Chapter 10: Ghosts in the Machine(Continuation)
873 Words
I don't need rehab, Chloe! I need you to look at the screen in front of you!" Julian snapped, pointing his good hand at her glowing monitor.
Chloe flinched, looking down at the spreadsheet filled with six-figure numbers.
"What are you typing, Chloe?" Julian asked, stepping closer until he was just across the desk from her. "Athletic department structural grants? Land acquisitions for the new stadium parking lot?"
"It's... it's just the student council ledger updates," Chloe stammered, crossing her arms defensively. "Principal Davis asks me to digitize the physical invoices every Thursday. It's for my college transcript, Julian. It's an honors duty."
"It's a money-laundering operation," Julian said bluntly.
Chloe stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Then, she let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh. "You're crazy. You've actually lost your mind."
"My father is using the school’s tax-exempt foundation to buy up residential property along the river under the guise of school expansion," Julian said, his eyes locking onto hers, refusing to let her look away. "Davis clears the land transfers using fake athletic invoices. My dad’s commercial firm buys the land for pennies. Davis gets a cut. And you, the perfect, rule-following student council president, are the one doing the actual data entry to hide the money. They're using you, Chloe. Just like they used me."
"No," Chloe whispered, shaking her head rapidly. "No, my dad is on the zoning board. He signs off on these. He wouldn't..." Her voice trailed off as the horrifying realization hit her. If her father was on the zoning board, he wasn't just ignorant of the fraud. He was part of it.
"They used us as the cover," Julian said, his voice softening, filled with a sudden, deep pity for the girl standing across from him. "As long as we were the king and queen of Westbridge, as long as everyone was looking at us, nobody looked at the math. But I broke the script yesterday. And now they're tying up loose ends."
Chloe looked down at the physical invoices on her desk. She picked one up with a trembling hand. It was an invoice for 'Stadium Turf Replacement' billed to a subsidiary of Arthur Vance's corporation. The amount was $450,000. The stadium turf hadn't been replaced in six years.
Tears welled up in Chloe's eyes, threatening to spill over her perfect makeup. "Oh my god... Julian, what have I been doing?"
"You didn't know," Julian said gently. He walked around the desk and stood beside her. He reached into his pocket and placed the black flash drive on the table. "But you know now. And you're the only one with the master administrative login to unlock the encrypted ledger."
Chloe looked at the flash drive. She looked at Julian, seeing past the mud and the blood to the boy she had spent three years beside. She had loved the idea of Julian Vance, the pristine image of him, but standing here now, broken and desperate, he was finally real.
"If I log in," Chloe whispered, a tear sliding down her cheek, "my dad goes to prison. Your dad goes to prison."
"If you don't," Julian said quietly, "I go to prison. For something I didn't do. And we spend the rest of our lives holding up their glass houses."
Chloe stared at the blinking cursor on her screen for what felt like an eternity. The silence in the server room was deafening, the hum of the hard drives sounding like a ticking bomb.
Slowly, her manicured hand reached out. She grabbed the mouse. She closed the fake invoice spreadsheet and opened the root directory of the school’s server.
She inserted Maya’s black flash drive into the USB port on the side of the iMac. A prompt popped up on the screen: ADMINISTRATIVE DECRYPTION KEY REQUIRED.
Chloe typed a complex, sixteen-character password into the box. Her fingers didn't shake.
She hit Enter.
A green progress bar appeared on the screen as the encrypted files began to dump onto the flash drive.
10%... 25%... 40%...
"It's transferring," Chloe whispered, stepping back from the desk, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's downloading the whole history. Five years of it."
60%... 75%...
Julian watched the bar, the heavy knot in his chest finally beginning to loosen. They had it. They actually had the proof.
90%... 95%...
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door of the media lab flew open.
Julian spun around.
Standing in the doorway, holding a high-powered tactical flashlight, was Principal Davis. Behind him stood a county sheriff deputy, his hand resting aggressively on the butt of his holstered sidearm.
Davis’s eyes darted from Julian to Chloe, and finally to the iMac screen, where the progress bar hit 99%.
"Step away from the computer, Vance!" Davis shouted, his face twisting into a mask of pure, desperate panic. "Deputy, arrest him! He's stealing school property!"
The deputy drew his weapon, leveling it straight at Julian’s chest. "Hands where I can see them, kid! Now!"
The progress bar on the screen ticked to 100%.
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
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