Chapter 4: And the twists keep on coming

Wrong! The company was doing well because it was ran by competent people who she personally appointed, not to mention it was her idea to offer this service to begin with.

It was time to get rid of some of these unruly men who behaved like they owned the world. This was her company and she did not tolerate mutiny.

She sprang into action. All of a sudden the lights went off in the board room and the projector turned on. Everyone gasped and started looking confused, and a bit fearful. Everyone knew the owner was quite an elusive person who only appeared when trouble was stirring.

They all knew this was not the owner's only company and it was certainly not the most important in the business chain she had set up. This was a newer venture, meant to solidify her plans in becoming a self sufficient monopoly on the AI market.

Her dream was to finally create sentient AIs with android bodies that could provide assistance and services to the world. To do that, she wanted to be able to control every part of the creation system, including manufacturing the parts for the androids. This company was a step in that direction. There were others she could buy from but that would defeat the purpose of coming full circle and creating her vision, from the software to the assembly and sales channels.

Back in the room, people were starting to feel weary and a sense of doom was slowly taking over. Some of the board members who were not on the same page with the instigator were starting to move towards the back, hoping to fade in the background. The others were convinced this was the right thing to do, to wrestle control from her and get one of their own people to run the company. It wouldn't make a difference, really, but she was becoming fond of her CEO and he shared her vision. This kind of person was hard to come by, she had no intention of throwing him to the wolves.

A video started playing in the board room on the projector screen. It was Robert DuVagne, in a hotel lobby meeting with a man. The man's face was not very clear from the CCTV camera the recording was playing, but everyone was paying attention. Even the angry man stopped wrestling the security team and was now staring at the screen, a look of worry on his fat red face.

A creepy voice came from the speakers. It was robotic, but it sounded amused, almost demonic while chuckling.

"You thought I wouldn't know about this?!" silence took over the room. DuVagne was turning all shades of grey and white. Realisation finally settled in when he started to take in the situation. He was screwed. He gambled thinking that creating a scandal will lead to the CEO's dismissal.

He created a scenario accusing him of rape to bring down the company image which would force the board to fire him. He even found a girl to testify and her father to make a scene at the office.

As soon as the voice came through the speakers he realised it was too late to stop this.

There was still light at the end of the tunnel though, he could still spin this, there was no sound in the recording, and the man's face on the screen did not look clear.

The robotic voice started laughing again. It was becoming creepier and creepier.

"I know what you're thinking here, but that's wrong!" the voice shouted the last word. Panic, fear and cold sweats took over Robert DuVagne's body.

' How could this be?' he was sure he was careful. He even hired a cyber specialist to get rid of the cameras and any possible recordings; he paid a fortune for it.

His face now looked so puffed up like it could explode any second. Raven sat at her computer watching all of this happening. She pulled a screenshot of the man's face on one of her big wall mounted screens to laugh at it. 'Pathetic' she thought.

"Madam, should I release the video with sound now?" her virtual assistant asked. It wasn't fair to call him a virtual assistant, mostly because he did have a body, and a fine one at that according to Victor. He designed it with 'the best parts ' in mind, he always claimed.

She didn't care, but allowed her friend to create 'eye candy' as he called it.

"Not yet, let them sweat a little more."

30 seconds later she could see Robert DuVagne's epression relaxing. 'Did he think he was getting away with it?' she wasn't doing this just to scare him. It was time for him to go.

"Play it now please Dominic, it's time".

"Of course madam".

The screen in the board room started playing a much clearer version of the video with sound. In the video, DuVagne and the very fat very angry man were having a conversation. The sound was so clear you could even hear the slow buzzing of a fly nearby. There was no mistake, it was a meeting to create this scandal.

The video played for about 3 minutes, before everyone's faces turned towards him. He was done.

The computer voice was heard again laughing.

"You're fired DuVagne. Don't ever come anywhere near this company again or I will have you arrested. Maybe corporate espionage would be a fitting charge for you."

The room went quiet, DuVagne looked like he was struggling to breathe. The man he brought in, with the fat angry finger looked like he was scouting for the nearest exit to get the hell away from the creepy computer voice. 'What sort of company was this?!' he only did it for the money, he had no idea something like this could happen.

"You! The fat guy with the angry face and the even fatter finger" the voice suddenly said. He paled.

He went blank.'Shit, was this really happening?!'.