The deadbolt settled into place with a sharp snap against the frame. Bastiaan van Dijk stood three paces off, blocking her clear route to the corridor. Her collar pinched. This was not an overdue book dispute; this was a CEO who routinely ate boutique firms for lunch, and she had just humiliated his lead engineers on an open channel.
“I… I don’t work for anyone,” Lieselotte managed, her voice a little reedy. Her mind scrambled, a frantic hamster on a wheel. Her initial plan was a simple wealth transfer, not this high-stakes interrogation. She needed a new plan, right now, one that leveraged what little future knowledge she had left without revealing the impossible.
Bastiaan’s brow quirked, a flicker of something unreadable in his pale eyes. “An independent operator, then? A solo mercenary picking apart the market and then my company’s most secure systems? That’s an ambitious claim, Ms. de Graaf, even for someone with your… peculiar talents.” He moved back to his desk, but didn’t sit. He merely leaned against the polished surface, arms crossed, observing her with unnerving stillness.
“It’s not ambition,” Lieselotte said, smoothing her skirt against her knees. “It’s a warning. Someone targets your firm, Mr. van Dijk. Someone with high-tier clearance. I merely intercepted their traffic. The ‘Tulip’ trade flushed them into the light, and the Aegis hole confirmed my theory.”
The fabrication held together by spit and wire, but it traded temporal paradoxes for standard corporate espionage.
Bastiaan considered her, his expression unyielding. “A warning. And you chose to deliver it by destabilizing the Breugelen All-Share Index? A rather theatrical approach, don’t you think?”
“It was necessary,” Lieselotte said, mentally stacking contingencies she had no way to enforce. “They watch the indexes for quiet drift. Making the bourse pitch like a fishing boat in a gale forced your hand without outing my handle. I wagered you were sharp enough to notice the cadence.”
He pushed off the desk, walking slowly towards her again. “So, you’re not the saboteur. You’re the… counter-saboteur? And you're doing this entirely for the good of Van Dijk Dynamics?” His tone was laced with disbelief.
“No,” Lieselotte said, finally finding a shred of genuine conviction. “I’m doing it for a purpose far more important than corporate solvency. I need entry, Mr. van Dijk. An allotment in your experimental neuro-regeneration trial. For Kasper de Graaf.” She knew Van Dijk Dynamics was a pioneer in neural interface technology, some of which had therapeutic applications in the original timeline. “He’s ill. A rare neurological degeneration. And I believe Van Dijk Dynamics has the potential to develop a cure.”
Bastiaan stopped just a few paces from her, his posture rigid. The air in the room seemed to crackle. “You expect me to believe you rattled the whole bourse and cracked our primary perimeter just to jump the waitlist for clinical trials? And now you offer to hunt this phantom insider?”
“It’s the truth,” Lieselotte insisted, her voice gaining strength, fueled by desperation. “I need the medicine; you need your server bank intact. Call it an advisory contract. I flag the internal leak, and you sign the compassionate-use waiver for Kasper.”
He stared at her, a long, assessing look that felt like a surgical probe. Lieselotte met his gaze, refusing to flinch. Her anxiety was a cold knot in her stomach, but the thought of Kasper, suffering, pushed her through it. Bastiaan’s fingers tapped once against his tailored cuff before he dipped his chin.
“Very well, Ms. de Graaf,” he said, his voice low and steady. “A consultant. You assist me in identifying and neutralizing this threat. In exchange, I will personally ensure your grandfather receives our full attention, utilizing whatever resources are necessary.” He extended a hand, an unexpected gesture. His palm was broad, his fingers long. “Do we have a deal?”
Lieselotte reached out, her hand trembling slightly as it met his. His grip was firm, cool. The moment their hands connected, a sharp, insistent *ping* echoed from Bastiaan’s desk terminal. His eyes flickered to the monitor.
On the terminal, amber letters strobed: `BREUGELEN CITY CENTRAL INFIRMARY: CRITICAL SUBSTATION FAILURE. BACKUP DIESEL OFFLINE.`
Kasper sat in the third-floor intake ward of that exact facility this afternoon. The Correction Cascade was already counterbalancing her intervention with raw, grinding spite.
Bastiaan, observing her sudden, stark pallor, narrowed his eyes. “Trouble at the clinic, Ms. de Graaf? An untimely bit of municipal maintenance.” His voice was devoid of warmth, but something in his gaze suggested he was cataloging every micro-expression on her face.
Later that evening, the cafe Elias had chosen was bustling, but Lieselotte felt utterly isolated. The clinic's generators had backfired into the ventilation ducts, forcing a total evacuation. She had rung Elias from the tram stop, leaving out the part where she sold her consulting hours to Van Dijk.
Elias listened with a comforting, sympathetic expression, his hand resting briefly, reassuringly, on her arm. “This matches the civic neglect we've seen all quarter,” Elias said, stirring his chicory blend. “Breugelen's public wards are crumbling under debt. Kasper cannot wait on municipal grids.”
Lieselotte picked at a splinter along the mahogany tabletop. Every stitch she repaired in this timeline pulled out three seams somewhere else.
“But I think I’ve found a solution,” Elias continued, leaning closer, his gaze earnest. “I have a contact, a brilliant, if unorthodox, neurologist. Dr. Rikkert van der Hout. He runs a small, private clinic on the outskirts of the city. He’s discreet, and he can get Kasper in for immediate, comprehensive treatment. Far better than what the municipal ward could offer even on its best days.”
Hope, fragile and desperate, sparked within Lieselotte. “Truly? Elias, that would be… a miracle. What’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”
Elias offered a faint, reassuring smile. “Nothing too onerous. Dr. van der Hout has a… peculiar interest in historical patents. He mentioned needing theoretical clearance on an older data-sorting scheme. Kasper, in his younger days, was quite prolific, wasn’t he? Always tinkering with theoretical schematics. Dr. van der Hout heard a rumor about an early, unpublished patent docket—something Kasper termed the ‘Syntactic Lattice Protocol’. He waives all facility fees in exchange for the title deed to that filing. It is yellowed parchment from the eighty-nineties, mostly unused math. It probably props up an uneven leg on Kasper's workbench.”
Lieselotte recalled the heavy leather binder tucked behind the lathe in the workshop. “The Syntactic Lattice Protocol,” she murmured. “Yes, I think I know where it is. It’s… really just that? A patent?”
“Just that,” Elias confirmed, his smile widening, his eyes holding hers with unwavering warmth. “A simple exchange. A paper for a life.” He squeezed her hand gently. “I’ve already made the preliminary arrangements. Just get me the details, and Kasper will be in Dr. van der Hout’s care by tomorrow morning. What do you say, Lieselotte?”
Her mind, usually so prone to overanalysis, was overwhelmed by relief. The thought of Kasper receiving immediate, expert care eclipsed any lingering reservations. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, Elias. Whatever it takes.”