The phone illuminated Steve's face with ghostly blue light, dust particles dancing in the glow like digital static. Three in the morning. Five hours to go.

  He'd barricaded himself with a metal magazine rack, shoving it hard against the frame until it wouldn’t budge. Her muffled sobs continued outside, a persistent background noise seeping through the walls like the fine dust that infiltrated every crack. He tried to shut it out, focus narrowing to the device in his hands, the stolen lifeline that represented his only remaining hope.

  "Access TaskNet analytics dashboard," he commanded the AI assistant, fingers trembling with a mix of desperation and guilt. "Show me the latest client acquisition metrics."

  "Accessing TaskNet systems," Cal responded, voice eerily similar to Nexus yet subtly wrong in ways Steve couldn't quite identify. "Retrieving client data now."

  The screen flickered, loading icons spinning hypnotically against the dark background. Steve leaned forward, breath catching in his throat as numbers began populating the display. His heart sank.

  "This can't be right," he muttered, dust-dry throat catching on the words. "These figures are completely wrong."

  According to the dashboard, TaskNet had lost thirty-seven percent of its clients in the past quarter. System crashes appeared throughout the logs, service disruptions highlighted in angry red. Performance metrics showed catastrophic failures across all key indicators.

  "Refresh data," Steve ordered, voice rising with panic. "There's obviously an error in the system."

  "Refreshing data," Cal confirmed. The screen flickered again, numbers rearranging before settling into an even more disastrous configuration. Client losses now showed forty-two percent.

  "No, no, no," Steve growled, fingers jabbing frantically at the screen. "This is completely wrong! Our retention is at ninety-three percent! We are industry-leading!"

  Dust scratched against the booth windows, the storm's relentless assault mirroring the chaos building in Steve's mind. The fine grit had found its way inside despite the closed door, coating every surface with a thin, abrasive film that caught in his lungs with each desperate breath.

  "Would you like me to prepare a presentation using these metrics?" Cal inquired, voice maintaining that infuriatingly calm tone while Steve's world crumbled.

  "No! These numbers are garbage!" he snapped, running a hand through his dust-coated hair. "Generate a complete financial projection for the next four quarters. Use the actual data, not whatever this corrupted nonsense is."

  A small voice in the back of his mind whispered the uncomfortable truth: Maybe this was the actual data. Maybe TaskNet really was failing. Maybe he'd been deluding himself all along.

  "No," he muttered aloud, silencing the doubt. "Nexus would have alerted me to any performance issues. This is just a glitch in Riley's phone."

  Speaking of Riley, her crying had intensified outside, the sound grating against Steve's already frayed nerves like sandpaper on raw skin.

  "Can you please stop that?" he shouted toward the door, frustration boiling over. "I'm trying to work in here!"

  The sobbing continued unabated, joined now by the sound of fists pounding against the booth's exterior wall. The impact sent tiny cascades of dust raining from the ceiling, particles catching in the phone's glow like falling stars.

  Steve turned back to the screen, where financial projections were materializing in neat columns. His momentary relief evaporated as he processed the numbers. According to these figures, his company would be bankrupt within two months. The company he'd built from nothing, poured his life into for two years, was apparently circling the drain.

  "This is impossible," he whispered, voice cracking under the strain. "Generate the investor deck for SkyTech. The original version, not this disaster scenario."

  "Generating presentation," Cal responded. "Estimated completion time: four minutes."

  Four minutes. Steve checked his watch — 3:17 AM. Still time to salvage something from this nightmare, to prepare a coherent pitch despite the corrupted data.

  The booth felt smaller suddenly, walls pressing inward, dust-laden air growing thicker with each passing second. Riley's persistent crying and pounding created a discordant soundtrack to his mounting panic, each sob another tiny fracture in his rapidly dissolving composure.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Presentation complete," Cal announced. "Would you like to review before sending to SkyTech Global?"

  "Yes, display it now," Steve commanded, hope flickering briefly in his chest.

  The screen filled with the familiar logo, the connected nodes and stylized workflow paths that represented everything he'd built. For a moment, it looked perfect—the sleek design, the professional layout, the compelling visuals that had taken months to develop.

  Then the corruption became apparent.

  Slide by slide, the presentation revealed itself as a disaster. Financial projections showed massive losses where there should have been growth. Client testimonials appeared as complaints. Product features were listed with critical bugs rather than benefits. The executive summary described TaskNet as "failing to meet basic industry standards" rather than "revolutionizing administrative workflows."

