Chapter 194: Mestery Solved

The IT employee suddenly froze.

Nobody noticed. "What’s wrong?"

The employee didn’t answer.

Aiden stood. "What happened?"

The employee slowly pointed at the monitor. A small notification had appeared.

REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.

Nobody’s eyes widened. "Someone is accessing the archive?"

The employee nodded. "Right now."

Aiden immediately stepped toward the terminal. "Can you trace them?"

"I’m trying." The screen filled with network information. Several connection points appeared. Then disappeared. "Someone is bouncing the connection."

"Can you identify the source?"

"No."

Another line appeared.

REMOTE SESSION TERMINATED.

The employee stared at the screen. "They’re gone."

Nobody looked at the clock. "How long were they connected?"

"Less than thirty seconds."

Toma frowned. "What could they have done in thirty seconds?"

The employee checked the logs. "Downloaded something."

Aiden’s expression changed. "What?"

"I don’t know yet."

He opened the access history.

A list appeared.

Most of the files were untouched.

Then one name stood out.

05-17 / CHAIRMAN AUTHORIZATION RECORDS

Nobody’s expression became serious.

"They took that."

Aiden stared at the empty folder.

The file was gone.

Toma looked at him.

"That was the most important file."

Aiden nodded.

"Which means they knew exactly where to look."

Nobody slowly turned toward the archive room door.

"So..."

Toma looked at him.

Nobody gave a small, humorless smile.

"We’re not the only ones investigating Project 05-17."

The System appeared beside him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[New information acquired.]

[Project 05-17 was not an isolated corporate incident.]

[Evidence indicates long-term internal infiltration.]

[Primary suspect: Eclipse Corporation leadership.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the System.

"Finally. Something useful."

A second message appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Do not become emotionally attached to the praise.]

[It may never happen again.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody sighed. "Why do you always ruin the moment?"

Aiden closed the remaining files. "We need to move carefully."

Toma nodded. "If someone can access these archives remotely, they may already know everything we’ve found."

Nobody looked at the empty folder. "And they just took the Chairman’s authorization records."

Aiden picked up the encrypted storage device they had recovered earlier. "We still have enough evidence."

Nobody looked at him. "Then what are we doing next?"

Aiden’s eyes hardened. "We find every company connected to Project 05-17."

Toma nodded. "And every former employee."

Nobody smiled faintly. "And Marcus Hale."

Aiden looked toward him. "Especially Marcus Hale."

Outside the archive room, the Nathan Industries building continued operating as usual. Employees walked through the corridors. Phones rang. Meetings continued.

Nobody would have guessed that behind the company’s ordinary routine, a five-year-old corporate operation had just been uncovered.

And somewhere outside Nathan Industries, someone had already realized that the past was no longer buried. They had taken one file.

But they had left behind something far more dangerous. The rest of the evidence.....

..........

The archive room remained silent after the remote connection disappeared.

Aiden stared at the empty folder on the monitor. Someone had taken the Chairman’s authorization records. But they had made one mistake. They had left the access log behind. "Can you recover the connection?" Aiden asked.

The IT employee nodded. "The session was deleted, but the system recorded the access route before it disappeared."

"Then recover it."

The employee began working.

Nobody stood beside Toma, watching the screen. "How long?"

"Give me a minute."

Nobody looked at the clock. "Everyone says that before making me wait ten minutes."

Toma glanced at him. "Can you be serious for once?"

"I am serious. Waiting is dangerous. My patience has a limited battery."

The System appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[User patience level detected.]

[Current battery: 7%.]

[Recommendation: Recharge.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the System. "You’re enjoying this."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Probably.]

Just reducing the serious

mood vibe to this current ark

It’s kinda boring (¬_ ´¬ )

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The IT employee suddenly stopped. "I found it."

Aiden immediately stepped forward. "What?"

"The remote access came from a private network."

"Whose?"

The employee opened the connection information. "The network belongs to a company called Westbridge Consulting."

Nobody’s expression changed.

Toma slowly looked at Aiden. "Westbridge."

Aiden nodded. "The shell company."

Nobody pointed at the screen. "So they didn’t just take the money."

"They were still operating."

"Then we know where to start."

Aiden immediately called Nathan Industries’ security department. "Lock down the archive."

The security officer on the phone hesitated. "Sir, should we notify the board?"

Aiden’s expression hardened. "No." A short silence followed. "Not yet." He ended the call.

Toma looked at him. "You don’t trust the board."

"I don’t know who I can trust."

Nobody nodded. "Fair."

Aiden opened the financial records again. "If Westbridge is still operating, then someone has been maintaining it."

Toma opened the company registry. "The company was officially dissolved five years ago."

"Then how did they access the archive?"

"Through an active network registered under a different company."

Aiden frowned. "What’s the name?"

Toma searched. Then stopped. "Northstar Holdings."

Nobody looked at the screen. "Please tell me that’s another company that doesn’t actually exist."

"It exists."

