As the evening dragged on, I stayed late in the office, pouring over the documents Monroe had given me. The building was almost silent, only the faint hum of the air conditioning and Scarlett's quiet breathing in the room as she worked across from me. I could feel her watching, that silent, expectant curiosity always present, but she never asked questions she knew I wouldn't answer. Smart of her.
I flipped through Monroe's protocols, my eyes lingering on phrases he'd underlined in his rigid, deliberate handwriting: "compliance measures," "containment protocols," and, predictably, "surveillance upgrades." Monroe didn't bother hiding his intentions—he wanted control, the kind that bled into every corner of this institution. And he wanted me shackled within it.
My gaze shifted to Scarlett. She'd followed every instruction I'd given her to the letter, and I knew she was capable of more than Monroe would ever guess. In her own way, she was just as ambitious as he was—hungry for the thrill of dismantling something greater than herself. She was careful, quiet, ruthless, and, for now, completely loyal to me.
"Scarlett," I said, leaning back and setting the files down. "Let's start with their surveillance."
Her eyes gleamed as she looked up. "In what way?"
"Monroe's systems run through a single monitoring hub on the third floor. The feed data funnels in from every camera he's got on this place. If he wants to watch me that badly, let him. But we'll control what he sees."
She nodded, immediately catching on. "You want to feed him exactly what he expects to see, right down to the last detail."
"Exactly. And meanwhile, we operate in the blind spots. He'll be too focused on what he thinks he's watching to realize he's seeing only what I want him to." I glanced down at the thick file of compliance protocols. "I'll give him his perfect asset, predictable, competent, thoroughly manageable. And when he least expects it, we pull the plug."
Scarlett's smile was subtle but unmistakable. "You know, you'd make a decent director yourself. Monroe could stand to learn a few things about staying two steps ahead."
I allowed myself a faint smirk. "Monroe's too busy trying to command loyalty through fear. But fear fades. Control erodes. I'm patient. I don't need to bark orders or wave a title around—I only need time and opportunity."
Her gaze lingered on me, intrigued but cautious. "And how do you plan to dismantle it all?"
"That part will take patience. Monroe wants to keep me close, use me to his benefit. Fine. But while I stay in his sights, we'll work quietly in the shadows, setting up the fractures in his plans. One push at the right moment, and he'll find his whole empire cracking around him."
She took in the words, absorbing them with the same quiet intensity I'd come to expect. Scarlett understood power, or at least the subtlety of it. She respected its ability to reshape without ever showing its hand.
After a moment, she set her own files aside and leaned forward. "So, where do we start?"
"Find the blind spots," I replied, my voice calm, assured. "Every surveillance system has weak points. Gaps between camera coverage, overlaps in monitoring shifts. We'll make a record of each one. If Monroe wants to keep me close, he'll get it—but we'll be slipping through the cracks he's too confident to see."
She nodded, understanding. I didn't have to spell it out for her. In this game, every move was calculated, each step designed to draw Monroe deeper into his own false sense of control. He thought I was an asset, an investment he could bend to his will. He thought Steele's legacy was his to shape, his to preserve or dismantle as he saw fit.
Let him think that. For now, I'd continue to wear the mask, the perfect assistant, obedient and exacting. But my loyalty wasn't his to command. It belonged to something far more dangerous—my own vision, and the darkness within me that had already begun to unravel the threads of his empire from the inside.
Scarlett turned her attention back to her work, her fingers tapping quickly over the keyboard, feeding data and recording notes. And as I watched, a slow sense of satisfaction filled me, calm and sharp as a blade. I was in his sights, I was following his every order, but I knew something he didn't.
Monroe had never encountered someone like me—someone willing to wait in silence, hiding behind the role he'd assigned, patiently sowing the seeds that would eventually bring him down. He thought he could control the narrative. But in the end, it was my story he'd be playing a role in, a story that would end with his empire falling at his feet, piece by careful piece.
And I'd be there, watching, unscathed, while he finally realized the truth—his own systems had betrayed him from within.
