I'm a Genius, Remember?

After Louis left his office, Barov came in to see what had happened, but Roland didn't give him the chance to ask.

"Incompetent fools! What have they been doing there all this time? They've certainly not been maintaining our computer systems."

"Sir, why have you fired them all?"

"Nightingale is in our system."

"What? What have they done?"

"Who knows! Leaked documents? Sabotaged? Maybe they're still waiting! We don't even know how long they've been in the system; it's been so long that we don't have the records left from before their virus entered the system."

"Ho—how can that be?" stammered Barov. The magnitude of the bombshell Roland had just dropped was beyond description; such a breach would ruin their company if it went public. "Sir, are you sure firing the whole department was wise? What if one of them leaks it?"

"I've already taken such precautions. Before Louis came in then, I knew something big had happened, so I made suitable preparations; they won't be able to leak anything."

"How can you be so confident?"

Roland smirked at Barov. "I'm a genius, remember? Any digital message they send will be blocked, and any activity that suggests they're going to inform someone outside of the digital world will notify our security team. Even if the security staff are compromised, I get notified as well, so if security fail to act, I know who not to trust."

A weird expression surfaced on Barov's face. "You didn't come up with that program or whatever it is in the time Louis was out, which means it was already in place, just waiting to be activated."

"Oops, you caught me," Roland said in a joking, mock-flirting manner. "This system has been in place since we first floated the company."

"For so long?" Disbelief was evident in Barov's voice. To him, this was an even bigger bombshell than the Nightingale fiasco.

"As the company becomes bigger, it's natural that we'll attract more attention from outsiders, some with malicious intentions."

Silence fell over the room as Barov thought about what Roland had just said. What he'd said made sense, but wasn't this level of distrust a little too much? Surely there were better options. Suddenly a frightening thought occurred to Barov.

"Sir, how many people is the system prepared for?"

"Most people who have access to information that could be compromising."

"Most? Sir, I have to ask, am I one of—"

"Ha ha ha, you can go now. I need to concentrate on fixing their mess."

"Sir, I really need to know, do you trust me or not?"

"Of course, I trust you, Barov. If I can't trust you, who can I trust?"

Barov heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Thank the heavens. I was worried I'm on this system."

"Ha ha…"

Noticing the awkward response from Roland, Barov's face dropped. "You say you trust me, but I am in it, right?"

"I'm busy, Barov, leave." Roland's tone had dropped to several degrees below zero. He clearly had no intention of answering, but his response was all Barov needed.