Chapter 180: Putting Aside the Video, Is Hawke Right?

[Chapter 181: Putting Aside the Video, Is Hawke Right?]

In the financial district of Los Angeles, at the Aon Center, Hailey hung up the phone with a sigh. Bella Sain had failed.

She opened her computer and logged into her Twitter account. That's right -- though Hawke Osment was their enemy, it didn't stop them from using Twitter. It was the most widely used social networking site in America.

As soon as Hailey entered the Twitter interface, she saw the announcements hanging on the right side of the screen. Both the official statement from Twitter and the LAPD's announcement were there. She clicked in and played the video.

Bella Sain had done remarkably well, being quite ruthless with herself by even using Hawke Osment's pen to stab at her own vital points. Under normal circumstances, the plan would surely succeed. Who would have thought Bella encountered a pervert who had installed surveillance in her office?

As the head of a company, weren't you supposed to have affairs with female employees? Weren't you supposed to sometimes fool around with a secretary? Didn't you occasionally seek out a celebrity or model to indulge with?

If you weren't doing any of that, what kind of company boss were you!

Hailey confirmed that the operation had completely failed and turned off Twitter, heading over to Grant's office.

...

Grant was on the phone with Mayor Owen from Covina.

Hailey waited until the call was finished before saying, "Boss, Bella Sain's plan failed."

Grant was slightly surprised. "The plan was simple and crude, but it usually yielded good results."

"Take a look at Twitter." Hailey briefly explained the current situation.

Grant opened the video and watched closely. After finishing, he sighed and said, "Bella did well, but she was up against an overly cautious opponent."

Hailey agreed, "We planned well but lost to a pervert and caution."

Grant nodded and asked, "Will there be any issues with Bella?"

"No, we have her under control. She wouldn't dare speak out. If our side gets exposed, she could spend the rest of her life in prison." Hailey said simply. "The moment our information gets out, she will be finished."

Grant thought for a moment and added, "This failure has raised the opponent's alertness. Let's not make any moves for now to avoid weakening our forces. It seems we'll have to face them head-on in Covina."

Hailey said, "Feedback from the West Substation indicates that Brian has reappeared, helping Hawke Osment deal with the aftermath."

"Just as we expected, those two have colluded again." Grant remained silent for a moment before saying, "As for Bella, let's not worry about her; she doesn't have any evidence pointing back to us. In fact, without her saying so, Hawke and Brian will guess it came from Sacramento. Before long, we'll have to face him directly."

Hailey nodded and then left the office. Grant picked up the phone to call Sacramento, saying, "Things aren't going well; we must take Hawke Osment seriously. He turns out to be more difficult to deal with than we expected."

The voice on the other end replied, "You all should continue assisting Owen Nester's campaign. The primary task is to ensure his reelection."

Grant responded, "Got it."

...

At Ocean Park Boulevard, at the Twitter headquarters, as soon as Hawke returned, he immediately gathered all department heads for a meeting. They all understood that Twitter had just pulled through a perilous time. If Hawke, the founder, went down, the company might just fall apart.

In the meeting room, Hawke wasted no time with small talk. He directly said, "This incident can also become hot news. The operations and editorial departments need to heat this story up for the next week, with technical support from the tech department."

The head of operations, Sasha, who was also Caroline's former assistant, asked, "Is there a specific theme?"

Hawke had been thinking about it on his way back and replied, "The theme is 'Men Should Protect Themselves.'"

If taken alone, people might find it surprising. However, after hearing about Hawke's situation, Sasha immediately understood his point.

Aside from Sasha, all the others in the room were men. Considering what Hawke had gone through, they each subconsciously heightened their alertness. They didn't even need Hawke to remind them that from now on, when meeting female subordinates, it was best not to be alone. If they had to be alone, they should definitely not close the office door.

...

The meeting wrapped up in under five minutes. Hawke spoke briefly with the HR manager about controlling the female employee ratio during future hiring. The IT industry naturally had a significant male advantage.

Hawke also thought about companies like Boeing and Twitter from his past life, which heavily relied on female and LGBTQ+ employees, and how they were nearly doomed.

Amidst these cautionary tales, Hawke found another pressing issue. He called in Harland and Kasim, instructing them to temporarily avoid using Bella Sain's algorithm.

...

With everyone else out of the conference room, Edward spoke up, "Boss, I should have stayed at the company. If I were around, I would have directly accused Bella of racism."

Hawke chuckled, "Were you planning to use a nuclear option right from the start?"

Edward rubbed the back of his head, "Racism against feminism is definitely a battle worth fighting."