A couple hours later, the faint buzz of heightened activity drifted down the hall, subtle but unmistakable. I looked up from my desk as Scarlett returned from one of her "routine" information-gathering runs. Her expression was cool, but I could see the glint of something new in her eyes.
"Monroe's not wasting any time," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "He's rolling out an AI monitoring system—a full-scale security overhaul."
I narrowed my eyes, setting aside the files in my hand. "AI?"
"His idea of perfection," she replied. "Real-time analysis, zero personnel needed. He's calling it 'Sentinel.' The system managers claim it can identify and assess threats faster and more accurately than any human could. And it's supposed to learn patterns, adapt to anything it detects as 'anomalous behavior.'"
That explained the recent push for compliance protocols and surveillance upgrades. Monroe had always obsessed over control, but replacing human eyes with an AI system… that was another level. He was stripping down his empire to its most efficient parts, removing any potential weakness—like the occasional human mistake.
I leaned back, my mind racing. An AI system changed the game, but it also opened up new opportunities. A system as advanced as Sentinel would rely on data—massive, constant streams of it, fed through every security camera, audio pickup, digital signature. The AI might be faster and smarter than the old methods, but it had one flaw: it lacked Monroe's instincts. Its strength was also its weakness—cold logic, no room for intuition. And it would follow commands, precisely, predictably.
"So, they're ditching personnel," I said, voice even. "Leaving no one to question what they're watching or why."
Scarlett nodded. "Exactly. No human to second-guess what Sentinel deems 'non-compliant.' Monroe's creating his perfect system—tight, controlled, and unbreakable. In theory."
In theory. The word hung in the air between us. Monroe believed he was securing his empire, locking it down tighter than ever. But I knew one thing about systems: the more perfect they looked, the more satisfying they were to dismantle.
I met Scarlett's gaze, a plan already forming. "We're going to give Sentinel something to study—a pattern it thinks it can track."
She tilted her head, catching on. "Let it learn your 'predictable' behavior, feed it a steady, calculated routine."
"Exactly," I said. "Every movement, every action I take from this point forward will be deliberate. Sentinel will analyze it, adapt to it, consider it the 'norm.' And when it finally thinks it knows me… I'll break the pattern."
The best way to evade a system like this was to train it into complacency, to build a false version of myself—one Sentinel would catalog as typical. Every day, I'd give it consistency: the routes I took through the building, the time I left, the actions I repeated. But under that mask of predictability, Scarlett and I would operate in the shadows, setting up our work in the places where no AI was designed to look.
"If Monroe wants to replace human eyes with algorithms, fine," I said, feeling a cold satisfaction settle over me. "Let him create the machine. We'll let it run, let it study, let it learn. And when it's 'sure' of us, we'll show it the real anomalies. By the time it realizes what we've been doing, it'll be too late."
Scarlett's smile was one of quiet, dangerous approval. She understood the strategy—use Sentinel's strength against it, make it see exactly what we wanted, then shatter that illusion when the time was right. Monroe's perfect system would become his blindest spot, his most lethal vulnerability.
As we leaned into this new game, I felt the edges of my darker instincts sharpen. Monroe thought he could create an empire untouched by human error, a fortress of cold logic and infallibility. But he hadn't considered one crucial factor—there was nothing logical about ambition, nothing infallible in the human drive to subvert.
I'd play by his rules, step into the patterns Sentinel would expect. But every move I made would carry hidden intent. When I was done, Monroe wouldn't just lose control. He'd lose everything.
I began my routine the very next day, setting the trap by first setting my pace. Sentinel needed a pattern, something it could quantify, catalog, and eventually rely on. So I built one.
Each morning, I arrived at precisely 7:58 a.m. Two minutes early, just enough to appear diligent but not overtly eager. I'd scan my badge, taking the same hallway to my office, passing through each camera's line of sight at exactly the same angle. I'd stop by the coffee machine at 8:03, exchanging brief pleasantries with staff if anyone else was there—just enough to appear cordial. Then, it was straight to my desk.
The first few days, I focused on logging activity that Sentinel could track: files I pulled, the places I went. I even kept my browser activity predictable—company news, reports, approved files. Sentinel would analyze it all, confirming its image of me as the unassuming assistant who followed protocol to the letter.