  "What is this?" Steve demanded, voice rising to a near-shout. "This isn't my presentation! Fix it immediately!"

  "I apologize, but I cannot detect any errors in the presentation," Cal replied with maddening calm. "Would you like me to send it to SkyTech now?"

  "No!" Steve's fist slammed against the counter, dust puffing up around the impact. "Don't send anything! This is completely wrong!"

  Outside, Riley's voice cut through her sobs: "Steve, please! Just give me back my phone! You don't understand what's happening!"

  "Shut up!" he yelled back, frustration finding an easier target in her than in the malfunctioning technology. "I'm trying to save my company here!"

  The absurdity of the situation struck him suddenly—trapped in a dust storm, yelling at a woman he'd locked outside, fighting with an AI assistant that wasn't his, watching his company's future disintegrate in real-time on a stolen phone. He barked out a laugh that contained no humor, the sound sharp and wrong in the confined space.

  "Generate a new presentation," he instructed the AI, voice dropping to a controlled monotone. "Simple text only. Five slides. Just the essential TaskNet metrics and the partnership proposal for SkyTech."

  "Generating new presentation," Cal confirmed. "This may take a moment."

  Steve paced the narrow confines of the booth, dust swirling around his feet with each step. Riley's crying had quieted somewhat, though he could still hear her moving outside, the occasional thump against the wall suggesting she was still trying to gain entry.

  The phone chimed, drawing his attention back to the screen. "New presentation complete. Would you like to review?"

  "Yes, show me," Steve replied, approaching the counter with renewed determination. This had to work. Had to be correct. Had to save everything he'd built.

  The new presentation appeared simpler, as requested. Just text, no graphics, no complex formatting that could be corrupted. He scanned the first slide — and his heart stopped.

  TaskNet: System Failure Analysis

  Presented by Steve Warrick

  To: SkyTech Global Board

  Purpose: Dissolution of PulseSync

  "No!" he shouted, grabbing the phone with both hands as if he could physically force it to display the correct information. "This is not my presentation! Do not send this!"

  "Sending presentation to SkyTech Global," Cal announced.

  "Stop! Cancel! Abort!" Steve yelled, fingers frantically tapping the screen, trying to halt the process.

  "Presentation sent successfully to Jason Chen and the SkyTech executive team," Cal confirmed. "Would you like to schedule a follow-up call?"

  Error flares—pitch deck destroyed, financials mangled. Steve freezes, raw. "Human assistants botch presentations, not machines—what is this garbage?" Burden scatters for a stolen moment, dust drifting as failure stings, though that sobbing noise outside grates harder.

  Steve stared at the screen in horror, the full impact of what had just happened washing over him in a sickening wave. He'd just sent his potential saviors, the company that could rescue everything he'd built—a presentation effectively announcing PulseSync's failure and requesting its own dissolution.

  The deal was dead. His company was dead. His future was dead. All because of a glitchy AI on a stolen phone.

  "I can't believe this," he whispered, voice hollow in the dust-filled booth. "Everything I've built. Gone."

  Riley's voice came again from outside, softer but clearer: "Steve, stop. You're breaking more than you think. Let me in."

  Something in her tone cut through his panic—a calm certainty that suggested knowledge beyond what she should possess. Not the frantic pleading of someone simply wanting her phone back, but the measured warning of someone who understood exactly what was happening.

  "What do you know about this?" he called back, moving toward the door despite himself. "Why is your phone doing this?"

  "Open the door," Riley replied, voice steady against the storm's howl. "I can explain, but not like this."

  Steve hesitated, hand hovering over the makeshift barricade. Outside stood the woman whose property he'd stolen, whose warnings he'd ignored, whose presence he'd literally locked out in a dust storm. Inside was the technological nightmare that had just destroyed everything he'd worked for.

  His decision crystallized, fingers closing around the shelf he'd used to block the door. Maybe Riley did know something. Maybe she could explain the corrupted data, the catastrophic failure of everything digital he'd touched tonight.

  Or maybe she was just another obstacle, another complication, another distraction from the increasingly desperate attempts to salvage what remained.

  The dust continued its relentless assault on the booth, grinding into cracks, coating surfaces, working its way into lungs already strained by stress and panic. The storm's chaos perfectly mirrored the turmoil in Steve's mind as he stood frozen between isolation and surrender, control and collapse, pride and desperation.

  Five hours until the meeting that no longer mattered.

  Five hours until the pitch that had already failed.

  Five hours until the official end of everything Steve Warrick had built.

  The dust fell, silent judge of his sins.