Independence Workplace 단편 소설 & 소설

It is 1:00 am, and I'm still in the inspection office in the suburban power plant, compiling the equipment defect records for the week. Suddenly, there's loud kicking at my door. Brad Greer's panicked voice rings out. "Sam! Come with me right now! The pressure-regulating valve on the main steam pipe of Unit 4 is completely stuck! "The automatic pressure relief device didn't get activated! If it explodes, the three maintenance workers in the control room next door will be burned to a crisp!" Just as I grab my hard hat and am about to rush out, an anonymous encrypted email pops up on my office computer. It said, "Don't go there. The three maintenance workers have already been burned to death by the gushing steam. "He is the one who violated regulations by performing the pressurized maintenance after replacing the valve core with a substandard one, and now, it's completely stuck. He's just trying to make you take the blame. "If you touch the valve even once, you'll get your fingerprints all over it. The CCTV footage will show only you fiddling with it. You're going to take the fall for him and spend the rest of your life in jail. "You're going to have to pay tens of millions of dollars in compensation, and the victims' families will even have the right to sell off all your assets for compensation. You'll never have a peaceful life in prison either." The kicking at the door continues, and the hinges on the wooden door are about to fall off. "Samuel Williams! What are you dawdling for? You're the only one in the whole plant now who's received valve debugging training! You're the only one who can do it! "If you come out any later, those three maintenance people are going to be cooked!" I grip the computer mouse and withdraw my hand from the doorknob. I then say, "I'm sorry, but I'm only an inspector, not a maintenance technician. You need to call the plant's emergency number right away."

I stare at the email on my screen, unable to move my fingers. Tomorrow is our company's crucial product launch, and I just learn that the patent for the algorithm I spent three years developing is now filed under Matthew Ashford's new assistant, Sophie Bennett. I storm into Matthew's office to confront him. Sophie sits on his desk with her legs crossed, looking completely innocent. She claims that she filled out the form by mistake. "It's just a clerical error. The patent still belongs to the company. What's the big deal?" Matthew stands up from his chair, positioning himself in front of Sophie. I can't believe what I am hearing. "Matthew, this is my research!" "Emma, you're thirty-five. Why are you picking a fight with a twenty-three-year-old intern?" He frowns. Then, he turns to Sophie. "Starting tomorrow, you're the new CTO. Emma needs… some time off." I'm utterly stunned. A decade of marriage and five years dedicated to building a company together have been shattered by a few casual words from him. Thirty minutes later, Sophie posts a photo on social media of herself sitting on Matthew's lap. They are both clinking champagne glasses. "So lucky to have the best boss ever. I'll make sure to be his loyal kitten." Below that, Matthew leaves a comment—three red heart emojis. I shut my laptop and pick up my phone. "Hello. Is this Mr. David Langley from Novara Group of Sundale Valley? This is Emma Whitmore. I've changed my mind. I'm ready to join you." I pause. "And by the way, about that unreleased algorithm upgrade, I have the complete technical blueprint. Make me an offer." Later, I fly to Tallisport with an eight-figure check in hand, while Matthew goes frantic trying to find me.

A new intern at the hospital claimed that she had excellent medical skills. Even without anesthesia, her treatments never caused any pain. The truth was that she had transferred her patients’ pain to me. After she went viral, many patients rushed to the hospital to see her. Some of them even had to bid for a slot to receive surgery from her. However, I was in excruciating pain due to all the surgeries she had carried out. I could no longer work and received complaints from the patients. In the end, the hospital fired me. I gradually discovered that I even experienced some of the side effects of the surgeries she had carried out on her patients. My hair started to fall, and I became as thin as a skeleton. Even walking caused me excruciating pain. I went to the hospital to question her. Everyone thought that I was jealous of her and that I had gone crazy. She calmly put on her surgical gloves as she faced my wrath. “Please don’t make a scene. I’m about to conduct brain surgery on the daughter of the wealthiest man in the city. I don’t have time for your nonsense.” After she entered the operating theater for five minutes, I suddenly suffered from an aneurysm and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I had been transported back to the day when she had gone viral. I took out all my savings and bid for one of her treatment slots. “I’d like to try your painless gastroscopy.”

