The entire town was here. The bleachers were packed with parents in expensive coats. The local press had set up cameras in the back. The state senator was seated in the front row next to the chief of police.
And pacing nervously behind the podium, wearing a tailored navy suit and projecting an aura of untouchable power, was Mayor Sterling.
I wasn't in the crowd.
I was sixty feet above them, sitting in the darkness of the enclosed Audio-Visual control booth that overlooked the entire gymnasium.
The AV booth was usually locked during major events, manned only by the theater teacher, Mr. Davies. But Mr. Davies was currently downstairs, distracted by a 'mysterious' power failure in the band room that I had orchestrated by flipping three breakers in the opposite wing ten minutes ago.
I had five minutes before he came back. Five minutes to end this.
I sat down at the main control console. The glowing screens illuminated my face in the dark room. I was still wearing my grey hoodie, the hood pulled up, but I wasn't hiding anymore. I was hunting.
I plugged Leo’s black USB flash drive into the main terminal.
Then, I opened the blue notebook to the final page. My fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in the administrative backdoor URL Leo had discovered. A stark, grey login screen appeared, demanding a master password.
I checked my watch. 7:15 PM.
Down on the stage, the principal tapped the microphone, the feedback echoing through the massive room. The crowd quieted down.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the principal announced, his voice booming over the PA system. "It is my great honor to introduce a man who has done more for the Oakridge Athletics Foundation than anyone in our history. Please welcome, Mayor Sterling!"
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause. I watched through the thick glass window of the booth. Chloe was sitting in the front row, clapping elegantly, a perfect, victorious smile plastered on her face.
Mayor Sterling stepped up to the podium, adjusting his microphone, soaking in the adoration.
"Thank you," the Mayor said, his deep, resonant voice filling the room. "We gather tonight to celebrate our town's resilience. It has been a difficult year. We faced a terrible betrayal when our foundation was compromised by a troubled young man. But Oakridge stands strong!"
More applause. The hypocrisy of it made my stomach turn.
I looked down at the blue notebook. I typed in the final alphanumeric sequence.
Access Granted.
The screen flashed, and suddenly, I was inside Mayor Sterling's encrypted private cloud drive. It was a goldmine. Hundreds of folders. I clicked on the one labeled 'Archive/Offshore'.
There it was. High-resolution PDF scans of the original transfer forms. Email chains between the Mayor and the bank in the Cayman Islands. A digital receipt from the guy he paid to forge my father's signature. It was a complete, undeniable digital confession.
"We rebuilt our funds," Mayor Sterling was saying, gesturing broadly to the crowd. "Because in this town, we protect our own."
I pulled the audio file of Chloe and her father's conversation from my flash drive and linked it directly to the gymnasium’s massive surround-sound PA system.
Then, I dragged the PDFs of the forged documents, the offshore bank accounts, and the emails into the primary projector display queue.
I hovered my mouse over the master 'EXECUTE' button.
Down below, Chloe caught my eye. She couldn't see me clearly through the tinted glass of the booth, but she knew someone was up there. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her perfect smile faltering slightly.
"And tonight," the Mayor said, raising his hands, "we look forward to a future of transparency and truth!"
I clicked the mouse.
The giant projection screen behind the Mayor instantly went black. The slideshow of smiling athletes vanished.
The Mayor paused, looking over his shoulder in confusion. The crowd murmured.
Suddenly, a massive, high-definition image of the forged transfer form flashed onto the thirty-foot screen. It was fifty times larger than life. My father's forged signature was blown up so huge that the digital pixelation of the trace-job was glaringly obvious.
A wave of confused whispers swept through the gymnasium.