Part 4 — At seven in the morning they terminated my contract, but when the screen turned on at the handover meeting, the director suddenly stopped smiling

Derek’s call woke me the next morning.

There were only two words on the screen as the subject: “Final offer.”

I did not answer.

A minute later Andrew called me.

“The lawyer says Derek is asking to postpone the meeting.”

“Why?”

“Because his personal storage has already been opened.”

I put on a black jacket, in whose pocket I had a small copper card sewn four years earlier. They gave me this card during my first night shift: the emergency server number was written on it. Since then I had always carried it with me.

I arrived at the boardroom at nine in the morning.

Derek was already there. Two lawyers sat in front of him, but neither looked calm.

“All of this is a misunderstanding,” he said.

“Then why are you asking to stop the search of your personal storage?” the chairman of the board asked.

Derek looked at him first, then at me.

“Kala stole the company’s internal materials.”

“I stole nothing,” I answered. “The materials were in the folder that your team itself sent me for the handover.”

One of the lawyers leafed through the documents.

“Mr. Miller, we have received a temporary court order. Your personal storage must be opened and the equipment must be inspected.”

Derek’s face changed.

“This is excessive.”

“No,” the lawyer said. “What was excessive was covering up the records from the client.”

Derek looked toward him.

“You are my lawyer.”

“I was,” he answered. “Now I am obliged to withdraw from this process.”

Derek was alone for the first time, completely.

Ten minutes later the technical team took away his laptop and phone. The remaining part of the audio recording, financial correspondence, and a letter were found there, in which Derek promised the new service provider that the company’s contract would be handed over to them if they confirmed the old team’s “reliability problem.”

The chairman of the board started the recording.

Derek’s own voice sounded in the room.

“Kala must think that he has no choice. If he resists us, we will say that he is obstructing the transition.”

Seconds passed.

Derek lowered his head.

“This conversation is taken out of context,” he whispered.

The recording continued.

“He has a family. He is tired. In a few weeks he will sign everything himself.”

I looked at my own hands. They lay calmly on the table.

And Derek heard his own words for the first time as others heard them. That comfortable expression disappeared from his face.

“I did not want to harm anyone,” he said.

“But you were ready to leave the risk to everyone,” I told him.

That same day the company’s board temporarily removed Derek from his position. An external inspection began. The financial director was also stripped of access. The contract concluded with the new service provider was canceled.

I did not detain anyone with my own hands.

I simply left every document in its place this time.

When I returned home in the evening, I found the door of my study open. On the desk only the square mark of the monitor remained, and on the shelf stood the old box of the copper card.

Julian gave me coffee.

“The job?” he asked.

“I do not have the old one anymore.”

“The new one?”

“Not yet.”

He squeezed my hand.

“Then today you are simply at home.”

These words hurt my heart more than Derek’s call at 2:52 at night.

Three weeks later the company’s board offered me leadership of a new security team. I refused.

I did not want to remain within the same walls where my warnings had been counted as an expense.

I agreed to work at a small technology company that protected hospitals’ payment systems. There, on the very first day, they told me:

“If you see something dangerous, you will not have to wait four months for someone to listen to you.”

This time the promise did not resemble an advertising phrase.

Every evening Mia asked me how many red notifications I had solved. I told her that today there had been only two and I had noticed both in time.

Julian still left coffee for me, but now it was no longer cold. We drank it together in the morning while Mia searched for her bag for school.

Four months later the court opened a case against Derek for fraud and deliberate violation of security rules. The external company lost the contract. The financial director gave testimony.

I went to the courtroom only once.

Derek wanted to speak with me.

“Kala, we can take all of this back.”

“We cannot take it back.”

“I made a mistake.”

“You made a choice.”

He took a small card from his pocket. It was the same copper emergency card that had remained on my old desk.

“You left this behind,” he said.

I took the card in my hand.

“No. You left this behind in the life that ended.”

Derek began to say something, but I no longer listened.

Several months later the first snow of winter came. Mia stood by the window and was drawing a new project on a sheet of paper. This time it was no longer a volcano. She was drawing a house with a large lamp lit above it.

“Why did you draw this?” I asked.

“Because when you are at home, the light does not go out.”

I knelt before her.

“Now I will be here more often.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

That evening I received Derek’s last message.

“If you ever change your mind, there is still a place for you.”

I closed the phone and did not answer.

Julian looked at me.

“You did not say anything to him?”

“I did.”

“What?”

“With silence.”

In the kitchen Mia was arranging pencils. Small drops of snow struck the window. And in my work bag lay the copper card, now covered with scratches and almost without an inscription.

Once I thought it reminded me which system I had to survive.

Now it reminded me that answering every alarm was not my duty.

I put the card on the table.

The light was on in the house.

And for the first time I was not waiting for anyone.