I was the A-list celebrity in the country, the youngest actor ever to win all three major acting awards, and the man Monroe family's heiress treasured above everyone else. Zara Monroe had not only founded a talent agency dedicated to promoting me alone, but had even set aside her status as the heiress of the Monroe family to work as my personal assistant for love. Everyone in the industry knew that crossing me meant crossing the Monroe family. Yet no one could have imagined that in the latest S-tier film production, the male lead I had been all but guaranteed to play would be snatched away by an obscure actor barely known beyond the industry's bottom tier. People across the industry all placing bets on how long it would take before Zara had this newcomer, Kyson Bentley, blacklisted across the entire industry. But instead of a public takedown, they got an official announcement from Monroe Media. [Welcome to our company's second signed artist, @Kyson Bentley! Mr. Bentley will be partnering with Monroe Media from here on out. His future is full of promise.] The entire industry was shaken. Everyone mocked me for having fallen out of favor. The award-winning actor himself was now expected to play second fiddle to a newcomer. On set, I watched Kyson deliver a painfully amateurish performance. My face cold, I followed the and slapped him using a camera angle that made it look as though I had hit him. But Kyson clutched his cheek and fell to the ground, accusing me of using the scene to get revenge on him. Zara ordered her people to pin me down and made the production team add a hundred more slapping scenes to my schedule. By the time they were done, I had been slapped until I lost my hearing in my right ear. My face was so swollen that I was barely recognizable.

The HR manager slid a severance agreement across the table and said coldly, "You're fired." I froze. "Why?" Just one week ago, my boss had praised me in the company meeting and called me one of the team's most valuable people. The HR manager shrugged. "Ms. Lyttle, you're already 35. You don't have the energy of younger employees anymore, and you're not what you used to be. You no longer fit the company's future." I joined this company when I was 29. Over the past six years, I wrote countless lines of code and worked through more sleepless nights than I could remember. Every time the company faced a major system failure, I led the emergency response and saved it from catastrophic losses. And now they were telling me I was too old and too slow. I laughed in disbelief. "So you've already copied all my experience and skills into an AI, haven't you?" The HR manager paused for a moment before answering confidently, "AI never gets tired, never takes time off, and never asks for a raise. Once the company has an employee like that, why would we keep you?" I looked at her. "Are you sure the AI has learned everything I know?" She smiled. "Absolutely." The moment I heard that, I finally relaxed. Long ago, I had already hidden a trap inside my code to keep my skills from being copied. The moment their AI employee went live, the company would only have three days before everything fell apart.

During the thunderstorm, I struggled through the Pack Institute alone, dragging a heavy feed cart behind me. My rain-soaked lab coat clung to my skin, and my shoes were caked with mud. The message I had sent through the mind-link to my fated mate, Arthur Voss, half an hour ago was still unanswered. "Could you come down and bring me an umbrella?" I should have heard back from him instantly, but there was still no response. The power had gone out in the animal facility during the downpour. I pulled out my nearly dead phone and found Arthur's number. He was listed as the lab's emergency contact. My finger hovered over the call button. Then I looked up. Through the thick curtain of rain, I saw two figures sitting side by side inside the glass-walled lab. They were my mate, Arthur, and Lina Brooks, a junior researcher in our lab. He was gently ruffling Lina's hair. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything for you." The instruments on the table were the same ones I had begged Arthur to teach me to use three years ago. His voice was as gentle as I'd ever heard it. I remembered how I had been when I first met Arthur. Back then, I was too scared to take a cab alone. When my wolf spiraled out of control, I would panic. When problems came up, I would hide. When an experiment failed, I would call him for help and keep him on the phone for three hours. Every single time, he brushed aside my pleas for help. "Irene, you need to solve your own problems. You can't keep waiting for someone to rescue you." So I learned. I gritted my teeth and handled everything alone. When samples were contaminated, I tracked down the cause myself. When a project fell apart, I dealt with it on my own. I spent countless nights teaching myself technical skills that had once seemed impossible to master. Yet none of it ever earned me even a hint of his approval. I looked down. This time, I didn't hesitate. With the last sliver of battery, I deleted Arthur's number.

Everyone in our neighborhood knew me as the meek full-time housewife. I had no income and no social life. Every hour of every day went to the kitchen, my child, and my hypercritical mother-in-law, Sofia Carter. Yet when I woke up, I had somehow swapped bodies with my insufferably smug husband, Kevin Carter. My phone lit up as he sent one mocking message after another: [Olivia, you act like having a baby entitles you to lie around at home all day, watch the kid, and throw together a couple of meals.] [For your information, this swap is permanent. I can finally get some rest.] [Don't run your mouth at my office. That management job is way beyond what a brain that never even made it through college can handle.] When I finished reading, I stared at the stubble-covered man in the bathroom mirror and burst into tearful laughter. He had no idea. My meekness and numbness had been bought with my health. From the day I married him, I never got more than five hours of sleep. At twenty-two, I suffered a severe hemorrhage during a difficult delivery. At twenty-four, I developed severe tendinitis. At twenty-six, after years of exhaustion and Sofia grinding me down, I was diagnosed with moderate depression. To him, I was never a wife. I was a live-in maid he didn't have to pay, someone he could take his temper out on whenever he pleased.

