Chapter 5: The Offer
The script was a pebble tossed into the stagnant pond of Northwood High, and the ripples reached further than Elias had anticipated. By Thursday, Mr. Henderson had cornered him after class, his face alight with an idea.
"Eli, the school district's IT head, a Mr. Croft, heard about what you did," Henderson said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "He was... impressed. Wants to meet you. Thinks you might be able to help with a 'widespread, systemic issue'." He said the words as if reciting a holy text.
Elias kept his expression neutral, but internally, he was recalculating. This was an unforeseen variable. Direct contact with the district? It was a risk. It meant visibility. But it also meant a potential, legitimate revenue stream.
"Sure, Mr. Henderson. When?"
The meeting was set for Friday after school. Elias arrived at the administrative office to find a harried-looking man in his fifties, shirt sleeves rolled up, surrounded by a graveyard of dead motherboards and tangled ethernet cables. This was Carl Croft.
"Thorne?" Croft grunted, not looking up from a circuit board he was probing with a multimeter. "Henderson says you're some kind of prodigy. I think he's full of it. But I'm desperate." He finally looked up, his eyes sharp and tired. "The district's rolling out this new 'internet filtering' software. It's a brick. Slows the network to a crawl and crashes half the labs. The vendor's support is useless. You got any magic for that, kid?"
Elias didn't flinch. "I can take a look."
For the next hour, Croft watched, his skepticism slowly morphing into grudging admiration, as Elias navigated the system's backend. The problem was exactly what he'd expected: bloated, inefficient code conflicting with the school's already outdated hardware. He couldn't rewrite the software, but he could optimize its settings and write a patch that would prevent the most common crash triggers.
"It's a workaround," Elias said finally, stepping back from the terminal. The network monitor on the screen showed a stable, healthy connection. "It won't fix the bloat, but it should stop the crashes and improve speed by about forty percent."
Croft stared at the screen, then at Elias, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Well, I'll be damned. You're not full of it." He rubbed his chin. "The district paid twenty grand for that filtering software. You just fixed it in an hour. What's that worth?"
Elias's pulse, which had been steady throughout the technical process, quickened. This was the moment. "A consulting fee would be standard."
Croft barked a laugh. "A consultant. You're seventeen."
"I just solved a twenty-thousand-dollar problem," Elias replied, his voice flat. "My age is irrelevant."
The IT director studied him, the laughter fading from his eyes, replaced by a genuine curiosity. "You're a strange kid, Thorne. All right. The district can't cut a check to a minor. But I can." He pulled out his wallet and counted out three hundred-dollar bills. "Out of my own pocket. Consider it a thank-you. And there's more where that came from. We've got six other high schools with the same issue."
Elias took the cash, the crisp bills feeling like a tangible piece of his new future. It was more than the five hundred he'd spent on the cards. The return had begun.
"Give me a list," Elias said. "I'll draft a service agreement."
He left the office with the money in his pocket and Croft's list of schools in his hand. He felt the solid weight of progress. This was legitimate, scalable, and used his actual skills. It was the perfect cover.
His good fortune, however, made him a target.
As he walked to his car, a familiar Jeep screeched to a halt beside him. Jason Miller got out, followed by two of his football cronies. The friendly, mocking veneer was gone, replaced by raw anger.
"Consulting fee?" Jason sneered, getting in his face. "I heard. You think you're a big man now, Thorne? Fixing computers? You're a nerd. That's all you've ever been."
Elias said nothing. He just looked at Jason, his gaze cool and assessing.
"The hell are you looking at?" Jason shoved him, a hard push to the chest.
Elias staggered back but didn't fall. The cold CEO inside him wanted to dismantle Jason, to verbally eviscerate him with a precision this boy couldn't comprehend. But the teenager, the ghost in the shell, knew that would only escalate things. He saw the raw, unthinking violence in Jason's eyes. This wouldn't be a debate. It would be a beating.
"Back off, Miller," a voice said from the sidewalk.
Eleanor stood there, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her posture rigid. She was alone, but she looked utterly fearless.
"This doesn't concern you, Shaw," Jason snapped, though he took a half-step back.
"It does when you're acting like a caveman," she fired back, her eyes blazing. "Did your ego get bruised because Eli's smarter than you?"
The truth of the statement hit its mark. Jason's face flushed a dark red. He looked from Elias's impassive face to Eleanor's defiant one, the calculus of the situation shifting against him. Beating up Eli was one thing. Doing it in front of Eleanor Shaw, who would undoubtedly tell everyone, was another.
"You're not worth it, Thorne," he spat, pointing a finger. "This isn't over." He climbed back into his Jeep and roared off.
The parking lot was suddenly very quiet. Elias turned to Eleanor. "You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, I did," she said, her breath a little shaky now that the adrenaline was fading. "He was going to hurt you." She looked at him, a new worry in her eyes. "What did you do to make him that angry?"
"I existed," Elias said, a wry twist to his mouth. "And I stopped being his sycophant." He made a decision, an impulse that felt both dangerous and right. "Can I... buy you a coffee? To say thanks."
He expected a refusal. He expected her to retreat back into caution.
Instead, she nodded, that curious spark back in her eyes. "Okay."
As they walked towards his car, the three hundred dollars felt heavy in his pocket. He had won his first contract. He had faced down his enemy. And now, he was going for coffee with Eleanor Shaw.
The foundation, for the first time, felt not just like a plan, but like a life beginning to be built.