The Apocalypse Rebate System: I Became King by Giving

CHAPTER 1 THE DAY EVERYTHING WENT WRONG

"You're late again."

The words struck Jack Harper before he had even stepped fully into the conference room.

Every head turned toward him. Some faces showed annoyance, others amusement, but most people simply looked eager to see what would happen next.

Jack stood frozen in the doorway as rainwater dripped from his jacket onto the polished floor. His chest rose and fell heavily because he had run six blocks to get there.

He had not been late because he overslept.

He had not been late because he was careless.

He was late because an elderly woman had slipped on an icy sidewalk and cracked her head against the pavement. Nobody else had stopped to help her. People had walked around her as though she were invisible, but Jack could not bring himself to do the same.

Now he was paying the price.

"I know I'm late," he said carefully. "There was an accident outside"

"Save it."

His manager, Daniel Reeves, did not even look up from his tablet.

The dismissive response triggered laughter from several employees. Jack recognized every face in the room. They were not laughing because he was late. They were laughing because it was him.

Jack Harper.

He was the office joke, the invisible employee nobody respected. He was the person everyone blamed when things went wrong, and somehow his ideas always became someone else's success story.

His jaw tightened. "Sir, if you'll just let me explain"

Daniel finally looked up; his eyes were cold and irritated. More importantly, they were the eyes of a man who had already decided the outcome before the conversation had even begun. "Do you know what time it is?"

Jack glanced at the wall clock. It was 9:14 A.M.

The meeting had started fourteen minutes earlier. "I'm aware."

"Then you're aware that you've interrupted an important presentation."

Jack frowned.

His gaze shifted to the projector screen, and his stomach immediately dropped; a familiar chart filled the display.

Revenue projections, Market expansion plans, Customer acquisition models.

Jack recognized every graph, every number, and every detail because he had spent three months creating them. The project had consumed countless late nights, weekends, skipped meals, and sacrificed sleep.

The entire project belonged to him.

Yet Ryan Cole stood beside the projector with a confident smile, presenting it as though he had created it himself.

For a moment, Jack could not breathe.

The room suddenly felt smaller and hotter, while his pulse hammered loudly in his ears. "No..."

Ryan continued speaking without hesitation. "As you can see, our projections indicate a forty-seven percent growth opportunity within the next fiscal cycle."

The room responded with more nodding, more approval, and more praise.

Jack stared in disbelief. Ryan was using the exact wording Jack had written. Even the phrasing was identical.

Ryan had not just stolen parts of the project, but He had stolen everything.

Jack's hands trembled. "That's my project," the words escaped before he could stop them.

A heavy silence settled over the room.

Ryan paused dramatically before turning toward him. "Oh?"

The smile on his face widened. It was the same smile Jack had hated for years. "What did you say?"

Jack stepped forward. "That's my work."

Several employees exchanged uncomfortable glances while others looked away entirely. Nobody wanted to get involved.

Ryan chuckled. "You serious right now?"

"I built those projections," Jack said without hesitation.

"You did?" Ryan tilted his head with exaggerated innocence. "Can you prove it?"

Laughter erupted around the room.

Not everyone laughed, but enough people did to make Jack feel the familiar sting of humiliation.

It was the same feeling he had experienced throughout his life at school, in college, and now at work whenever people decided his voice did not matter.

Jack swallowed hard as tension tightened across his chest.  "Check the company server."

Ryan folded his arms. "The server?"

"Yes." Jack nodded. "The one only analysts can access?"

Ryan's smile widened even further. "Funny thing about that."

A bad feeling twisted in Jack's stomach, then Ryan reached into his pocket and held up an access card.

It was Jack's access card, the same card he had reported missing two weeks earlier, the same card IT had claimed they could not locate.

The room grew noticeably quieter. "You mean this card?"

Several employees gasped as Jack stared in disbelief. Ryan, too, was no longer making any effort to hide what he had done.

Daniel released a long sigh. "As entertaining as this is becoming, I don't have time for office drama."

Jack turned toward his manager. "Sir, he's stealing my work."

Daniel leaned back in his chair. "No."

Jack blinked. "What?"

"He's presenting company property."

The words hit harder than any punch; three months of sacrifice had just been reduced to two dismissive words.

Jack felt his chest burn with anger. "That's not fair."

Daniel laughed. "Fair?"

Several people joined him. "Jack, we're not in kindergarten."

More laughter followed as Ryan smirked, and Jack clenched his fists.

The humiliation felt suffocating, but what hurt most was not Ryan or Daniel.

