Milan scrolled to the tab labeled "Projections." Here, the formulas were unlike anything he’d seen in finance. They didn’t use standard functions. They used variables like [Regret_Index] and [Legacy_Weight] .
When he highlighted it, the truth bled out: Sacrifice Level . Podnik.xlsx
The sheet opened. It was empty, except for a single cell, A1. It contained a live-updating timestamp and a name. Milan scrolled to the tab labeled "Projections
The first sheet, "Phase 1," wasn't filled with revenue. It was a list of names—hundreds of them. Next to each name were dates and coordinates. Milan realized with a chill that these were the first employees of the company. But there was a hidden column, Column Z, formatted in white text so it was invisible against the background. When he highlighted it, the truth bled out: Sacrifice Level
By opening "Podnik.xlsx," Milan hadn't just found the company’s secrets. He had just become the new administrator of the machine. The file saved itself, the drive whirred, and for the first time in three years, Viktor’s old office phone started to ring.
Milan didn’t find the file in the company’s main cloud. He found it on an old, dust-caked external drive labeled Property of Viktor S. —the founder who had vanished from the board of directors three years ago, leaving only a cryptic resignation letter and a thriving empire. The file was titled simply: .