Chapter 7 - MEGAN PRICE
Megan had left Crownpoint six months after Project Harbor.
She now worked for a nonprofit financial research group in Chicago.
Arthur barely remembered her.
She remembered him.
“You fixed the heating vent over our team when Facilities said we'd have to wait a week.”
Arthur stared at the video screen.
“That was you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“Because you were decent to people you didn't need anything from.”
Arthur did not know what to do with that.
Caleb moved on.
“How did you obtain the Harbor pages?”
Megan took a breath.
“At 12:24 a.m., November fifteenth, I was called to forty-nine.”
“By whom?”
“Ethan Brooks.”
Ethan's face changed on the other screen.
He was joining remotely with counsel.
“I don't remember that.”
Megan said:
“I do.”
Why call a financial analyst after midnight?
One of Vanessa's replacement charts contained a denominator error.
Headcount baseline wrong.
Megan had built part of the model.
Ethan asked her to come fix it before morning.
“How did you enter the floor?”
“Security desk issued me a temporary visitor escort.”
Claire interrupted.
“There is no visitor record.”
Megan nodded.
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Someone met me downstairs.”
“Who?”
Megan looked uncomfortable.
“I don't know his name.”
Male.
Forties or fifties.
Dark suit.
Crownpoint pin.
He told lobby security she was with the executive office.
No temporary face enrollment.
He used his own elevator profile and held the door.
“Would you recognize him?”
“Maybe.”
Caleb asked:
“What happened upstairs?”
Megan reached the board suite.
Ethan was there.
Vanessa had already left.
Olivia gone.
Ethan gave her the spreadsheet.
Megan corrected the formula.
Then Ethan took a call.
He stepped into the hall.
Megan waited near the secure printer.
She saw discarded pages on the table.
The workforce appendix.
Her own modeling.
Except the replacement version changed assumptions in ways she had not authorized.
Not fraud automatically.
Management judgment.
But the public talking points sent to employees that week said integration planning had not produced a reduction estimate.
Megan was staring at one.
“What did you do?”
Caleb asked.
“I photographed two pages.”
“With your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I emailed them to a reporter the next morning.”
Vanessa's voice came through the conference speaker.
“You cost this company almost six hundred million dollars in deal value.”
Megan went pale.
Caleb cut in.
“Ms. Reed.”
Megan surprised everyone.
“No. Let her.”
She looked into the camera.
“I knew it could hurt the deal.”
“Did you know the estimate wasn't final?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know I was correcting it?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
There.
Megan was not a perfect whistleblower.
She saw evidence that confirmed what she suspected and acted before learning the full context.
She still believed Crownpoint's public messaging was misleading.
She also admitted the leak created a false impression that 2,400 layoffs were already approved.
They weren't.
“Why come forward now?”
Caleb asked.
“Because I read that Crownpoint had rehired Arthur as a janitor.”
Arthur almost corrected her.
He technically worked for Apex Building Services.
Didn't matter.
Megan continued.
“I knew the company had blamed him. I thought eventually they'd figure out it wasn't him.”
“They didn't.”
“No.”
“Why wait four years?”
Megan looked ashamed.
“I was afraid I'd be sued.”
Crownpoint's confidentiality agreements were broad.
Her attorney later told her some provisions likely could not lawfully block protected reporting.
She did not know that at twenty-six.
So she stayed quiet.
Then two months ago she read an interview where Ethan praised Crownpoint's “culture of accountability” during the Harbor integration.
That bothered her enough to call a lawyer.
Caleb asked:
“Did anyone ask you to leak?”
“No.”
“Did anyone know?”
“No.”
Then Arthur asked:
“The man who took you upstairs.”
“Yes?”
“Why did he come down for you if Ethan called?”
Megan stopped.
“I assumed Ethan sent him.”
Ethan said:
“I didn't.”
Silence.
Megan frowned.
“Then how did he know I was waiting?”
Nobody had an answer.
Caleb turned to Claire.
“Can you search continuity events around 12:20?”
Claire already was.
One result.
12:18 a.m.
A profile entered the forty-ninth floor.
Not Ethan.
Not Vanessa.
Not Olivia.
Not Arthur.
Label:
EXEC-CONT / PROFILE 0
No name.
No department.
No photograph.
The original system allowed exactly one unnamed continuity profile.
May you like
Arthur stared at it.
He had never created Profile 0.