Scarlett played her part, too. She'd bring files by at precisely the same times each day, ask predictable questions, review routine information. Sentinel's AI would catch these exchanges, noting her role as "assistant to the assistant," building its perception of her as just another cog in Monroe's machine. We were setting up a perfectly orchestrated dance for Sentinel, one that hid our true intentions beneath a veneer of corporate routine.
After two weeks, the trap was set. By then, Sentinel would have established my pattern, its algorithms satisfied that I was as predictable as the rising sun. And that was when I began the subtle deviations.
The first was a minor one: a slight detour on my way to my office, slipping into the server room under the guise of needing access to a technical report. The Sentinel system would mark it as unusual, flagging the anomaly, but only briefly. By the next day, I returned to my regular routine, making it seem like a one-off.
A day later, I altered the pattern again—an extra coffee break at an unusual time, just a few minutes longer than usual. Sentinel would likely mark it again, but I fed it an explanation: a conversation with Scarlett about her "family," a fabrication designed to make the break seem ordinary. These subtle changes were crucial; they introduced just enough variation to keep Sentinel occupied, nudging its algorithms to see them as minor, incidental.
After a week of this, I had Sentinel precisely where I wanted it—so engrossed in the details of my daily routine, so satisfied by the data it was gathering, that it wouldn't think to question my true movements in the building's blind spots. It was watching the person I wanted it to see, oblivious to the one working beneath the surface.
And then came Phase Two.
One evening, when the building was almost empty and only a skeleton staff remained, I slipped out of my office. Scarlett was waiting by the supply closet, out of the range of any camera. I handed her a small data drive, preloaded with a set of minor network triggers.
"Slip this into the mainframe console," I instructed. "Just for five seconds. Sentinel will detect a mild server slowdown, but it'll brush it off as maintenance."
She nodded, tucking the drive into her pocket. "Five seconds is all I need."
Minutes later, I watched on my terminal as she initiated the drive in the server room. A tiny blip in the system—the kind Sentinel would see as background noise. The drive didn't disrupt anything, not in any obvious way. All it did was plant a seed, a subtle reconfiguration in the software that would give us access to Sentinel's "blind spots." It was a minor manipulation, one Sentinel wouldn't even notice, yet it was all I needed to begin accessing the system's logs and routines without leaving a trace.
From that moment forward, I was no longer just a part of the system. I was behind it, watching the watchers, slipping in and out of its monitoring scope at will. And with each day, as I continued my carefully curated routine, I started unearthing the true scope of Monroe's empire, mapping out the inner workings that he thought were hidden.
With Scarlett's help, I tracked every executive order he'd sent, every covert directive he'd buried under layers of corporate jargon. I found notes on his initiatives, contingency plans—plans that extended far beyond simple "compliance." Monroe wasn't interested in protecting Steele's legacy; he was turning it into a surveillance state. Sentinel was only the first layer. The next steps included deeper, more invasive systems, protocols designed to eliminate anyone who dared deviate from his vision.
And then I discovered the final piece of his plan: me.
There, buried in a heavily encrypted file, were contingency measures for "Asset V." Monroe had no intention of letting me remain free. In his ideal scenario, I was nothing more than a tool—a "containable asset" whose loyalty could be controlled, subdued.
A cold clarity settled over me. Monroe thought he could pull my strings, trap me inside his system, force me to follow his vision. But that's the thing about control—it's fragile, brittle, always dependent on the belief that those beneath it can't see through the illusion.
Now I knew every inch of his plan. And as I looked over the files I'd compiled, I felt that dark, familiar satisfaction settle in. Monroe had crafted a cage, but I'd turned it into a weapon.
The next phase would be the final act—an elegant maneuver to bring everything crashing down. I'd let him think he still had control, that I was still his perfect, compliant assistant. And then, with one precisely timed move, I'd introduce him to the real anomaly—an anomaly that would destroy everything he'd built.
As I closed out of the files, a shadow of a smile crossed my lips. He'd built his perfect system, and he'd poured his every ounce of faith into it. But in the end, he was just a man standing on a foundation of sand.
And I was the wave.