System Revenge: From Trash Boy to Top Boss

The sound of the professor’s lecture on corporate finance was usually enough to send Damon into a light doze, but not today. His phone vibrated with a sharp buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out, trying to be subtle, but the professor had eyes like a hawk. 

The screen glowed with a notification from his struggling website, 'ErrandBoy.com'. It was a website where other students could reach out to him and send him on errands. 

The message flashed: URGENT JOB, $1,000, IMMEDIATE DELIVERY.

A thousand dollars right now? He couldn’t believe it. His usual gigs, which were the quick runs for coffee or forgotten textbooks, barely paid fifty bucks. Sometimes they paid a hundred bucks, if the gig was a real pain in the butt. But a grand? 

That was enough to make a serious dent in his life, since he was poor and struggling. But even better, he could get Jane, his girlfriend, that Fendi Custom Glow bag she’d been hinting at for her birthday tonight. 

The bag was the latest trend for the ladies on campus and its second-grade bag cost $20,000, while the first-grade bag cost $100,000.

He had to take it. He started stuffing his worn textbook into his backpack, making a quiet rustle.

“Mr. Newton!” The professor's voice boomed, cutting through the lecture hall’s hum. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Damon froze with his backpack half-slung. Every head in the room turned, their eyes boring into him.

“I… I have a job, Professor,” Damon stammered, his voice barely a whisper against the sudden, heavy silence.

Albright scoffed. “A ‘job’? Is that what you call it, Newton? Running around like a glorified delivery boy for pocket change? You’re in a university for goodness' sake, not a glorified courier service!”

A ripple of snickers spread through the class, and Damon felt embarrassed.

“It’s important, sir,” Damon insisted, trying to sound firm, but his voice cracked slightly.

“Important?” The professor leaned over his podium with his piercing gaze. “More important than your education, Mr. Newton? Let me tell you something. You are barely scraping by in this class, not because you lack the brains—I’ve seen your potential. But because you’re too busy chasing after petty cash and neglecting your studies.”

“You keep this up, Newton,” the professor warned, “and one day, I’ll expel you from my lectures, mark my words. You won’t even have the privilege of failing in my class.”

Damon swallowed. “Yes, Professor,” he mumbled, already turning towards the door despite the warning.

“Don’t you dare walk out on me, Newton!” The professor roared, but Damon was already moving with a blur of desperation and determination.

He burst out of the building, the cool air a welcome relief against his burning face. He pulled out his phone and checked the address, “Jewels of Distinction.” A high-end jewelry store downtown and a good twenty-minute sprint from campus. With that, he started running.

He arrived at the store, breathless with his old sneakers squeaking on the polished marble floor. The air inside was cool, smelling faintly of expensive perfume and polished metal. A sales associate in a sleek and impeccably dress, looked at him with a raised eyebrow, clearly judging his sweat-stained t-shirt and worn jeans.

“I'm here to pick up a package,” Damon said, trying to take a breath. “I was sent here by the owner.”

He gave the reference number and after a moment of searching, the associate came back with a small box covered in velvet. Damon took it as he placed his hands over the soft fabric.

Just as he was about to leave the office, his phone buzzed again. It was a message from the client.

"Excellent, Damon, one more stop. Pick up the second package at ‘Costume Corner’ on Elm Street, and a little bonus for you. The f*e is now $2,000. But you have to deliver both items to the recipient wearing a clown costume and make it snappy."

Damon blinked. $2,000? His jaw nearly dropped as he reread the message. A clown costume? He let out a short, humorless laugh. Of course, rich kids always find new ways to make him the butt of their jokes. He’d been made to sing, dance, and even wear a ridiculous feather hat once. A clown costume was just another Tuesday for Damon.

But $2,000. That was an insane amount he was not willing to let slip from his grasp. He dashed to Elm Street.

He found 'Costume Corner', a dusty and brightly lit shop crammed with racks of polyester and plastic props. He quickly located the package, which was a large, garish red and yellow suit with oversized shoes and a floppy, polka-dotted hat. 

