The Zero Sum

The bonus announcement.

The guy at the desk next to me was about to have a coronary. “A quarter-million!”

What I got was a single, gleaming number: Zero.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t rage. I just quietly packed up my desk.
I went home, locked the door, and tossed my phone in a drawer.
I slept like the dead.

The next morning, I turned it on. The sound was a physical assault.

129 missed calls. 289 text messages.

The one pinned to the top was from HR. It read: The entire company is looking for you.

1

The number that broke the office was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Greg Peterson’s shriek of joy was sharp enough to shatter glass. “Two-fifty! A cool quarter-mil!”

He held the thin paper check above his head like an Olympic medal, his face a mess of triumphant wrinkles. The rest of the office swarmed him instantly, a cloud of flies drawn to the scent of money. The air thickened with a cloying web of envy and praise.

“Greg, you’re the man!”
“That’s a new Porsche right there.”
“Drinks are on you tonight, buddy!”

My cubicle, just a few feet away, was an island of silence, forgotten by the tidal wave of noise. The air around me felt cold enough to crystallize.

In my hand, I held a check cut from the same stock, addressed to me, Ava Mitchell.

But in the amount line, printed in stark, round, mocking figures, was a single number: 0.

Next to it, a single word: None.

I was the lead on Project Horizon, an initiative that had single-handedly secured the company’s strategic dominance for the next three years. Its projected profits ran into nine figures.

And my reward, my year-end bonus, was nothing.

The gazes that drifted my way were a toxic cocktail of pity, morbid curiosity, and thinly veiled glee. They were waiting for the show. They wanted tears, or screams, or a furious, desk-clearing rampage.

They got none of it.

I didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

Expressionless, I folded the light, impossibly heavy piece of paper in half, then in half again, and slid it into the deepest recess of my handbag. Then, I picked up my water glass and walked toward the break room.

My spine was straight. The sound of my heels on the polished concrete floor was a steady, deliberate rhythm. Not a tremor.

The break room door muffled the celebration, but snippets of conversation still bled through. I heard Chloe’s voice, low and tight with a fury that was close to tears.

“It’s obscene! Everyone knows Ava’s Project Horizon was the biggest win of the year! Greg Peterson is a bootlicking moron, how does he get a quarter-million? Is there any justice in this place?”

Chloe. The only real friend I had here. A fresh-faced graduate who still believed hard work was its own reward.

Another voice hushed her. “Keep it down! Are you trying to get fired? This came from Marcus, obviously. Ava must have pissed him off.”

I filled my glass and walked out, my eyes meeting Chloe’s. They were red and swollen. She looked away, guilty, like a child caught doing something wrong. Her lips parted, but no words came out.

I walked over and placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

She looked up, surprised to see the ghost of a smile on my face. It was a smile that never reached my eyes, a thin, cold line drawn across my lips. My gaze told her everything she needed to know: Don’t worry. I know. This is just the beginning.

Back at my desk, I began to pack. My movements were calm and methodical, like a ritual. Files were archived, data encrypted, personal items placed one by one into a cardboard box.

The office had grown quiet. The only sound was the soft rustle of my packing.

Greg, apparently annoyed that my silent dignity was dampening his moment, sauntered over, his face a smug mask of counterfeit sympathy.

“Hey, Ava,” he sighed, the glee barely concealed in his eyes. “Tough break, huh? Look, the market’s tight, company’s under pressure… someone had to take one for the team. Don’t take it personally. Just work harder next year.”

I paused. Slowly, I lifted my head and met his gaze.

My eyes were still. Still as a deep, frozen lake. There was no anger, no sorrow. Just a pure, unvarnished coldness that seemed to suck the air out of the space between us.

He flinched. The fake smile on his face froze and then crumbled. I said nothing. I just held his gaze until he squirmed, muttered something, and shuffled away.

I packed the last file and shut down my computer. The screen went dark, reflecting my own placid, unreadable face.

Carrying my box, I was the last to leave the main floor. Behind me, I could feel the weight of dozens of eyes, could hear the first whispers bloom in the silence.

I didn’t look back.

I was walking out of this office and into a storm.

But first, I needed to sleep.

2

I didn’t turn on the lights when I got home. The apartment was a patchwork of shadow and neon glow from the city outside, so quiet I could hear the dust settle. I left the cardboard box—the container of my professional dignity—by the door and took out my phone.

