I Fired My Alien CEO After a Ten-Year Probation

The night everyone vanished, I was pulling an overtime shift, drafting the layoff list. It’s been ten years. I thought I was the only survivor.

Today, the computer that had been dead for a decade suddenly booted up. The printer spat out a sheet of paper. "Hazel, your probation period has ended.

Report to the CEO's office." Holding an axe, I pushed open the door to the top floor. All my vanished colleagues were there.

They were wearing their suits from ten years ago, their bodies stiff as boards. Mr.

Sterling sat at his desk, pointing out the window. "Hazel, you failed your performance review for the past ten years." "Because of you, that layoff list was never finalized." He handed me a pair of scissors. "Now, snip their necks, and you'll pass your probation." "Hazel, what are you waiting for?" Mr.

Sterling's tone was as casual as if he were asking for a late weekly report. The cold metal of the scissors pressed into my palm, but it felt burning hot.

I stared at the fourteen colleagues in front of me. Grey faces, grey hands, their ID badges still hanging from their necks.

The photos on the badges showed faces ten years younger than they looked now. They sat perfectly straight, like a row of setup chess pieces. "Mr.

Sterling, everyone has been gone for ten years, and you're talking to me about passing probation?" "The corporate policy doesn't expire with time." He flipped through a stack of documents on his desk. "Article 17 of your employment agreement, black and white: 'To pass probation, the employee must independently execute at least one complete workforce optimization plan.' You didn't do it." I looked down at the document.

The paper was yellowed, but the signature at the bottom was mine. The handwriting, the thumbprint—all mine. "So what? You want me to take scissors and cut their necks?

You call that 'workforce optimization'?" "They are not living people." Mr. Sterling stood up, walked around the desk, and stopped next to the colleague closest to me. It was Zach.

Born in '94. When he was an intern, he used to follow me around the office every day, calling me his mentor.

The night everyone disappeared, he had just finished his shift and told me, "See you tomorrow." Ten years had passed. His eyeballs rolled slightly. To the left.

Looking right at me. "Ha...zel..." The voice squeezed out from the gaps of his teeth, sounding like metal scraping against bone. "Don't... listen..." Mr.

Sterling patted Zach on the shoulder. Gently, like he was soothing a jammed printer. "Zach, please maintain professional discipline during the meeting." Zach's mouth snapped shut.

He didn't close it himself. It was as if someone had hit a mute button on him. I took a step back, the back of my hand hitting the cold doorframe.

My axe was still leaning against the door—I had brought it up with me. Surviving alone for ten years had taught me to never go anywhere without a weapon. "Mr.

Sterling, what did you do to them?" "Performance management." He sat back down, interlacing his fingers on the desk. "Agrade employees have speaking privileges.

Anyone below a B stays on mute. It's only fair." "Fair? You call this fair?" "Of course.

The evaluation standards are the same for everyone." He picked up a remote control and pressed a button. The wall on the left side of the office lit up. It was a massive screen.

On it was a giant spreadsheet.

The vertical column listed everyone's names, and the horizontal rows were packed with evaluation metrics: Compliance, Stress Tolerance, Violent Tendencies, Emotional Threshold, and Residual Empathy.

Behind each name was a cumulative rating. I scanned down the list. Tyler — D. Chloe — C. Marcus — C+. Rachel — B. Zach — B. The very last line was me.

Hazel — Pending. "You are the only one without a final score," Mr.

Sterling said. "Because your probation period never officially ended." "So, for the past ten years, you guys have been grading me?" "Not us." Mr. Sterling smiled.

The angle of his mouth was exactly the same fifteendegree curve as ten years ago. "The system." "What system?" He didn't answer. He pressed another button.

The lights flickered black for a second. When they came back on, a chair in the back row was empty. Tyler was gone. His ID badge lay on the floor.

It was covered in a layer of grey dust. No, not dust. It was grey powder. Fine as flour. I smelled something burning. "Dgrade employee, automatically terminated." Mr.

Sterling glanced at his watch. "Starting now, the person with the lowest score will be eliminated every hour. In twentyfour hours, if you haven't made your move—" He looked at me.

The smile remained. But his eyes were completely hollow. "Hazel, guess who gets the one remaining spot?"

"You're late." Mr. Sterling spoke toward the doorway. I turned around. A woman was standing outside. She wore a dark grey business suit, her hair pinned up flawlessly.

Around her neck was a thin silver chain with a tiny hourglass pendant. When she walked in, her high heels made absolutely no sound against the tiled floor.

Not a whisper. "Hazel, this is Director Vance," Mr. Sterling introduced. "Your probation mentor." "Hazel, sweetie." Director Vance smiled at me.

Her tone was as gentle as if she were coaxing a child. "Ten years. You've gotten so thin." I didn't know her.

I had memorized our company’s organizational chart a thousand times during my ten years of isolation.

