Adrian remembered the gate agent. Lauren Mercer.
Richard checked her employee profile. She was not merely a gate agent.
Lauren was a temporary operations supervisor with limited access to Customer Harmony. Adrian looked at Miranda.
“Bring her in.”
They called the station. Lauren had already left the airport.
Her company phone was off. Then security reported something more troubling.
Lauren Mercer had downloaded Adrian’s passenger profile before departure. And attached to the access log was a note:
EXECUTIVE TEST CASE CONFIRMED. DO NOT OVERRIDE SERVICE EXPERIMENT.
Adrian stared at the words. “Executive test case?”
Miranda whispered, “Someone knew you were on that flight.”
Adrian looked around the table. His anonymous trip had not been anonymous at all.
Someone inside Atlantic Crest knew exactly who was sitting in 2D. And instead of protecting him, they had deliberately instructed the system to treat him worse.
Part 4
By midnight, the question was no longer whether Vanessa had behaved badly. Someone had engineered Flight 218 as a controlled event.
Corporate security traced Lauren Mercer’s access to a special internal project called Mirror Cabin. The project was not listed in any board-approved innovation portfolio.
Dana Whitmore looked terrified when the name appeared. Adrian noticed.
“You know it.”
Dana rubbed her forehead. “I know the concept.”
“Explain.”
Mirror Cabin had been proposed six months earlier by Calvin Moss and Chief Customer Officer Renee Dalton. Its stated purpose was to test whether Atlantic Crest’s premium-service systems remained consistent when high-value executives traveled without visible status markers.
Adrian almost laughed. “That sounds like exactly what I did.”
Dana nodded. The concept was simple.
Select senior leaders. Remove their loyalty flags.
Observe service. Use the results to identify weak points.
“Who approved it?”
Dana looked at Calvin. Calvin said, “The executive committee discussed it.”
“I asked who approved it.”
“Renee authorized a limited pilot.”
Adrian looked around. “Was I enrolled?”
Nobody answered. Richard opened the file.
TEST SUBJECT 07.
PROFILE: A.C.
ROUTE: ORD-ATL.
CONTROL CONDITIONS: STATUS SUPPRESSION.
Adrian’s blood went cold. “Who selected me?”
The answer appeared at the bottom.
PROJECT SPONSOR: MIRANDA SHAW.
Every eye turned toward the COO. Adrian said nothing for several seconds.
Miranda looked as if she had expected this moment for hours. “I selected you.”
“Why?”
“Because you kept asking whether our service reports were real.”
Adrian remembered. For months he had questioned why premium satisfaction scores had risen while employee complaints about service pressure increased.
Miranda had promised an investigation. “So you secretly put me into a test.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Three days after my mother died.”
Miranda’s face crumpled. “I did not know when I scheduled it that Eleanor would die that week.”
“But you knew before I boarded.”
“Yes.”
“Then why not cancel?”
She looked down. “Because I thought you would cancel the trip if I told you.”
“I might have.”
“I thought the test mattered.”
Adrian stared at her. “My grief was not test data.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Miranda’s eyes filled. “No. Not enough.”
The betrayal hurt differently because Miranda had been one of his closest allies. She had sat beside him during shareholder battles.
She had visited Eleanor in hospice. His mother liked her.
Adrian looked away before anger could become cruelty. “Did you instruct anyone to mistreat me?”
“No.”