I work in a highly confidential government department. One day, my supervisor asked me to personally deliver a set of classified documents to my brother's company. The moment I stepped into his office, a young intern blocked my path. "So you're the new assistant?" Her eyes swept over me from head to toe before landing on the file bag in my hands. She let out a mocking laugh. "Trying to earn Mr. Sinclair's favor on your first day already? Maybe take a look in the mirror first and see what you actually are." That was when I realized she had mistaken me for a romantic rival. The problem was, my brother had never told me he had a girlfriend. I had barely opened my mouth to explain when a burning slap landed across my face. "You b*tch. The only person qualified to be Mr. Sinclair's assistant is me! As for being his girlfriend, don't even dream about it!" She grabbed my hair and splashed scalding water across my face. "At your age, already seducing men? Who knows how many people you've slept with behind the scenes." Curled up on the floor, I still clung tightly to the document bag, shielding it with my body. That only seemed to enrage her further. She ripped the bag away from me and tore the documents into pieces right in front of the entire company. Then she shamelessly turned to my brother and smiled. "Mr. Sinclair, your new assistant sure is bold. She was trying to seduce you. "But don't worry. I already taught her a lesson for you."

It was only in the eighth year of our marriage that I discovered my husband had a mistress in the neighborhood. Her place had the same layout as mine, except her furnishings were more luxurious. He was a good husband for her, meticulously caring for his young and beautiful wife. They were even expecting a baby. She sent me a message, eager to get rid of and replace me. She had forgotten I was the one who had been through hard times with him, Clyde Sherwood, and fought alongside him for more than a decade. Her pregnancy was what they both wanted, but there was no way I would allow things to work out the way they anticipated. Taking advantage of his conflicted feelings, I made sure he didn't have any more assets. Everything came with a price. Not only would I make him fall from grace, but I would also make him rot in ruins.

I'm the only daughter of the Genovese family in New York. To test my husband Jayden Henderson's competence, my Dad had me stage a surprise inspection at the company he runs. The moment I walked in, some bleach-blonde in a tight dress was staring at the shredder like she'd just discovered fire. "Oh my God, this thing is so cool. Can it literally shred anything?" She said that as she grabbed a contract off someone's desk and started feeding it in. A coworker dove across three desks to stop her: "Hazel, no! That's a million-dollar account!" "Oopsie! My bad!" She giggled, then her hand holding the cup gave a little tremor, and the whole drink splashed right onto the power switch. Sparks flew. The lights died. Twenty computers crashed simultaneously. The entire office sat in stunned, furious silence. I grabbed the nearest intern and asked who hired her. He whispered back in terror: "That's Mrs. Henderson—the CEO's wife. Word is she actually owns this company." Mr. Henderson? I speed-dialed Dad right there: "Dad, forget the inspection. Get the divorce papers ready. Jayden and I have a bone to pick."

My girlfriend, Olivia, had one way of measuring how much I loved her: how fast I replied. In the two years we dated, she blocked me 88 times. The first time, I was in the shower and missed her call. The 17th time, I was bringing her coffee when I missed a message asking for extra ice. The 56th time, I was at dinner with a client and didn't respond quickly enough to a video she'd sent me. This time, I worked until ten and missed the 9:50 p.m. movie she'd asked me to see with her. I told her there was a problem with the project and my manager wouldn't let me leave. She just laughed. "Anyone who really loves me would make it to a movie even with ten minutes' notice." When I got home that night, she'd changed the door code and removed my fingerprint from the lock. I sat outside all night. After work the next day, I went to her favorite jeweler and bought the necklace she'd wanted for the past three months. I kept telling myself I hadn't done enough. I just needed to do a better job balancing work and our relationship. She was in the shower when I got home. Her phone lit up on the dining table. A notification from a group chat called "Do Not Bring Him Tonight" flashed across the screen. Olivia, her childhood friend Ethan, and my best friend Daniel were all in it. Daniel had sent a voice message. "Olivia, I'll keep Chris at work late again tomorrow. Let's see if he chooses overtime or you." Ethan replied almost immediately with a laugh. "I found another beautiful piece of jewelry. It costs three times his salary. Send it to him and see if he chooses his paycheck or you." That was when I finally understood. I hadn't failed to prove that I loved her. They'd been setting me up to fail from the beginning. And if that was how things really were, I was done.

