Chance sighed deeply. As expected of an investigative company. They were already keeping tabs on as many things as possible even when they were not required to.
"How did they know to transfer my call to you so quickly?"
"I don't forget favours! Give me a list of names you suspect."
"Everyone ranging from the financial department, through the PR department to the sales and marketing department. Especially those that got hired the same year as or before I was employed but has not really been favored by our employers."
"That's a lot of people for one day." Doctor said. His voice smooth and quiet as ever.
"I have money and I know you will give a discount."
"No more than thirty percent."
"More than I expected."
"What's the approximate time you have left?"
"Give or take twelve hours."
"That's half a day." Doctor sounded surprised.
"Too little?" Chance asked.
"Too much!" Doctor replied. "Why are they taking so much time for someone who might have just lost them a huge contract?"
"The Board will first try to salvage the situation. Get rid of the fast-growing blotch in the corporation's reputation within their inner circles, and stop the news from getting out. Only then, will they face the eyesore that is me."
"Send the money. See you in ten hours max." Doctor said and instantly cut the call.
Ten hours later, a package was delivered to Chance's apartment. It contained every little discriminating information about every single worker in the entire company. The number of which easily ranged in the ten thousands were all saved inside a small removable drive.
Chance's shock when she found out what the drive contained could only be put in words.
The drive contained three folders. First one was named The Culprit. It held all the necessary info to save her name, reputation and job. It was so very detailed, containing even clips from security cameras that showed when he installed the virus alongside the algorithm into her computer. The crazy high definition even allowed for a clear zoom effect.
"Gotcha, Rogers!" Chance smiled evilly.
Rogers was not particularly a subordinate even though he was lower-ranked on the organogram. The problem he had with Chance was that he had asked her out to dinner once and she turned him down without a single thought.
"Petty F*cker!" She remarked and gave him two fingers.
The second folder contained the skeletons in the cupboards of every other worker in Song's Mining Corporation, arranged in descending order of rank.
Chance saw all kinds of documents, stolen videos and recorded calls and conversations that made her smile, gasp, sneer and chuckle.
Chance checked out the last folder. All she saw was a document that had only a few sentences in it.
"Watch your back. Trust no one. You have more enemies than you know." Chance frowned a little. Doctor seemed to be hinting at something.
"Are there more powerful people coming after me? Has he been hired to spy on me?" She muttered to herself. Then, she read the last sentence; "Favor repaid in full!"
She quietly sat down for the next hour watching hacked videos, listening to unauthorised recordings of conversations, and pictures and copies of original discriminating documents and contracts, while at the same time, plotting her revenge.
At the same time, there was a heated conversation going on between the board of directors. They had stopped the news of the pornographic-presentation from going viral just in time. Hymn's father sat at the table, thinking quietly and watching as various physical and virtual images yelled at each other in argument. All their faces were red from unvented rage.
The bone of contention was if they should immediately fire Chance or give a trial first.
"Why should we allow her a chance to defend herself?" A woman cried.
"Because those are the rules that we all unanimously agreed with." A younger lady yelled back.
"It was obviously a stupid decision."
"It wasn't. We just never expected that someone would be idiotic enough to actually put porn into a million dollar presentation." A man answered, laughing bitterly. His eyes were not laughing though. They looked ferocious enough to kill with.
"Precisely! Someone like that should be thrown under the bus with immediate effect."
"Yes! Someone has to take the blame anyway."
"Let's just hear her out." A man with a big beard said.
"Why? You been sleeping with her?" The first older lady rebutted.
"Don't you insult me!" The man growled in return, banging the table with his large hands.
Mr Song, Hymn's father, had finally heard enough. He stood to his feet.
The arguing board, on seeing him rise to his feet, quieted down.
"Gentlemen and Women of the Board…" He started, taking a dramatic pause to look at each of their twelve faces, whether it be in real life or through a video projection.
"We..."
Bam!
The door to the meeting room closed loudly, warranting everyone to turn their heads including the projections. There was the setting to change one's line of view.
The big bearded man was the first to comment. He looked right back at Song and asked without changing the tone of his voice.
"What is your imbecile of a son doing here?"
The question made Song frown at Hymn.
"I can hear you, Mr Jamieson." Hymn said, approaching the board's table.
"I did not intend to hide it, boy."
"I'm twenty-five. I am not a boy." Hymn argued.
"For as long as you keep wasting your time and your father's hard work on parties and those your hundreds of useless friends, you are no more than a little spoilt brat." Mr Jamieson wasn't one to mince words. He laid out straight and thick.
"What do you want, Hymn?" Song asked.
