Chapter 3

I stared at Mark's message, the glowing text a monument to his arrogance. He wanted to give me a job. A pity position managing the human artists his stolen AI was making obsolete. He wanted me to watch from the sidelines as he and Sarah lived the life that should have been mine.

"No," I typed back. A single, simple word. I added nothing else. I needed him to believe I was just a bitter, defeated ex, not someone who understood the game he was playing. I feigned ignorance of his bizarre "other life" comment, treating it like the ramblings of an egomaniac. Let him think he had all the power, all the knowledge. Let him underestimate me. It was his greatest weakness.

I closed the chat window, the connection severed. A cold fire burned in my gut. He thought he was offering me a choice between being a part of his success or being nothing. He was wrong. I was going to offer him a third option: complete and utter ruin. The pain of his betrayal, the grief for my stolen work, it all coalesced into a single, sharp point of focus. My revenge wouldn't be emotional or messy. It would be strategic. It would be code.

A few days later, there was a frantic pounding on my apartment door. I opened it to find Sarah standing there, her face a mask of furious indignation. She pushed past me, her expensive perfume filling the small, stale room.

"What do you think you're doing, Chloe?" she demanded, her eyes scanning my sparse belongings with disdain. "Mark told me about his offer. He was being generous, and you spat in his face. Who do you think you are?"

"I think I'm someone who doesn't want to work for the people who destroyed her life," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

Her face twisted with jealousy. "He still thinks about you! Even now, with me, he worries about you. He feels guilty! You have this hold over him, and I won't stand for it."

As she ranted, a small shape darted out from under my desk. It was 'Glitch,' a small, custom-built drone I'd pieced together from spare parts. It was shaped like a dragonfly, with whirring, delicate wings and glowing blue optic sensors. It was my only companion in this lonely existence, my little digital pet. It hovered near my shoulder, its sensors blinking, a silent, mechanical protector.

Sarah recoiled, letting out a small shriek. "What is that thing? Get it away from me!"

Glitch, sensing my tension and her aggression, buzzed forward defensively, hovering just a few inches from her face. It didn't touch her, but its sudden movement was enough. Sarah stumbled backward in a panic, tripping over a stack of boxes and crashing to the floor.

Just then, the door swung open again. It was Mark. He must have followed her. He took in the scene in an instant: Sarah on the floor, looking terrified, and my little drone hovering in the air. His face darkened with rage.

"Chloe! What the hell did you do?" he snarled, rushing to Sarah's side and helping her up. He didn't ask what happened. He just assumed. He always just assumed the worst of me.

"It attacked me, Mark!" Sarah cried, clinging to him. "That horrible little machine."

"It didn't touch her," I said flatly. "She tripped."

Mark ignored me. His eyes fixed on Glitch, which had retreated to hover by my side. He saw it not as a piece of hobbyist tech, but as an extension of me, a symbol of my defiance. A cold, cruel light entered his eyes.

"You want to build things?" he said, his voice low and menacing. "Let's see how you feel when they're taken away."

Before I could react, he lunged forward. He was fast. He snatched Glitch out of the air, his large hand crushing its delicate frame. There was a sickening crunch of plastic and metal, a brief, pathetic whirring sound, and then silence. The blue lights in its optic sensors flickered and died. He had broken it. He had killed the only thing I had left.

He dropped the mangled pieces to the floor. They landed with a hollow clatter at my feet. The sight of my little drone, my Glitch, lying there in pieces, shattered something inside me. It was a small, silly thing, a collection of circuits and motors, but it was mine. He had destroyed it for no reason other than to cause me pain. The grief was sharp and overwhelming, a white-hot agony that burned away everything else. Tears streamed down my face, hot and silent.

"Now you have nothing," Mark said, his voice devoid of any emotion. He looked down at the broken drone, then at me, his expression one of cold satisfaction. "Stay away from us. This is your final warning."

He pulled a still-sobbing Sarah out of the apartment, slamming the door behind them.

I sank to my knees, my body shaking. I gently picked up the broken pieces of Glitch, the sharp edges of plastic digging into my palms. The grief was a physical weight, crushing my chest. But beneath the grief, a new foundation was being laid. The fire in my gut was no longer cold. It was raging. He had made a mistake. He thought destroying my pet would break me. Instead, he had just given my revenge a name and a face. He had taken something I loved. Now, I would take everything he had.

As I knelt there in the wreckage of my room and my life, there was a soft knock on the door. I ignored it. It came again, more persistent this time. Wiping my eyes, I stood up and opened it a crack.

A man stood in the hallway. He was older, with a kind, weathered face and intelligent eyes that seemed to see right through me. I didn't recognize him.

"Chloe?" he asked gently. "My name is Elias Vance. I was a friend of your father's."