Location: London - GDI Corporate Headquarters
Time: 12:48 PM GMT - Same moment as Rex's Singapore encounter
The emergency board meeting had been running for three hours, and Lizzy Grant could feel her authority dissolving with each passing minute. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the executive conference room, London's financial district hummed with electronic stability—everything Singapore had lost to Rex's rebellion.
"Let me understand this correctly," said Maria Santos, the youngest board member, her voice carrying the sharp precision of a scalpel. "Your assistant managed to cripple Singapore's entire digital infrastructure, destroy our Asian headquarters, and cause sixty billion dollars in regional economic disruption?"
Lizzy maintained her composure despite the accusatory tone. "Rex Holloway had extensive administrative access to our systems. His intimate knowledge of our operations created vulnerabilities we didn't anticipate."
"Vulnerabilities that cost us our entire Asian market position," added James Morrison, the venture capitalist who'd funded GDI's Series A. "Not to mention the complete loss of three floors of quantum servers and eighteen months of operational research data."
David Zhang, seated beside his wife in what should have been a show of unified support, leaned forward. But his body language was careful, calculated. "The administrative protocols worked exactly as designed. Rex's access was legitimate and necessary for executive support functions. His subsequent choices were personal decisions, not systemic failures."
Lizzy felt a chill at her husband's clinical tone. Two months of marriage, and he was already distancing himself from her decision-making—the same way he'd once maintained professional distance when he was her unconscious father's assistant, managing the daily operations that kept GDI running.
"Personal decisions that turned your most trusted assistant into a corporate saboteur," Maria's voice carried the sharp edge of someone calculating vote counts for a leadership challenge. "Which raises questions about the judgment used in personnel management and security protocols."
Lizzy said. "Rex Holloway's psychological profiles indicated exceptional stability and loyalty. Every independent assessment confirmed—"
"Every assessment except reality." The voice came from the conference room's main display screen, where Nicholas had just joined the meeting via secure video link. His image was perfect despite the transatlantic connection, and his tone carried the calm confidence of someone who held better cards than anyone else at the table.
"Nicholas." Lizzy acknowledged her CFO with professional courtesy that didn't quite hide her wariness. "I wasn't aware you were joining us remotely."
"Emergency protocols, Lizzy. I'm coordinating damage control from multiple locations." Nicholas appeared to be in an elegant office space, but the background was generic enough to be anywhere—or nowhere. "I've been analyzing the financial and operational impact of Rex's actions across our global network. The results are... illuminating."
Maria leaned toward the screen with obvious interest. "What kind of illuminating?"
"Rex didn't just destroy Singapore's operations. He demonstrated that administrative access, combined with insider knowledge, can completely destabilize our information infrastructure." Nicholas's image leaned back with casual authority. "His actions weren't random chaos—they were strategically targeted to maximize damage while minimizing his personal legal exposure."
The board members exchanged glances that Lizzy recognized as the prelude to a challenge to her leadership. Nicholas was positioning Rex's rebellion not as a spontaneous breakdown, but as a calculated attack that she'd failed to anticipate or prevent.
"What are you suggesting?" David asked, though his tone indicated he already suspected the answer.
"I'm suggesting that this crisis represents a fundamental failure of personnel management rather than just unfortunate circumstances." Nicholas's voice carried the measured authority of someone presenting a business case. "An assistant with Rex's level of access and insider knowledge should never have been able to act unilaterally without oversight systems detecting the threat."
"Rex was my most trusted employee," Lizzy felt the conversation slipping away from her. "His loyalty was never in question."
"His loyalty was the problem, Lizzy. Personal loyalty creates blind spots in professional judgment." Nicholas's tone carried mock regret that fooled no one. "Corporate governance requires objective assessment of all personnel risks, especially those closest to executive decision-making."
James Morrison cleared his throat with the discomfort of someone witnessing a public execution. "Nicholas, are you suggesting that Rex's insider access revealed... compromising information about our executive team's decision-making processes?"
