At minute eighty-five of the meeting, the air outside the windows was thick with afternoon lethargy.
Greg was just about to close his laptop when Julian lifted his head.
The right hand that usually gripped his pen was empty today, fingers relaxed. With eerie precision, he pulled out a single sheet of paper from beside him, like he'd been waiting for this moment all along.
He wasn't emotional. He just felt the timing was right.
His voice came out slow and lazy.
"Oh, right. Just before we wrap. There are a few client-side irregularities I noticed last week."
He paused, glanced around the room.
In his mind, he counted to three, afraid he might laugh.
"They're from Rick's legacy projects. Three structured notes. Fabricated client data. The routing path bypassed the KYC layer. Also found a shadow login used after deal closure."
He slid the paper to the center of the table.
It wasn't a report, and it wasn't a PDF briefing.
It was a collage of screenshots.
Back-end trading platform logs. Audit trail captures. Faked client emails.
And one blurry image
A Message conversation.
The profile picture was unmistakable. Rick's dog.
Greg stared at the sheet. He didn't move.
His voice, when it came, was colder than steel.
"We'll look into that."
To Julian, it landed like a weather forecast. No ripple.
That "we'll" sounded like a final courtesy before execution.
Then came the small crack of Emma snapping her pen cap.
Ravi instinctively steadied the table.
Rick froze in his chair like a statue beginning to crack.
He finally broke the silence, voice sharp like tearing cloth.
"How did you get these? That stuff was deleted months ago."
Julian gave a soft laugh.
"That project you screwed Emma on last year.
You forgot to delete the mirrored version of your test account."
He looked at Rick, feeling a calm sort of fatigue.
Like watching a play that was finally over.
There was no hatred in his tone. Only boredom.
Emma looked up. Her eyes were soft, strange.
She didn't speak.
She only nodded.
Like approving a long-overdue verdict.
Julian sat down, flipped open his notebook.
He muttered like talking to himself.
"I didn't mean to look into it. I was just a little bored."
After that, all he felt was empty.
It was time to go home.
He paused, then added quietly,
"When I get bored, I like patching system vulnerabilities."
Somewhere, someone knocked over a water bottle.
The meeting ended. Greg stood up and left the room, forgetting his laptop on the table
his beloved MacBook Pro that he never went anywhere without.
Julian didn't move.
He knew Greg would forget the laptop.
It was routine.
The day Rick went down was a Thursday.
The London market had just opened ten minutes ago.
Julian wasn't surprised.
The delay was part of the plan.
Across the entire floor, a system alert popped up simultaneously:
"Project Owner Change: R. Ashford → TBC. Please review access permissions."
There were five seconds of silence.
Then chaos.
"Holy shit. Rick got frozen? For real?"
"His system access is gone. Even the client service inbox bounced."
"His LinkedIn now says 'Looking for new opportunities'!"
"His wife moved all the money out of their joint account!"
"Someone saw him being escorted into the C-level suite. That's the Black Room, right?"
Emma didn't look up.
Her fingers typed quickly, cleanly.
She only said,
"I told you he had problems."
Then she sent an email to the "Compliance Archive - Team Share" folder.
The attachment was a zip file.
No one opened it.
They all knew what it meant.
It was the evidence she'd quietly backed up a year ago, after being sidelined.
Now, the wall has finally collapsed.
Julian saw the notification appear in the group.
He didn't open it. He already knew.
In the breakroom, someone whispered,
"She's the one they moved out of the team back then, right?
No one thought she and Julian were working together…"
Julian wasn't seen in the office that day.
He was in the Glass Room. The blinds were shut. The lights were off.
Someone walking by saw him pouring a drink.
It was Yamazaki 2005.
A clear glass. The color looked like blood.
He drank slowly,
just like this revenge
had been slow in the making.
He couldn't say whether he felt happy or sad.
Only quiet.
Seven o'clock in the evening.
Greg walked in.
Julian had already heard the footsteps.
He knew it was Greg.
Greg stared at Julian's back, his voice two octaves lower than during the meeting.
"Who told you to take down Rick?"
Julian turned around.
"No one. I just thought it was time for a change."
After saying it, he felt a faint sense of satisfaction.
It wasn't a victory. Just balance.
He pulled a printed document from beneath the desk.
The first page read:
Alpha Clearance Initiative
He gave a small smile and signed his name.
"This time, the rules are mine."
Julian sat in the compliance lounge, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window. The sunlight caught the edge of his grey suit, making it shimmer.
He held a coffee cup in his left hand, scrolling lazily through his phone with his right thumb.
It looked like he was waiting for something. Or like he didn't care at all.
Inside, he felt calm.
Like he was waiting for a signal he had scheduled long ago.
The screen lit up. An email from Greg.
No subject line. Just six words.
Come back. We'll move things around.
He stared at it for a few seconds.
He didn't open the attachment. Didn't reply. Didn't move.
He wondered if he should smile. He didn't.
Instead, he marked the email as unread.
Like tossing a begging message into a drawer, saving it for when the mood was right.
He stood, stretched his shoulders, and walked over to the chipped coffee machine in the common area.
When he pressed the button, it felt like triggering some ancient sovereign mechanism.
He chuckled softly and said to himself,
"No need to shout. I was just taking a break."
He wasn't carrying a bag. No laptop.
Only a visitor badge with his name, Julian Watanabe.
Maybe this was the last time he'd ever walk in as a guest.
He didn't look back.
It wasn't nostalgia.
01:14 AM.
The office was empty.
Only Julian's monitor was still glowing.
He sat at his desk. Suit jacket draped over the back of his chair.
Fingers flying across the keyboard.
He opened the employee management system.
His profile appeared:
Julian David Watanabe
Nationality: British
Work Permit: N/A
System Classification: UK Citizen – Tier 0 Clearance
He moved the cursor toward the "Nationality" field.
He felt completely calm.
He knew what would be triggered.
He deleted "British."
Typed in: Japanese
The system flared red with alerts:
Nationality Update Conflict
New nationality detected without a regulatory migration record
Alert: Role classification requires UK citizenship or equivalent
Triggered: Identity mismatch – cross-jurisdictional risk flagged
Notifying: Compliance Core, HR Tier 3, Legal Ops
Meanwhile, across the building,
in HR Director Jess's office,
Her screen exploded with warnings.
The alerts spread like a virus.
Line after line of red text flashed:
"Identity conflict anomaly triggered"
"Alpha clearance mismatch detected"
"Multi-passport violation under trace"
Jess stared at the screen, her face draining of color.
Her mug slipped from her hand.
Tea splashed everywhere.
Her voice was barely audible.
"No… it can't be…
He's a British national.
He always has been…"
But what she didn't know was—
Julian's father had filed for Japanese nationality on his behalf the year he was born,
at the Japanese Embassy in London.
It had never been revoked.
Julian had always known this moment would come.
He just didn't expect anyone to believe he'd go through with it.
No one knew he would choose tonight.
This was the first time in his life that he had legally transformed himself within the system.
Back in front of the screen, Julian murmured:
"You want to regulate what I can say, based on what you think I am."
He stared at the confirmation box.
And clicked.
"Let's find out what happens when I become who I actually am."
The system froze for one and a half seconds.
He didn't blink.
His heartbeat didn't change.
Then everything rebooted.
It wasn't a deletion.
It was overwritten.
He didn't need revenge.
He just needed everyone to see the file.