There was no Director Vance. "I’ve never seen you before." "Of course you haven't." She pulled out a chair and sat down, extracting a thick folder from her bag with my name printed on the cover. "I'm in charge of observation.

You didn't need to see me." She flipped open the folder. The first page was a photo. It was me.

Cowering in the corner of a ruined grocery store, clutching a box of expired instant noodles, my face covered in tears.

A date was noted next to it: March 17, 2015. "This was your 87th day alone," Director Vance said, her manicured nail tapping the photo. "You cried for four hours straight.

My heart honestly ached for you." She flipped to the next page. Another photo.

I was standing on the edge of the office building's rooftop, my hair whipped wild by the wind. "August 2016. Your first time climbing to the roof. You stood there for a long time.

The wind was so strong. But in the end, you came back down." She looked at me with a warm, maternal expression. "I gave you a B+ for Stress Tolerance. You were so close to an A.

Too bad you didn't jump." My stomach churned. "What did you say?" "If you jumped, it would have been an A," she closed the file, resting her hands on top of it. "You have to understand, making an autonomous choice under extreme stress is a highly coveted evaluation metric.

You backed out." "You were watching me on that roof, hoping I'd jump?" "Not hoping. Observing," she corrected patiently. "I don't intervene. I don't guide.

I am only responsible for recording and evaluating. Every meal you ate, every breakdown you had, every single night...

I saw it all." She looked down and flipped to another page. "Winter 2017. You celebrated your birthday with stale chocolate from the grocery store.

You sang half of 'Happy Birthday' to yourself and started crying. Spring 2018.

You took in a stray cat and named him 'Colleague.' When he died, you made a little grave for him. 2020.

You found a working generator in a mall, dragged it back to the office, and finally had electricity." She flipped page after page. Ten years of my life, compressed into a file.

Every page had a grade. "Your survival capabilities have remained stable between B and B+," she said, closing the folder. "But there is one area where you have consistently failed." "What?" "Execution." Mr.

Sterling took over. "Director Vance means that while you've shown excellent resilience in a simulated isolation environment, you lack a critical skill—the decisiveness to inflict harm on others." He pointed to the colleagues sitting frozen in their chairs. "That's why we kept them until the very end." I gripped the scissors tighter.

Not to use them.

I just needed something solid to hold onto. "You guys aren't human." Director Vance tilted her head slightly. "Hazel, that's not the point." "Then what is?" "The point is, Chloe’s score just dropped to a D." She glanced at her wrist.

It wasn't a watch, but a silver dial embedded directly into her skin. "Twentythree minutes left." I followed her gaze. Chloe was sitting in the second row. The receptionist girl.

She had been barely twenty when everyone disappeared. There were tears in her eyes. They couldn't flow. They were trapped in her eyelids, frozen in place. "Hazel," Mr.

Sterling pushed the scissors a bit closer to me. "You can choose to terminate her yourself before the system does.

This will count toward your performance review." "And if I refuse?" "Then she will disappear just like Tyler did.

The only difference is, your score will remain a flat zero." Director Vance offered me a warm, encouraging smile. "Hazel, you have to start eventually.

Otherwise, you won't be able to keep a single one of them."

"Hazel..." Marcus's voice came from the third row. He was the only one with a B+ rating.

His mouth could move. "Marcus?" "Don't come close," his lips moved incredibly slowly, as if they were halffrozen. "If you get near me, my score will drop." "What do you mean?" "Interaction triggers a reevaluation," Mr.

Sterling chimed in, his tone like he was explaining a standard expense report policy. "If a B+ employee has too much contact with a 'Pending' employee, they are automatically flagged as a correlated risk.

Their score gets downgraded." "So if I talk to him, he loses points?" "Oh, it's not just losing points.

It's a riskcontrol downgrade," Director Vance murmured, making notes in her file without looking up. "This system is extremely precise.

Just don't touch him." I stood frozen, my knuckles turning white.

Even speaking had a price. "Marcus," I whispered, keeping my voice as low as possible. "Do you know what happened to the outside world?" His eyeballs rolled downward. "Badge..." he wheezed out.

Just one word. Badge? Mr. Sterling stood up. "Hazel, let me remind you, Marcus's current score is a B+, right on the safety threshold.

Every question you ask triggers another correlated interaction.

After three—" "After three, what?" "A downgrade to B." He walked over to Marcus and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Anyone below a B loses speaking privileges.

Do you want him to end up like Zach?" I bit my lip. I couldn't ask anything else. But Marcus had given me a clue. The badge.

His ID badge hung on his chest, just like everyone else's. I stared at it from a distance. The front had his photo and name: Marcus Vance, Planning Manager. What about the back?

I wanted to flip it over, but getting close to him would trigger the reevaluation. The lights flickered again. The chair in the second row was empty. Chloe was gone.

