Episode 4 – The Exposure
Kelvin's sleep had always been thin, patchy—an interrupted web of minutes stolen between decisions and equations. He spent more nights in the glass-walled study than in his bedroom, poring over prototypes and schematics under the pale blue light of the screens. So when Andrew knocked at the bedroom door so gently that the sound might have been imagined, Kelvin opened his eyes immediately.
"Come in," he called, voice low and steady.
Andrew stepped inside, face taut. He had tried not to rouse his employer, knowing how rare it was to truly wake the man. "Boss… reporters. They're gathered at the main gate. There's a photo online — you and Purity. People are asking if it's true she's resuming school."
For a moment Kelvin said nothing. The image, even if blurred, would change everything. He swung his legs from the bed and buttoned his shirt with methodical calm. "How did it get out?" he asked.
Andrew swallowed. "We're tracing it. IP addresses, upload sources… but the picture is clear enough. Even a back view of Purity will spark interest. They want to know if they can interview you—now."
Kelvin breathed out, measured. "Arrange the conference hall. Tell them I will meet them in thirty minutes. And get me everything you've found on that upload. All of it. No leaks. No mistakes."
Andrew inclined his head and left, moving with the tight purpose of a man who knew every one of Kelvin's moods. By the time Kelvin stepped into the marble corridor, he had already donned a suit, hair smoothed, eyes narrowed into a blade. There was the practiced calm of a man who understood public spectacle and the terrible power of a single photograph.
Outside the estate, the press had arrived in force. They had been waiting only a short while, but the internet had already spun a thousand threads—headlines, conjectures, gossip. Reporters jostled cameras and microphones as security funneled them into the conference hall. Kelvin walked in not like a man fleeing attention, but like the conductor of a storm, steady and unhurried.
"Good morning," he said to the tangle of voices, and the room fell, briefly, to expectant silence.
Questions came at him like waves. "Mr. Kelvin — is it true your daughter will resume school?" "Is she ill? Is that why you kept her hidden?" "Why show her now?" "Are you putting her at risk?" Voices overlapped, tone ranging from accusation to ravenous curiosity.
Kelvin's face was composed; his voice was a calm instrument. "Good morning," he repeated. "Yes, I was at schools yesterday with my daughter. Yes, she performed well in her assessments. She is healthy, she is bright, and she will decide where she wishes to study. That is her choice."
A reporter pushed further. "Sir, after your wife died, some say you locked Purity away. Others suggest she's… different. Mentally ill. Is any of that true?"
Kelvin's jaw tightened, but he did not flare. He looked past the cameras and at the people who had come to know only fragments of his life. "I will not tolerate lies. I have loved my daughter fiercely. I have protected her because the world is not kind to what it does not understand. That protection was never neglect. It was care."
The hall trembled with the shuffling of feet, the rustle of paper. "Will you show her to us? Can we—"
"No," Kelvin said, final. "My daughter is not property for public consumption. She will be presented to the world when she is ready, and on her terms. Until then, any attempt to exploit her will be met with action."
He stepped away from the podium then, leaving more questions simmering in the air. The reporters tried one last time—angry, pleading, greedy—but Kelvin's dismissal of spectacle was absolute. He left the hall the same way he had entered: composed, under full security, flanked by men who made space for distance.
Once inside his study, the rawness of the morning found him. Andrew arrived with a tablet and a cup of coffee. "We traced the upload," he said. "Several accounts, an anonymous relay. IP address points to a host in the city. Someone used a disposable route. But I have logs—timestamps, the camera feed from outside the school. We can narrow down who took it."
Kelvin skimmed the data, eyes moving with the speed of a machine and the focus of a man who had spent his life outthinking opponents. "Bring me every trace. The upload route. The relay. If anyone tries to monetize this, if anyone tries to find Purity, I want names. I want motives." His voice was edged now—no theatrics, only the cold arithmetic of someone protecting a life.
Andrew hesitated, then ventured the question that hovered like a shadow. "Sir… do you want the police involved? A public arrest might escalate things, expose her."
Kelvin's hand closed around the cup until his knuckles blanched. He let go and set the cup aside. "Not yet. I will not give reckless people the oxygen of spectacle. Quietly. Thoroughly. We find them. Then we decide what to do."
He rose and walked to the window, where the garden stretched like a curated wilderness. The estate's defenses were myth and fact both; the scanners, the layers of verification, the humanoids with faces so human they sometimes fooled him in the mirror. He thought of the President's rumored offer, of his refusal to mass-produce what made this place impregnable. He had refused because safety multiplied by diffusion became vulnerability. He had refused because the code that guarded his child must remain his alone.
A flicker of anger passed across his features. "Those who snatch photos for clout," he murmured, "do not understand consequences."
"Shall I ready the car for the office?" Andrew asked gently. "You wanted to go in today, remember?"
Kelvin's expression hardened into resolve. "Yes. The office. There is much to catch up on. And I will not have hunting begin without me sitting at its center."
In the corridor, Anita greeted them with a soft smile, balancing the domestic and the professional—Purity's protector in the manners only a nanny keeps. "Is everything all right?" she asked, wordless concern in her tone.
Kelvin softened for a moment. "Yes. For now. Keep her close, Anita. No visitors. Lockdown the household com channels and minimize movement. If anyone calls, forward to Andrew." He looked to his daughter's room as if it were a distant shore. "I'll be back soon."
He strode to the garage with that purposeful stride that had seen him through boardroom battles and prototype crises. Cameras watched him, but not one step did he take without an inner map of consequences. The car was waiting—silent, armored, a machine within a machine. He entered, the weight of the morning pressing like lead, and ordered the driver: "To the office. Now."
As the fortress receded behind them, Kelvin allowed himself the cold clarity that would carry him through the day. There were names to find, motives to unmask, and a fragile child whose life had become suddenly public. He did not like being vulnerable. He did not like being surprised. But he understood this: exposure was a blade that cut both ways. He would sharpen his own.
And as the car's engine settled into its low, confident hum, he repeated a single thought to himself—one as steady and final as a promise: nobody would touch Purity. Not for profit, not for fame, not for politics. Not while he drew breath.