After screenshots from our company chat leaked, I ended up trending. The whole internet was cursing my name, all because my employees claimed our flexible scheduling policy was exploitation in disguise. They said it turned quitting time into a competition, wrecked their sleep and their health, and never raised their pay by a cent. What nobody online knew was that my policy let anyone go home the moment they'd hit their hours for the week. Plenty of my people worked four days and took three off. Some worked three and took four. So when the internet demanded I pay for labor performed, I graciously took their advice and scrapped flex time. I replaced it with fixed hours: nine to nine, six days a week. And I split a five-figure monthly salary into a $2,500 base plus uncapped performance pay. More work, more money. The moment the notice went out, the whole company exploded. Now the leads from half a dozen project teams are crowded outside my office door, begging me to bring flex time back.

In my previous life, my brother and fiancé teamed up to sabotage my company for the sake of my so-called best friend. After I went bankrupt, they stood beside her watching me collapse in the pouring rain, laughing mockingly at my pathetic state. "Linda Turner, you look as pathetic as a drenched dog!" they sneered. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the project bidding meeting three years earlier. In my previous life, when my company was just starting out, my brother and fiancé had warned me against using the Turner and Peterson family connections. They claimed it wouldn't be fair to others, but then turned around and handed projects to my best friend under various pretexts, just to see her smile. Now that I was back, I watched them secretly manipulating things just like before, giving my projects to my best friend. I finally gave up on them completely. When they found out I was leaving the country, my brother and fiancé set off fireworks all night, celebrating that they'd finally gotten rid of me, the burden. But three years later, at the Trada Corp's bidding meeting, I took the stage as the CEO's wife—and they couldn't hide the redness in their eyes.

Two months before the SAT, Dom Platt, Director of Academic Affairs, called Monica Rae, the teacher in charge of Class Seven, and me into a meeting. “After discussing it, we’ve decided that this year’s Master Teacher promotion will go to one of you. We’ll base the decision on which class shows the greatest percentage improvement on the third SAT practice test.” I was already celebrating inside. Everyone in the senior year knew Class Seven was the weakest class. Most had given up on going to college. Half of them barely showed up to class, let alone paid attention. My students in Class One were another story. They studied on their own and were determined to push their scores higher before the SAT. That promotion had my name written all over it. However, on the very day the third practice test results were posted, the school announced without warning that Monica had been promoted to Master Teacher. I stared at the results sheet. Monica was listed as the teacher in charge of Class One. My name was beside Class Seven. It finally hit me. I had worked into the early hours night after night to raise Class One’s average score by two percent, only for Monica to take all the credit. So much for that supposedly fair decision. I walked into the academic office with a blank expression and slapped my resignation letter onto Dom’s desk. He stared at me in shock. “Have you lost your mind? The names on that results sheet are only temporary. If you quit, who’s going to get Class One ready for the SAT? Those kids have a real shot at Harrowgate or Kingsbridge!” I sneered. “I’m done with the dirty politics at this school. I quit.”

All I did was post a photo of the exquisite pink diamond necklace my dad gave me for my birthday. An intern, however, confronted me in front of everyone. “Miss Anderson, why is my necklace with you? Do you think being a manager gives you the right to steal from others?” I calmly explained that it was a birthday gift from my dad, personally purchased at an auction. She didn’t believe me. Instead, she pulled out surveillance footage showing me entering and leaving her office and flat-out accused me of being a thief. “Some people can’t get what they want, so they resort to stealing. Do you honestly think taking a necklace means you can take over someone’s entire life? And you’re actually trying to pass yourself off as the heiress of Anderson Corporation? Isn’t that completely ridiculous?”

