Chapter 5: The Digital Ghosts

Chapter 5: The Digital Ghosts

The post was live. For a full minute, nothing happened. The world didn't end. No sirens wailed outside their window. There was only the quiet hum of the laptop, the soft ticking of the mantelpiece clock, and the frantic pounding of Liam’s heart. He stared at the screen, his creation sitting there nakedly on the vast, public stage of LinkedIn.

Aoife let out a breath she seemed to have been holding since he’d started typing. “Well,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “That’s done, then.”

“That’s done,” Liam echoed, his mouth dry. He felt a sudden, sharp pang of doubt. Had he gone too far? Had he just opened up his family to a world of trouble from a corporate behemoth for the sake of forty-seven Euro?

Then the first notification pinged.

‘Seamus Murphy liked your post.’

Seamus. An old colleague from the call centre, now a senior ops manager at a rival logistics firm. Another ping. ‘Catherine Doyle commented: “Unbelievable. We see this with UK suppliers all the time. Fair play for calling them out.”’

A small, grim smile touched Liam’s lips. It was starting. The first ripples were spreading. He refreshed the page. Ten likes. Three comments. Fifteen. Five. Twenty-seven. The numbers climbed with dizzying speed. People he knew, people he hadn't spoken to in years, all adding fuel to the fire. They weren't just liking a post; they were endorsing his indictment.

Then came the view he was waiting for. A notification popped up in the corner of his screen: ‘Sarah Jennings viewed your profile.’

“Got one,” Liam breathed, pointing at the screen. “Director of E-commerce. She’s seen it.”

Aoife leaned in closer, her earlier fear replaced by a thrill of conspiratorial excitement. “So what happens now?”

“Now,” Liam said, a predatory gleam in his eye, “they panic.”

To prove his own theory, he navigated away from LinkedIn and clicked on the bookmarked link for the Astral FC Nova Training Kit on the olympussports.ie website. He hit refresh.

The page was gone.

Instead of the sleek black kit and the €85 price tag, a stark white screen loaded with bold black letters: 404 - Page Not Found. Below it, a cartoonishly sad-looking football. Sorry! It seems this page has been benched!

Liam let out a bark of triumphant laughter. It was so clumsy, so transparently panicked. This wasn't a sophisticated strategy. This was a child covering its eyes and thinking it had become invisible. Their first instinct wasn't to solve the problem, but to erase the evidence.

“Look at this, Aoife,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “They took the whole product page down. They think if nobody else can see it, my complaint just… evaporates.”

“But… can they do that?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, they can do whatever they want with their own website,” Liam said, a grin spreading across his face. “But what they don't know is that the internet never truly forgets.”

He minimized the browser window, revealing his desktop. He clicked on a folder he’d created two days ago. The folder was named, simply, ‘Olympus War Chest’.

Inside was a collection of files. There was a screenshot of the original product page, clearly showing the .ie domain and the €85 price. There was a screenshot of the checkout screen, showing the €90 total with no mention of customs. And there was the ace up his sleeve: a PDF file generated by an online archiving service, a complete, time-stamped snapshot of the live webpage from the moment he made the purchase. It was irrefutable.

He returned to LinkedIn, his fingers dancing across the keyboard as he drafted his response. He attached the screenshot of the now-defunct product page side-by-side with the screenshot from his ‘War Chest’.

He wrote a new comment under his original post, tagging the executives again.

“UPDATE - 14:35: A fascinating development. In response to my post, @Olympus Sports has chosen not to contact me, but to delete the product page from their Irish website entirely (see attached evidence of the 404 error). A bold strategy for a company that values ‘transparency’.”

He then added another comment below it.

“For anyone wondering what the page looked like before it mysteriously vanished, here is a cached version from the time of my purchase. As you can see: Irish domain, Euro pricing, zero warning. The case against your deceptive practices builds, @Jonathan Finch.”

He posted the comment and leaned back, crossing his arms. He had just publicly, demonstrably, caught them in a cover-up. He had anticipated their move and checkmated them in real-time. He felt a surge of adrenaline, the pure, unadulterated joy of the underdog landing a solid punch on the jaw of a bully.

The reaction was instantaneous. The likes and comments exploded. His post was being shared now, spreading beyond his immediate network. The professional tone, the damning evidence, the clear narrative—it was irresistible corporate drama.

And then, the ghosts arrived.

He clicked on the ‘Who’s viewed your profile’ tab. The list was growing. Sarah Jennings was still there. Now joined by David Chen (Head of Customer Experience) and Marcus Thorne (Head of European Operations). But below their named profiles, a new section appeared.

‘12 people in the Marketing industry from the Greater Manchester Area viewed your profile.’ ‘8 people in the Legal industry from the London Area viewed your profile.’ ‘5 people in Human Resources at a Retail company viewed your profile.’

They were anonymous, hiding behind LinkedIn’s privacy settings, but their digital footprints were unmistakable. They were the corporate spies. The PR team, the legal department, the C-suite aides, all dispatched to scrutinize the man who had set their carefully managed world on fire. They were ghosts, haunting his profile, trying to understand the enemy.

Liam felt a wicked smile spread across his face. He wasn't intimidated. He was amused. They were treating him like a corporate threat, which meant they were taking him seriously. So, he decided to talk back to the ghosts.

He wrote one final, perfect update on his post.

“A NOTE TO MY NEW FOLLOWERS - 15:10: A special welcome to the 25+ anonymous ‘ghosts’ from London and Manchester currently reviewing my profile. I’m flattered by the attention. To save your legal and PR teams some time: no, I will not be silenced by a cease-and-desist letter. Yes, I have documented everything. And no, the insulting €20 voucher is not open for renegotiation.”

He paused, then added the masterstroke of trolling.

“If you are, however, a senior manager from @Olympus Sports with the authority to finally resolve this, my phone number is on the original order file. I believe the reference was 74B-391-X. You have my full, undivided attention.”

He hit ‘Post’.

He had exposed their spies, mocked their previous offer, and publicly demonstrated that he was still waiting for the phone call they refused to make. He had turned their own professional network into a torture chamber, and he was holding the door wide open for the public to watch them squirm.

He glanced at the fridge, at Finn’s crayon drawing of the magic kit. The battle wasn't just about money or principle anymore. It was about showing that one determined father, sitting in a small living room, could stand up to an arrogant giant and, through sheer tactical audacity, make that giant tremble.

He looked at the dark, silent phone on his desk. It no longer felt like a symbol of their neglect. It now felt like a bomb, ticking away on a desk in their headquarters. He had lit the fuse. All he had to do now was wait for the boom.