"Richard, wait," Arthur stammered, his eyes darting frantically between the code on the screen and the handwritten ink. "We can't just leave."
"We have what we need, Arthur! We're leaving!" Hayes roared, slamming his palms on the table.
"No, we don't!" Arthur yelled back, finally finding his spine. The CTO shoved the datapad toward Hayes. "Look at it. Really look at it!"
Hayes scowled, glaring at the screen. The simulation was still running flawlessly, the drones navigating the grid in perfect synchronization. "It's working! She fixed it!"
"She didn't just fix it, Richard," Arthur whispered, the terror bleeding back into his voice. "Look at the variable she used for the decaying threshold. The one she wrote on the napkin: AuthKey_Rec_TB_01. It's not just an algorithmic command; it's an encrypted handshake."
Hayes frowned, his brow furrowing. "English, Arthur!"
Khloe stepped closer to the table, resting her hands on the polished mahogany. "He means it's a tether, Mr. Hayes. The code I just gave you stabilized the system, yes, but it requires a live cryptographic key to maintain that stability. A key that is currently resting on a secure AWS server, heavily encrypted, and entirely under my control."
Hayes's eyes widened. "You planted a virus in my system?!"
"I built a lock for my father's house," Khloe corrected, her voice ice-cold. "The patch is currently running on a localized cache. It will hold for exactly eight hours—just long enough for you to set up your equipment at the Pentagon. But the moment you boot up that AI for the Department of Defense demonstration at 8:00 a.m., the system will look for the master authentication key."
Arthur nodded miserably. "If it doesn't find the key, the entire framework collapses. It won't just crash, Richard. It will initiate a recursive purge. It will wipe the entire source code from our servers. The drone AI will be permanently erased."
David buried his face in his hands. "Oh my god. We are going to lose the $2 billion contract. Skadden Arps warned us about absorbing unverified legacy code! Richard, the Department of Defense will blacklist us!"
"Shut up, David!" Hayes spat, though the panic was finally visible in his eyes. He glared at Khloe. "You wouldn't dare. Do you have any idea who I am? I have friends at Lockheed Martin! I have senators on speed dial! I will bury you so deep in federal litigation you'll never see the sun again! I'll have you charged with corporate terrorism!"