A race condition in the authentication handshake. The original developers never accounted for simultaneous session calls exceeding the buffer threshold. Everyone kept patching the symptoms. Nobody traced back to the root."
Silence.
"It's in this notebook," Terrence said. "Page 47. I wrote the theory eight months ago."
He opened the notebook and held up the page. Dense handwriting, diagrams, arrows pointing to a flaw that more than 200 of the world's best engineers had spent 72 hours failing to find.
Grant Hollister's face had gone the color of wet cement. He stared at the monitoring dashboard, all green, steady, humming with restored life. He stared at the verification results. He stared at the 18-year-old in the torn hoodie holding a notebook with a boot print on it.
Then he straightened his tie.
"Interesting," he said. His voice was flat, controlled. "But we can't just take this at face value. There's a verification process, internal review, compliance checks. We need to confirm the patch doesn't introduce new risks."
"The verification suite just confirmed it," Cole said.
"The internal verification suite," Grant corrected. "I'm talking about a full independent audit. That takes time. Days, maybe weeks."
He turned to Terrence. "You'll need to leave the premises while we conduct our review. We'll contact you when we've completed the assessment."
"And the bounty?" Terrence asked.
"Pending review," Grant said. "If the patch holds and passes all compliance requirements, the bounty will be processed through the appropriate channels."
"When?"
"When we're satisfied."
Grant's eyes were hard. "You should be grateful you're not being investigated. A teenager who just happens to know exactly where a zero-day vulnerability lives raises questions. Serious questions."
The implication hung in the air like smoke. Briana Wells felt her stomach drop. She looked at Terrence's face. He understood exactly what Grant was suggesting.
"I didn't plant it," Terrence said quietly. "I found it. There's a difference."
"We'll see."
Grant nodded at the security guards. "Escort him to the lobby. He can wait there until legal clears him to leave the campus."
The guards flanked Terrence. He walked between them, the notebook under his arm, his backpack over one shoulder. The engineers watched him go. Some of them looked at Grant. None of them said anything.
Briana followed at a distance. Her phone was in her pocket. The video was still backed up in three locations.
In the lobby, Terrence sat on a bench near the glass doors. He put the notebook on his lap. He pulled out his phone, cracked screen, three percent battery, and called the only number that mattered.
"Grandma."