Her Corporate Takedown: Entangled with a Billionaire

*CHAPTER 42: 1 MINUTE MILLIONAIRE*

Three hours.

I would rather have another catfight with Ari than sit through this last module for three hours right now. Not to mention, I was also tired from all of that exercising this evening.

Sadly, there was no running away. I got started on the final module of the course, which I didn't feel any more confident about than before I started.

Fine, I was a little more confident. I grasped some aspects of using the Undercode, but the real test would be using it more practically in real time.

After three hours and a midnight snack had passed, we wrapped up the session with me nodding off in the middle of Andrei's final explanation. He probably woke me up about fifty times just to finish that last point.

I stopped by the kitchen and layered to the brim of a glass cup some pistachio and cherry-flavoured ice cream on the way to the basement level; the brain freeze served to keep me awake for the next meeting. I had only walked to and from the underground garage and had never seen inside any of the rooms before. I was eager to finally see what a cyber-espionage's real base of operations looked like.

Ari was already waiting for us in room two. I thought for sure that it would be a display of high-tech equipment, but this was on another level (than my realistic imagination). I didn't want to overimagine things, since what you see on TV is usually exaggerated, but I was wrong.

Even in this small room, there were large monitors from wall to wall, devices I couldn't recognize, lights blinking in crazy fashion and cables strung about all over the room. And did I mention it was freezing down here?

"Do you need a jacket?" Ari asked, pointing to the door.

"Yes, please!" I answered, stressing on the 'please'. I looked behind me at the closed door and there were three jackets hanging on three hooks. "Which one?" I didn’t want to take any that was in use.

"Here." Andrei handed me a green and black jacket and before he blinked again, I got my arms inside that jacket. He took down the other two and gave Ari the white and pink jacket while he put on a grey jacket.

Looking from above, Ari's silky black hair contrasted with the white jacket it fell on top of. Her strands were thick but overall not very dense. I couldn't help staring at her shiny jet-black hair and my hands were itching to gloss over its smooth texture. Unfortunately, that itch would have to be relieved another time, since we were not on good terms at the moment.

From my bag, I took out the envelopes with the prizes I had received. I wondered what exactly we were going to be doing, and why I had to come to this overpriced tech room just to put some money in my account. Andrei grabbed a seat for me before I could, fearful that I would rip out all the cables running amok across the floor; a perfectly justifiable reason indeed.

I sat still while watching the two pros at work, not that I understood a single thing they were doing. Ari was setting up a few computers. I saw that some programs were loading and Andrei's lightning fast fingers were flying over a keyboard that was longer than any keyboard I had seen.

He seemed to be typing a program but the lines flew on and off the screen so quickly that I could not follow along. None of them explained anything to me either. If this was supposed to be a practical observational experience, they failed miserably as teachers.

"Alright." Andrei broke the deadlocked silence. "Everything ready on your end?"

'Nope.' Not that he was talking to me.

All of a sudden, he started chuckling while he still looked at Ari. Then, he glanced quietly at me for a second before looking back at her. He was laughing at me. He thought it was funny having me sit here occupying the empty space and wasting precious oxygen.

"Why are you laughing like an i***t?" Ari asked.

'Great question,' I replied before I caught her gaze shifting to me, who's gravitational force had Andrei's life revolving around me. At least, that's how it appeared to be in her eyes.

"I'm ready when you are," she answered his original question.

"Leiya, you'll use this computer to log into the account to claim those shares," he said while repositioning my chair in front of the giant monitor.

"Won't you tell me why I couldn't just do this on my phone?"

I took out the envelope and looked at the instructions that were written. I stared at the desktop screen, wondering if I could use it like a normal computer, but I'm sure they would say something if I was about to crash the computer.

I opened the browser and signed up for a Stoxa account, under the watchful eyes of the hackers beside me. It didn't matter if he saw my personal details anyway, since he had already faked my identity. It was then that I thought of a good idea. I should have let Andrei register for me so that I could see if he really knew all of my personal information.

While I registered, I noticed the screen had been duplicated on Ari's computer, along with a dozen other complicated pop-up screens racing through coding lines. When were they going to explain what was going on? Could it be that Michelle attached software that would have installed spyware on my phone? That would have been a problem. That's a simple explanation even I could understand.

