The Oracle's Final Question
Marina pressed her **palm** against the cold window of her office on the forty-second floor, watching the city grid below. Inside, her terrarium's single **goldfish** circled endlessly in its bowl, a metaphor she'd grown tired of explaining to junior analysts. Tonight, everything would change.
The corporate retreat in CancĂşn had been designed to broker peace between warring divisions, but the real negotiation happened in the sand, where palm fronds cast shadows across Richard's face. "You're like the **sphinx**," he'd said, drunk on expensive tequila, "sitting on all the answers but asking riddles instead."
She hadn't told him then that she knew about the emails—the ones proving he'd stolen her research to secure his promotion. Instead, she'd let him press his sweaty palm against her lower back, let him believe his charm still worked on her.
Now, back in Chicago, the goldfish bumped its nose against the glass, seeking an exit that didn't exist. Marina thought about Richard's wife, Chloe, who'd hosted the dinner party where they'd first met. How Chloe had admired Marina's goldfish—"Such resilient creatures," she'd said—while Richard's eyes had followed Marina around the room.
The sphinx had no secrets, only riddles. And the riddle wasn't how to expose Richard. The riddle was whether revenge would taste like victory or like the ash of everything she'd sacrificed to reach this floor, this view, this particular kind of loneliness.
Her palm left a condensation mark on the glass. The goldfish swam on. Richard would arrive in twenty minutes for their "mentoring session," not knowing Marina had already scheduled the meeting with HR tomorrow morning.
Some riddles, she decided, answer themselves.