"Don't worry, if anything like this happens again, I will make sure you are at the forefront," Hawke changed the subject and asked, "Did you meet with Campos? Any updates?"

Edward opened his bag and took out a dozen photos, handing them to Hawke. "These were taken by Campos and show the latest movements of that Harley who interacted with Gretchen."

Hawke looked through the photos, mostly capturing scenes near Paramount Pictures, with several showing Harley coming in and out of the Super Star Training School. Harley was obviously well-groomed, sporting bright blonde hair and an outstanding appearance.

Hawke easily guessed her intentions: "Has Harley signed up for acting classes?"

"Yes," Edward elaborated. "Campos dug a bit and found that she changed her name to Polly, claiming to be a girl from Montana who just arrived in Los Angeles to chase her acting dreams."

He pointed to two photos, "Harley moved out of her apartment and rented a room in a motel, telling the motel owner about her past; her father died in a car accident, and her mother from Australia returned to Melbourne to start a new family."

Hawke immediately understood. This woman had surely researched the background of missing persons, carefully crafting her identity.

Edward also picked up on it and said, "Boss, she's worried those jerks won't take her seriously, so she tailored this story."

"Yes, she's quite courageous and has a strong sense of justice." Hawke wasn't that type of person; he had never thought of seeking justice for others, always weighing his own interests first.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but admire such a person.

Hawke put away the photos and told Edward, "Notify Campos to send his best two people to follow Harley in shifts. Good people shouldn't go missing."

Edward acknowledged, "I know what to do."

...

Exiting the meeting room and returning to his office, he found Brian curiously snooping around.

Hawke asked, "What are you doing? Be careful or I might mistake you for a thief!"

Brian replied, "Looking for a camera."

"Don't worry, I'm not after you." Hawke went behind his desk and asked, "Have we figured out who is backing Bella Sain?"

Brian said, "I contacted Erica, but she's very tight-lipped. Her lawyer is also vigilant. It's tough to get anything out of her through legitimate questioning at the police station."

Hawke asked, "Haven't your channels come up with anything either?"

Brian showed a bit of shame. "Management is too bureaucratic, and efficiency is too low. Gray Davis's assistant has a few consulting teams under control, and they haven't gotten any information yet about who has come to Los Angeles."

He assured Hawke, "Don't worry, the toughest ones are definitely after Arnold Schwarzenegger; we're just the little players here."

Hawke said, "Those people aren't pushovers either; they strike hard."

Brian nodded. It was an old-school method, but effective.

Seeing Hawke in thought, Brian opened a computer and logged into his Twitter to look up some news.

After reading for a while, he couldn't help but said to Hawke: "You were using your own case to stir up a hot topic!"

Hawke replied: "It had already happened, so of course we had to use it. Wasting was not a good habit."

Brian was speechless for a while.

...

The founder and CEO of Twitter had been framed by a female subordinate, and the related news had quickly become a hot topic.

Even though the person's face could not be seen clearly, the video had still topped the Twitter trending news list thanks to the strong support of many netizens.

It had also made it onto Google's hot search news list.

The strong response from netizens had far exceeded outside expectations.

On Twitter, countless people had retweeted Hawke's news and video and had left their own opinions.

"The whole United States had been clamoring to protect women's rights, but who had been protecting the legitimate rights of men?"

"It had not been easy for men out there. You must have learned from Hawke and protected yourself!"

"A true experience: my former colleague had been falsely accused of sexual harassment by a woman in the office. Although there had been a recording to prove it, he had still been fired by his female boss."

"I'm a photographer. When I had been shooting on the subway, a woman had suddenly broken into my camera and had falsely accused me of secretly photographing her privacy. I had ended up paying $500."

"It had been proven that when you are with a colleague or a single woman who was not a friend, especially a woman with whom you might have a conflict of interest, you must be careful. Otherwise, if the other party falsely accuses you of secretly filming or peeping or any sexual harassment, you would have no way to explain and would be socially dead."

Faced with the overwhelming public opinion, how could feminists have remained silent?

In reality, they might have been afraid of a man's iron fist, a literal iron fist.

But on the Internet, they had been fearless and had seemed invincible.

Many feminists had also fought back on Twitter.

"The victims of sexual harassment had mostly been women!"

"You had been exploiting women for hundreds of years, and you want to continue exploiting them?"

"If I hadn't spoken out until something had happened, it would have been too late!"

"Apart from the content of the video, shouldn't Hawke Osment have reflected on whether he had done anything wrong? Had he been treating female employees unfairly in his daily work? Had he been giving people the wrong hints? There had been so many men at Twitter; why had the woman chosen Hawke Osment?"

*****

https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.