Chapter 36: Pre-Launch: Knowing The Enemy
The days came and went in a blur, and soon enough, OmniTech Corp was just three days away from launching Sentinel—its first and most anticipated product.
To say things had gotten busy would be a laughable understatement.
The main floor of OmniTech’s office building finally looked like a real company. After all, Lillian had completed the hires.
Employees were constantly walking around. Although most of them were part of the PR team Lillian had hand-selected, they made the company look alive.
For the past few days, the team had been trying to build as much hype as possible around Sentinel with teaser drops, staged "leaks," and exclusive interviews offered to tech blogs. But for some reason, it felt like someone was interfering with the flow.
Lillian had picked up on it first.
She’d noticed odd gaps in scheduled media pushes. Articles that were meant to go live mysteriously vanished from the editors. Tech influencers who had once seemed eager to discuss Sentinel were suddenly radio silent—or worse, skeptical.
"Somebody’s interfering with the launch," she told Ethan just the day before. "And they’re doing it in a way that looks organic."
"Controlled opposition?" Ethan asked, a frown evident on his face.
"Exactly," she said. "It’s subtle. Comments seeded here and there, questions about the company’s legitimacy, and more recently, about Sentinel’s claims."
Ethan had expected one of two things to happen during Sentinel’s launch: either a competitor would try sabotaging it, or a rip-off would be released before Sentinel.