Chapter 2 - The Trojan Horse
David blinked, his hand lingering for a heartbeat too long before he smoothly retracted it, slipping it into the pocket of his tailored charcoal trousers. A flicker of annoyance flashed across his polished features, instantly masked by a disarming, frat-boy chuckle.
"Right. Straight to business, I love it," David said, pulling up the spare guest chair and sitting down without being invited. He crossed his legs, resting a leather folio across his knee. "Richard told me you’re the master mind behind the global supply metrics here. I’m really looking forward to learning the ropes from the best."
Richard. Not Mr. Sterling. Just Richard.
A tiny linguistic slip, but in corporate espionage, it shouted volumes. David hadn't just been hired through standard HR channels; he had been handpicked and briefed directly by the VP of Operations months before a job posting ever went live.
"You'll learn plenty, David," I replied, my fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic tattoo against my desk. "Supply chain optimization isn't just about reading spreadsheets. It’s about accountability. Every decision leaves a footprint."
"Absolutely," David agreed brightly, opening his folio and pulling out a blank legal pad. "Why don't we dive right into the core routing algorithms? Richard mentioned you use a proprietary predictive model for the Pacific Northwest corridor. If you could walk me through the code and share your master documentation files, I can start running parallel simulations this afternoon."
In my first life, this was where I eagerly opened my secure local folders, copied every Excel macro, Python script, and strategic blueprint onto a flash drive, and handed it to him with a smile. I had thought I was being a team player.
"No," I said simply.
David’s pen stopped hovering over the paper. He looked up, his brow furrowing. "Pardon?"
"I said no, David. You're not getting my master documentation files today," I leaned forward, resting my chin on my intertwined fingers. "Or tomorrow, for that matter. You’re an analyst, not an auditor. You start at the bottom like everyone else. Today, you’re going to audit our historical freight variance reports from 2021. Manual data entry. Let’s see how well you handle raw numbers before we talk about predictive modeling."
The smooth, untouchable confidence on David’s face fractured for a fraction of a second. A flash of genuine panic tightened the corners of his mouth.
"Oh... right. Manual entry. Sure," David stammered, pulling his collar down slightly as if the office suddenly felt too warm. "Though Richard specifically requested that I be brought up to speed on the high-level architecture by the end of the week..."
"If Richard has questions about my architecture, he can walk fifty feet down the hall and talk to me directly," I interrupted, my voice dropping an octave into a cold, flat register. "Until then, you work for this department, David. And in this department, we earn our credentials. Now, log into the legacy server and start pulling those 2021 manifests."
May you like
David swallowed hard, forced a stiff, brittle smile, and turned his attention to his computer screen. But as he stared blankly at the monitor, I could see the wheels turning in his head, scrambling to figure out why the naive, cooperative senior analyst he had been promised had suddenly turned into an unyielding wall of ice.
He thought he was the hunter. He had no idea he was sitting inside a cage with a tiger that already knew every trick in the book.