"Great."

Toma continued searching. Her expression slowly changed. "It owns three smaller companies."

Aiden stepped closer. "Which ones?"

She listed them. "Westbridge Consulting."

"An old transportation company. And a private security contractor."

Nobody folded his arms. "All of them received payments from Nathan Industries."

Aiden stared at the screen. "And all of them are controlled by the same holding company."

Toma nodded. "Northstar Holdings."

Nobody looked at Aiden. "Who owns Northstar?"

Toma searched again.

The result appeared.

Majority shareholder: Adrian Vale.

Aiden froze. The Eclipse chairman’s name appeared underneath.

For several seconds, Nobody said nothing. Then he slowly raised one finger. "Okay."

Toma looked at him. "Okay?"

Nobody nodded. "That’s definitely suspicious."

Aiden’s expression became cold. "Not suspicious." He closed the screen. "Proof."

Nobody raised an eyebrow. "That’s a very confident word."

Aiden looked at him. "We need more." He opened another file.

The personnel records showed that Marcus Hale had been transferred out of Nathan Industries five years ago. His destination was listed as Northstar Holdings.

Toma stared at it. "Marcus wasn’t erased."

Nobody looked at her. "He was transferred."

"Exactly."

Aiden checked the date. "Two weeks after Project 05-17 ended."

Nobody frowned. "And the other employees?"

Toma searched the records. "Four went to Northstar."

"Four?"

"Yes."

Aiden leaned back.

"Then Northstar wasn’t created to hide Project 05-17."

Nobody looked at him. "It was created to continue it."

Aiden nodded. "Exactly."

The room suddenly felt much smaller.

Five years. Five years of payments. Five years of former Nathan employees moving into companies controlled by the Chairman. Five years of information leaving Nathan Industries.

Daniel’s confession suddenly made even more sense. The Chairman hadn’t needed to take Nathan Industries by force. He had slowly hollowed it out from the inside.

Aiden opened the final folder. It contained scanned contracts.

One after another, Vendor agreements, Procurement deals, Acquisition proposals, Confidential business forecasts and every document had something in common.

The company on the receiving end was connected to Northstar Holdings.

Toma’s voice became quiet. "They were deliberately overcharging Nathan."

Aiden nodded. "Then taking the difference through another company."

Nobody pointed at the documents. "And using Nathan’s own money to build companies outside Nathan."

Aiden looked at him. "Yes."

Nobody whistled softly. "That’s one impressive business scam."

Toma looked at him. "Don’t call it a scam."

"You’re right." Nobody corrected himself. "It’s a very expensive scam."

Toma almost smiled.

Aiden didn’t. He was looking at one final document. A board authorization. The date was five years old.

The document approved the creation of a confidential corporate initiative.

PROJECT 05-17

Below it was a list of objectives.

Asset Diversification.

External Vendor Expansion.

Strategic Information Management.

Internal Personnel Restructuring.

Then came the final objective.

Preparation for future corporate acquisition.

Aiden’s eyes widened. "They planned to acquire Nathan Industries."

Toma stared at the document. "From inside."

Aiden nodded. "They were intentionally reducing Nathan’s value."

Nobody finally understood. "If Nathan became financially weak enough..."

"Eclipse could acquire its assets." Aiden continued. "Or force a merger."

Toma looked at the records. "And the Chairman could control the company without ever openly attacking it."

Nobody looked at the screen. "So the entire operation was a long-term takeover."

Aiden nodded. "Yes."

Then the archive door opened. Everyone turned. A police officer stood outside.

"Mr.Nathan?"

Aiden stepped forward. "Yes."

"We received information from Daniel Cross."

Aiden’s expression changed. "What did he tell you?"

The officer held up a folder. "Everything." He handed it over. "Daniel identified several people involved in the operation. He also provided information about the Chairman’s relationship with Northstar Holdings."

Aiden opened the folder. Inside were signed statements.

Bank records, Copies of contracts, Names, Dates, Payment histories and one final document.

Aiden stared at it. "This is the original agreement."

The officer nodded. "Daniel said the Chairman personally approved the operation."

Aiden turned the page. The signature was unmistakable.

Adrian Vale.

Chairman of Eclipse Corporation.

Toma exhaled slowly. "We have everything."

The officer nodded. "Enough to begin formal proceedings."

Nobody looked at Aiden. "So what happens now?"

Aiden glanced over. "What?"

Nobody smiled. "We solved the five-year mystery."

Aiden looked at the evidence folder. "Yes."

Nobody said,"That feels strangely easy."

Toma looked at him. "Easy?"

Nobody shrugged. "We spent all this time chasing hidden files, shell companies, suspicious employees and secret contracts." He looked at the massive pile of documents. "And now the answer is basically, ’The Chairman was stealing money and trying to take over the company.’"

Aiden sighed. "That’s because corporate conspiracies are usually less glamorous than you expect."

Nobody nodded. "True."

Toma smiled faintly.

"At least it’s over."