Ethan Walker stared at his computer screen, the blue light reflecting off his tired eyes. It was past midnight, and he was still at the office, debugging lines of code that weren't even his responsibility.
"Walker! Get in here!" His boss, Greg Dalton, shouted from across the room.
Suppressing a sigh, Ethan pushed back his chair and walked into Greg's glass-walled office. Greg was a middle-aged man with a permanent scowl and an expensive Rolex.
"I need you to finish the backend integration for the new client. By tomorrow morning."
Ethan clenched his jaw. "That's not my project.
"It is now," Greg interrupted, smirking. "You want to keep your job, don't you?"
Ethan forced himself to nod. He needed this paycheck. New York rent wasn't forgiving, and his bank account was running on fumes.
Later That Night
By 3 AM, Ethan was the last person in the office. His fingers ached from typing, and his brain felt like it was melting.
As he massaged his temples, his screen flickered. Then, a new window popped up—a command prompt with strange, scrolling text.
"Project Helios activated."
"What the hell?" Ethan muttered.
Lines of code scrolled faster than he could read. It looked like an old AI project, buried deep within the company's servers.
Curious, he ran a diagnostic. The results shocked him. This wasn't just an AI—it was an advanced predictive algorithm, capable of analyzing market trends with terrifying accuracy.
Ethan's exhaustion vanished. If this worked the way he thought it did... he might have just found his way out.