He watched the RS7 complete its sequence, listened to the sound of people around him responding to something real, and then he turned back to the console and said, "Patterson, full validation protocol. All six simulated environments. Patterson sat back down without a word and started the sequence. The room settled back into work. It was 6:31 in the evening.
What none of them knew yet what was developing two floors above them while the validation protocol ran was that the story was not finished. Not even close. Because Richard Cole had not in fact driven away. His car was still in the parking lot and Richard Cole had spent the last 6 hours making phone calls. Victoria found out at 6:44 when Clare Nakamura walked into her office and closed the door behind her and said without preamble.
Richard's attorney contacted our legal team 40 minutes ago. Victoria looked up from her desk. She had been on the phone with three different board members over the course of the afternoon and had spent the last 20 minutes writing the formal statement she'd promised Daniel, the public apology, the acknowledgement of what had happened, the correction of the record. She set her pen down. What did they want?
She said they're claiming that Daniel's original design work was developed partially on company time and using company resources and that under the terms of his employment contract at the time, the intellectual property belongs to Blackwood, not to Daniel personally. Clare paused. And they're suggesting that Richard's modifications were therefore authorized optimizations of company-owned IP, not unauthorized alterations of someone else's work. Victoria stared at her. They're trying to make this about IP ownership, she said.
Yes, they're trying to make Daniel's own work into the thing that disqualifies him. That's the argument. Victoria was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that happens when a mind is moving very fast through a very dense space. She picked up her pen.
She set it down again. She looked at Clare, "Pull Daniel's original employment contract," she said. "The one from when he was lead architect and pull the IP assignment clauses. I want to read them myself tonight before anyone else characterizes them for me." "Already printing," Clare said. "What else?" Clare hesitated just slightly.
Richard's attorney also sent a letter to the board copied to five of the seven board members. It went out at 6:00. Victoria felt something cold moved through her chest. She kept her face still. What did it say?
It said that today's events represent a breakdown in executive leadership. That the CEO's decision to publicly side with a maintenance level employee over a senior director without due process, without a formal investigation, and in front of international investors constitutes a material risk to the company's position. Clare said it carefully, reading from her own notes, delivering the information with the professional neutrality of someone who understood that the information itself was the problem, not the person delivering it. Victoria said, "He's going after my job. He's laying the groundwork for it, Clare said.