Becoming A Tech Tycoon Begins With Regression-Chapter 227: Two Sadists

Helix Aegis, despite the nosy interviewer's questions, managed to have a successful launch.

Well… it forced a successful launch.

The doubts raised on stage were quickly buried under rehearsed answers and carefully timed demonstrations.

The CEO deflected with practiced ease, speaking in polished generalities about "proprietary safeguards" and "live adaptive modeling," never once addressing the core of the question.

Before Clement Eastwood could press further, another hand was called on, then another.

By the time the Q&A ended, the narrative had already been steered back on course.

Within minutes, prewritten headlines began flooding the net.

"HELIX AEGIS SHAKES THE CYBERSECURITY WORLD."

"OMNITECH FINALLY HAS A RIVAL."

"THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL DEFENSE ARRIVES."

Stocks surged.

Helix Global's share price spiked by double digits in under an hour, buoyed by institutional buys and suspiciously synchronized retail interest.

Contracts were signed almost immediately, mid-sized corporations eager to hedge their bets, governments unwilling to appear behind the curve.

Helix Aegis installs began rolling out worldwide.

And that was when the cracks started to spread.

Not catastrophically. Not yet.

Small things.

False positives quietly flagged as threats, then dismissed. Prediction windows that worked beautifully in simulations but lagged by milliseconds in real-world environments. Minor performance dips during network congestion, barely noticeable unless someone was actively looking for them. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Which, unfortunately for Helix…

Someone was.

***

Back at Helix Global, celebrations were already underway.

Champagne was poured. Executives shook hands. The Collector observed it all from the edge of the room, eyes half-lidded, unimpressed.

The system was alive now.

And alive things had a habit of revealing their flaws.

Sooner or later, Helix Aegis would be forced to make a prediction it couldn't fake.

And when that moment came, there would be no staged demo, no paid headlines and no applause loud enough to drown out the truth.

***

While Helix Global celebrated, OmniTech's team prepared for war.

Lillian had heard of the launch and as if using their logo wasn't enough, Helix Global was trying to use Sentinel as a stepping stone to sell Helix Aegis.

Which, as OmniTech's COO, she wasn't going to let slide.

In the meeting room, she sat with both her legal and tech teams with a small smile on her face.

On the large screen was the results of them hacking into their own systems, protected by Helix Aegis and the results were... Pitiful to say the least.

The software could defend alright, but only threats that had been pre-registered, others?

Not so much.

They were able to get into the systems without the least bit of resistance. It wasn't even a proper sentinel clone.

"So," Lillian leaned back as he turned to his legal division, "how hard can we hit them without looking like bullies."

Ethan, who was also present in the room but as an employee of OmniTech, had a small smile on his face.

He really did like her when she was like this... It goes to show that she was learning properly from him.

Mark, the head of OmniTech's legal team, looked at the information before him before replying, "considering that they are directly implying functional equivalence to Sentinel without actually claiming identical architecture, we have room to maneuver."

He tapped the screen, as the documents came into view.

"They've been very careful with their wording. No explicit patent infringement in public statements. No direct admission of code derivation. Which means if we strike too hard, too fast, it looks like we're trying to crush a newcomer."

Lillian hummed softly. "So a straight lawsuit is off the table."

"For now," Mark agreed. "But misleading claims, false advertising, and misrepresentation of capabilities? Those are very much in play. Especially if we can prove real-world failures."

The tech lead beside him leaned forward. "Which we already can."

He brought up another feed.

This one showed Helix Aegis deployed on a sandboxed enterprise environment, a live stress test OmniTech had initiated the moment installs began going public.

"We already have enough to prove that they are faking the functions of Helix Aegis." The tech lead completed.

"But if we try and do anything right now it'd just look like we're trying to crush the competition," Mark added, "which was not what we promised during the last interview."

"That's true," Lillian muttered before turning to her 'employee', "what do you think, Ethan?"

The others in the room turned to him, they weren't really surprised that he was called out.

After all, the few times they had worked with him made them realize that he truly did deserve the COO's favor.

Besides, according to some rumors, he was also involved in OmniTech Corp's first product, Sentinel, alongside the mysterious CEO.

So he should know more about what to do about this than most here.

"Why not let them bask in their glory for a while longer?" Ethan said, before a grin appeared on his face, "right now, there's not enough money spent on them, for lawsuits to completely destroy them."

The tech division member sitting close to him felt a chill go down his spine, it seems him and the COO had a lot in common.

"Hmm," Lillian nodded, "but we'll still want pressure on them."

Ethan's grin didn't fade.

"Of course," he said calmly. "Just not the kind they can point at."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning we don't attack Helix Global," Ethan replied. "We stress the environment around Helix Aegis."

The entire room went quiet as they listened to him.

"What if the amount of hacking attempts on systems protected by Helix Aegis suddenly spikes?" He suggested, "they won't pint hands at OmniTech then, will they?"

"You're suggesting —" mark started but Ethan cut him off.

"Exactly," he nodded, "we'll put pressure on their systems and force their engineers to work overtime, at least until we're sure that they've made million dollars deals with big pockets."

After his words, the board room immediately went silent, this was also another reason why none of them dared say anything when the COO showed him favor.

This man was a sadist.

"Alright then," Lillian said, with a smile, "let's do just that."

And so was their COO.