The first class had 22 students, ages 14 to 19, all from East Oakland. Some had never touched a keyboard before. Some had built their own computers from parts they found at the recycling center on High Street.
One girl, 15 years old, named Autumn Hayes, no relation to Preston, had taught herself Python from YouTube videos on a phone with a shattered screen.
Terrence stood at the front of the room on the first day and said four sentences.
"Nobody in this room needs permission to be brilliant. Nobody in this room needs a degree to matter. The only thing you need is the willingness to sit down and learn. Everything else we'll figure out together."
He did not mention the bounty. He did not mention Grant Hollister. He did not mention the notebook on the floor or the boot on the page. Those things lived in the past, and this room was about the future.
The notebook, though, got a new home.
Briana had it professionally preserved. The rubber bands were replaced with archival binding. The boot print was left exactly as it was. The pages were sealed behind museum glass in a frame made of reclaimed oak.
It hung on the wall in the academy's main hall, right next to the front entrance, so that every student who walked through the door would see it.
Beneath the frame, a small brass plaque read: "This notebook was thrown on the floor by a man who said its owner didn't belong. The owner patched a $4.2 billion vulnerability in 4 minutes and 38 seconds. Belong anywhere."
Grant Hollister never entered another boardroom. The SEC investigation led to formal charges involving securities violations, material omission, and negligent handling of critical infrastructure disclosures. His assets were frozen. His industry contacts stopped returning his calls. The engineers he had ordered to bury the vulnerability testified against him under oath.
His attorney negotiated a plea deal that included a permanent ban from holding any executive position in a publicly traded company.
The last anyone heard of him, he was living in a rental apartment in Nevada and working as an IT consultant for a regional insurance company. He never made a public statement. He never apologized.
The video of him dropping the notebook had been viewed 63 million times. It would follow him for the rest of his life.
Six months after the academy opened, Forbes put Terrence Walker on its 30 Under 30 list. A journalist asked him what his proudest moment was.
He did not mention Forbes. He did not mention the bounty. He did not mention the patch.
"My grandmother came to the academy last week," he said. "She walked through the front door on her own two feet. No wheelchair, no oxygen tank. She stopped in front of the notebook on the wall. She put her hand on the glass. She stood there for a long time."
He paused.
"Then she turned around and looked at the room full of kids at their workstations writing code. And she said, 'You did this.' That's my proudest moment. That's the only one that matters."
By the time Walker Code Academy had graduated its third class, Autumn Hayes had received a full scholarship to MIT. Briana Wells had been promoted to Academy Director. Dr. Cole had published a paper citing Terrence's patch as one of the most elegant solutions in modern cybersecurity history.
And in the back row of the main hall, a 14-year-old boy sat at a workstation with a brand-new notebook open beside his keyboard. The pages were blank.
He picked up a pen. He looked at the framed notebook on the wall, the one with the boot print and the brass plaque. He looked back at his own empty pages.
Then he wrote his first line of code.