He didn’t even bother going to a changing room. He just wore it right there over his clothes and the fabric was itchy and not too badly smelling (faintly) of stuffy sweat and cheap dye. He looked in a cracked mirror and he really did look like a clown, a sad, pathetic clown.

He got the jewelry box and the second package (a smaller wrapped gift) and started the awkward waddle-run to campus 

People stared at him as they pointed fingers at him and they laughed. A bunch of high schoolers screamed with pleasure, pulling out their phones to take a photo of him.

“Look at the clown!” someone shouted.

“Hey, pauper, did you finally find your true calling?” Another yelled, and a wave of laughter followed him.

Damon heard it all, and sure enough, he felt the sting, the familiar burn of humiliation. But he pushed it down and focused on the numbers. $2,000 was the prize for today’s humiliation.

At last, he reached the university building, the main lecture hall. He opened the heavy doors with the clown shoe squealing on the polished floor. And the crunch of the noisy hallway disappeared as the whole area turned to stare and a silent wave of whispers was followed by a loud laugh.

He ignored them, his eyes scanning for his classroom.

It was a loud sea of noise, mocking and cruel. Some students dropped their heads and clutched their stomachs. Others pointed at each other with tears streaming down their cheeks. They threw paper planes, then an empty can, then a half-eaten sandwich flew into the air and hit his feet.

“Look at him!” someone shrieked. “It’s Damon the clown!”

“He really is a joke, isn’t he?” another voice said.

“Fits him perfectly!”

Damon stood there with his clown suit having a weight that was heavier than lead, but he just had to concentrate. He picked up his phone, still glowing with the instructions from the client he was speaking with.

“Now, for the final step. Take the card from the jewelry box and read the name aloud. Then hand the gift to the person whose name you call.”

He pulled out the velvet box with his fingers trembling at the slightest touch. He peeled open a small and elegant card. His eyes met the name on it and then his world stopped.

His breath slowed, the card fell from his hands, and he sank down to the floor. The name, it can't be.

“Jane......” he whispered, shivering, barely audible above the loud laughter, “Jane Foster!”

The hall suddenly went silent again, but this time it was a different kind of silence. A stunned and shocked silence. Every head in the whole room turned backward, not toward Damon but toward the third row, where Jane Foster was.

Damon felt a cold dread creep up his spine. Jane, his Jane. Who would send her a gift like this? And why… Why was he, her boyfriend, the one delivering it, dressed like a clown? The humiliation he’d felt before was nothing compared to this.

Jane’s face was initially pale, but she slowly rose from her seat. She didn’t look at Damon; instead, her gaze was fixed on the velvet box in his hand. She walked down the aisle with stiff movement. She reached him and reached her hand out to grab the box without giving him any attention.

“Jane, hold on!” Damon pleaded as she reached for her arm. “Who sent this? What’s going on?”

She pulled back firmly, as if his touch burned her, but she didn’t answer; she didn’t even look at him. Her fingers caressed the box, her eyes wide with some strange mixture of excitement and fear.

And then she opened it.

A gasp crossed the room. It was a diamond necklace that gleamed in the bright lights of the lecture hall. It looked like it cost a ridiculous amount of money and it glowed like something cold and hard.

Before Damon could even blink back his eyes, a man rose up out of the front row. It was Xavier Duston. Second-generation rich kid and inheritor of a real estate empire. The guy all the girls adored and all the guys secretly wanted to be like. He walked around like nobody was watching and had a smug smile sticking out of his face.

He walked right up to Jane without talking to Damon and knelt in the middle of the aisle with a dramatic flourish that muttered out the last of the whispers and looked up to Jane with his eyes glittering with the possessive glint.

“Jane,” Xavier said, smooth and confident, loud enough that everyone could hear. “This is for you. Will you do me the honor... of being my girlfriend? ”

This was a slap to Damon's face. When the words came out, he stood there frozen in his stupid clown outfit, which now felt like a straitjacket.