Sign the Papers Mr. Langford novel Chapter 421

As the host's voice echoed through the ballroom, Joey was glued to his monitors in the temporary media zone just outside the backstage area.

He had three screens running simultaneously.

One streamed the live gala feed, another tracked trending hashtags and comments, and the third was connected to Stellaris's encrypted internal logs. The harsh glow of the monitors illuminated his face; he was so tense he had completely forgotten to drink his water.

Suddenly, Maya Merritt's voice crackled through his headset.

"Did you check the third proxy hop yet?"

Joey's spine snapped straight.

"Maya."

Maya had dialed in remotely from an out-of-town hospital where she was overseeing a technical integration. She sounded exhausted, but her tone was as razor-sharp as ever.

"Stop staring at the livestream. Two gossip accounts just dropped the keywords 'Vivian Vance Initiative' early. The timestamps predate the host even taking the stage. Someone fed them the talking points in advance."

Joey scrambled to switch windows.

"I'm grabbing the data now."

Maya sighed faintly. "What are you so nervous about? You're a data engineer, not the one giving an acceptance speech."

Joey's ears burned red.

Everyone at Stellaris knew Maya had personally recruited him late last year. While she architected the core algorithms and systems, he was the guy running logs, auditing email headers, monitoring hardware, and fixing all the maddeningly trivial bugs that could never be allowed to fail.

Wren had once said that Stellaris's tech team didn't just need a visionary to build the ceiling; they needed someone to protect the floorboards.

Joey was the guy protecting the floorboards.

He archived the timestamps, keywords, and interaction histories from both gossip accounts and fired the screenshots over to Maya.

Maya replied with two words.

Keep digging.

Inside the ballroom, the host stood on stage, flashing a brilliant, practiced smile.

"Next, we move to a very special segment of tonight's gala. The Pediatric Rehabilitation Data Ethics Initiative will be launched tonight, inspired by the professional spirit of one of the industry's early pioneers, Ms. Vivian Vance..."

Phoebe swore under her breath. "Sickening."

The host continued reading the teleprompter.

"As an early advocate for pediatric rehabilitation data standardization, Ms. Vivian Vance actively drove the advancement of these critical projects. Today, inspired by her legacy, Langford Medical is proud to partner with multiple organizations to establish..."

Wren stood up.

Her movements weren't dramatic.

But everyone in the front rows saw her immediately.

Sitting at The Head Table, Lawrence's face drained of color. He had explicitly ordered the organizers to scrap the tribute, or at the absolute minimum, remove any direct mention of her name. The final verbal confirmation from the organizers just moments ago had assured him that only the ethics initiative remained, with zero mention of Vivian.

Yet there it was, plastered across the giant screen in glowing letters.

Someone had gone behind his back.

Or rather, someone was betting that he wouldn't dare cause a scene on live television.