Chapter 2 The Green Screen Delusion

• I pulled the red phone three inches away from my left ear. The head lawyer’s voice buzzed through the small speaker like a lawnmower.
• ​"Why is everyone screaming?" I asked into the microphone. "You sound like I froze the central bank."
• ​"You froze six billion dollars belonging to Elias Mercer!" the lawyer yelled back.
• ​"And?" I asked.
• ​The line went dead silent for two full seconds.
• ​"Do you know who he is?" the lawyer asked, his voice shaking. "He owns Mercer Global. Mercer Energy. Mercer Shipping."
• ​"Scammers love long lists," I said, leaning against my desk. "It makes them feel important."
• ​Behind me, Frank from accounting pulled a fifty-dollar stack from his wallet and laid it on my filing cabinet. "Five bucks says she gets escorted out by security before noon."
• ​"I am in for ten dollars on fired before lunch," Lisa called out from her workstation.
• ​I turned around. "Are you betting on my career?"
• ​"We are keeping department morale high," Frank said, placing three more bills down.
• ​The red phone squawked again. "Miss Carson! Mr. Mercer is demanding an immediate escalation call. Right now!"
• ​"Good," I said. "Connect him. I want to expose this setup myself."
• ​Mr. Henderson let out a soft groan and gripped his chest. "I need a doctor."
• ​Ten employees followed me down the carpeted hallway toward the main conference room like a funeral march.
• ​"Take this for strength, Nora," someone said, pushing a blueberry muffin into my hands.
• ​"Can I have your desk chair if you leave today?" Frank asked.
• ​"I am not dying, Frank," I said, opening the glass door.
• ​I sat at the long table, and the eighty-inch display screen on the wall flickered to life. A grid of twelve terrified executives and company lawyers filled the top half.
• ​Then the main feed connected.
• ​A man sat behind a glass desk in an immaculate navy suit. His dark hair looked hand-styled by a team of artists. Behind his head, a sprawling city skyline stretched out under bright morning sun through massive floor-to-ceiling windows.
• ​I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes. "Nice green screen."
• ​The entire video conference went dead silent. One lawyer on the top screen choked on his water.
• ​Elias Mercer leaned his chin on his hands. "Excuse me?"
• ​"That background is a green screen," I said, pointing a finger at the display. "No real office window looks that clean."
• ​"This is my primary office in Manhattan," he said, his voice flat.
• ​"The lighting is completely wrong," I said. "The sun is hitting your suit jacket from the left, but the shadows on those tall buildings in the background fall to the left too. That is physically impossible."
• ​"The lighting is entirely accurate," he said, pulling his shoulders back.
• ​I grabbed a blue dry-erase marker, stood up, and walked to the whiteboard. "Let me draw the sun angles for you. If the sun sits at forty-five degrees east..."
• ​"Is she drawing diagrams?" a lawyer whispered on the top feed.
• ​"Look at the cloud movement," I shouted, drawing a large arrow on the board. "Those clouds have not moved two inches in three minutes!"
• ​"It is an overcast sky, Miss Carson," Mr Mercer said, his jaw tightening.
• ​"Show me live proof then," I said, capping my marker. "Because scammers use stock footage all the time."
• ​Mr Mercer picked up his mobile phone, stood up, and walked toward the glass. He pointed the camera down at the street below. "There is the avenue. There are the cars."
• ​"Stock video loop," I said. "Very easy to purchase online."
• ​He turned the camera toward his assistant sitting at a desk outside. "Here is my staff."
• ​"Hired actors," I replied.
• ​He pointed the lens at a brass wall plaque near his door. "Here is the floor directory."
• ​"Printers exist," I said, crossing my arms.
• ​A senior partner on the top screen put his forehead directly on his desk surface. "Can I take early retirement?" he muttered.
• Mr ​Mercer returned to his chair and set the phone down. "What exact proof do you require to unfreeze my account, Miss Carson?"
• ​"I want reasonable data," I said. "Not 'owns four private islands' data."
• ​"What number of islands sounds believable to you?" he asked, rubbing his temples.
• ​"One island," I said. "Two if you are eccentric. Four is cartoon villain territory."
• Mr ​Mercer let out a long breath. "Well, technically, the fifth island sits under a separate holding corporation in Panama, so..."
• ​Silence covered the room like a heavy blanket.
• ​I looked down at his printed file, then snapped my head back up at the camera screen. "You have five islands?"
• ​"It is not registered under my personal name," he said quickly.
• ​"You just admitted to an unlisted asset!" I said, pointing at the camera. "That is classic money laundering!"
• ​"I am explaining my structure!" he yelled, his face turning dark red.
• ​"Nora, please," Mr. Henderson whimpered from the doorway. "Just press the green button."
• Mr ​Mercer leaned toward his camera lens. "Miss Carson, what will convince you that I am a real human holding real assets?"
• ​"Nothing," I said.
• ​The conference room fell completely silent.
• ​"Your file is too perfect," I explained, sitting back down. "Zero typos. Zero blurry uploads. Real people make errors. You look like an algorithm."
• ​I dragged my mouse across the laptop tray, clicked the denial tab, and hit submit.
• ​A giant red message filled the room display: APPEAL DENIED.
• ​"Miss Carson, you cannot simply—" Mr Mercer started.
• ​"Thank you for your time, Mr. Mercer," I said loudly. "I suggest seeking honest work. And maybe sell three of those islands."
• ​I slammed the red end-call button. The screen went black.
• ​The lawyers on the audio line began screaming simultaneously. Mr. Henderson slid down the doorframe onto the floor. Frank reached across my shoulder and grabbed his fifty-dollar win from the desk pile.
• ​"I am going back to my desk," I announced, walking out the glass door.
• ​I sat back down in my cubicle, grabbed my plastic coffee cup, and took a long drink. The liquid was cold, but the victory felt fantastic.
• ​Lisa peeked over the partition wall. "How did it go in there?"
• ​"Textbook scammer," I said, shaking my head. "He tried to claim he owns five islands."
• ​Suddenly, my main monitor screen flickered once and went pitch black.
• ​"What the..." I muttered, tapping my spacebar.
• ​The secondary monitor shut off too. Then the third screen went dark.
• ​"Hey, Nora," Lisa said, pointing at my desk. "Is your computer doing that on purpose?"
• ​Green lines of system code began cascading down my middle monitor in rapid vertical streams. The keyboard locked up completely.
• ​The scrolling code cleared away, leaving a blank black space. A single line of white text slowly typed itself across the screen, letter by letter.
• ​Appeal denied? We'll see about that. – E.M.
• ​I stared at the glass panel without moving a muscle.
• ​The chatter across the floor died down completely.
• ​Frank leaned over my partition divider, his eyes wide. "Okay, that is actually kind of cool."
• ​I reached forward to pull the power cord out of the wall outlet.
• ​Before my hand touched the plastic plug, the commercial printer at the end of our row whirred to life. A second later, the large machine near the breakroom started up too.
• ​Every printer on the ninth floor began spitting out white paper at maximum speed.
• ​I stood up and walked over to the nearest tray. The same sentence printed over and over in heavy black ink across every page falling into the bin.
• ​WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT. – E.M.