Chapter 12
Day twenty-five.
Henry caught something in a tech group and passed it over for me to see.
He handed me a screenshot—an internal announcement from StellarTech.
"Notice about Core System Upgrade—CTO Michael Grant has decided that the company will finish migrating its core system by the start of next month. All business systems will switch over to the new tech platform"
I zoomed in on the screenshot, reading every word.
"He's really forcing the swap," I said.
"A month to overhaul the core system?" Henry pushed up his glasses. "Alex, that's insane. You spent four years building that thing. Even if our whole tech team worked nonstop, three months would be a miracle. One month? Is he nuts or just clueless?"
"Clueless," I said. "Michael's only ever worked on the app layer. He's never touched the core infrastructure."
"So he's really doing this? Isn't he worried the whole thing's gonna blow up?" Henry asked.
"That's what makes it interesting," I said.
I closed the screenshot.
"Henry, reach out to William Sutton at Clearview Securities," I said.
"That analyst? Why him?" Henry asked.
"StellarTech's releasing their half-year earnings next month. If their system migration blows up, the technical failure will show up in their numbers. If Clearview Securities gets wind of this risk ahead of time—" I said.
"They'll downgrade their rating," Henry said, getting it.
"Exactly. Once their stock tanks, StellarTech's chances of raising money go down the drain," I said.
Susan looked up at me.
"Alex," she said, "how many moves ahead are you now?"
"Third," I said. "Step one, revoke the patents. Step two, steal their clients. Step three, shut down their funding."
"Is there a step four?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said.
I glanced out the window.
"But it's not time for that yet," I said.