Chapter 5

Zane needed to meet with some board members. Seeing that Sienna had no interest in mingling, he handed her a chip card.

"Use this to go straight in. Your seat's in the front row, VIP section."

"Thanks."

Sienna took it, slipped one hand in her pocket, and headed toward the entrance.

The ticket checkpoint was crowded and loud.

The moment Sienna approached, a shrill voice rang out. "Sienna? What are you doing here?"

Vanessa walked over in a Chanel haute couture gown, surrounded by several Riverton socialites.

"Nessa, is this your antisocial sister? Can't even borrow a decent dress and she shows up here to embarrass herself?"

Ainsley Chambers curled her lip.

Vanessa put on a flustered expression.

"Ainsley, don't say that. Sienna probably heard I'm speaking on behalf of the research institute and came to support me."

Sienna didn't even glance at them. She walked straight toward the entrance.

Vanessa stepped in front of her, feigning concern.

"Even dogs know not to block the way. Don't you?" Sienna gave Vanessa a cold look.

Ainsley bristled, hooking her arm through Vanessa's. "Nessa, ignore this ungrateful brat!"

"Show her your special VIP pass from the institute. Let her see what real talent looks like!"

Vanessa reluctantly produced her VIP ticket. The staff verified it and waved her through.

"Ms. Vanessa Stone, please proceed."

Ainsley strutted in, then turned to Sienna with her chin raised. "If you don't have a ticket, get lost! Don't drag down the class of this place!"

Sienna ignored Ainsley. Hand still in her pocket, she held the black magnetic card between two fingers and casually tapped it against the sensor.

"Beep—Highest clearance level. Black Gold VIP access granted."

The mechanical voice echoed through the entrance.

The glass doors to the adjacent corridor slid open.

Security personnel on both sides bowed. "Welcome."

Ainsley froze.

Vanessa's eyes went wide. Her fingers clenched the hem of her dress.

Sienna glanced at them both. "Excuse me."

She walked through the Black Gold VIP corridor, hand still in her pocket.

Ten a.m. The summit officially began.

Holographic projections lit up across the domed ceiling.

Sienna sat in the front row in a dimly lit seat. Zane, fresh from his meeting, sat beside her.

"Run into trouble at the entrance?" Zane flipped through the program.

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

Sienna didn't elaborate. She opened her laptop and balanced it on her lap.

Zane didn't press.

After a few opening speeches from senior professors, the host's voice rose.

"Next, please welcome the research institute's specially recruited young genius representative—Vanessa Stone—to present her latest research findings!"

Amid applause, Vanessa lifted her gown and walked to the podium.

"Hello everyone. I'm Vanessa. Today I'll be presenting my independently developed AI medical node reconstruction algorithm model."

Vanessa tapped a few keys. Code scrolled across the screen.

"This algorithm will break through existing medical computing bottlenecks and increase traditional medical data processing speed by three hundred times..."

Murmurs of amazement rippled through the audience.

Andrew, sitting in the fifth row, looked pleased.

Marcus held up his phone recording, basking in the attention.

Sienna stared at the code on screen. Her lips twitched.

That was a half-finished piece of junk she'd abandoned three years ago. The base logic had an infinite loop. The moment data overloaded, the system would crash.

Vanessa was stupid enough to present this defective product as her own achievement.

"What's wrong?" Zane picked up on Sienna's shift in mood.

"Just spotted a thief."

Sienna's fingers moved across her keyboard.

If Vanessa wanted the spotlight, she'd help her get it.

Sienna accessed the supercomputing center's processing pool through a hidden port and cracked the venue's firewall. Child's play.

In under three seconds, an IP-masked node had silently embedded itself in the main control system's base layer.

Onstage, Vanessa kept talking.

"Next, I'll demonstrate the live computation process."

Vanessa confidently hit enter. The progress bar on the holographic screen began climbing rapidly.

Ten percent. Twenty percent...

The hall went quiet. Sienna hit enter. A massive data packet transmitted.

"Ding—Warning! System overload!"

The alert blared throughout the venue.

The holographic screen flickered. Red 'Error' messages flashed repeatedly.

The progress bar froze at twenty-nine percent. The data chain broke. Streams of garbled code appeared.

Vanessa panicked, pounding the keyboard. "Restart! Restart it!"

No response.

Professors in the front rows frowned.

"Ridiculous! This base architecture is a dead end. The nested logic contradicts itself!"

"Has the research institute gone blind? Bringing this illogical half-baked mess to an international summit is humiliating!"

Criticism erupted from the audience.

Andrew's smile vanished. Marcus stood up. His phone clattered to the floor.

Vanessa broke into a sweat, stammering into the microphone.

"Distinguished colleagues, this must be an equipment malfunction! The venue's network is unstable, causing my core data packets to be lost..."

"Network instability causes local algorithm infinite loops?" A bespectacled professor in the front row spoke up. "Ms. Stone, science doesn't tolerate excuses. Your code hasn't even formed a basic closed loop."

The hall erupted into chaos.

Vanessa's legs went weak. She nearly collapsed onstage.

Soren Wallace, deputy director of the research institute, rushed onstage and forcibly cut the power.

"Everyone! This is just first-generation theoretical verification. Young scholars make mistakes. Thank you, Vanessa, for sharing!"

The screen went black. The presentation had become a joke.

Sienna closed her laptop and zipped up her backpack.

"That algorithm was yours?" Zane leaned back in his chair, watching Sienna.

"Just defective trash she pulled from the garbage." Sienna's tone was casual. "Guess they're not just stupid. They're broke too."

"Need Hearst Group to issue a statement?"

"No." Sienna stood. "The higher they climb, the harder they fall. This is just the beginning."

That afternoon, news of the summit disaster spread through Riverton's elite circles.

Marcus scrambled to pay for trending topic removals, clinging to Soren's phrase about 'first-generation verification' and releasing statements blaming the venue's outdated equipment.

To stabilize Hearst Group and other investors, the Stone family booked Vienna Hotel. Under the guise of celebrating Vanessa's official appointment to the research institute, they threw a banquet, framing the morning's disaster as an unfortunate equipment failure.

Old Town apartment.

Sienna reviewed the final data transmitted from the supercomputing center. Her phone buzzed nonstop on the desk. Vanessa's name flashed on the screen. She was too focused on the data to answer immediately.

Sienna picked up and put it on speaker.

"Sienna, tomorrow night Dad's throwing a celebration at Vienna Hotel. All of Riverton's elite will be there. Even Mr. Hearst is attending."

Vanessa's voice had lost its earlier panic. She'd reverted to her usual condescending tone.

"Professor Wallace already reassured me! Everyone knows it was equipment failure! My position as core researcher is still mine!"

"If you're willing to apologize publicly, I can convince Dad and Marcus to forgive you. Let you come home."

Sienna laughed.

This was nothing more than a trap to humiliate her publicly and deflect attention from the Stone family's scandal.

"Sure." Sienna agreed.

The Stone family had set up such a grand stage. It would be a waste if the real star didn't show up.

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