Chapter 3 - The Projectionist’s Panic
The ballroom suddenly fell into pitch blackness.
The dazzling crystal chandeliers dimmed to zero, plunging the two hundred elite guests into an eerie, suffocating twilight. A collective gasp of nervous laughter and confusion rippled through the darkness. The only illumination came from the hundreds of glowing smartphone screens held aloft like candles at a sinister vigil.
"What is happening?" a voice called out from the VIP section. It was Leonard Ross, the lead underwriter from Goldman Sachs, whose firm was slated to underwrite Sterling Vanguard’s six-billion-dollar IPO on Monday morning. "Richard! What is this nonsense?"
"It’s a technical glitch! Everyone, please remain calm!" Richard yelled into the dark, his voice trembling with an unmistakable undercurrent of panic. He was breathing heavily, stumbling through the maze of round dining tables covered in white linen. "The hotel is experiencing a power surge! Catering, bring up the house lights immediately!"
Suddenly, a low, mechanical hum vibrated through the floorboards.
A blinding shaft of pure white light blasted from the ceiling projectors, hitting the fifty-foot mega-screen behind the stage. The glare was so intense that several front-row guests had to shield their eyes.
On the massive screen, the elegant gold-and-black logo of Sterling Vanguard flickered, shattered into digital static, and was replaced by a live video feed.
The audio system didn't blast corporate elevator music. Instead, the crystal-clear, surround-sound acoustic speakers installed throughout the ballroom began playing an audio recording.
A woman's voice purred through the hall, intimate and mocking. It was unmistakably Vanessa Vance.
*“Did you sign the revised transfer agreement, Richie?”*
The sound of clinking whiskey glasses came through the speakers with startling fidelity. Then, Richard’s voice answered, relaxed and dripping with smug condescension:
*“Done. My attorney filed the power of attorney paperwork at four o’clock. By the time Claire realizes what happened, the patents will be registered under V-S Innovations in Grand Cayman. She won't have a single legal claim to the smart-weave patents.”*
The ballroom became so silent that the hum of the air conditioning sounded like a jet engine.
Richard froze dead in the center aisle, caught directly in the beam of the overhead spotlight. His hands went limp. His eyes were wide, bulging with horror, staring up at the fifty-foot projection like a condemned man looking up at the blade of a guillotine.
On the floor near the broken champagne tower, Vanessa was frantically trying to climb to her feet. Champagne and wine dripped from her ruined hair onto the shards of crystal, her hands bleeding from small cuts. Hearing her own voice echoing through the vaulted ceiling of The Pierre Hotel, she froze on all fours, trembling violently.
The recording continued, mercilessly loud.
*“What about her mental health narrative?”* Vanessa’s voice asked on the tape, followed by a cruel, tinkling laugh. *“We need to make sure the board doesn't sympathise with her when you kick her out of the penthouse.”*
*“Don't worry about the board,”* Richard’s voice replied smoothly. *“Dr. Halloway has already signed the affidavit confirming she’s suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and substance abuse. I’ve been putting small doses of crushed prescription sedatives into her nightly tea for three weeks so the blood panel will corroborate it if she fights back. She won't even be able to testify in court. She’ll be committed, Vanessa. And the entire six-billion-dollar valuation belongs to us.”*
A visceral, collective horror swept through the two hundred guests.
Several women in couture gowns let out audible gasps of disgust. Leonard Ross from Goldman Sachs stood up, his face gray with fury, and stared at Richard as if he were looking at a venomous snake that had crawled into his living room.
"Dear God..." whispered Lady Evelyn Ashford, one of the primary European investors in the brand. "He was poisoning her."
Richard turned his head toward the crowd, his hands waving spastically. "No! That’s—that’s AI! That’s a deepfake! She fabricated that! Marcus, turn it off! TURN IT OFF!"
He sprinted toward the stage stairs, leaping up two steps at a time, his polished dress shoes slipping slightly. But as he reached the top step, the screen transitioned from audio to visual documentation.
A series of high-resolution, unredacted corporate documents flashed onto the fifty-foot display.
The first was a bank wire transfer from Sterling Vanguard’s primary capital reserves: seventy-five million dollars transferred yesterday afternoon into a private account under the sole name of *Vanessa Vance*.
The second document made the room collectively lose its breath.
It was the original United States Patent application for the core conductive polymer—Patent No. 9,842,110.
Prominently displayed on the screen, highlighted in blazing crimson, was the signature of the sole inventor and technical owner.
It wasn't Richard Sterling.
It was **Claire Evelyn Montgomery-Sterling**.
And beneath it was an irrevocable, non-transferable clause: *Any unauthorized transfer, licensing, or commercialization without the written consent of the Lead Inventor results in the immediate, total reversion of all corporate assets to the sole ownership of Aegis Holdings Trust.*
May you like
A trust held exclusively by Claire.
***
