Chapter 24 - The Final Override
The Chief Administrator’s office was dark, illuminated only by the faint, greenish glow of a bank of multi-monitor setups displaying live CAD feeds across Marlowe County. I dropped into the leather executive chair, my fingers flying over the mechanical keyboard. Tessa stood guard by the heavy oak door, her eyes darting down the dark corridor. "How much time do we have?" she whispered. "Ten minutes before the night shift security patrol hits this floor," I replied, my eyes locked on the scrolling lines of green code. The system was fighting back, deploying automated countermeasures and encryption shields designed by Cole’s high-priced cybersecurity team. But I had something they didn't—the raw, unedited system architecture maps I had stolen from the pier's sub-basement. With a few keystrokes, I bypassed the firewall, unlocked the master database, and queued up the unredacted audio logs of the night Vivian’s riding boot struck me, alongside the internal memos proving Cole orchestrated the CAD system failures. "Gotcha," I breathed. I hit the broadcast execution key, transmitting the entire archive directly to the FBI’s field office, the state attorney general, and every major news outlet in the tri-state area. Instantly, the monitors flashed red, displaying a federal subpoena freeze notice across every single terminal in the building. We had done it. The truth was out in the open, impossible to bury, delete, or ignore.