Without hesitating, I pulled open the bottom drawer of my desk, the one that was stiff with disuse, and tossed the phone inside. I shut it with a definitive click, sealing away a world of noise and poison.

A scalding hot shower steamed up the bathroom until my reflection in the mirror was a blurry ghost. I let the water cascade over me, as if it could wash away the grime of the corporate world, the stain of public humiliation, the sting of being betrayed by the director I’d trusted.

Emotion is the most useless currency in the world, especially when you’re already at the poker table.

I dried off, went to the kitchen, and made myself a simple bowl of broth with a handful of noodles. No meat, no eggs, just a few greens and a pinch of salt. I sat in the dark living room and ate every last bite in silence.

The warmth settled in my stomach, and the fog in my mind began to clear.

I felt no anger. Only a crystalline, ice-cold clarity.

A zero-dollar bonus wasn’t an oversight.

It was a declaration of war from Marcus Cole, my smiling viper of a boss. It was a calculated act of humiliation, designed to drive me out.

Why?

Project Horizon.

The project I had built from scratch. It had an immense technological barrier to entry and a limitless market, making it the company’s lifeblood for the foreseeable future.

Whose slice of the pie had it threatened? Or rather, who had decided to claim it as their own?

Marcus was a corporate parasite who had climbed the ladder on nepotism and back-room deals. He didn’t have the technical skill to touch my work, but he had the greed. Greg Peterson, the fool who got the quarter-million, was just a pawn. A loud, obnoxious piece of bait meant to make me angry, to make me lash out and give them a reason to fire me for cause.

There was a bigger game being played.

And I, Ava Mitchell, was the obstacle that had to be removed.

They wanted me gone because I knew Horizon too well. I knew every line of code, every hidden backdoor.

They were afraid of me.

So, the plan was simple: humiliate me with the zero-dollar bonus. Provoke me. Hope I’d cause a scene, allowing them to fire me for “disrupting the workplace.” If I didn’t, they still won—an employee they’d labeled as worthless could be discarded at any time.

It was a brilliant plan.

Except they made one critical miscalculation.

I, Ava Mitchell, have never been one for shouting matches.

I believe that actions are the only language that matters. And results are the only form of justice.

Before bed, I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the sprawling galaxy of lights below. Every light was a story, perhaps a soul like mine, fighting to survive in the corporate jungle.

But tonight, I wouldn't be one of them.

I would be the storm.

I slipped into bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. My body and mind needed a complete reset, a full charge for the battle that was coming. In my subconscious, lines of code, encrypted files, and the two-faced smiles of my colleagues flashed and sorted themselves, analyzed and filed away.

The next morning, the first ray of sunlight cut through a gap in the curtains and landed precisely on my face.

I opened my eyes, stretched, and felt a surge of power course through me. It was the exhilarating calm of a soldier heading into a war she knew she was going to win.

I got up and pulled open the dusty drawer.

The moment I picked up my phone and pressed the power button, I knew.

The show was about to begin.

3

The moment the screen lit up, the world came rushing in.

BZZZZZZZZT.

The vibration was a physical assault, a relentless, high-pitched scream that threatened to deafen me. On the screen, the red notification badges for missed calls and messages climbed at a dizzying speed.

They finally stopped at a breathtaking combination:

129 missed calls.
289 text messages.

I narrowed my eyes and swiped to unlock.

The message pinned to the top was from the Head of HR, a woman whose communication was usually limited to corporate platitudes and layoff announcements. Her text was a thinly veiled command: [Ava, call me immediately. The entire company is looking for you.]

The entire company?

A cold smile touched my lips. Yesterday, I was the invisible woman, the disposable employee they could humiliate and discard. Overnight, I’d become the most wanted person at OmniCorp?

Their reaction was faster, more explosive than I could have hoped.

I scrolled through the messages.

A third of them were from Chloe.

[Ava, are you okay? Just text me back!]
[Please don’t do anything crazy! That place isn’t worth it!]
[SOMETHING IS WRONG! It’s Project Horizon! CALL ME! NOW!!]

Her panic escalated with every message.

Greg Peterson’s texts were an interesting progression as well.

[Ava, don’t take the bonus thing to heart. Marcus had his reasons.]
[Where are you? Get back to the office ASAP! It’s an emergency!]
[Ava, where the HELL are you?! Get your ass back here!]