A small pile of grey powder remained on the floor. The twentythree minutes were up. "Such a pity," Director Vance crossed out a name in her folder. "She was a sweet girl.

But a low score is a low score." I knelt down and touched the pile of powder. It was warm. Like clothes fresh out of a dryer. "Mr.

Sterling," I stood up, my voice trembling. "Is she really dead?" "Not dead. Terminated," he corrected. "'Dead' is an imprecise term.

In our system, it is called resource reclamation." "You are fucking murdering them." Mr. Sterling looked at me, showing no anger whatsoever.

That fifteendegree smile remained fixed on his face. He didn't seem to have the capacity for anger. "Hazel, emotional regulation is also an evaluation metric.

That outburst just cost you two points on your EQ score. I suggest you watch your language." Director Vance stood up.

She walked over to Marcus, leaning down as if inspecting the growth of a potted plant. "Marcus, you just spoke to Hazel, didn't you?" Marcus remained silent. "The system recorded it," she stood up and clapped her hands. "That's one correlated interaction.

Two more chances left." She turned to look at me. "Hazel, you need to hurry up. At this rate of elimination, there will only be five people left in twelve hours.

If you want to rack up enough performance points to pass your probation, you need to handle at least three yourself.

Three is the bare minimum." "I am not doing it." "Then you can watch them turn into powder one by one." She walked back to her seat, picked up a cup of coffee that had appeared out of nowhere, and took a sip. "Oh, by the way, Marcus just dropped to a B." She glanced at the dial on her wrist. "Next round of elimination is in one hour.

Currently, the lowest score belongs to Lily, the receptionist, at a C." I looked at Lily.

The twentytwoyearold girl had only been at the company for three months before the disappearance. Her lips were trembling.

A single tear finally leaked out, sliding down her grey cheek. Mr. Sterling pressed the remote, and the scores on the big screen shifted. Marcus: B → B. His mouth clamped shut.

Completely sealed. Mr. Sterling's voice drifted from behind me, flat as a memo. "Hazel, you have twentytwo hours left. The scissors are on the table. You can pick them up anytime."

"You think the city downstairs is real?" Mr. Sterling led me to the floortoceiling window. Outside was the street I had lived on for ten years.

The grocery store, the convenience store, the tree where I had hung a swing with a rope in my third year of isolation. He pressed a button on the window frame.

The entire city shuddered. Like a TV with a bad signal, the image tore for a split second.

Then it returned to normal. "What is out there?" I asked. "What do you think?" He pressed it again. The city vanished. Outside was pure black.

Not the black of night, but the black of absolute nothingness. A hollow, terrifying void. At the edges of the darkness, faint purple grid lines stretched out into the infinite.

Like graph paper. Like an unrendered video game world. "Every street you walked, every grocery store you entered, every wall you touched over the past ten years," Mr.

Sterling stood behind me, his voice devoid of emotion, "was a projection." I grabbed the window frame. The glass was fake, too.

My hand passed right through it. "You have never left this building." His voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance. "You thought you were wandering the city for ten years, but in reality, you have always been on the 47th floor.

Your bedroom was Room 4712. Your kitchen was Room 4708.

The hallway you walked every day was the entire physical boundary of your world." "That's impossible." "What about your cat?" I froze. "The stray cat you found in your second year.

You named him Colleague. When he died, you buried him in the garden of your apartment complex, right?" "Yes." "That garden was the green zone on the east side of the 47th floor.

And the cat wasn't a cat." He pressed the remote, and the big screen changed. A video played. I was pacing around a tiny, enclosed space, talking to myself.

The walls were stark white. I thought I was picking out items in a grocery store, but in reality, there was nothing in front of me.

My hand reached into the air, mimicking the motion of grabbing a can. A look of relief washed over my face. But my hand was empty.

Director Vance was taking notes next to the screen. "See? That is the overlay effect of the projection environment on consciousness. Extremely successful.

She fully believed she was outdoors.

In truth, for ten whole years, her physical movement never exceeded the boundaries of this single floor." "You guys are experimenting on me." "Not an experiment," Mr.

Sterling returned to his seat. "An evaluation." "Evaluating what?" "Your species' adaptability under extreme constraints. Compliance. Execution.

And—whether you will execute a termination command on your own kind when instructed." He pointed to the scorecard on the screen. "As of now, among your species' samples, the percentage of individuals who autonomously executed the termination command is..." He paused. "Ninetyfour percent." I took two steps back. "You mean you've done this in other places too?" "Not other places.

Other samples," Director Vance interjected. "Your batch is the final group. Code name: SH0714.

The previous six groups completed the entire process within seventytwo hours on average." "What do you mean, 'completed the entire process'?" "It means someone picked up the scissors." Mr.

Sterling spread his hands. "Hazel, you have dragged this out for eightyseven thousand, six hundred hours.

