From Janitor To God: The System Chose Me

Proof of Betrayal

The next morning, Ethan stood in the Brooks Corp janitor’s supply closet with the door shut, lights off, laptop propped awkwardly on an overturned mop bucket.

His finger trembled as he hovered over the keyboard.

“System,” he whispered, “you said I could get proof.”

[Affirmative. Interface synchronized with core protocols.]

[Target: Coffee Machine. Model VZ-9, Beta AI Unit. Embedded QR traceable to prototype subnet.]

Ethan ’s brow furrowed. “You’re saying that old coffee machine still links to my old source code?”

[Correct. QR Signature was left by your development environment. You never deleted the debug node.]

He swallowed hard. “So… it still talks to the server?”

[With minimal access, yes.]

He grabbed his maintenance kit and slipped out quietly, heading toward the executive floor. His pulse drummed like war drums in his ears. One mistake, one wDavid click, and they’d bury him for corporate espionage.

He reached the hallway, kneeling before the busted coffee unit like yesterday never ended. Only this time, he wasn’t here to fix it.

He scanned the underside, fingers feeling for the faint QR label he remembered printing over two years ago.

“Voila!” He smiled

There it was.

He snapped a photo with the old tablet he’d hidden under his uniform.

[Trace Initialized.]

[Attempting Packet Injection…]

A second passed.

Then ten.

Ethan ’s breath caught as sweat trickled in his palms while he looked around to be sure no one was watching or coming.

Then the screen blinked.

[Success. Accessing Archive Files: “Project Zenith Alpha – Original Source Architecture.”]

He stared in disbelief as file after file unfolded—flowcharts, design templates, algorithm snapshots.

His code.

His notes.

His signature, stripped and replaced with Brooks Lili and Nathan Cross as the official creators.

They hadn’t even bothered to change the filenames. Just rebranded the authorship tags.

“God…” Ethan whispered.

Rage boiled in his chest, but he clenched it down. This time, he had something stronger than anger.

He had Proof.

He nodded with desire. He was going to fuck those assholes up and he sure was going to have fun while at it.

***

He found Lena in the executive lounge, sipping tea with a smirk on her lips like the world had already crowned her queen. He could remember when this same woman was loyal to him and acted all sweet and caring but immediately she and her Dad got what they wanted, they flipped on him.

“Lena ,” he said, stepping in without knocking.

Her expression soured in standing. “Did I ask for the janitor?”

“I know what you did.”

“Oh?” She leaned back. “Enlighten me.”

Ethan pulled up the tablet, shaking fingers flipping open the schematics.

“This is my work. You—your father—he stole this from me. Renamed it. Lied to the board. Lied to me.”

She didn’t even glance at the screen.

“Did you really think showing me some files on an old tablet would change anything?”

“It proves it was mine. I signed it. Time-stamped it. Every goddamn thing.”

She gave him a thin, amused smile. “You broke into our internal servers?”

“No, I—”

“That’s hacking,” she snapped, loud enough for others to hear.

Ethan stepped back. “Wait—what?”

“You hacked into our system. You are a thief!” she repeated, rising to her feet. “Security!”

Ethan was completely confused. The smirk on his face dried off because this wasn’t the reaction he was expecting from her.

Two uniformed security officers were already moving.

“I didn’t hack anything! I built the original framework!” Ethan Colelled. “You’re twisting this—”

“Treat him like the thief he is and Escort him out. Permanently.”

The guards grabbed his arms.

He didn’t resist.

But his eyes never left hers.

“You looked me in the eyes and said you believed in me,” he said quietly. “Was any of that ever real?”

She didn’t blink and smiled then she spat right into his face. “Not for a second! You are just a gullible fool and a few sweet words here and there made you display your foolishness even more”

Tears well in Ethan s eyes as he was seethed with rage.

Ethan was dragged out of the building with everyone staring mockingly and laughing. He was led to the underground parking lot.

The underground parking lot was dark, empty, and echoing with every footstep. They started beating Ethan up and spitting on him. Kicking him like some common thief afterwhich they left, each of them spitting on him.

Ethan remained on the floor, groaning with blood dripping on the edge of his mouth and his face as well. The pain was immense.

After about ten minutes, he wiped his mouth and stood, pain throbbing in his ribs as he staggered up.

A second later, the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps reached him.

Nathan Cross.

Still in his launch party tux from last night, looking every bit the smug prince he played.

He cracked his knuckles.

“I see you’ve got some red makeup on” he chuckled and clapped sarcastically.

“You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

Ethan didn’t move. “I just wanted the truth.”

Nathan stepped closer ogling deep in his blood clotted eyes.

“And now you’ve got it,” he said. “You’re nothing. You were nothing. That genius act? A fluke. The code? A lucky guess.”

Nathan delivered the first punch to Ethan s gut without a sound.

The second came across the face, knocking him sideways.

“You want to scream?” Nathan asked, kicking him in the side. “Do it. Nobody’s coming.”

Ethan collapsed to the floor, cheek pressed to the cold concrete, blood pooling at the corner of his lips.

His vision spun.

Pain blurred his thoughts.

Then—

[Threshold Exceeded. Emotional Limit Surpassed.]

A chill passed through him. Not physical but Deeper.

His eye twitched.

And the interface returned, brighter than before.

[System Command: Mark all enemies. Begin classification.]

He gritted his teeth.

“Do it,” he whispered.

Names began appearing across his blurred vision, overlaid in glowing red:

[Class D Threat: Lin Bai (Fiancé)]

[Class C Threat: Brooks Lili (Wife)]

Ethan spit blood onto the floor and looked up, eyes glowing faintly beneath his bruised face.

“Let’s see who gets erased first.”