At the last step, I was halted in my tracks when I was about to enter the code to claim the free shares. Then, my chair was displaced from its position as Andrei took over my account. He opened up the programs I had seen running before and there were red lines that I had never seen before. I stood beside him so that I could see the code more clearly.

This time, I could recognize bits and pieces of the Undercode; I felt a little proud of myself now. However, I was confused by a lot of blank spaces between the lines and some of the lines that cut off abruptly, especially since they kept pointing at them on the screen. Then, I remembered that these contacts could only see up to level two.

"Do you want to be able to see the rest of the program?" he asked suddenly.

'Yes, but I'd have to do surgery for that.'

That question was equivalent to a marriage proposal for him. He's not going to bait me into saying yes, though. I remained silent while I watched them type in a new window and the red font in the original program simultaneously disappeared as the words changed back to a white font.

When he was almost finished clearing the abnormal code, the window started blinking and some of the words reverted to red again. Then, Ari swiftly dragged a window to the edge of her computer screen and it jumped on to Andrei's computer and another program immediately started running.

He finished typing and allowed the new program to run. The two windows ran quickly through the programs and the words that were red all became white again. The program finished running with the pop-up 'Cleanse complete' appearing at the end. That woman really was trying to infect my account with malware.

"What's the code?" I gave him the letter with the code which he checked carefully, then typed in the long code.

"Was it malware?" I asked curiously.

"It was worse than the typical malware," he replied. "You probably thought she just wanted to spy on you, which was true. There's also spyware attached to this, but look at what else is going to happen."

He entered the code and pressed enter. The account was refreshed with a whopping five thousand shares of Merz, worth over a million dollars. I couldn't believe my eyes; tears started to well up in them as my mind ran wild with fantasies of what I could do with that kind of money.

As the tears of happiness almost started to bubble over with thoughts of starting my new luxury life once I sold all the shares in the morning, the numbers on the screen took a nosedive to zero. I really couldn't believe my eyes. Tears rolled over as my despondent eyes stared at the plummeting numbers, depleting my account of their unclaimed value.

Andrei and Ari burst out in laughter at my dejected figure hunched over the table, resting on my hands and gaping at the screen now in grief over my loss. What was so funny? A million dollars might seem like scraps to these young billionaires, but just one second ago, I had life-changing money in my account.

Michelle! She deliberately had this malware installed since it was I who won the prize. I don't know why I allowed myself to get so excited over this. That woman is determined to make my life miserable at any cost. She would never dare to have me reap the benefits of her company's success, even though I won the game fairly.

"What are you getting so worked up over?" he asked as he calmed down after getting a good laugh at my misery.

"Look at it! My account! She got rid of everything. All the money is gone."

"Good, I'm sure she will be happy with that," Ari said, smirking. Who's side was she on? Even though we don't get along, you should at least be on the anti-Michelle side.

"That's why I had you come here. Had you created this account on your phone yesterday, you would have really lost all the money, plus compromised everything on your phone."

"So, you're saying, I haven't really lost the money." My voice expressed a glimmer of hope that the luxurious life I imagined was not yet out of reach.

"I'm sorry but your anticipated luxury life is still out of reach..."

'What?'

"Until you make enough money for yourself," he finished.

'But there's a million dollars sitting right there.'

"I thought you were going to take her down via your own accomplishments. I believe she would still have the last laugh if you took the easy way out."

His comment ticked me off. It must be nice to make such nonchalant comments from the greener side of the field. Was it so bad to dream a little? Still, I felt slightly embarrassed about the unsightly display of greed just now. Even though I had no intentions of abating my plans, cashing out that money would have probably dampened my motivations and lowered the chances of going through with everything.

"Look here," Ari said, pointing to her screen.

My account was also open on her screen but the value of the stocks had not changed. Basically, they duplicated my account. I'm guessing Michelle will see the barren dummy account while we retain the stocks in another account, likely hidden using Andrei's Undercode programs.

I exhaled in relief. At the very least, she didn't win this time. I looked at Andrei rocking the chair from side to side. Since he used a roundabout way to tell me not to cash out all this money, he must have some other plans for it.

I may not have the expertise to play this level of chess game with Michelle, but I still wished he would discuss these decisions more with me, especially since I am heavily involved in this.

Especially if we're supposed to be partners…eventually.