"Dad, board of directors. Give Chance a chance. Three years ago, you guys all came together physically, to analyse the preset rules of our beloved Song's Corporation. You made amendments, added a few rules in accordance to the new laws signed by the government. Why in the world do you wish to go back against your own words just because of one mess-up?
"I am my father's irresponsible son and I am the one who's going to own the corporation if he dies today but none of you have a raised a complaint about it, so why should you do so about your own rules?
"You all are great men and women of superior intelligence, connections and experience. What do you think will happen if your oppositions should find out you went against your own set up laws and as a result, have broken a minor law under this new governmental jurisdiction, as well as, the unspoken rules of integrity that has kept this world from falling apart?
"What is another one hour of questioning anyway? You will still be the judges of the whole trial. You could choose to not actually listen to her. You could choose to keep the trial on for more than two hours or less than thirty minutes. It's ultimately your choice.
"But let it not be heard that you did not give an employee, who has worked harder than ninety percent of the other workers, the benefit of doubt.
"We've already done what we can to mitigate the effects of the scandalous threesome. I wouldn't like for our stock price to hit rock bottom because of a dumb reason as this. So please, wise people of the board. Give her the benefit of doubt. It's going to be just one hour. And who knows? Maybe, you will be able to nail it to one of our competitors. I heard this up and starting company did better than the rest of us." Hymn finished with a bow and took his leave.
The entire board of thirteen followed him out with their eyes. Their faces expressing way less shock than they were feeling. Hymn stepped outside and shut the door behind him.
Song, Hymn's father, was the first to recoup. He smiled slightly, before going back to keeping a poker face.
Some of the others were not able to control themselves that much. Jamieson was the first to speak up.
"What the f*ck?" He exclaimed and turned to look at the Chairman of the board. "Song! You planned this, didn't you?"
Song smiled and said nothing.
The younger lady chuckled and said; "What a debut!"
"He has just established the fact that he is basically the undisputed successor of Song's Mining Corporation, that he has his own connections and means of getting information and proven that he isn't totally useless and hopeless, all in three minutes."
"He killed three birds with one stone."
"And more importantly, he makes a good point. We were the ones being kids here. We did not need to fight."
"It's quite unfortunate that we had to be reminded to act like civilised adults by a kid."
"Quite embarrassing as well."
"Well, there we have it. What time should we summon the board for the trial? Tonight?" Song asked.
"Tonight sounds good."
"Seven on dot?" Song enquired again.
"Ends by Eight."
"If she's late by a minute, forget the trial and just throw her under the bus." Mr Jamieson said.
"Do we all agree to this?"
They all answered positively. Song smiled.
"Well, gentlemen and women of the board, this meeting has officially ended. See you at the trial at seven."
At the trial, Hymn was invited and given a seat at the judges table. In Mr Jamieson's words, he had earned it. Of course, Hymn had no say and was required to stay mum throughout the trial, but at least, it showed that they had accepted him to an extent, which was a good start.
Sharon was briefed on the rules in ten minutes and was asked some questions. She answered as ambiguously as possible to avoid implicating herself.
It took quite some time, but finally, the question she was waiting for was asked.
"Is there anything you wish to say in your defense?"
She smiled and said; "Yes, I do!"
Hymn raised an eyebrow.
For the next one hour, starting with the story of the failed wooing attempt, Sharon gave evidence after evidence, as well recordings of witnesses that proved her innocence. Executed according to plan, she soiled Rogers' reputation while at the same time, cleaning hers up to the point where it was cleaner than before the porn-presentation scandal.
By the time, she played the footage, her bosses were already thoroughly convinced. But all these did not even take twenty minutes, so what were they doing for the remaining forty-plus minutes?
"The level of Rogers' unprofessionalism got me curious, so I did some further digging and what I learned was beyond shocking. Not only am I not Rogers first victim, but there are evidences beyond any reasonable doubt that he has been profiting off the company, taking out of the profits for his selfish interests, recommending shady companies using his closeness with the managers, bribery, money laundering; if it has a name in the long list of financial crimes, he's dabbled in it."
If the first twenty minutes were used to display Rogers' unprofessionalism, the next forty-plus were used to display how Rogers had been using the company's names and funds to commit all kinds of financial crimes.
By the time she was done, the poker faces of more than half of the board of directors had melted into pure, seething rage.
Sharon noticed their expressions and felt very proud of herself.
"So we make Rogers our scapegoat?" Hymn asked, even though he had been instructed to say nothing.
"I have a better idea." Sharon volunteered, a smile on her face.
"Go on!" Song said, his eyes glinting wickedly.
A week later, Song's Mining Corporation was awarded the contract, Sharona's Mines went bankrupt and a day before his board trial commenced, Rogers was found dead, poisoned in his cell.
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