You are the most hesitant subject we have ever recorded." He stood up and walked over to me. I noticed it for the first time—he hadn't blinked once.

Not since I walked through that door. His pupils weren't black.

Around the edges was a ring of tiny purple veins, identical to the grid lines outside the window. "Hazel, don't you find it strange?" He looked down at me. "Over the past ten years, you have never gotten sick.

You have never been injured. Your hair grew to a certain point and stopped. You lost weight, but you never starved to death." "..." "Because you cannot die.

Until the evaluation is complete, you are not permitted to die." I let go of the scissors. They clattered to the floor. But they made no sound.

They were absorbed by the floor itself. Mr.

Sterling bent down, picked them up, and placed them back in my hand. "Twenty hours left." He squeezed my fingers, forcing them around the handles. "Hazel, make a choice." Director Vance raised her coffee cup and smiled. "If you can't make it, don't worry.

The system will make it for you."

"Mr. Sterling, do you have an employment contract?" Silence fell over the room for three seconds. Mr. Sterling stared at me.

His expression didn't change, but his fingers twitched for a fraction of a second. It was tiny. But I caught it.

Ten years of absolute isolation had made me hypersensitive to microexpressions.

Even on a machine that didn't blink. "What?" "An employment contract," I took a deep breath. "You are the CEO of this corporation. Do you have an onboarding agreement?

A signing date?

A corporate seal from the party of the first part?" Director Vance paused with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. "Hazel, what are you talking about?" "I am doing my job." I placed the scissors back on the table.

Gently. I didn't push them toward him. "You said I'm HR. You said my probation depends on completing a workforce optimization plan. Fine. I accept the task." Mr.

Sterling raised an eyebrow slightly. "But as HR, my job isn't just to blindly fire people. My job is to audit the process to ensure compliance.

If a layoff is compliant, I execute it. If it violates regulations, I refuse.

That is the actual duty of HR." I walked up to the big screen, pointing at the metrics. "You want me to use this grading system to terminate my colleagues.

Let me ask you this: Who established the standards for this evaluation? What approval process did it go through? Is there an appeal mechanism? An audit cycle?" Mr.

Sterling didn't answer immediately. For the first time in ten years, his perfect fifteendegree smile faltered.

Like a glitched line of code. "Furthermore," I took a step closer, "you said Article 17 of my employment agreement dictates my probation terms.

Who is the employer of record on this agreement? You, or the system behind you?

If the employer is not a legally registered entity, then this contract has been null and void since the day it was signed." "Hazel, those details are irrelevant," Mr.

Sterling recovered his smile. "They are extremely relevant," I interrupted. "Because you just told me this isn't a real company. This building is a simulated space.

Outside is nothingness. My colleagues have been frozen into specimens.

Which brings me to the core question—by what authority do you represent the employer to sign a contract with me?

Are you an employee of this system, a contractor, or a thirdparty vendor?" "I am the administrator." "Administrators have employment relations too. Who do you report to?

What are your KPIs?

How long is your evaluation cycle?" Director Vance set her coffee cup down. "Hazel, these questions have nothing to do with your review." "They have everything to do with it," I looked at her. "You said you are in charge of observation.

You've observed me for ten years. How are your own KPIs calculated? It took you ten years to produce a single performance report.

Is that level of efficiency considered compliant?" Her smile froze. Exactly the same freeze as Mr. Sterling’s.

The same system malfunction. "According to your own grading scale," I walked back to the desk, picked up the folder, and flipped to the back cover, "anything above a B+ is considered passing.

Mr. Sterling, the SH0714 sample group under your management has failed to complete the evaluation process for ten years.

Your project timeline has been delayed by eightyseven thousand, six hundred hours." I looked up. "What is your score?" Mr. Sterling said nothing. For the first time.

He sat there, fingers still interlaced, but a ripple of panic appeared in his purpleveined eyes. Like a stone thrown into a still pond.

Director Vance stood up. "Hazel, you do not have the clearance to view management’s evaluation data." "Why not?" "Because you are a probationary employee." "You just implied that the contract was void—actually, I said it, and you didn't refute it.

If the contract is void, I am not your probationary employee.

If I am not your employee, then everything you have done to me constitutes unlawful imprisonment and physical assault." I picked up the scissors. This time, I took them voluntarily.

Not to cut anyone's neck. But to hold them as a weapon. Because in this place, the only thing you monsters understand is your own tools. "Mr.

Sterling," I looked him dead in the eye. "I am officially filing a formal labor dispute and compliance audit against you." His smile vanished completely.

On the giant screen, everyone's scores flashed violently at the same time. "You cannot file a dispute," his voice cracked for the first time. "There is no such module in the system." "Then that's a glitch in your system," I jammed the scissors vertically into the table, the sharp tips biting deep into the wood. "Not my problem."