Wait... it's the morning HR calls me into a private meeting.

The rest of the week passed with the smooth, hypnotic efficiency of a well-oiled machine.

With Marcus Vance gone and the executive committee thoroughly cowed by my silent accumulation of digital evidence, the analytics department finally operated the way it was always supposed to: based on merit, transparency, and rigorous mathematical integrity.

On Friday afternoon, Susan Price stopped by my desk. She didn't stay long—just long enough to slide a formal, signed copy of my revised employment contract across the partition, featuring the updated base salary, the retroactive adjustment, and the fully secured equity vesting schedule.

"The board reviewed your risk architecture audit, Chloe," Susan said, her voice strictly professional, stripped of its previous patronizing warmth. "They've officially designated your predictive model as the firm's primary quantitative framework for Q1."

"Thank you, Susan," I replied, signing the final page and handing it back. "Tell the board they can sleep soundly this weekend. The numbers are clean."

She gave a stiff, formal nod and walked away down the carpeted aisle.

I leaned back in my mesh chair, spinning my pen between my fingers, looking out the massive glass windows at the Chicago skyline. The sleet had cleared, replaced by a brilliant, pale November sun that cut through the gray clouds and cast a warm, golden glow over the downtown skyscrapers.

In my first life, I had walked out of this building in disgrace, carrying a cardboard box, defeated by a system rigged against me.

Today, I was the one holding the keys to the desk.

My phone buzzed on the corner of my desk. A secure notification from my private encrypted cloud storage popped up on the screen:

BACKUP SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE (100%).

ALL LOCAL AND REMOTE NODES SECURED.