Chapter 5: The First Strike

Chapter 5: The First Strike

The dossier was a loaded weapon resting on Kael’s desktop. Every component had been polished to a lethal sheen. Now, it was time to pull the trigger. Randomly emailing a corporate ‘info@’ address was an amateur’s move. The dossier would be flagged as spam by an algorithm and deleted by a low-level assistant. Kael’s attack, like his research, had to be precise, personal, and aimed at the heart of the corporate machine.

His target: the Human Resources department of Veridian Dynamics. Or, as their slick website rebranded it, the “People and Culture Division.” He bypassed the generic contact forms and, using his access to professional databases, found the name and direct line of the division’s head: Brenda Davies, Senior Vice President of People and Culture. Her profile painted a picture of a career HR professional, a gatekeeper who had seen and heard every complaint imaginable. She would be skeptical, guarded, and difficult to sway. Perfect.

Kael patched his computer’s audio through a voice modulator, a simple program that would deepen his pitch and scrub it of any identifiable characteristics. He was not Kael, the protective partner. He was not Martin Choi, the ambitious headhunter. He was now a disembodied voice of consequence. He dialed the number.

It rang three times before a crisp, professional voice answered. “Brenda Davies.”

“Ms. Davies,” Kael began, his modulated voice a low, steady baritone, devoid of emotion. “I am calling to report a time-sensitive risk management issue concerning a senior employee at Veridian Dynamics.”

He used their language. ‘Risk management.’ ‘Senior employee.’ This wasn't a personal complaint; it was a corporate threat assessment. He could almost hear her posture straighten on the other end of the line.

“Who is this?” she asked, her tone immediately cautious.

“That’s not important,” Kael said calmly. “What is important is that the conduct of one of your senior managers, Jeffrey Thompson, represents a significant and demonstrable liability to Veridian’s brand and its publicly stated commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

There was a pause. “We have formal channels for these kinds of allegations. We do not accept anonymous submissions.” It was the corporate stonewall he had expected.

“The evidence I have is not an allegation; it is a documented portfolio of his public behavior,” Kael countered smoothly. “It is comprehensive and irrefutable. If you choose to ignore it, that is your prerogative as a company. However, the documentation will then be forwarded to several major tech journalism outlets. Their channels, I assure you, are far less formal.”

It was a cold, calculated bluff, but it hit the mark. The unspoken threat of a PR nightmare, of their carefully crafted image being shattered, was the only language a corporation truly understood.

A tense silence stretched for several seconds. Kael waited, his heart a steady, slow drum in his chest.

“Send me the email,” Brenda Davies said finally, her voice tight with reluctant professionalism. She gave him her direct address. “I will review it.”

“You’ll have it in thirty seconds,” Kael replied, and ended the call.

He attached the polished PDF to a new email from a secure, untraceable address. The subject line was simple and impossible to ignore: Confidential: Employee Conduct Review for Jeffrey Thompson. He hit send.

And then, the wait began.

It was the most excruciating part of the entire operation. He had fired his digital missile, and now it was flying silent, its trajectory hidden from him. He had no way of knowing if it would hit its target or fizzle out in a sea of corporate procedure.

Days bled into a week. Life in the apartment returned to a semblance of normality. Lena, resilient and strong, poured herself back into her work. The pain of the attack hadn't vanished, but she was burying it under fresh layers of color and creativity. She started a new piece, something vibrant and defiant. Kael would watch her, a fierce, protective love swelling in his chest. She was healing, and she had no idea about the secret war he was waging on her behalf. This fragile peace was what he was fighting for.

But beneath his calm exterior, Kael was a knot of tension. He obsessively, silently, monitored the digital sphere. He ran scripts that scanned for news articles mentioning Veridian Dynamics. He set alerts for any changes to Jeff Thompson’s professional profiles. Every morning, the first thing he did was check. Every night, it was the last. Nothing. The silence was maddening.

A second week passed. Doubt, a venomous weed, began to grow in his mind. Had he miscalculated? Had Brenda Davies simply deleted the email, dismissing it as the work of a crank? Had Jeff’s internal political capital been enough to weather the storm? The thought that Jeff Thompson was still sitting in his corner office, smug and untouched, was a corrosive acid in Kael’s gut.

Then, on a Tuesday morning three weeks after he sent the email, it happened. He was doing his routine check, his fingers moving from muscle memory, his expectations low. He navigated to Jeff Thompson’s professional networking page. And he froze.

The page was different.

A bright green banner had appeared under Jeff’s name, a cheerful, optimistic shade that belied its brutal meaning. It read: #OpenToWork.

Kael’s eyes flickered down to the headline, the proud declaration of Jeff’s status. The words Senior Manager at Veridian Dynamics were gone. In their place, a desperate, generic plea: Seeking new opportunities in tech leadership. His entire tenure at the company had been relegated to the ‘past experience’ section.

It was a digital tombstone. A quiet, corporate execution.

A cold, quiet surge of victory washed over Kael. It wasn't joy. It was the grim satisfaction of a flawless equation solving itself. He had aimed his weapon, pulled the trigger, and it had struck true. The first blow had landed. Jeff Thompson, the pillar of the community, the corporate leader, had been cast out.

He leaned back in his chair, looking away from the screens and toward the living room, where Lena was humming to herself, sketching on her tablet. The sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. The apartment was peaceful, safe. His sanctuary was secure once more.

But as he looked back at the screen, at the pathetic green banner on Jeff’s profile, the victory felt incomplete. It was too clean, too anonymous. Jeff had been fired by a faceless corporation for violating a policy. He probably blamed a colleague, or a new HR initiative, or ‘cancel culture.’ He had no idea where the arrow that had felled him had truly come from. He didn't know why he was being punished.

And for Kael, that wasn't enough. The justice he sought wasn't just about consequences; it was about enlightenment.

He opened a new window, logging into a fresh, encrypted email service. He typed Jeff Thompson’s old AOL address into the recipient line. The message he composed was short, chilling, and brutally specific.

He wrote: You shouldn't have posted about mud huts.

He didn’t sign his name. He didn't need to. He attached a single file to the email: a crisp, clear screenshot of a username, Patriot_Prime88, and a comment left on an artist’s page.

His finger hovered over the mouse. This was a dangerous move. This was an escalation. This was no longer just revenge; it was a challenge. He was stepping out of the shadows, if only for an instant, to look his enemy in the eye.

He clicked Send. The game had just changed.