"Yesterday, you were told that the Icarus Protocol was a breakthrough developed by Julian's quantitative team." Maya began addressing the investors. "You were told it could predict market volatility with unprecedented accuracy. That part is true. She hit a key.
The screen zoomed in on a specific block of code. What is not true is who built it. "This is nonsense." Julian interrupted, sweating profusely. "It's just lines of code.
It proves nothing." "It proves everything when you look at the metadata." Maya said. She executed a command on the laptop. The screen highlighted the hidden author tags that Henderson had shown her in the car.
Author M. Lin, MIT Project, 2019. A murmur went around the table. The Sterling investors leaned forward, squinting at the screen. "Four years ago."
Maya continued, her voice gaining strength. "I wrote this code as part of a doctoral thesis to model agricultural risks in developing nations. Julian's father, Richard Thorn, used his influence to have me expelled and blacklisted so he could steal it. He gave it to Julian." She stood up and walked slowly toward Julian.
"But they didn't understand it. They spent four years trying to hack it to work for high-frequency trading, and they failed because they missed the key variable, the variable I added yesterday in the restaurant, the Heston-Lin correlation." She stopped right in front of him. Julian looked up at her, his eyes wide with terror. He looked small.
"You didn't build an empire, Julian." Maya said quietly, but the whole room heard her. "You just squatted in the ruins of my life." Julian stood up, shaking. "It's a forgery.
Henderson put her up to this. They planted that tag." "There's an easy way to prove that." The Zurich investor said. He looked at Julian with utter contempt.
"Log in to your master server right now. Show us the source code on your machine. If the tag isn't there, we believe you." Julian froze. He knew it was there.
His tech team was incompetent. They would never have thought to scrub that deep. If he logged in, it was over. If he refused, it was over. The silence stretched, becoming excruciating.
"I can't." Julian whispered. "There are security protocols." "Liar!" The Sterling investor said.
He stood up and closed his portfolio folder. "Gentlemen, the Sterling Trust is withdrawing its offer immediately. We do not do business with frauds." "Wait, please." Julian begged, reaching out.
"We can fix this. It still works. We'll make billions." "Not with you." The investor said.
He turned to Henderson. "Arthur, good catch. You saved us a fortune." The room emptied rapidly. The investors filed out, none of them making eye contact with Julian.
Only Maya, Henderson, and Julian remained. Julian collapsed into his chair. He looked at Maya, defeated, broken, and utterly bewildered by how quickly his world had dissolved. "What do you want?" he mumbled.
Maya placed a document on the table in front of him. It was a legal agreement Henderson's lawyers had drawn up in the car. "Three things." Maya said. "One, you will immediately and publicly drop all criminal charges against me.