Chapter 10 Yara
YARA
Itaste metal.
Not literally — but close enough that I swear the air in the negotiation room tastes like blood against the tongue, bitter and burning.
The walls are glass and steel, too bright, too clean — a sterile cathedral built for spreadsheets and corporate outcomes. Yet the tension in here is heavier than any battlefield I’ve ever strategized through.
Dr. Foster sits across the table from me, his steely gaze fixed as though this entire negotiation is a chess match and I’m the piece about to be sacrificed.
The room smells like recycled air and strong coffee, but underneath it all? Something acrid. Anxiety. Debt. Fear dressed up in a tailored suit.
“This deal,” Foster says, voice smooth as sedative, “is not merely beneficial. It’s necessary.”
He pushes a stack of holo-contracts toward me — each glowing line like a razor ready to cut if I’m not careful.
I lift my comm unit and glance at the figures again — CY8’s debt is massive, stacked like a tower teetering under its own weight. Foster’s cyberprosthetics initiative could be a lifeline — or the rope that finishes the job.
“You speak of necessity,” I say, keeping my voice calm, “but this proposal demands more concessions than CY8 can afford.”
He tilts his head — sympathetic, practiced, like he’s comforting an injured animal.
“Yara,” he says, “I understand your father’s legacy weighs heavy on your decisions. But these veterans — they deserve technology to heal, not bureaucratic delay.”
I don’t argue with the purpose. I argue with the price.
“I’m here to support veterans,” I say. “But not at the expense of every division and innovation CY8 has fought to sustain.”
He doesn’t flinch.
“You misunderstand,” Foster says, leaning forward, fingers tapping the glass table. “I’m not asking you to sacrifice your company. I’m asking you to invest in their future. Consider the optics. Consider the goodwill. The Combine Board watches not just numbers, but signals.”
Foster’s words are like poison dipped in honey — sweet to hear, lethal underneath.
And I feel that honey-sweet stick in my throat.
I glance down at the contract again. The terms are draconian — ceding control of entire divisions, opening proprietary R&D to regulatory inspection, phased payouts that benefit Foster’s programs at every corner.
“It’s too steep,” I say.
“It’s not steep — it’s shared investment,” he corrects, smile tight. “But without movement on your part, we risk losing patience.”
I can feel what he’s saying:
Either agree, or risk being painted as unreasonable — a CEO more in love with power than people.
Tidball is in the room. Leaning back in his chair, expression serene as a lake before a storm. Always the soothing voice. Always the whisper that says, Look at the optics. It’s for the greater good.
“Yara,” he murmurs, like a lullaby with a bite, “if you shift the terms even a little, you preserve the company’s reputation. You show strength. You show compassion.”
I want to scream.
Because compassion shouldn’t be used as leverage.
Because optics shouldn’t cost my company’s future.
And because trust — the fragile kind — shouldn’t be traded like currency.
But their calm voices echo off the glass, and I realize I’m the one standing alone in the center of a corporate storm.
I inhale — slow, deliberate. My lungs don’t want to work, but they do anyway.
“We can’t cede proprietary R&D,” I say, voice firm. “Not when innovation is what sustains us. Not when it’s what will get us out of this debt cycle.”
Foster’s smile stays too bright.
“Then we hold out until worse consequences come,” he says.
Then his eyes soften — not warmth exactly — but that practiced empathy that makes you think you’re understood even as you get cut to pieces.
“CY8 has been underperforming. The Combine Board has concerns. If we don’t see movement, the solution will be imposed — not negotiated.”
I look at Tidball.
He nods once.
A tiny, calm, fatherly nod that drills into me like a nail.
He wants me to concede.
He wants me to fold.
I feel like I’m shrinking.
And yet, I feel something else.
A furnace.
Deep in my chest.
Hot.
Unignorable.
“Foster,” I say, breath hitting my words like wind against stone, “I want what’s best for veterans. I do. But I won’t liquidate CY8’s soul to do it.”
His expression flickers — just a microsecond — like something inside him tasted bile.
But his voice is still smooth, still refined:
“CY8’s soul isn’t lost yet,” he says. “You only need to show you’re reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” I echo. “At what cost?”
The room chimes — not loudly, just a tiny shotgun blast of notification from the comm nestled on the table.
It’s Foster’s assistant — something in her voice too clipped, too urgent.
“Dr. Foster,” she says, “we’ve just received word from CY8 production logs. There’s been another breach — security traces it to unverified access. It matches the signature patterns flagged earlier.”
