On Monday, his keycard didn’t work.

He stood at the elevator bank, swiping the thin plastic against the reader, watching the light blink red, red, red. A security guard approached him with the apologetic expression of someone following protocol.

“Mr. Clarke? I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“My keycard isn’t working. There must be a system error—”

“Sir, I’m going to need you to come with me.”

They led him to a small room on the ground floor, a room with no windows and a table and chairs that had been designed for comfort but instead communicated only institutional weight. He sat. The guard left. The door closed behind him with the same finality as the click in Patricia’s office, and Marcus understood that he had passed through some invisible threshold, that the rules had changed, that the game had ended.

The man who entered was not someone he recognized. Expensive suit, forgettable face, the kind of anonymity that suggested extensive practice at remaining unseen.

“Mr. Clarke. You’ve been accessing files outside your authorization level. Documents that contain proprietary and confidential information. This is a serious violation of your employment agreement.”

“I was conducting an audit. It was assigned to me.”

“The audit has been reassigned. And your access has been revoked pending a review of your conduct.”

“On what grounds?”

The man smiled. It was a smile Marcus had seen before, on television, in documentaries about financial crimes, about the kind of men who moved money through invisible channels and slept soundly at night.

“Your employment terminated three hours ago. Security will escort you from the building. You’ll receive documentation of any company property in your possession, and you’ll be expected to surrender all copies of any materials you accessed during your tenure. Non-compliance will result in legal action.”

“You’re destroying evidence.”

“I’m clarifying procedures.” The man stood, adjusted his cuffs with the practiced precision of someone who had learned to present themselves as a gentleman before learning anything else. “If you have concerns about your termination, you’re welcome to contact HR. They’ll be happy to discuss your options.”

He left. The door closed. And Marcus sat alone in the small room, listening to the building breathe around him, calculating what he had and what he could do with it.

The USB drive pressed against his ankle. Three point two million words of evidence, all saved in a format that couldn’t be erased by any software update or executive decision.

Outside, the city continued its indifferent rhythm. Cars moved through streets. People went to work in buildings where numbers were moved from column to column, where ledgers were balanced on foundations that might be solid or might be sand.

Marcus had forty-seven hours of footage, seventeen signatures, and a decision to make.

He picked up his phone and began to dial.