From phony sympathy to frantic anxiety, and finally, to pure, unfiltered rage. He seemed terrified that I had vanished.

But the most telling communications were from Marcus Cole himself. He had called over twenty times from his personal cell.

His texts were a masterclass in manipulation.

[Ava, I know you’re upset, but this isn’t the time for drama. The company needs you.]
[Return to the office immediately. That’s an order.]
[If you do not show up, there will be consequences.]

Threats, bribes, empty promises—he was running through his entire playbook. Too bad for him, I was no longer a piece on his board.

I rose from the desk, ignoring the urge to call anyone back. I walked to the bathroom, went through my morning routine, and even put on a hydrating face mask.

Then, I opened my closet to select my armor for the day.

I chose a tailored black suit, a silk shell, and a pair of four-inch stiletto heels. I didn't look like a disgraced employee. I looked like a queen about to stage a corporate takeover.

I brewed the strongest black coffee I could, no cream, no sugar. The bitter liquid sharpened my focus. I opened my laptop, connected to my private network, and began scanning OmniCorp’s internal servers and the latest industry news.

I knew that every minute I delayed, their panic would multiply tenfold.

The power had shifted. The moment I’d turned off my phone, the roles in their little hunting game had been reversed.

I, Ava Mitchell, was no longer the prey.

I was the hunter.

4

Halfway through my coffee, I called Chloe.

She answered on the first ring.

“Ava! Oh my god, you finally answered!” Her voice was thick with tears, the words tumbling out in a rush. “You scared me to death! I thought you…”

“I’m fine,” I cut her off, my voice perfectly level. “Tell me what’s happening. The facts.”

My calmness seemed to ground her. She took a shaky breath. “It’s Horizon… the source code for Project Horizon. It’s been stolen.”

My pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

There it is.

Just as I predicted. Project Horizon. My masterpiece, the pinnacle of my career, and the most powerful landmine I’d ever planted.

Chloe’s voice was breaking as she continued. “Last night… right after the bonus meeting, security detected a remote breach. All of Horizon’s core code was copied and extracted. And the backups… they were all wiped out by some kind of custom virus. There’s nothing left, Ava!”

“The whole company is in chaos. The tech department is losing its mind. I heard our stock is already plummeting in pre-market trading!”

She choked back a sob. “And Marcus… in the emergency meeting, he said your name. He said you did it out of revenge. He’s already called the police. He’s naming you as the prime suspect in a major corporate espionage case.”

Listening to her, I felt a cold, sharp laugh rise in my chest.

What a beautifully vicious move.

Frame me for revenge by withholding my bonus, creating the perfect motive. Then, when the code goes missing, I, the one person with both motive and means, become the perfect scapegoat.

He wasn't just trying to fire me. He was trying to bury me.

“Don’t panic,” I told Chloe, my voice steady. “Give me more details. What was the exact time of the breach? What did security’s initial report say? What’s the executive response?”

“The breach was around 10 p.m. last night. Security said it was a top-tier hacker, clean work, almost no trace. The board is furious. Mr. Sterling flew back from Europe overnight. He’s in the emergency meeting right now.”

Mr. Sterling? Arthur Sterling, one of the company’s founders. A brilliant, old-school engineer with actual vision. His presence changed the equation.

Chloe added one more thing. “And Ava… last night… I saw Greg Peterson. He was still at his desk when I left, acting really weird. This morning he looks like hell. Dark circles under his eyes, the whole nine yards.”

I hung up, my fingers already flying across the keyboard.

I bypassed the standard network protocols and used a private security tunnel I’d built years ago, slipping into the company’s backend server logs undetected. The records here were far more complete than anything the security team could see.

And there it was.

Buried deep in the log files were several entries that had been deliberately overwritten and deleted. I spent a few minutes reconstructing the fragmented data.

An unfamiliar IP address had logged in for a brief period at 10:07 p.m. last night.

But the pattern of the IP… I knew it instantly.

It wasn't an external hacker.

It was an internal, temporary network port, one set up to facilitate data transfers with specific third-party vendors.

Fewer than five people had access to that port.

And one of them was Marcus Cole.

The final pieces clicked into place. This wasn’t a hack. It was an inside job, a carefully staged heist.

And I was the sacrifice they planned to offer up.

I shut my laptop and stood, looking at my reflection in the dark screen. Sharp eyes, immaculate makeup, a warrior’s calm.

It was time.

Time to go meet my executioners.

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