The Pyramid Scheme

Elena swam through the endless data streams, her office lights flickering like drowning fireflies. The pyramid structure of the corporation loomed above her—literally, in the case of the headquarters building, but metaphorically in every email that demanded she climb over someone else to reach the next level.

She'd become something she never intended: a spy in her own workplace. gathering intelligence for a rival firm, not for money but for the thrill of dismantling the machine that had consumed her brother. Carlos had played baseball for the company team every Friday, the golden boy who believed in loyalty and teamwork. They'd found him at the bottom of the stairwell on the thirty-third floor—ruled an accident, but Elena knew better.

Her cat, Gato, waited at home. The only living thing that didn't want something from her. Sometimes she imagined him as her conscience, watching through amber eyes as she typed stolen formulas into encrypted files.

The baseball championship replay played silently on her monitor as she downloaded the final documents. Carlos's face flashed across the screen—young, alive, unaware that his own manager would push him down those stairs to protect the pyramid scheme buried in the financial reports.

Tomorrow she'd swim away from this life. But tonight, as the corporate tower glowed against the darkness like an ancient monument to greed, Elena finally understood: the higher you climbed, the harder you fell.