While Ethan was busy negotiating the sale of Drake Systems, Google’s programrs were sweating under the sharp, annoyed gaze of Alia.
It had barely been a week since OmniTech handed them the demo of its cybersecurity software, Sentinel.
To call it groundbreaking would be a massive understatent.
The software was years ahead of anything currently available in the tech market—so much so that it wasn’t even funny.
The security fortress Google was once so proud of had been infiltrated within minutes of scanning. Every single vulnerability was laid bare.
Alia, the one in charge of testing Sentinel’s capabilities, had been the first to realize what they were dealing with.
When the initial results ca in, there was a collective silence across the team, a stunned disbelief that quickly turned into a scramble.
Sentinel hadn’t just outperford their internal tools, it had obliterated them. Every exploit, every single hidden weakness, every backdoor that even their most seasoned engineers had overlooked was quickly exposed.
This quickly made it to the higher-ups, and within forty-eight hours, an ergency board eting was called
It was supposed to be a strategic review, but it turned into a panic-fueled debate as soon as the capabilities of the demo version was made known.
Since the two founders couldn’t make it, the decision was left entirely to the board and the CEO, and the board had gotten greedy, wanting Sentinel for themselves.
"How about we buy it outright?" One executive suggested.
"We don’t even know if they’ll sell," another countered. "They didn’t give us the full version after all, just a demo."
"Then reverse-engineer it," Mr. Grayson muttered, after being quiet for a while. "We have the talent. Just recreate it and move forward."
"If this is just a demo, then imagine what the full product is capable of," Mrs Patel denied his suggestion "We should be negotiating the partnership that OmniTech is already offering, not plan corporate theft."
Grayson scoffed. "You’re being naïve. This is business. If we allow OmniTech to officially release Sentinel, we’re handing them the keys to the kingdom."
He leaned forward, his tone sharp and calculated. "Every governnt agency, every Fortune 500 company and every major tech firm will line up for it. We’ll lose market dominance in cybersecurity overnight."
A quiet tension fell over the room.
"He’s not wrong," another board mber added reluctantly. "If Sentinel goes public, we won’t be able to compete. Not with our current infrastructure."
One of the younger executives cleared his throat. "Look, we’re just trying to protect our assets. If Sentinel goes to a competitor, it could wipe out our entire cybersecurity arm and it’d cost us millions of dollars worth of contracts."
By this ti, Google had already launched it’s Google Cloud Platform and was almost closing a multi-million dollar deal with the governnt, thanks to this young executive’s connections.
If a better software hit the market first, especially one as polished and devastatingly effective as Sentinel, that deal would vanish overnight.
"If the governnt gets a whiff of this software," the younger executive continued, "they’ll pull the plug on us faster than you can blink."
The executive leaned back as soon as he finished his words, his words seed to have fully convinced all the other board mbers, well except Mrs. Patel who was clearly against this.
Alia frowned, she always hated etings like these because she could practically taste the greed in the air. And now, sitting smugly across the table, was the person who epitomized it.
Nathaniel Langley.
He leaned back in his chair, adjusting the cuff of his tailored navy suit with the sa confidence he had displayed since the eting began. Barely thirty, yet already richer than most of the people in the room combined.
Son of General Victor Langley, an old war dog turned political heavyweight, and now, thanks to a silent acquisition spree, one of Google’s newest and most influential private shareholders.
He had no real tech background or any previous record of being involved in a tech company, heck, even his company was not concerned with tech and yet, here he was.
"Let’s be realistic," Nathaniel said, breaking the silence that followed his warning. "This OmniTech person is playing a dangerous ga. He wants us under his fingers when we don’t even know who he is."
"Because he hasn’t made himself public yet," Alia muttered, barely hiding her annoyance.
Nathaniel smiled faintly. "Exactly. And you’re okay trusting soone like that with our infrastructure? With national security contracts on the line?"
"I’m not okay with corporate theft either," she snapped.
Grayson shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing.
Seeing as Nathaniel refused to reply and was just leaning back with an annoying smirk on his face, Alia turned to the CEO, hoping that was also against this idea but the look on his face told her all she needed to know.
He had no choice in this decision. If Larry and Segery were here, then maybe the decision would’ve been a lot different but right now, he didn’t have the power to ignore the vote of the majority of the board.
With a sigh he said,"all those in favor of reverse engineering Sentinel?"
Five out of nine board mbers imdiately voted in favor, and with two of the board mbers absent, the votes against were only two and the final decision was made.
"Alright," he said. "The decision’s been made. I want our best engineers and coders assembled within the next twenty-four hours."
He turned toward Alia.
"Start a classified internal project. You’ll lead it. Call it... Project Requiem."
Alia’s brow furrowed. "Sir—"
"That’s not a request, Alia," he said, this ti in a final tone. "We can’t afford to fall behind. Not with Sentinel threatening to dismantle everything we’ve built."
"Yes sir," She reluctantly nodded before the eting was dismissed. Alia then walked out of the board room but not before sending a glared to both Grayson and Nathaniel.
_____
And that eting was what caused the current situation of Google’s best programrs.
For the past three days, they had been trying, desperately, to replicate Sentinel’s core architecture.
They’d poured over every line of the demo code, run countless simulations, even brought in outside consultants under NDA.
But no matter how many tis they broke it down, dissected it, analyzed its logic pathways, sothing was always... missing.
And the worst part?
It was all written in a shockingly simple language.
"Python," one of the senior engineers muttered for the tenth ti that morning, rubbing his temples. "It’s just Python. Not C , not so garbage, just clean, structured and heavily comnted Python code. Why the hell can’t we make it work?"
This was because they were trying to mimic a masterpiece without understanding the artist and they didn’t have the knowledge Ethan did thanks to the OmniTech system.
"Again," Alia said, pacing behind them, her arms crossed tightly. "Run the test simulation again with the revised kernel layer."
She didn’t know if she should be happy that they failed to copy OmniTech’s software or should be scared that a group of genius coders were unable to replicate his software.
"We did," soone muttered from a corner station. "It’s stable, but it’s not learning. Sentinel adapts with every breach attempt. Ours just... sits there."
The room fell silent for a mont.
Then soone else, a ssy-haired programr, slamd his chair back. "It’s like the damn thing knows it’s being copied. Every ti we get close to nailing the logic flow, the behavior changes in the next environnt test. It’s like... it’s dodging us."
It was obvious that the lack of sleep was getting to them all, since they hadn’t taken a proper break since they started this project, so Alia had no choice but to allow them to take one.
As Alia stepped out of the room with Alex by her side, her phone buzzed with a sudden notification.
Turning the screen on, Alia was face with a single ssage that made her eyes go wide.
Alex, walking by her side turned to her and asked. "Everything alright?"
Instead of replying, Alia handed the phone to him and he hesitantly looked at the ssage.
The screen reveal a chibi character with black hair and blue eyes, wearing a suit. It had a looping animation and a speech bubble appearing with a text that said,
"Gambare gambare~."
The ssage was comical—maybe even childish—but it told Alia one thing with crystal clarity:
OmniTech knew exactly what Google was trying to do.
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