But the chill in the room had little to do with temperature. It came from silence—dense, suffocating silence filled with frustration and the sense of millions slipping away by the hour.
Alexander Harrington—whose name was practically a brand in the tech world—stood before the reinforced glass wall. At fifty-two, silver hair slicked back, dressed in a tailored Italian suit, he looked as controlled and predatory as ever. Yet his eyes were fixed on the enormous screen displaying “The Equation,” glowing stubbornly as if daring them to fail again.
“We’ve been stuck for three weeks, Alexander,” said Jonathan Reed, a construction tycoon, his voice brittle. “Three weeks. Forty-eight consultants. Nearly half a million dollars to those experts in Zurich. And still nothing.”
Alexander turned slowly. The eleven other board members—figures who shaped markets—avoided his stare, tapping expensive pens and scrolling tablets as though salvation might arrive by email.
“We’re bleeding five million a day,” Alexander said coldly. “Every hour this logistics algorithm fails, trucks sit idle, cargo ships run half full, and our stock sinks.”