Amelia sat alone in an empty room with nothing but the new laptop she requested for, open in front of her.
She couldn't risk allowing OmniTech into their systems, even if he meant no harm.
But even she knew all of that was useless.
After all, if this OmniTech person was capable of discovering twenty vulnerabilities that her team of professionals had missed, then there was nothing stopping him from just casually waltzing Into their systems.
At 9:45 AM, she turned the laptop on, opened its browser and proceeded to manually type the link in the search tab.
Amelia, as futile as it might seem, didn't want to leave any trail for OmniTech to use and sneak into their systems.
Clicking on the search button, a software download immediately began and completed soon after.
Amelia hesitated but only for a moment before installing and opening it. The first thing she noted was that the fact that the software looked unfinished.
She also noticed a 15 minutes timer for a scheduled meeting so she just clicked it, leaned back and waited.
Fifteen minutes passed in a flash and the software suddenly opened a video screen on its own.
"Ms. Rhodes," a sound came through. "Thank you for joining. Shall we begin?"
Amelia focused on the screen but just like she expected, OmniTech refused to make his identity known.
On the screen in front of her was an animated black haired chibi character with a cheeky little smile on his face.
Amelia arched an eyebrow at the chibi avatar, unimpressed and unsurprised.
"Cute," she muttered dryly. "Though I was hoping for something a little more…professional."
The avatar tilted its head and gave a mock pout before speaking again. Ethan's voice was disguised just enough to prevent vocal identification.
"You'll find professionalism in my work, Ms. Rhodes. Not my branding... At least, not yet."
Amelia exhaled before folding her arms and leaning back a bit "Fair enough. Let's talk terms."
The chibi's expression changed to a sly grin as Ethan responded.
"Excellent. Let's start with scope. The remaining fifteen vulnerabilities affect Google Workspace, Cloud Services, Android OS, and even parts of your internal admin tools." He took a short pause, making sure Amelia was still following.
"Some are zero-day exploits. A few others? I'm honestly surprised you've been functioning this long without a major breach."
A chill ran down Amelia's spine, but she kept her face impassive. She couldn't let OmniTech see how desperate she was.
"Assuming what you're saying is true, then yes, that's significant. What are you asking for?"
Ethan, behind the screen, leaned back slightly and let his fingers hover above the keyboard. He wasn't going to rush this part.
"First, I want a structured compensation model based on severity, uniqueness, and patch difficulty. Each vulnerability will be evaluated individually, with a minimum payout per tier."
In simpler terms, the higher the threat level of the vulnerability, the higher it'll cost her and Google.
"Numbers," Amelia said firmly. "Don't dance around."
"Very well." The chibi character's expression turned serious. "I've classified the vulnerabilities into three classes based on their threat levels, Critical, high and low levels."
There was an impatient frown on Amelia's face as she waited for this OmniTech to finally state his price and so, Ethan did.
"Each Low level threats will cost you $100,000, High level $250,000 and Critical level threats would be $1 million per threat," he paused, allowing Amelia a moment to absorb before continuing,
"So the fifteen vulnerabilities will cost you $5,700,000" Ethan completed and his chibi avatar summoned a cube.
Amelia's brows furrowed as she did the mental math.
"Five point seven million…" she murmured, her fingers tapping slowly on the edge of the desk. "That's a steep price, Mr. OmniTech."
The chibi avatar gave a nonchalant shrug, swinging its tiny animated legs from the floating cube it now sat on. "It's a generous price, Ms. Rhodes. I'm giving you time bombs that haven't exploded—yet."
It leaned forward, looking directly into Amelia's eyes before adding "and we both know that it'll cost you a whole lot more if they explode."
This quieted Amelia down as she thought about his words. If the remaining 15 vulnerabilities were as bad as the first five she had verified, then Google was at major risk.
They risked losing their reputation, investor confidence, Public trust and more importantly a hell lot of money. Those were things Google couldn't afford to gamble on.
She drew in a slow breath. "You said you've classified the threats. What's the breakdown?"
Her words caused an even larger grin to appear on Ethan's face but not the avatar's, since he moved his face away from his camera.
This negotiation was basically over at this point.
"Seven low level threats, four high and four critical" he stated.
Amelia's jaw clenched slightly at the breakdown. Four critical vulnerabilities? If these were as bad as the ones he first sent, then it'd cost them hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked onto the chibi avatar who just seemed to be enjoying itself as it continued kicking its legs.
"And you're certain no one else knows about these?" she asked in a low and sharp tone.
"I'm not in the business of public leaks, Ms. Rhodes," Ethan calmly replied, the chibi now resting its cheek on one hand. "At least, not unless I'm provoked. You've got my word—whatever that's worth to you."
Amelia tapped her fingers again, the tension in her brow deepening. She hated this. Hated being cornered.
Hated that someone had slipped past every layer of their cybersecurity like it was paper-thin. But most of all, she hated how right OmniTech was.
Google couldn't afford to lose its reputation, not at this moment, not when their phones were on the verge of overtaking the IOS here in the US.
"I'll have to escalate this to the Board. Seven figures isn't something I can just sign off on," she finally said.
"I understand," Ethan replied. "I'll give you twenty four hours. After that, the vulnerabilities go back into my vault, and the offer expires."
Amelia narrowed her eyes. "Are you threatening to sell them?"
"Oh no no," the chibi avatar shook its head, almost as if offended by the accusation "I'm just saying that I might change my mind and ask for a higher amount."
His words caused silence to fall in the room as Amelia narrowed her eyes threateningly on the avatar who had a closed eye smile on its face.
"…Fine. I'll take this upstairs. You'll have your answer in twenty four hours." She finally said, exhaling in annoyance.
The chibi gave a satisfied nod and stood up, brushing nonexistent dust off its pants. "Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Rhodes. And don't worry—this meeting self-deletes from your system the moment I end the call."
"And what if I recorded it externally?" she asked flatly, almost daring him.
"Oh, please do," Ethan let out a dark chuckle. "Then I'll know exactly which camera to sneak through next time."
With that, the screen went black. The software window blinked once and then disappeared completely, leaving Amelia alone with nothing but her thoughts and a growing headache.
"Who is the hell guy?"