"Hey Mike, do you want to grab something to eat?"
It was Helena. She was leaning against the edge of his cubicle, wearing a soft, floral-print dress that felt like a deliberate rebellion against the sterile grey carpet and exposed ceiling pipes of the office. She looked calm, poised, a sharp contrast to the frantic energy usually vibrating through the floor.
Mike leaned back, his chair giving a slight protest. "Glad you asked, Helena. Honestly, I've been staring at this screen so long I think I've forgotten what real sunlight looks like. I'm starving. What are you thinking?"
Helena tapped a finger against her chin, glancing toward the tinted glass windows that overlooked the city's business district. "Why don't we try that new place that opened last week? The one just around the corner, next to the fountain."
"The bistro with the outdoor seating?" Mike stood up, grabbing his company card from the desk. "Great call. I've been meaning to give that place a try. Anything beats another day of lukewarm leftovers in the breakroom."
The heavy glass doors of the office building hissed shut behind them, cutting off the pressurized hum of the air conditioning. Outside, the city felt alive, a sweltering mix of asphalt heat and the distant chime of the light rail.
"The humidity is brutal today," Mike noted, tugging at the collar of his shirt as they stepped onto the plaza. "I think my brain is still stuck in the server room at sixty-eight degrees."
"It makes the fountain look even better," Helena replied, gesturing toward the water feature in the center of the square. "A little natural cooling before we head back into the grind."
"You've got a point there," Mike said, finally feeling a breeze.
As they wove through the lunch crowd toward the restaurant, Helena leaned in slightly, her voice dropping. "So, have you heard the water-cooler gossip? Rumor is the CTO is looking to promote someone to Engineering Manager before the next quarter starts."
Mike shrugged, unfazed. "Hadn't heard. To be honest, I'm happy where I am. Being a Senior Dev means I actually get to build things. A promotion to management just means more Jira tickets and endless meetings about 'synergy.'" He looked at her and smiled. "But if I were HR, the choice would be easy. You've got the roadmap for this entire project in your head, Helena. You should take it."
Helena giggled, though her eyes remained serious. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. But Mike, we both know you're the backbone of this place. If you weren't around, the system infrastructure would collapse and half our core repositories wouldn't even pass a build check."
She paused as they reached the entrance of the restaurant. "The only reason you haven't been pushed up the ladder with a massive raise is that you never ask for it. You know how this industry works—if you don't advocate for yourself or complain about the workload, they'll just keep taking advantage of your talent until you burn out."
Mike offered a small, tired smile. "Thanks for the flattering words, Helena. And for looking out for me. I mean it."
He meant it, but as he followed her inside, a familiar numbness settled in his chest. Of course he knew the company was getting a bargain with him. He was the one who stayed late to fix the legacy code no one else understood; he was the one who could spot a bug in a thousand-line script just by glancing at it.
But he lacked the one thing that drove everyone else in this city: Ambition.
Mike wasn't miserable, but he wasn't happy either. He lived in a gray middle ground. He'd read all the self-improvement books, mastered the "leadership frameworks," and knew exactly how to "network" his way to a C-suite office. He had the map, but he had no desire to make the trip.
It was the same with his personal life. There had been women in the past—relationships that were "fine" until they required the effort of change. Now, he chose the quiet of his apartment over the complexity of another person. He had become a master of his own comfort zone, and the walls were built so high he couldn't see a reason to climb over them.
"Oh, look at this place," Helena said, her voice snapping him back to the present. "We've arrived."
The transition was immediate. They stepped out of the sterile, white-tiled lobby of their office building and into a small, narrow space squeezed between a dry cleaner and a bubble tea shop.
The restaurant wasn't fancy. In fact, it was a bit dim. A few red paper lanterns hung from a drop-ceiling, and the walls were decorated with simple, faded prints of mountain landscapes. The floor was dark wood, slightly worn in the center from years of foot traffic, and the air smelled heavily of soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and old tea leaves.
"It's smaller than I thought it would be from the outside," Mike said, dodging a stack of delivery boxes near the door.
"Those are usually the best ones," Helena replied, leading the way to a small corner booth with a Formica tabletop that had been painted to look like dark wood. "Less budget for decor, more budget for the chef."
Mike sat down, his knees bumping the underside of the table. It was a tight fit, the kind of place where you could hear the sizzle of a wok from the kitchen and the low chatter of two old men playing chess in the back corner.
He looked around. It was a far cry from the "Open Office" plan he'd spent the last eight hours in. There were no standing desks here, no neon "hustle" signs, and certainly no ergonomic chairs. It was just a room that had existed, unchanged, while the skyscrapers grew up around it.
"It's quiet," Mike noted, leaning back. The chair was hard wood, but it felt oddly supportive. "No Slack pings, no coffee machine grinding every five minutes. I can actually hear myself think."
Helena reached for the plastic-covered menu tucked between the soy sauce bottle and a jar of chili oil. "See? I told you. It's the perfect spot for a 'system reboot' before the afternoon meetings start."
Mike reached for the menu, but his hand didn't quite follow his brain's command. A strange, heavy numbness started at his fingertips and crawled up his arm, like his limb had fallen asleep and refused to wake up.
"You okay?" Helena asked, her smile faltering. "Mike?"
He tried to answer, but his tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth. A sudden, sharp pressure clamped down on his chest—not a sting, but a massive, crushing weight, as if someone had placed a lead slab over his heart. He tried to draw a breath, but his lungs wouldn't expand.
The restaurant began to tilt. The muffled sounds of the kitchen and the low hum of the ceiling fan started to drift away, replaced by a loud, rushing ring in his ears that drowned out Helena's voice.
"Mike! Hey, look at me!"
He saw her standing up, her chair screeching against the floor, her face twisting into a mask of panic. He wanted to tell her not to worry, to just give him a second to catch his breath, but the world was rapidly losing its edges. The warm amber glow of the lanterns dissolved into a blurry, grey haze.
His vision tunneled. The last thing he saw was the grain of the wooden table rushing up to meet him. There was a dull thud as his head hit the surface, but he barely felt it.
The weight in his chest vanished, replaced by a terrifying lightness. The noise, the heat of the room, and the sound of Helena calling his name all flickered once, like a dying candle, and then went out completely.
Everything went quiet. Everything went black.