But the fact that everyone else and every person sitting around that table knew the truth.

They knew exactly who had built the project, yet not one of them spoke up.

Fear, cowardice, and self-preservation kept them silent, and once again, silence won the day just as it always had.

Jack looked around the room as Faces quickly turned away. Nobody wanted eye contact, and nobody wanted responsibility. His heart slowly sank because he already knew what was coming.

Daniel checked his watch before letting out another dramatic sigh. "Jack."

The tone alone said everything.

Years of frustration, disappointment, and ridicule seemed condensed into that single word.

"Yes?"

"You're dead weight."

The sentence landed like a hammer. Several employees visibly winced while others lowered their eyes to the table.

 felt his throat tighten. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Daniel stood. "Your performance has been mediocre."

"That's not true," Jack countered.

Daniel continued, "You constantly create problems."

Jack opened his mouth wide, but no word came out 

"You fail to work well with the team," Daniel said, closing his laptop.

Jack nearly laughed.

Was Daniel talking about the same team that stole from him, mocked him daily, and treated him like dirt?

Daniel pointed toward the door. "Pack your things."

The room seemed to freeze.

Even Ryan looked surprised for a brief moment before satisfaction quickly replaced the expression.

Jack remained motionless. "You're firing me?"

"Effective immediately."

A crushing silence settled across the conference room. Nobody objected, Nobody protested, Nobody defended him. The loneliness felt overwhelming.

Daniel folded his arms. "The Security will escort you if necessary."

Jack stared at him, then at Ryan, and finally at everyone else in the room. A strange calm slowly settled over him; the anger remained, the pain remained, yet something else emerged beneath both emotions.

He finally understood the truth.

No matter how hard he worked, how honest he was, or how much effort he gave, this place had already decided who he was; to them, he was the loser, the nerd, the easy target, nothing he said would change that.

Jack picked up his bag as the room watched him carefully. People expected a breakdown, a tantrum, or a desperate plea for another chance, but instead, he simply nodded. "Fine."

The response caught everyone off guard.

Daniel frowned. "Fine?"

Jack adjusted the strap on his shoulder. "You win."

For reasons neither man could explain, those words made both Daniel and Ryan uncomfortable; they had expected desperation, but what they got instead was dignity.

Jack turned and walked toward the exit.

The whispers began almost immediately behind him; he heard every word.

One person said, "Finally."

Another staff member added, "Took long enough."

Someone next to him spoke, "Should've happened months ago."

Another staff member titled his chair, "He was never management material."

The comments followed him down the hallway, each one cutting deeper than the last. Still, he never stopped walking.

Outside, dark clouds stretched across the sky.

The city looked strangely dim, as though someone had lowered the brightness of the entire world. Jack stood on the sidewalk while rain tapped softly against the pavement. For a long moment, he simply stared upward.

Something about the sky felt wrong; he could not explain why, but an unsettling feeling lingered in the air, and the temperature seemed far colder than it should have been.

A sudden gust swept through the street. People shivered, Cars slowed, Pedestrians glanced upward with nervous expressions.

Jack frowned.

It was the middle of summer, so why was his breath visible?

A woman nearby noticed it too. "What the hell?"

A businessman stopped walking. "Is it getting colder?"

Another gust arrived.

This one felt stronger, sharper, and somehow unnatural. An uneasy feeling settled deep within Jack's chest.

Then every phone on the street vibrated at the same time, and the synchronized buzzing echoed everywhere.

Hundreds of devices were activated simultaneously, and people froze in confusion.

A second later, alarms erupted throughout the city. Phones screamed, Cars blared warnings, Store displays flashed alerts, and Electronic billboards lit up. It felt as though the entire city had suddenly come alive.

Jack pulled out his phone, the screen flashed bright red, and his heart skipped a beat.

Terrified voices rose around him. "What is this?"

"Is this some kind of hack?"

"Oh my God..."

The notification expanded across the display in large, bold letters that were impossible to ignore.

Jack read the message once, then again, and finally, for the third time, his brain refused to process what he was seeing.

WARNING.

GLOBAL CLIMATE ANOMALY DETECTED.

SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

A stunned silence swept through the city.

For one terrifying second, nobody moved or spoke.

The entire street seemed frozen in place, then somewhere in the distance, a scream echoed through the air.

High above the city, hidden behind the storm clouds, something enormous shifted within the sky.

Whatever it was, it absolutely should not have been there. Jack looked up, his blood turned cold, for the first time that day, getting fired no longer felt like the worst thing that had happened.