The secure van felt like a padded cell on wheels. Liam drove with a professional focus, occasionally checking three different mirror angles and running through a complicated series of traffic maneuvers designed to expose any trailing vehicles. Evelyn, accustomed to the chaos of public transport and city streets, found the calculated efficiency both reassuring and suffocating.
They arrived at the small, unassuming bungalow where Aris Thorne was now living—a rental in a quiet, middle-class suburb far from his Malibu estate. His life had been entirely inverted.
Aris met them at the door, wearing clothes that looked too cheap for him. His eyes were tired, but his gaze was steady.
"Evelyn. And Mr. Hayes. Thank you for coming. I appreciate the professional level of paranoia," Aris said, leading them into a living room dominated by overflowing file boxes and outdated furniture.
"The paranoia is justified, Dr. Thorne," Liam stated, immediately scanning the room. He walked to the back window, opened it slightly, then closed it. "We ran a check. No immediate threats, but your neighbors are extremely interested in the expensive security van parked outside."
Evelyn sat on the sofa next to Aris, who looked utterly defeated by the stacks of legal documents surrounding him. "How bad is it, Aris? With the defamation suit and the NDA penalty?"
Aris picked up a legal document labeled JUDGMENT OF PENALTY. "The debt is real, Evelyn. Julian's lawyers were quick and vicious. They convinced the court that my destruction of the server was an act of financial malice and contempt. The penalty is ratified. I owe Julian Thorne $520 million."
Evelyn gasped. "But you have no assets! What can he take?"
"He can take every penny I ever earn for the rest of my life. He can garnish my wages, seize any intellectual property I develop, and ensure I live permanently below the poverty line. He hasn't won the SEC case, but he has won the war against me." Aris managed a dry chuckle. "The NDA penalty wasn't just designed to stop me from talking; it was designed to make my life a permanent, suffocating payment plan to him."
"It's a form of financial indentured servitude," Marcus's voice crackled from a secure walkie-talkie Evelyn carried. "He's making an example out of you, Aris, to terrorize the next potential whistleblower."
"Precisely," Aris confirmed. "The money is speaking to anyone else thinking of breaking their NDA: 'This is the cost of your word.'"
"But this is political gold," Evelyn countered, her mind already spinning the headline. "The deposed scientist, driven to ruin by the very man he exposed. We need to put this front and center. The public must see what your sacrifice cost you."
"That's why I agreed to see you," Aris said, leaning forward. "But I have one request. I want you to focus your investigation on the other founders. I've paid the price. But the other four—they are still silenced, living their comfortable lives. They haven't paid the penalty, but they haven't found their truth either. Their companies, Cerebrum Labs in particular, held the key to an even more valuable breakthrough than mine."
He shuffled through a stack of papers and handed Evelyn a faded photograph. It showed five people—the founders of the suppressed startups—standing together at a small tech conference years ago. They looked like a young, hopeful team.
"The man on the right, Dr. Elias Vance of Cerebrum Labs. He was the most idealistic of us all. I heard whispers a few months ago... he was unhappy. He was the least likely to take the money and find peace."
Liam, who had been listening silently by the door, finally spoke. "A man who is unhappy with half a billion dollars is a man who is a risk. Thorne will have him in constant, high-level surveillance. If you pursue Vance, you are walking into the deepest part of Thorne's shadow network."
"But if Vance has the key to Cerebrum Labs' discovery, and we can prove it was suppressed, it explodes the government's case into a massive criminal conspiracy," Evelyn argued. "We need more than Aris's word; we need a second witness."
"Then you need a plan that Thorne cannot predict," Liam said, pushing off the doorframe. "You want to find Dr. Vance? We stop moving like journalists and start thinking like intelligence agents. We need to go dark, Evelyn. No credit cards, no digital trail, and certainly no press releases until we have him."
Evelyn looked from the financially ruined martyr to the photo of the next potential target, and then to the disciplined, pragmatic man who was offering to lead her into the darkness.
"Okay, Liam," Evelyn said, a thrill of fear and excitement running through her. "Show me how the enemy moves."