Chapter 5 - THE AUDIT TRAIL"Mara," Grant hissed, his face turning an unhealthy shade of pale. "What are you doing? Sit down."
"I'm doing my job, Grant," I replied smoothly, opening my leather folder and placing a single, certified document directly in front of the Aethel Corp counsel.
"As the chief IP attorney of Helix Harbor," I announced to the room, "I am legally obligated to disclose a catastrophic material defect in the patent chain-of-title currently presented by Mr. Mercer."
Grant lunged forward, slamming his palm on the table. "She's lying! She's a disgruntled employee trying to sabotage the company!"
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"Am I?" I looked right into his panicked eyes. "Grant, when you copied Elias's preliminary research files the night he passed away, you were in such a desperate rush to beat the probate clock that you grabbed his draft folder instead of the final production build."
The Aethel Corp counsel scanned the document I provided. "Good god... The equations submitted in this patent are hollowed-out placeholder algorithms. They don't actually process desalination at scale; they trigger a structural collapse under high pressure."
