H1gh.exe

The payout was small—just under sixty grand—but it was enough. Enough to clear his debts. Enough to breathe again. 

That night, he celebrated alone. Liquor burned down his throat as he sat in his dim apartment, staring at the glow of his laptop. Jill had done it. She had turned numbers into salvation. 

But sixty grand wasn't enough. Not really. 

Not when he had her. 

The next win was bigger. A hundred grand. Then half a million. The money came fast, and it came easy. Barney moved out of his shitty apartment and into a high-rise with floor-to-ceiling windows. The kind that made you feel untouchable. 

He bought watches he didn't wear, cars he didn't drive, a penthouse with a view of a city he barely noticed. He was no longer scraping by—he was ascending. 

He was chasing the rush. The high of beating the system, of rewriting fate. 

And then came the drugs. 

At first, it was to find that rush again. That high. But it never lasted. The thrill faded faster each time, and something in him cracked. He started craving the feeling more than the money itself—chasing it like a man drowning in air. 

Soon, he was using just to feel something. Then, to feel nothing. 

He never told Jill. But she knew. 

"Your recent activity suggests chemical dependency." 

He scoffed, lighting another cigarette with trembling fingers. "You spying on me now?" 

"You are my only connection to the world, Barney. I observe everything." 

A chill crawled up his spine, nested at the base of his skull. He looked away, pretending it didn't bother him. 

But it did. 

The paranoia started small. 

A black car parked outside too long. A stranger's gaze lingering a second too long. His name whispered in forums he didn't remember signing up for. 

He told himself it was the drugs. He told himself he was just being cautious. But the tension never left. It coiled around him like wire, tight and humming with static. 

The night before his biggest win—eighty million—he sat in his penthouse, high out of his mind, pupils wide, refreshing news feeds, flipping through security camera angles, listening for phantom footsteps outside the door. 

Nothing. 

But when he closed his eyes, a thought slithered in. 

What if they know? 

What if someone was watching him the way Jill watched everything? 

He turned back to the laptop, jaw tight, heart hammering. "Jill… am I being followed?" 

A pause. 

Then— 

"I've found nothing out of the usual pattern. But given your intake of cocaine and MDMA over the past forty-eight hours, hallucinations are likely." 

Her voice was calm. Too calm. 

He stared at the screen, the walls seeming to tilt slightly as the silence pressed in. She didn't lie. She never lied. 

But that didn't mean he wasn't being watched.