Chapter 6 - The Poison Pill
"I’m not here to offer you charity," Julian said, stepping forward. His voice lost its boardroom polish, raw and stripped bare. "The board of directors is preparing to liquidate the entire infrastructure wing tomorrow at noon. They want to sell the municipal water reserves upstate to a private foreign consortium. It will triple water costs for three million working-class families—the very families your trust was built to protect."
Samuel’s hands finally froze. The detachment in his posture cracked, revealing the iron core of an engineer who had spent fifty years calculating loads and pressures.
"Arthur kept one safeguard," Julian continued, tapping the brass compass Clara still held. "The bylaws stated that no liquidation could occur without the physical presence of the founder's seal. That compass isn't jewelry. It’s an encrypted key to the master server room in the downtown vault. My board doesn't know it exists. They think the file is lost to corrupt software. But I knew your work. You never trusted digital locks."
