Story code: ST-001133
Part 2: The Ultimatum
Splinters of dark oak rained across the plush carpet as the left door tore free from its upper hinge. Elaine flinched, instinctively stepping back from the podium. Three men in Apex Energy security uniforms shoved their way into the boardroom, their faces flushed and slick with sweat. The tallest of the three, sporting a rapidly swelling purple bruise over his left eye, threw his entire body weight back against the fractured door.
“Help me!” the guard screamed, his boots slipping on the polished hardwood floor. “Barricade it!”
The paralysis in the room broke. Three executives scrambled from their chairs, pushing a massive, marble-topped credenza across the room. The heavy furniture ground against the floorboards with a horrific screech, slamming into the broken doors just as fists began pounding from the corridor outside.
Elaine couldn’t breathe. The rhythmic thudding against the boardroom doors synchronized with the chanting still pouring from the iPad on the table.
Marcus hadn’t moved to help the guards. He remained at the front of the room, his large hand still pinning the tablet. Elaine stared at his knuckles, white with tension, and then shoved his arm away. She snatched the iPad.
On the screen, the countdown reached zero.
The megaphone clicked off. The crowd surrounding her daughter fell into a sudden, eerie silence. Lily was shaking, her back pressed so hard against the brick wall that the rough texture was snagging her sweater. A figure in a black hoodie and a reflective silver face mask stepped into the frame, completely blocking the mob from view. The masked figure held up a smartphone to the camera lens.
The screen of the masked figure’s phone displayed a calling interface.
A second later, Elaine’s blazer pocket began to vibrate.
The buzzing felt like an electric shock against her ribs. She reached in with a numb hand and pulled out her cell phone. The screen flashed with an incoming call from an unknown number.
“Do not answer that,” Marcus snapped, his voice slicing through the muffled banging at the back of the room. “The moment you engage, you validate their leverage. Apex policy is strict-”
“That is my daughter,” Elaine said, her voice sounding thin and foreign to her own ears. She swiped the green icon and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
The response echoed in stereo, slightly delayed between the cell phone at her ear and the iPad speaker on the table.
“Elaine Vance,” a digitally modulated voice said. It sounded like grinding metal, stripped of any gender or humanity. “You have the attention of fifty thousand live viewers. Are you looking at the stream?”
“I’m looking,” Elaine gasped, her nails digging into the edge of the wooden podium. “Please, she has nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“She is the beneficiary of your blood money,” the metallic voice replied. On the iPad screen, the masked figure reached out and grabbed Lily by the shoulder, jerking her forward. Lily let out a sharp cry, stumbling onto her knees on the concrete. “Her tuition is paid for by the poisoning of our coastlines. You wrote the injunction to unleash riot police on peaceful citizens at the refinery. Now, you will undo it.”
“I don’t… I can’t just undo it,” Elaine stammered. “The filings are already with the judge-”
“You have administrative access to the state’s e-filing portal,” the voice interrupted. “We know the passcode to your terminal is 8-8-3-1-Vance. We know the docket is 44-B. Turn your laptop around so the boardroom camera can see it. Log in, share your screen to the stream using the link we just texted you, and withdraw the injunction with prejudice.”
Elaine looked at her open laptop. If she withdrew a filing of this magnitude with prejudice, the blockade would hold indefinitely. Apex would lose tens of millions. Her career would be instantly, irrevocably destroyed.
“You have sixty seconds,” the voice said. “If you disconnect, or if the minute passes without the withdrawal, we proceed to phase two.”
On the iPad feed, two more masked individuals stepped out of the crowd. One of them pulled a pair of heavy, black industrial zip-ties from their pocket. They grabbed Lily’s wrists, forcing them behind her back. Lily screamed, tears finally spilling over her cheeks as she thrashed against them.
“Stop!” Elaine shrieked into the phone. “Stop, I’ll do it! I’m logging in!”
She slammed the phone down on the podium on speaker mode and reached for her laptop keyboard.
A heavy hand clamped down on the lid of her laptop, slamming it shut with a loud crack.
Elaine gasped, looking up. Marcus stood over her, his expression hardened into a mask of pure corporate preservation.
“You will do no such thing,” Marcus said, his voice deadly calm. He looked up at the ceiling security camera, then back to Elaine. “As Chief Operations Officer of Apex Energy, I am informing you that you are officially terminated as our outside counsel, effective immediately.”
Elaine stared at him, uncomprehending. “Marcus, they have Lily. They’re tying her up!”
“You no longer represent this firm,” Marcus continued loudly, ensuring his words were captured by the room’s microphones. “Therefore, you have no legal authority to withdraw Docket 44-B. If you attempt to log into that portal, you will be committing cyber-intrusion and corporate sabotage. I will personally see you prosecuted to the fullest extent of federal law, and you will spend the next twenty years in a federal penitentiary.”
“Forty-five seconds,” the metallic voice announced from the phone on the podium.
“Get out of my way,” Elaine snarled, shoving at Marcus’s chest. It was like pushing against a concrete pillar. He didn’t budge.
“They are bluffing,” Marcus said, keeping his hand firmly planted on her closed laptop. “They are college activists, Elaine. They want a viral moment. If you give in, they win. Apex does not negotiate. If you touch this laptop, I will have security restrain you.”
“Thirty seconds,” the voice echoed.
At the back of the room, the banging against the barricaded doors suddenly stopped. The three executives holding the credenza backed away slowly, their faces pale.
A high-pitched mechanical whine pierced the silence. Directly in the center of the splintered oak door, a jagged steel saw blade punched through the wood, vibrating violently as it began slicing a path downward.
“Twenty seconds, Elaine,” the voice whispered from the phone.