The first thing Walter said was, “You’re not going home alone.”
“I’m going to work.”
“You’re definitely not doing that alone.”
Eleanor looked at the Parker Precision entry again.
The attorney was already documenting it.
Naomi checked metadata.
“This row was created at 7:22 this morning.”
“By whom?”
“Initials AK.”
Adrian Kells.
Northstar.
Richard had been exposed less than twenty-four hours earlier, yet Adrian was still expanding the database.
That told us something important.
He didn’t think the operation was finished.
“What does ‘discredit before expansion’ mean?” Eleanor asked.
“I can guess.”
The attorney said, “Don’t.”
He was right.
Again.
We had spent enough time learning what happened when assumptions became corporate facts.
Naomi preserved the record.
Then she searched the partial database for other recent entries.
Three had been edited that morning.
Parker Precision.
Trellis Defense.
Benton Medical.
All companies currently involved in exposing the scheme.
“They’re updating targets in real time,” she said.
Walter frowned.
“Meaning somebody knows what we’re doing.”
Eleanor looked toward the conference-room door.
Nobody said Richard’s name.
Nobody needed to.
The attorney contacted the investigators.
They advised us not to confront Adrian or Northstar.
They were already working through legal processes for provider records, company systems, and relevant communications.
That meant we had one job.
Protect the factories we could identify.
The incomplete database gave us twenty-six.
Naomi coordinated with federal investigators so alerts could be issued through appropriate channels without compromising the investigation.
I focused on technical containment.
“Every company needs to disable dormant vendor accounts.”
Naomi typed.
“Rotate credentials.”
She typed.
“Remove trusted remote certificates unless actively required.”
More typing.
“Compare controller parameters against validated backups.”
Walter added, “And tell people on the floor to stop trusting any machine just because the screen is green.”
I looked at him.
“That’s actually good.”
He appeared offended.
“I occasionally have ideas.”
“Write it down.”
“I don’t trust electricity.”
By noon, calls were moving through legal teams, cybersecurity contacts, manufacturers, and plant managers.
Responses varied.
Some companies acted immediately.
Some insisted their systems were isolated.
Some discovered they were not.
One engineering manager said remote access was impossible.
Ten minutes later his IT department found two active vendor tunnels.
Another company had never changed the default administrator password on a five-year-old controller gateway.
That discovery caused Naomi to remove her glasses and rub her eyes.
“This industry is trying to kill me.”
Walter nodded.
“Machines tried first. Computers are just getting their turn.”
My own company presented a stranger problem.
Parker Precision had almost no infrastructure to attack.
No office network.
No employees.
No remote machine access.
No customer database beyond my phone and laptop.
That made me technically safer.
Professionally, I was exposed.
Adrian didn’t need to sabotage my equipment.
He could sabotage equipment at companies I served and make it look like I had done it.
I realized that while staring at the Calder invoice.
“What?”
Walter saw my face.
“They don’t have to attack me.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I become an external technical authority for Horizon, what’s the easiest way to discredit me?”
“Make you fail.”
“Or make my repairs fail.”
Eleanor understood.
“Change a machine after you service it.”
“Yes.”
Then blame Parker Precision.
A brand-new company with no institutional credibility.
One accusation could end it.
Walter leaned back.
“So what do you do?”
I thought about Richard.
His scheme depended on ambiguity.
Invisible access.
Poor records.
Failures nobody could reconstruct afterward.
The answer was the opposite.
“Everything gets documented.”
Walter looked disappointed.
“That’s your big move?”
“Yes.”
“Paperwork?”
“Evidence.”
I opened a blank document.
Every Parker Precision service visit would create a signed baseline.
Controller checksum.
Parameter export.
Photographs.
Access logs.
Machine condition.
Customer acknowledgment.
Any later change could be compared against a preserved state.
Naomi nodded.
“Cryptographic hashes.”
Walter groaned.
“Now you’ve made paperwork worse.”
She ignored him.
“Timestamped and stored independently.”
“Exactly.”
Eleanor smiled faintly.
“You’re building the company because someone threatened it.”
“No.”
I kept typing.
“I’m building it correctly because someone showed me how badly companies protect themselves.”
