She drew a quick graph: an exponential curve dropping into zero.
"By minute five," Jaime said, tapping the board, "the drones calculated that the only empty space in the entire world was a singular point in the center of the swarm. They didn't crash; they were trying to hide in the only safe place left. They were trying to occupy the exact same coordinate simultaneously."
The board stared at the board. It was terrifyingly simple.
"You built a suicide pact into the firmware," Arthur Blackwood murmured.
"I built a safety valve," Jaime corrected. "You removed the handle."
"We can patch it," Jessica spoke up, her voice trembling. "Now that we know, we can patch it in a week."
"No, you can't," Jaime said, turning to Jessica. "Because the sigma variable isn't constant. It's dynamic, based on the hardware heat signature. It requires a distinct coefficient for every single drone unit. If you guess wrong, they don't crash immediately; they crash randomly. Maybe in 5 minutes, maybe in 5 hours over a playground. Are you willing to take that liability?"
Silence choked the room.
Robert Patterson leaned back in his chair and smiled. It was a shark's smile. "Ladies and gentlemen of the board," Patterson said, "here is the situation: you have a warehouse full of drones that are effectively paperweights. You have a stock price that is currently in freefall. And you have a creator who is willing to walk out that door and sell the solution to Amazon or Google tomorrow morning."
"This is blackmail!" Gavin hissed.
"No," Jaime said. "It's business. Isn't that what you told me, Gavin? Leverage is everything."
Arthur Blackwood ignored Gavin. He looked at Jaime with a newfound respect. He saw the fire in her eyes—the same fire he had when he was 30.
"What is your price, Miss Jenkins?" Arthur asked. "5 million? 10?"
Jaime looked at Derek. He was staring at his hands, defeated. She looked at Gavin. He was red-faced, veins bulging in his neck.
"I don't want a payout," Jaime said. "I want a position."
The declaration hung in the air.
"A position?" Gavin laughed—a harsh, barking sound. "You want a job? Fine! We'll make you VP of Mathematics. We'll give you a cubicle in the basement. Now give us the equation!"
"Shut up, Gavin," Arthur Blackwood said. He didn't raise his voice, but the command was absolute. Gavin snapped his mouth shut. Arthur turned back to Jaime. "Go on."
"I want Derek's job," Jaime said.
Derek's head snapped up. "Excuse me?!"
"You're incompetent, Derek," Jaime said, stating it as a fact, not an insult. "You're a good salesman, but you don't understand the product. You let your investors bully you into cutting corners. You removed safety protocols to meet a deadline. You are a liability."
She turned to the board. "And I want Gavin Reed off the board."
"You can't do that!" Gavin screamed, jumping to his feet. "I funded the seed round! I own 20% of this company!"
"Which is currently worth zero," Robert Patterson interjected smoothly. "Unless Miss Jenkins fixes the product. If she walks, Aerologics files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Monday. Your 20% becomes a tax write-off. If you step down and she fixes it, the stock recovers. You keep your shares, but you lose your seat. You get to be rich, Mr. Reed, but you don't get to be powerful. That is the trade."
Jaime stepped forward, placing her hands on the mahogany table. She leaned in toward Gavin.
"You treated me like furniture," she said quietly. "You laughed at me. You stole from me. And you told me I had no leverage. Well, I'm the one holding the eraser now."
Gavin looked around the room. He looked for support, but the board members were avoiding his gaze. They were calculating. They were money people; they didn't care about Gavin's ego, they cared about their portfolios.
"I move for a vote," one of the female board members said. "Motion to remove Derek Sterling as CEO for cause—gross negligence regarding the crash. Motion to accept Gavin Reed's resignation from the board, effective immediately."
"I didn't resign!" Gavin shouted.
"You will," Arthur Blackwood said. "If you want to avoid a lawsuit for fraud. We sold stock based on a demo you knew was flawed. That's prison time, Gavin. Unless we can frame this as a transition of leadership and fix the tech."
Gavin slumped back into his chair. The fight went out of him. He looked small.
"And the replacement?" Arthur asked, looking at Jaime. "You have no management experience, Miss Jenkins. You serve coffee."
"I manage chaos," Jaime said. "I managed a cafe during the morning rush with a broken espresso machine and three staff missing—that's logistics. I managed a household with zero income and a sick parent—that's budget optimization. And I fixed your billion-dollar algorithm in 3 minutes on a napkin while you were hyperventilating. That's leadership."
She paused. "I don't need to know how to run a board meeting, Mr. Blackwood. I need to know how to make the product work. I can hire people to wear suits and shake hands, but none of you can do what I do."
Arthur Blackwood studied her for a long, agonizing minute. He saw the grit. He saw the intelligence that had been overlooked by a world obsessed with credentials.
"Interim CEO," Arthur said. "6-month probation. You get 5% equity vesting over four years and a salary of $300,000."