When Daniel, Elise’s chief data analyst working remotely, gained access to the manifest, he discovered something alarming. Cynthia Hale’s ticket carried an executive bypass code— EM-01 . It was Elise's private corporate access code, used without authorization to bump paid first-class passengers and assign seats to executive guests.
Furthermore, Daniel's deep scan into Skyline’s internal system revealed that EM-01 had been used 43 times in the past two years to override bookings and delete passenger complaints.
Chapter 3: The Chicago Incident
As Daniel fed real-time data to Elise’s phone, one specific file from two years ago stood out: a suppressed complaint filed at Chicago O'Hare Airport.
The victim was Dr. Arlene Vance—Elise's older sister. Arlene had been flying home after a 36-hour surgical shift when Graham Hale personally had her removed from First Class to accommodate a political donor. When Arlene filed a formal grievance, Graham used his administrative access to delete the file, flag her account, and destroy her loyalty standing.
Elise looked directly at Graham. "Two years ago, a physician named Arlene Vance was forced out of seat 1B at O'Hare. Her complaint was erased from the database by user credentials matching your office."
Graham’s face drained of color. "That was a routine seating adjustment—"
"It was abuse of power," Elise interrupted. She turned to the airport police officers who had just entered the cabin. "Officers, Mr. Hale has illegally accessed proprietary executive clearance codes and falsified passenger manifests."
"You can't do this!" Cynthia shouted as the officers stepped forward. "Do you know who we are?"