Chapter 6: The Second Mistake

Chapter 6: The Second Mistake

The email was sent. The taunt, a single, poisoned dart, was flying through the digital void. For Kael, this was a fundamentally different kind of waiting. When he had sent the dossier to Veridian Dynamics, he had been a ghost tossing a grenade over a castle wall, waiting to hear a distant explosion. Now, he had knocked on the front gate and announced his presence. He had placed a piece of bait in the open and was waiting for the beast to emerge from its lair.

He didn't have to wait long.

He spent the next few hours in a state of heightened, hyper-focused calm. He made coffee, listening to the soft sounds of Lena working in her studio space, the gentle scratch of her stylus on the tablet a comforting rhythm against the tension coiling in his chest. He was a sentry on a silent watchtower, his senses attuned to the digital world. A dedicated monitor was slaved to the disposable email account he’d used, a dark screen waiting for a single flash of light.

Less than three hours after he sent the message, the flash came. A small notification pinged, a sound that seemed to echo in the quiet apartment like a gunshot.

New Email from: [email protected]

Kael took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee. His expression was unreadable. He moved the cursor over the notification and clicked.

The email that filled the screen was not a message. It was a digital eruption of pure, undiluted rage. The corporate language, the carefully constructed facade, had been incinerated, leaving only the raw, sputtering hatred of Patriot_Prime88.

Subject: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

You think you can hide behind a screen you little fucking coward? You destroyed my life. Thirty years of work, gone because of some pansy-ass complaint. I know who you are. You’re one of them. Some affirmative action diversity hire they brought in to ruin everything. Or maybe you’re one of those faggots from marketing with the pronouns in your bio.

Let me tell you something you little shit. I have friends. I have resources you can’t even imagine. I will find you. I will find out where you live. I will find that little black bitch you’re defending and I will teach her what real art is. I’ll paint the fucking walls with you both.

You made a mistake. You picked the wrong guy. I’m going to make you regret the day your worthless mother ever fucking spawned you. Watch your back. Every shadow. Every corner. I’m coming for you.

Kael read the entire message, his eyes scanning the block of text with the dispassionate focus of a bomb disposal expert examining a live device. The words, crafted to inspire terror, to intimidate and silence, had the exact opposite effect.

He felt no fear. He felt no anger. The violent, racist, homophobic tirade was so perfectly, predictably Jeff that it almost made him smile. Instead of a threat, he saw a confession. A signed, sealed, and delivered admission of guilt, motive, and character. Jeff, blinded by his narcissistic fury, believed he was punching back through the shadows. In reality, he was willingly placing his own head in the guillotine.

A cold thrill, sharp and clean as a shard of ice, slid down Kael’s spine. This was more than he could have ever hoped for. The first attack had been impersonal, a corporate execution based on public evidence. This… this was a gift. This was Jeff Thompson, in his own words, providing the justification for his own annihilation. The threat against Lena, a line of text typed in a moment of impotent rage, had sealed his fate more surely than any screenshot ever could.

With the unhurried calm of a professional processing evidence, Kael began his work.

First, he saved the email as a raw source file. This preserved not just the text but the full, unredacted headers—a digital fingerprint tracing the email’s path from Jeff’s AOL server to his own. It was irrefutable.

Second, he forwarded the entire message, headers and all, to the abuse and violations department at AOL’s parent company. The subject line was simple: Formal Report: Violation of Terms of Service - Violent Threats and Hate Speech. It was a minor move, a bureaucratic slap on the wrist, but it was part of his process. Every action would have a consequence. Every transgression would be logged.

Finally, he returned to the master file on his secure server. He opened the polished PDF, the twelve-page document titled Employee Conduct Review: Jeffrey Thompson, Senior Manager. He scrolled to the end of the meticulously organized exhibits. He created a new page.

At the top, in bold, red letters, he typed a new heading:

APPENDIX F: DIRECT COMMUNICATION - UNPROVOKED VIOLENT THREATS AND TARGETED HARASSMENT

Beneath it, he pasted the full, unedited text of Jeff’s email. The block of raw, profane rage was a jarring, ugly contrast to the sanitized corporate evidence that preceded it. It was the monster’s roar, captured and cataloged. The dossier was no longer just a report on prejudicial social media activity. It was now a chronicle of a dangerous, unhinged individual. It was a weapon that had just been upgraded from a sniper rifle to a bunker-busting bomb.

Kael saved the new version of the file. He looked at the completed document, now thirteen pages long. The game had changed entirely. His initial goal had been simple: to make a racist coward face a consequence for his anonymous hate. He had succeeded. But Jeff’s reaction, his doubling down, his direct threat against Lena—that had rewritten the rules.

This was no longer about a single act of revenge. This was about permanent removal. Jeff Thompson couldn't be allowed to simply find another job, another position of power from which he could continue to spread his poison and harm others. He had to be excised from the corporate world entirely. A digital ghost, erased from the professional landscape he held so dear.

Kael leaned back, the screens casting long shadows across his face. He had provoked his enemy, and his enemy had foolishly revealed the true depths of his depravity. It was far from over. In fact, Jeff Thompson had just handed him the perfect tool for the final act.

He had made his second, and final, mistake.