In my previous life, at the company dinner celebrating the project's success, my boss, Patrick Gibson, takes the microphone and calls my name in front of everyone. "Evangeline, you did the heavy lifting on this project. Nobody deserves that 100-thousand-dollar bonus more than you!" I take the gold-embossed envelope he hands me. Then, Patrick leans in and lowers his voice. "The finance department's process takes forever. I'm giving you a certificate for now, but I'll sort the bonus out for you later." I believe him. My dad is in the hospital, and his life depends on that money. I worked myself to the bone for three months, only to end up with a certificate of recognition. I go to the office to demand my money, but I can't even get in to see Patrick before the security guards throw me out. In a daze, I leave the office and get hit by a car. I die there on the street. Dad never gets the money, and he never sees me again. He dies not long after. It isn't until after I die that I learn Patrick has already transferred the 100 thousand dollars to a woman I've never even heard of. When I open my eyes again, I'm back three days before the company dinner. This time, I'm not waiting.

At the annual company raffle, I had barely stepped onto the stage when my supervisor, Lily Smith, pressed a crumpled slip of paper into my palm. "A special reward for our top salesperson," she chirped. "Go ahead, open it. Let everyone see." Under the eager gaze of the crowd, I unfolded the note. Written in messy handwriting were the words: Clean the company toilets for three days. The room erupted in laughter. Lily folded her arms, cocked her head, and smirked at me. "Nice, right?" she said. "Everyone knows those sales of yours came from sleeping with old men. Dirty money. To keep things fair, the others get a break, and you pick up a little extra work. You don't have a problem with that, do you?" The laughter surged again, nearly lifting the roof. From the side of the room, my boyfriend, Seth Hoffman, the company's CEO, watched everything unfold. As usual, he said nothing in my defense. They all thought I would fall apart, cry, or make a scene. Instead, I simply gave a calm nod. The very next day, the company was hit with over three hundred property cancellations. Its cash flow collapsed overnight. That was when Lily and Seth rushed to me, demanding I go plead with the buyers. I smiled and said, "No thanks. I wouldn't want to help the company recover and end up with strong numbers again. That might make everyone even more uncomfortable."

On a holiday-weekend business trip, I fronted $13,000 for the company. The company's Gen Z finance intern had rolled out a new AI finance system, and it approved exactly one dollar of my claim. I laid the invoices, the itinerary, and the client's signed confirmation on the table. The intern glanced at them and threw the paperwork in my face. "The system approves what it approves. AI doesn't make mistakes. One dollar is all you get." "The client changed the hotel at the last minute. The flight was booked to close an eighty-million-dollar deal. "The system read it wrong. Do a manual review." She scoffed. "A manual review? AI is way more reliable than you. Who's more believable—a slick old-timer like you, or the system's data?" The conference room went silent. That $13,000 was on my personal credit card. And right then, the client was still at the airport, waiting for me to sign the last page of the contract. The intern opened the company-wide chat and posted a screenshot of my claim. [AI determination: textbook improper expense claim. All departments take note.] I started recording on my phone and stared at her. "Let me confirm one more time. The system got it wrong, and Finance won't review it or take responsibility. Correct?" "AI isn't wrong. If there's a problem, the problem is you." I hit save and made a call. "Hi, Dad. A company that trusts AI over finance professionals with actual expertise—are you sure it can keep its books straight?"

I have always been fair to my sons, but Tim, the eldest, always complains that I'm never fair to him. It's unfair for him that I stopped him from eating seafood because of his allergies. It's unfair for him when my husband and I refused to take him to the amusement park, when his brother was bleeding profusely after a bad fall. It's unfair for him that we didn't buy the exact same shirt as Joe's because he wasn't the same size. As long as I don't do what he wants, he will keep calling me unfair. Later, he brought home a delinquent, saying she's his fiancee. When I refused to give them my blessing, he took to the internet, complaining that I was a control freak and I had been unfair for years. The internet canceled us. Joe lost his job, while my husband and I were killed as a crazed netizen crashed his car into us. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day when Tim first brought Nana home. This time, I decided to give him everything wanted. So why did he regret everything?

One drunk night with my best friend's brother, Eddie Sutton, and I became his secret girlfriend. Eight years later, my family finally snapped. They gave me a deadline and lined up a guy for me to marry. "Eddie, my family gave me a deadline. I have to get married this year." He went quiet, then kissed my forehead. Same old answer. "Just wait a little longer." Not long after, I found a post from his intern, Gina Yapp. The photo was of her and Eddie's marriage license. Caption: [CEO secured.] What I couldn't get in eight years, she got in three months. I swallowed the bitterness and hit Like. Then I commented: [Congrats. Wishing you both a happy life.] After that, I accepted the wedding date my family had set. My phone rang. For the first time, Eddie sounded scared. "Don't take it the wrong way. I only got the license with Gina because I lost a bet with my friends—" I cut him off. "Eddie, I'm getting married."