Юлия Авилкина – Survivors Bias (страница 2)
I don’t hit “Accept.” Instead, I decline the file.
“I’m not taking your key, Leo. Not yet. In that house, every bit of data is logged and audited. If I install third-party software, Clara will know before I even hit ‘Enter.’”
“So what’s the plan? Wait until she ‘optimizes’ you next?”
“No. I’m proposing we play on her home turf. Tomorrow is the Balance 2.0 launch. A global livestream. She’ll be standing on that stage, all in white, looking like a messiah. And I’ll be in the control booth.”
I stare at the cat icon on the taxi’s dash.
“I don’t need access to her house, Leo. I need you to find a way to swap a single file in her presentation. The one that displays the ‘happy faces of saved users.’”
“You want to put Maya in there?” There’s a new note of respect in Leo’s voice.
“Not just her. Everyone from the ‘Group Zero’ list. A hundred faces that ‘disappeared.’ We won’t even have to hack her system. We’ll just let her system show the truth.”
The taxi glides to a stop in front of my modest apartment complex. The doors unlock.
“Copy that, ‘Ghost,’” Leo’s voice begins to fade as the hologram thins out. “I’ll find a way in. But remember: once those faces hit the screen, there’s no turning back. You won’t just be fired. You’ll be purged.”
“I’ve been purged before,” I mutter, stepping out of the car. “This time, I’m the one hitting ‘Delete.’”
Chapter 2
The
I walk through the biometric scanner.
“No, thank you,” I mutter, heading for the elevators.
On the fortieth floor, inside the “inner sanctum,” Clara is waiting for me. She’s standing with her back to the door, staring out at the city through the floor-to-ceiling glass. She’s wearing a blindingly white suit—the color of both innocence and absolute power.
“Come in, Elena. Close the door. Manually.”
That’s a bad sign. In this building, everything closes automatically. If she’s asking me to throw the deadbolt by hand, she wants silence from her own algorithms.
I do as she asks. My palms are slightly damp, but my face is a mask of perfect composure.
“The presentation starts in four hours, Clara. All files have been cleared. Technical confirmed the stream is ready for broadcast.”
Clara turns around slowly. In her hands is a tablet where red graphs are dancing across the screen.
“The system is behaving strangely, Elena,” her voice is lower than usual, laced with streaks of steel. “Last night, a spike in activity was logged in my living room. Someone was digging through the ‘Group Zero’ archival logs.”
My heart gives a heavy thud, but I don’t even blink.
“Could it be a scheduled indexing?” I suggest.
“No. This was a manual query. A bloodhound. And this bloodhound knew exactly where to sniff,” Clara steps closer to me. She smells like that signature amber, but now it feels suffocating. “And this morning, someone tried to breach the security of the ride-share you took.”
She pauses, searching my pupils for a micro-reaction—a dilation, a flicker, a tremor.
“Elena, you’re the best analyst I’ve ever had. You see patterns where everyone else sees noise. That’s why I want YOU to find this piece of trash. Before the launch begins.”
She hands me her tablet with full administrator privileges.
“You have total access. Cameras, logs, private employee comms. Find whoever is trying to burn down our house. If it’s an insider—I want a name before I step onto that stage.”
She places a hand on my shoulder. Her fingers squeeze just a fraction harder than a friendly gesture should.
“You understand that if
It’s a threat. Blunt and unmistakable. She knows—or at least suspects—that I’m not who I say I am. And now, she’s handed me the weapon to tie my own noose.
“I’ll find them, Clara,” I say, taking the tablet. My fingers brush the cold glass. “If there’s a footprint in the system, I’ll pull it.”
Clara nods, her face relaxing back into that “caring leader” persona.
“I knew I could count on you. You have three hours. I’ll be in the green room—bring the report there.”
She walks out, leaving me alone in her office. The silence here is heavy. I know every move I make is being recorded. This tablet isn't just a tool; it’s a wiretap. Any search query, any attempt to open an external messenger will trip a silent alarm.
I sit in Clara’s chair. A deep breath.
If I can’t send a message out, I have to make the system generate one on its own.
I open the log monitoring console Clara asked me to check. Lines of code scroll past my eyes. I begin to simulate a "deep-dive investigation." I open employee files and rummage through their emails, creating the illusion of frantic activity.
But deep inside one of the logs—under the “Video Render Error” section—I begin to type a query. It looks like a standard technical bug report, but I’m using an old cipher Maya and I invented for jokes back in college.
I know Leo is monitoring Clara’s system for any signs of an anomaly. If he spots this “error code” in an open log, he’ll get the message: Clara knows someone’s been digging, and she’s got eyes on me.
But I need to send him more than just a warning. I need to hand over the "Golden Key"—the administrator privileges Clara just handed me on a silver platter.
I find the
I don’t copy the file. I do something much bolder. I set up a "scheduled task" within the system:
I freeze. The tablet’s front-facing camera scans my face, running the biometrics against the database. But it’s not looking for Clara. It’s looking for the active authorized admin. Right now, that’s me.
Now for the hard part. I need Leo to know exactly where I dropped the payload.
I open the "Drafts" folder of Clara’s corporate blog and type out a headline for a dummy post:
I hit save. A split second later, I delete it, making it look like a misclick or a quick formatting test. But I know Leo is scraping the deleted files directory. That’s our signal.
The office door swings open. Standing on the threshold is Clara’s Head of Security—a hulking guy with dead eyes that have overseen way too many corporate "optimizations."
The
Marcus, the Head of Security, gestures toward a contoured chair.
“Just a standard procedure, Elena. Clara wants to make sure you’re fully ‘optimized’ for the broadcast.”
“I’m fine, Marcus. I just need to—”
“Sit.” His tone leaves zero room for debate.
He steps over to the wall terminal to initiate the pacification protocol. I have roughly thirty seconds before the system preps the needles hidden inside the armrests.
I press my thumb against a concealed port on my opposite wrist. Sitting just beneath the skin is a micro-emulator chip—a little souvenir from my past life. If I can just brush the chair’s tactile interface, I can broadcast a short data burst.