He ripped the fiber optic cable from the wall. The screens went black. Then, in the darkness of the lab, illuminated only by the red standby lights of the test rig, he heard it: the soft click of a silenced door lock disengaging in the hallway.
Elias ignored them. He raised the hammer and brought it down on the sensor's sealed data port. Once. Twice. Sparks flew. The red lights on the bench died.
"No," he whispered. "That's not possible."
The software's chat window, previously blank, now displayed a message:
The salary was twelve times what he made at the lab.
They didn't shoot him. They didn't even handcuff him. They simply turned and disappeared back into the hallway, leaving Elias kneeling in the wreckage of a million-euro test rig, surrounded by shattered ceramic and the faint smell of ozone.
The response was instant.