Chapter 2 THE FIVE-YEAR-OLD FINANCIAL TERRORIST
CHAPTER TWO: THE FIVE-YEAR-OLD FINANCIAL TERRORIST
Six Years Later
The Tyler Tower gleamed like a silver knife against Manhattan's skyline, its hundred stories of glass and steel reflecting the morning sun. Inside the penthouse conference room on the 99th floor, Marty Tyler adjusted his Patek Philippe watch—the same one he'd worn the day he nearly drowned—and glanced at the assembled journalists.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, his voice carrying through the state-of-the-art sound system. "Today marks the largest expansion in Tyler Group history. Our acquisition of Meridian Tech represents—"
The lights flickered once, twice. The massive screen behind him, meant to display acquisition graphs and profit projections, suddenly went black.
"Sir," his tech director whispered urgently. "We're being hacked."
A millisecond later, the screen illuminated with the image of a kindergarten classroom. Cheerful alphabet posters decorated the walls. And centered in the frame sat a small boy in a perfectly tailored miniature suit, swinging his legs as he sucked on a cherry lollipop.
Marty's glass of water slipped from his fingers, shattering on the marble floor.
The child had his eyes. His jawline. Even the same cowlick at the crown of his head.
"Hi there," the boy said, removing the lollipop with a pop. "Am I interrupting something important, biological father?"
Cameras whirred. Journalists gasped. Security personnel scrambled.
The child continued, his diction impeccable for someone who appeared no older than five. "My name is Noah. I believe you've been looking for us. Unsuccessfully." He smiled, revealing a missing front tooth. "You really should upgrade your security protocols. Your firewall took me four whole minutes to breach."
"Cut the feed," Marty hissed to his team. "NOW."
"They can't," Noah replied, overhearing. "I've locked them out. Don't worry, I only need three minutes of your time." He held up a tablet. "See this app? Mommy helped me build it. It tracks stock market patterns and predicts vulnerabilities."
The screen split to show the Tyler Group's real-time stock ticker.
"I just wanted to show you what happens when I press this button." Noah's small finger hovered over his tablet. "It executes a sophisticated algorithm that triggers automatic sell-offs by mimicking panic patterns. Watch."
He tapped the screen.
The stock ticker began to plummet.
$94.30
$87.15
$72.63
$58.29
Chaos erupted in the conference room. Phones rang frantically. Investors shouted.
"That's eight hundred million dollars gone in thirty seconds," Noah observed, licking his lollipop casually. "Don't worry, I've programmed it to stop at forty percent loss. I'm not a monster." He grinned. "Just wanted to say hello properly."
"Where is she?" Marty finally managed, knuckles white as he gripped the podium.
"Mommy?" Noah tilted his head. "She's at work. She doesn't know I borrowed her phone for this. I'll probably be grounded." He sighed dramatically. "Worth it though."
The security director whispered urgently in Marty's ear: "Sir, we've traced the signal to Little Scholars Kindergarten in Brooklyn."
Marty's jaw clenched. "Send everyone. Now."
"Oops, gotta go. It's arts and crafts time," Noah said, waving. "Oh, and Mr. Tyler? The next time you send people to our neighborhood with tranquilizer darts, maybe don't use company vehicles with GPS trackers I can access." His smile turned cold, suddenly looking much older than five. "Bye-bye for now."
The screen went black.
---
Forty minutes later, Marty burst through the colorful doors of Little Scholars Kindergarten, flanked by six security personnel. The school administrator trembled as she led them to Room 4B.
"Ms. Douglas drops him off at eight and picks him up at three," she whispered. "She's a lovely woman. Works in cybersecurity. Noah is... exceptionally gifted."
They rounded the corner to find twenty kindergarteners seated in a circle, each one coloring what appeared to be complex diagrams.
"Noah?" the teacher called nervously. "You have a visitor."
A small dark-haired boy looked up, chocolate smeared at the corner of his mouth. With the lollipop gone and finger paint on his cheeks, he looked like any other kindergartener—except for those piercing eyes that were unmistakably Tyler eyes.
"Hi, Uncle," Noah said innocently, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Did you come for Parents' Day too?"
Marty approached slowly, crouching beside the boy. "What are you coloring there, Noah?"
The child held up his paper proudly. "It's the architectural plans for the Tyler Tower's security system. See all the red circles? Those are the weaknesses."
Marty looked around in horror. Every child in the class was coloring in different pages of what appeared to be highly confidential Tyler Group documents.
"Miss Peterson said we needed something interesting to color," Noah explained. "These had the most lines."
The teacher approached tentatively, clutching a large envelope. "Mr. Tyler? Noah insisted you would come today. He asked me to give you this."
Inside was a handmade Father's Day card decorated with glitter and dinosaur stickers. Marty's hands shook as he opened it.
On one side, in childish handwriting: "Happy NOT-A-FATHER's Day!"
On the other: a medical form dated two weeks prior. Obstetrics Department. Patient: Molly Douglas. Gestational Age: 6 weeks.
A second pregnancy test. Another Tyler heir.
As Marty stared at the paper in shock, Noah leaned over and whispered, "Mommy doesn't know I found that in her purse. She also doesn't know I crashed your stocks." His smile was angelic. "I'm really good at keeping secrets. Are you?"
Outside the kindergarten windows, a slender woman with sunglasses and a baseball cap watched from across the street, one hand resting protectively over her still-flat stomach. When Marty emerged from the building minutes later, scanning the sidewalks frantically, Molly Douglas was already gone.
All that remained was a notification on Marty's phone:
TYLER GROUP STOCK REBOUNDING AFTER MYSTERIOUS CRASH
SOURCE OF HACK: UNTRACEABLE