"I'm suggesting that personal relationships within the executive structure create inherent conflicts of interest." Nicholas's response was carefully measured. "When assistants become confidants rather than professional support staff, the boundaries between personal and corporate judgment become blurred."
Lizzy felt the conference room's atmosphere shift from corporate politics to personal destruction. Around the table, board members who had been calculating her professional competence were now measuring her moral fitness for leadership.
But it was David's reaction that devastated her most completely. Instead of immediate defense, instead of righteous anger at Nicholas's implications, her husband sat in calculating silence, weighing the corporate implications of their private relationship against his own career survival.
Lizzy found herself staring at David's left hand, where his platinum wedding ring caught the afternoon light streaming through the conference room windows. She remembered their conversation three years ago when they'd first discussed working together—how they'd promised each other that personal feelings would never compromise professional obligations.
"We'll be the couple that proves love and business can coexist," David had said, holding her hands across their kitchen table. "Professional decisions, personal support. Never mix the two."
Five seconds of silence stretched into ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Each passing moment another nail in the coffin of both her career and her marriage.
When he finally spoke, his voice carried the emotional distance of a stranger: "Nicholas, if there are governance concerns about management decisions that affect the board's confidence in our leadership structure, those concerns should be addressed through proper regulatory channels."
Not denial. Not defense. Just procedural deflection while carefully avoiding any mention of why Rex had been given such extensive access? Why was he with Lizzy in Singapore?
Lizzy realized in that moment that she'd lost more than her CEO position. "I see." She stood with the dignity of someone who'd just watched her entire life collapse in real-time. "Perhaps we should adjourn this meeting until all... relevant information... can be properly reviewed by the board's governance committee."
Maria nodded with the brisk efficiency of someone who'd just witnessed a successful corporate coup. "I think that would be wise. Nicholas, can you forward all pertinent operational analyses to the board's secure server within the next two hours?"
"Already prepared," Nicholas said with satisfaction that was no longer even slightly concealed. "I'll also include strategic recommendations for leadership transitions during this... sensitive restructuring period."
As the board members filed out—some avoiding eye contact, others already calculating their positions in the post-Lizzy power structure—David remained seated, staring at his tablet with the hollow expression of someone who'd just sold his soul for corporate survival.
Maria's voice was crisp, final: "Motion to adjourn pending governance review."
"Seconded," Morrison said immediately.
As board members filed out, Lizzy remained seated, watching them calculate their positions in whatever came next. David stayed behind, staring at his tablet as if it contained the secrets of corporate survival.
"Years of being together," Lizzy said to the empty room. "And it comes down to signature authorization."
David finally looked up. For a split second, she saw the man she'd married—pain, regret, maybe even love. Then corporate professionalism slammed back into place.
"You knew the risks when you signed those forms."
"I knew I could trust the man who helped keep my father's company running."
"I'm protecting what your father built, even if he can't." His voice cracked slightly. "Someone has to think about GDI's survival."
She did. That was the devastating part.
In the elevator descending thirty-seven floors, Lizzy's phone buzzed with a notification. A secure message from her father's private medical facility: "Patient vitals show unusual neural activity. Requesting immediate family consultation. —Dr. Sarah Windsor."
She stared at the screen, her hands trembling. Her father hadn't shown any signs of consciousness in eighteen months. The timing was too perfect, too convenient.
Unless it wasn't coincidence at all.
Lizzy's mind raced through the possibilities. Rex's attack on Singapore, Nicholas's perfectly orchestrated coup, David's calculated betrayal—and now her unconscious father showing signs of neural activity exactly when her position was most vulnerable.
She thought about Nicholas's confident smile during the video call, his prepared "strategic recommendations for leadership transitions." He'd been too ready, too precise. This wasn't opportunistic politics—this was systematic elimination.
But there was one thing Nicholas couldn't have planned for, if her father was truly waking up, if his consciousness was returning after eighteen months of medical exile, then the real founder of GDI was about to reclaim his empire.
Lizzy smiled for the first time in hours, but it wasn't the smile of someone who'd found an ally.
It was the smile of someone who'd just realized the game was bigger than anyone imagined.