My cursor blinked on the code window for a long time before I closed it.
I swiveled my chair slightly, letting my gaze drift out the window. The valley below was covered in a thick white blanket. Somewhere down there, a fox trotted through the trees, oblivious to the fact that three selfish people in Chicago had just kicked over a digital anthill.
SafeMind had started as a grad-school project. Back before “AI safety” became a buzzword, back before governments were asking me to testify about deepfakes, it was just three of us in a cramped apartment, furious about the way extremist content could quietly radicalize lonely teenagers.
We’d built a system that scanned content for harmful patterns in real time, flagging and throttling potential radicalization pipelines before they could spiral. It wasn’t perfect—no system was—but it was good. Good enough that a couple of big platforms had piloted it. Good enough that one of those pilots had led to an acquisition offer from Google DeepMind that made my head spin.
One hundred and ten million dollars.
Numbers that, when wired into your bank account, made your name feel different in your own mouth.
I hadn’t told my family.
Not because I wanted to punish them.
Because I didn’t trust them with that information any more than I’d trust a toddler with a chainsaw.
They hadn’t seen the overnight coding sessions, the funding rejections, the times I’d skipped meals to pay contractors. They didn’t understand equity, dilution, exit strategies. To them, money appeared or it didn’t. Angela’s shopping budget crises had been solved with new credit cards and creative accounting for years.
If they knew, they’d feel entitled to it.
At best, they’d expect me to “help out” indefinitely. At worst, they’d build entire empires on the assumption that their weird coder daughter would always bail them out.
So I’d kept my cabin. My Subaru. My thrift-store hoodies.
Freedom disguised as failure.
They thought they hated me because I was poor.
They actually hated me because somewhere deep down, they could smell that I wasn’t afraid.
That realization had settled over me slowly, like snow. I had no car payment. No mortgage. My biggest bill was my cloud computing budget. If a client fired me, if an investor walked, if a speaking opportunity fell through, I didn’t crumble.
I just wrote more code.
My family lived in houses made of liabilities dressed as assets. They drove cars with payments they were “going to refinance.” They used lines of credit as safety nets and Instagram likes as proof of success.
They were drowning in perception.
I was standing on bedrock.
Now, the internet knew it.
They had wanted a villain and a victim.
They hadn’t realized they’d cast themselves perfectly.
Over the next two days, the drag campaign against my family didn’t require any input from me.
Former employees of Angela’s charity committees popped up with stories. A waitress from a country club posted about the way Angela spoke to staff. Two ex-girlfriends of Christopher’s mentioned his temper and his habit of “forgetting” to pay people back.
Amanda’s coaching clients, emboldened by anonymity, wrote long threads about how she’d gaslit them when they didn’t get the results she promised.
Brands quietly pulled their sponsorships from Amanda’s page. One issued a public statement about not condoning abuse. Angela’s name disappeared from the Arts Council’s website, an innocuous “stepping down to focus on personal matters” message in its place.
And Christopher… well.
Christopher had a job.
At least, he had on Saturday.
On Tuesday morning, he stood on the polished showroom floor of Timeless Luxury, his tie perfectly knotted, his watch gleaming under the halogen lights. Glass cases around him sparkled with rows of gleaming metal and diamonds.
I knew this, because I’d seen the security footage.
When my venture capital firm, Apex Ventures, had acquired the holding company that owned the franchise rights for Timeless Luxury in the region on Monday, we’d gained access to a lot of interesting cameras.
It had been, as corporate deals go, minor.
We’d had our eye on the holding company already. It owned a handful of retail chains that, with the right modernization, could be decent cash generators. The board had been open to a buy-in. The deal had been in discussion for months.
The video just made my personal interest in expediting it… sharper.
Monday afternoon, while Twitter debated the ethics of “cancel culture,” I signed documents that made me majority shareholder.
By Tuesday morning, I was technically Christopher’s boss’s boss’s boss.
He didn’t know that.
Yet.
His manager had been the one to call him into the office, expression tight. “Corporate wants a word,” he’d said, tapping the screen of an iPad. “Zoom meeting. Now.”
Christopher had sauntered into the glass-walled office, straightened his tie in the reflection, and sat down. He’d probably thought this was about his social media use. Maybe a slap on the wrist. Maybe even a promotion, if he spun the “publicity” right.
The Zoom window flickered to life.
On-screen, the regional director appeared in one box, jaw set.
Next to him, the HR representative, face carefully neutral.
A third box sat below them.
Black.
Microphone icon off.
Camera off.
Labeled, simply: Ownership.
“Mr. Mercer,” the regional director began. “Thank you for joining us.”
Christopher leaned back in his chair, forced casual. “Sure. Busy morning on the floor, but you know I always make time for corporate.”
The HR rep didn’t smile.
“We’ve received an overwhelming number of complaints regarding a video you posted to social media,” she said. “As well as several news articles that have named you specifically.”
Christopher’s eyes tightened, but he kept his tone light. “It’s a private family matter,” he said. “A joke that got blown out of proportion. People need to chill. The internet loves outrage.”
“There is nothing private about four million views, Mr. Mercer,” the director said coolly. “And there is nothing humorous about physical assault.”
Christopher shifted. “Look, you don’t know the context. My sister’s been—”
“Your sister, Mr. Mercer,” I said, unmuting my microphone.
The sound of my own voice, broadcast through the speakers into that glass office, sent a satisfying little shiver down my spine.
He froze.
For a moment, he didn’t turn. The color drained slowly from his face, like someone had pulled a plug.
“I understand you know her well,” I continued, keeping my camera off. “Given that you felt comfortable pouring boiling liquid over her head. Oh, wait. That was Mom. You just filmed it.”
A flicker of recognition crossed the director’s face as he glanced at my name on the participant list.
“Ms. Mercer,” he said carefully. “Thank you for joining us.”
“Always happy to attend when my investments are affected,” I said. “Please proceed.”
Christopher finally turned to face the screen.
“Em?” he asked, voice cracking. “What are you doing here?”
“Your employment is terminated effective immediately,” the HR representative said, briskly. “Gross misconduct. Conduct damaging to the brand’s reputation. Violation of our social media policy. Security will escort you out of the building. You will hand over any company property, including demonstration watches, before leaving.”
“You can’t do this,” he blurted, panic bleeding through the last of his bravado. “You can’t fire me over a joke. My sister can tell you, it was a family thing. Em, tell them.”
“I am telling them,” I said. “As majority shareholder of the holding company that owns your franchise’s license, I am telling them exactly what to do.”
Silence.
Thick and heavy.
“My… what?” he whispered.
