Null Pointer

"Enjoy the view, boss," Chloe added quietly.

The video call disconnected. The screen went black, reflecting Silas's pale, devastated face in the glass.

He sat in the dark, the silence of the fourteenth floor pressing in on him, heavy and suffocating. He tried to think of a backdoor, a rogue script he might have left in the architecture, a legal loophole. But his mind was blank. Chloe was thorough. Her lies hadn't just been for the investors; they had been the foundation of their entire relationship.

The digital clock on the bottom right of his locked monitor ticked over.

* 12:00 AM.*

Midnight.

Almost immediately, his phone screen lit up. The second phase of the push notifications was executing flawlessly.

* Timor is now live on the App Store! Download now.*
* ApexTech welcomes Timor to the family!*

The notifications poured in, a cascading waterfall of light in the dark office. Somewhere, hundreds of thousands of users were downloading the app. They were freeing up storage, marveling at the seamless aging filters, and enjoying the optimized wallpapers. The launch was a massive, unprecedented success.

And Silas Vance owned absolutely none of it.

He sat alone in the dark, watching the brilliant execution of his masterpiece under someone else's name, ruined by the only person he had ever trusted to help him.