastings faded into the damp concrete of the parking garage as Elisa slid into the driver's seat of her Porsche. She didn't look back.She threw the car into gear, the engine roaring to life,and sped out of the subterranean darkness into the cold Manhattan night.

One hour later, Elisa pushed open the heavy glass doors of the executive boardroom on the top floor of Aethel Intelligence.

The atmosphere inside the room was suffocatingly tense. The massive, wall-to-wall digital screen at the head of the mahogany table was split into multiple video feeds, connecting the Aethel board with the senior trustees of Johns Hopkins University.

In the center of the screen, broadcasted live from her VIP hospital bed, was Allena.

She still wore the dramatic head bandage. Devon Browning sat beside her bed, acting as her aggressive proxy.

"Vanguard Medical and its investors will not tolerate this," Devon was barking into the camera, his voice echoing through the Aethel boardroom. "Elisa Wilder is a violent liability. We demand her immediate removal from the joint project. If she is not terminated and locked out of the servers by midnight, Vanguard will pull its funding, and JHU will face a massive public relations disaster."

No.2

Several of the older JHU trustees on the screen shifted uncomfortably, their faces pale. The threat of losing millions in funding and facing a media scandal was working. They were preparing to capitulate.

Elisa walked straight to the head of the tabole.

She didn't play the recording of Meredith. That was a criminal matter, meant for the police. Here, in this room of academics and capitalists, she was going to execute Allena using the only currency that mattered: data.

"Nobody is pulling any funding," Elisa said, her voice cutting through the room like a steel blade.

Devon sneered at the camera. "You don't make the rules anymore, Wilder. You're finished."

The boardroom doors opened again. Alastair Cromwell strode in, his presence instantly dominating the physical space. Right behind him was Dr. Gottlieb Blevins, his face a mask of thunderous,academic fury.②

No.3

The chatter on the video feeds died instantly. The presence of the tech billionaire and the Nobel-nominated medical titan commanded absolute silence.

Elisa didn't sit down. She plugged her encrypted tablet into the boardroom console.

."Under Section 4 of the Joint Venture Agreement,"Elisa announced, her fingers flying across the glass screen, "I am initiating an immediate, Level-1Compliance Review of Dr. Allena Mills and Vanguard Medical."

She hit a key.

The video feeds of the JHU trustees shrank,replaced by massive, scrolling lines of code,server logs, and highlighted data packets.

"Over the past three weeks," Elisa stated, her voice cold and clinical, "Dr. Mills has contributed zero

No.4

original code to the Chiron architecture. Instead, she has repeatedly uploaded fabricated clinical trial data to simulate progress."

Allena's face on the screen turned the color of chalk."That's a lie!" she shrieked, her fragile victim persona vanishing. "She's manipulating the logs!"

"I am not finished," Elisa snapped, her eyes locking onto Allena's digital image.

Elisa swiped her screen again. A new document appeared,flashing with red warning markers.

"At 11:42 AM today," Elisa continued, "an external server registered to Vanguard Medical attempted to bypass our firewall using a brute-force algorithm.They were actively trying to steal the core neural weights of Project Chiron. This isn't just academic fraud. This is corporate espionage."

The JHU trustees gasped. Stealing data was the ultimate, unforgivable sin in their world.

No.5

Devon's face flushed dark red. "This is a fabrication!You have no proof Vanguard authorized that ping!"

Dr. Blevins stepped forward, placing his large hands

flat on the mahogany table. He leaned into the microphone.

"I have personally reviewed the server logs," Dr.Blevins rumbled, his voice shaking with disgust. "The data is irrefutable. Dr. Mills has violated the most sacred tenets of medical research. She is a fraud,and she is a thief."

The backing of Dr. Blevins was the final nail in the coffin. The JHU trustees immediately began nodding, their expressions turning from fearful to outraged.

Devon panicked. He played his last, desperate card."If you do this, Vanguard pulls its fifty million! The project dies todday!"

No.6

Alastair Cromwell let out a low, dark chuckle. He stepped up beside Elisa, looking at Devon on the screen with absolute, predatory contempt.

"Keep your dirty money, Browning," Alastair said, his voice dripping with menace. "Aethel is exercising its veto power. Vanguard is out. And my legal team will be filing a federal lawsuit against your fund for attempted intellectual property theft by tomorrow

morning. You're going to need that fifty million for your defense attorneys."

Devon's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish.He had nothing left.

Elisa looked at Allena. The woman who had stolen her family, who had tried to steal her work, and who had tried to put her in prison, was now trembling violently in her hospital bed.

"The compliance review is concluded," Elisa said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "Dr. Allena Mills is permanently expelled from the joint project. Her access is revoked. Effective immediately."

No.7

Allena let out a raw, desperate scream. "August! Call August! You can't do this to me!"

Elisa didn't blink. She reached out and pressed the master disconnect button on the console.

The massive screen went black. The screaming stopped.

The boardroom was perfectly silent. Elisa unplugged her tablet. She turned to Alastair and Dr. Blevins,gave a short, stiff nod, and walked out of the room.

The professional execution was complete. Now, it was time for the law.