By afternoon, Parker Precision had procedures.
Not many.
But real ones.
No shared credentials.
No undocumented remote access.
No customer password storage unless absolutely necessary.
Every configuration change recorded.
Every emergency service session preserved.
The company had two clients and a security policy.
Walter read the first page.
“Can I have a company truck?”
“You’re not an employee.”
“Technicality.”
“You work for Horizon.”
“Temporary character flaw.”
My phone rang.
Daniel from Calder.
“Ethan, someone called our purchasing department.”
I straightened.
“Who?”
“Claimed to be from your company.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did they want?”
“Remote access to the machine you repaired.”
Walter’s humor vanished.
“Did they get it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Luis asked for the service ticket number.”
I looked at Walter.
The procedure we had discussed had not even existed when Luis protected us.
Good technicians had their own instincts.
“What did the caller say?”
“Disconnected.”
“Number?”
“Blocked.”
“Recordings?”
“Our calls are recorded.”
“Preserve it.”
Daniel hesitated.
“They knew details.”
“What details?”
“Machine model. Fault type. Your visit.”
That information could have come from several places.
Northstar’s database.
Richard.
Someone inside Calder.
Or compromised email.
“Did they use my name?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
“Said, ‘Ethan asked us to verify yesterday’s repair remotely.’”
There it was.
Not an attack on my company’s computers.
An attack on trust.
I said, “From now on, nobody claiming to represent Parker Precision gets access unless you verify directly with me through a known number.”
“Already told everyone.”
“Good.”
Daniel added, “Luis wants to know if he gets a commission for saving your company.”
Walter shouted toward the phone, “Tell him yes.”
I covered the microphone.
“No.”
“He earned it.”
“You don’t work here.”
“Then I can approve anything.”
Daniel laughed.
It helped.
Only briefly.
After the call, Naomi said, “That was fast.”
Too fast.
The database entry had been created at 7:22.
By afternoon, someone was already impersonating Parker Precision.
“Adrian’s testing the strategy,” I said.
The attorney didn’t correct me.
This time the evidence was close enough.
At 3:18, Tyler called again.
His voice was breathless.
“Did you get the files?”
“Thirty-one percent.”
“Damn.”
“What happened?”
“Someone got into the server.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you?”
He hesitated.
Then gave me the name of a motel forty miles away.
The attorney immediately wrote it down.
“Tyler, stay there,” Eleanor said. “Investigators will contact you.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard knows where I am.”
“How?”
“I used his card.”
Walter stared at the phone.
“You used Richard’s credit card to hide from Richard?”
“I panicked.”
“That’s not hiding. That’s sending a postcard.”
I interrupted.
“Tyler, leave the room. Go somewhere public. Do not approach Richard.”
“I don’t think he’s coming himself.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he called me.”
Everyone went still.
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“What did he say?”
Tyler swallowed.
“He said Adrian wants the backup.”
“And?”
“I told him I deleted it.”
“Did he believe you?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“He said this stopped being about Horizon.”
I looked at the partial database.
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Silence.
Then Tyler said, “There’s another file.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“What file?”
“I didn’t copy it to the server.”
“Where is it?”
“On a drive.”
“What’s on it?”
“I never opened everything.”
“Tyler.”
“I saw one folder.”
“What was it called?”
He answered.
“Phase Two.”
Walter looked at me.
I asked, “What is Phase Two?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who created it?”
“Adrian.”
“When?”
“About two months ago.”
“Where’s the drive?”
Another silence.
“In my apartment.”
Naomi closed her eyes.
The attorney immediately called investigators.
I said, “Do not go back there.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Tyler breathed out.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“There was one filename inside Phase Two.”
“What?”
“Grant.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“Grant what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Company? Person?”
“I only saw the name.”
Eleanor looked through the conference-room windows toward the production floor her family had built.
Walter asked quietly, “Could mean Horizon?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My family holding company is Grant Industrial Group.”
The room went silent.
Horizon wasn’t the destination.
It was one subsidiary.
Grant Industrial owned six manufacturing companies.
Together, they operated twenty-four plants.
And Eleanor had just signed Parker Precision to become the technical partner helping protect them.