My stomach flips.
Because I already knew.
And now Foster uses it.
He doesn’t slam his fist down. He doesn’t shout.
He smiles.
Calm as a summer pond.
“Well,” he says, “another reason to proceed with urgency.”
I want to pound my fist through the glass and send shards dancing across the marbled floor.
This isn’t negotiation.
This is coercion wrapped in charity.
Tidball leans forward, eyes placid.
“This confirms our concerns,” he says. “We need to show decisiveness.”
I can feel my pulse in my throat.
I want to say:
The breach isn’t his.
Throwing him under the bus will ruin you.
The logs are manipulated.
But my throat is dry, and the words stick like half-formed thoughts caught on barbed wire.
I look at Foster — his posture perfect, his expression gliding between concern and corporate advantage — and my stomach twists.
“Then we proceed carefully,” I say slowly, “but not at the price of our future.”
Foster nods.
Like I just signed away something sacred.
Inside, I feel like I did.
I leave the table — not storming, not shouting, just stepping away with a calm surface and hurricane under it.
In the corridor, the air is fluorescent and hollow.
I can still hear Tidball behind me, murmuring gentle reminders about optics and reputation.
But I am not listening.
Because every step — every decision — feels like sand slipping through my fingers.
I return to my office afterward, shoes whispering against the polished floor, the taste of bitterness still at the back of my throat.
I step inside and close the door behind me.
The skyline outside glows with the last light of evening — glass towers catching dawn and dusk both in brilliant sweeps, like the city never chooses one time, only flickers between them.
I stand there — alone — watching.
The Helios Combine skyline stretches before me, brilliant and alive, but I feel… hollow.
Like my footing is shifting.
Like the ground beneath my feet is sand, not steel.
My office is quiet.
Too quiet.
The hiss of the air vents, the faint hum of the city beyond my window.
I can still taste the negotiations — bitter like blood, sweet like defeat.
And I realize:
I am losing control.
Not just of the negotiations.
Not just of CY8.
Not just of my heart.
But of the balance I fought for — the careful, razor-thin balance between vulnerability and strength, trust and independence.
This company was supposed to be mine to steer.
My father’s legacy to mend.
My future to build.
But every choice seems to cost a part of me.
I turn from the window.
The lights in the city blink, artificial stars in an engineered sky.
And I realize, with a hollow ache in my chest:
The reckoning isn’t coming later.
It’s already here.
Only I don’t yet know which man — which path — will survive it.
And that realization tastes like iron on my tongue.
After work, I head home and collapse into nap mode.
I wake up to the quiet hum of my apartment — a deliberate, manufactured hush that never quite feels natural.
But in the half-light of morning, with the true sunrise still behind the horizon, it feels like a small mercy.
Like the world paused just long enough for breath.
I should be relieved.
Instead, I feel hollow.
The last negotiation with Dr. Foster circles in my mind, twisting on replay like static in the back of my head. And underneath that — the unsettling sensation of unsteadiness, like gravity has shifted just a fraction but enough that every step feels like falling.
Grau isn’t here.
Not yet.
And after last night — after the way he watched me, the steadiness of his gaze, that something in his expression when I asked for nothing more than support — I’m beginning to wonder if he’s the only solid ground I have left.
I pad into the kitchen, the floor warm beneath my bare feet, and start the coffee maker with a sigh. The burble of grounds and steam feels soothing in a way that logic argues I don’t deserve. Coffee isn’t a solution. But it does wake up the senses.
I close my eyes, inhale deeply: rich roast, synthetic citrus from the cleaner I used last night, and a faint note of sex and smoke lingering in the air — a ghost of last night’s closeness, even though we agreed to keep things separate.
Separate.
I repeat the word in my head like a mantra.
It’s supposed to keep me anchored.
But it doesn’t.
My comm unit buzzes — a message from Tidball, polite, reassuring as always, reminding me of the upcoming board meeting and that optics matter.
“Optics,” he says.
As if my company’s vitality depended on appearances.
A laugh that tastes bitter escapes me.
I rub my temples, the heat rising behind my eyes. I don’t want to face another morning of negotiations and transactions and veiled barbs disguised as “advice.” I want someone who looks at me like I matter — not like a ledger.
I want Grau.
Even though the sensation of wanting him sends a pinch of panic through my chest.
The door chime announces an unexpected visitor.