The restaurant was a symphony of old money and new ambition. Muted chatter drifted from the tables, a soft, unobtrusive soundtrack to the clinking of glasses and the low murmur of conversation. The air, rich with the scent of roasted meat, expensive single-origin coffee, and high-end cologne, felt thin and utterly alien to Winston. He stood just inside the entrance, the perfect, seamless cut of his all-black suit—a silent testament to Charles's terrifying foresight—feeling less like a second skin and more like a carefully tailored costume. He was an actor on a stage he hadn't chosen, a ghost in the machine of his own life.
He scanned the room, a sea of faces he hadn't seen in over a decade. He saw a man who had been a star basketball player, his frame now softer, his hair thinning, nursing a single drink. He saw a girl who had been a quiet artist, her eyes now sharp and calculating as she navigated a conversation with a group of slick-looking lawyers. Everyone, he realized, was a finished product of their ambition, their choices, their struggles. And Winston, a man with a fourteen-million-dollar fortune, felt more unfinished and fake than ever before.
He spotted Gwen and Amber at a small table near the bar. A wave of relief, so profound it almost made him light-headed, washed over him. They were a tether to the real world, to a past he at least understood, an island of familiarity in a hostile sea.
"Winston!" Gwen exclaimed, her face lighting up with genuine warmth as he approached. "You made it! And wow, look at you! You look… really good. Seriously."
Amber's eyes, as they swept over his suit, told a different, more complicated story. They held a flicker of surprise, a silent, pointed question he was already tired of answering: Who is this guy? The taxi driver?
"Just a new suit," he said, his voice flat, trying to minimize the undeniable statement the tailoring made. He gestured at the empty chair. "Mind if I sit?"
They talked about their lives, about their jobs at the hospital, about their mutual friends who hadn't shown up. Winston offered vague, noncommittal answers, sidestepping every question about his own life. He didn't mention the apartment, the Rolls-Royce, the chauffeur, or the money. He couldn't. It felt too grotesque, a secret too heavy to share, too dangerous to reveal. He was still, to them, the taxi driver who worked himself to the bone to support his sister. And in a terrifying way, he was grateful for it. It was a role he understood, a life he knew how to navigate. The truth would only lead to questions, envy, and the inevitable, terrifying scrutiny of the AI's enemies.
As the night wore on, the mood of the room shifted from polite reunion to boisterous, sparkling lemonade-fueled celebration. A man with a microphone, a former class president with a slicked-back ponytail and an air of self-importance, stood on a small platform, his voice booming over the speakers.
"Alright, everyone, settle down!" he shouted, a false, grating laugh in his voice. "I'm a bit wired, so I thought, why not get our old classmates to do something for us? Give us some words of wisdom! Tell us about their lives, about how they made it big!"
A few people cheered, and Winston felt a sense of quiet dread settle in his stomach. He wasn't a man who made it "big." He was a man who had everything handed to him by a terrifying, unseen hand.
Then, his eyes met another pair from across the room. A cold, predatory glint in the gaze of a man he hadn't seen since middle school, a man whose very presence in this room felt like a cruel, cosmic joke arranged specifically for his torment. Rick Mason.
Rick, a hulking figure with a cruel, tight smile, was still the schoolyard bully Winston remembered. He had, it seemed, traded the playground for the boardroom, but the fundamental, petty venom remained exactly the same. He was a salesman for a major company, a fact he had made sure to mention to everyone within earshot. He had, in his own small way, "made it big." And now, he had found his next target, drawn by the quiet incongruity of Winston's expensive suit.
Rick made a beeline for the microphone, a predatory grin on his face. "Before we all leave, I just have one request. One of our classmates, a man who truly embodies the American Dream… a man who works so hard to support his family… Winsten Stone! Come on up here, buddy! Tell us about your journey!"
He then turned to the crowd, his grin widening, broadcasting the punchline. "I just got a promotion, you guys. I'm the new team leader for Vance Corporation! So, if anyone needs a ride home, just look for the yellow cab outside and ask our boy Winston here! We'll give you a discount, right, Winston?"
The room filled with the kind of laughter that comes from people who know exactly what they're doing—people who feel secure in their own social superiority. It was a dry, cruel sound that seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Winston stood up, his legs feeling like lead, the perfectly tailored suit feeling like a suffocating straitjacket. He was a man in an expensive cage, and the one thing he couldn't escape was the ghost of his past, weaponized by the very corporation that now owned him.
He made his way to the microphone, every step a slow, deliberate struggle. As he stood beside Rick, his face a mask of cold fury, he looked out at the faces in the room. They saw a man who had failed, a man who had been left behind. They saw the taxi driver from East New York. They didn't see the man who owned an apartment on the Upper West Side, the man who had a Rolls-Royce and a personal chauffeur, the man who had a terrifying, trillion-dollar corporation acting as his friend.
"So, Winston," Rick said, his voice a low, mocking whisper meant to carry. "Tell us… what does a taxi driver do?"
Winston looked at him, the rage in his heart a burning coal. He wanted to tell him. He wanted to scream that he could buy this entire restaurant and hire Rick to shine the shoes he was wearing. He wanted to tell him that he was more powerful than Rick, the Vance Corporation team leader, could ever imagine. But he couldn't. The AI had given him wealth, but it had also stolen his voice and placed a silent, unbreakable muzzle on his life. His new existence was a profound secret, a cage he couldn't break out of. He just had to stand there and take the insult.
"Well," Winston said, his voice a low, controlled hum, the words carefully chosen. "A taxi driver… he drives. He drives people around. He gets them from point A to point B. And then… he gets in his car and drives away."
He didn't wait for a response. He didn't wait for the renewed wave of laughter. He just turned and walked away. He walked past the tables of stunned faces, past Gwen's bewildered expression, past Amber's pitying stare. He walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving the past to its quiet, judgmental celebration.
As the door clicked shut behind him, he heard quick footsteps. "Winston, wait!" It was Gwen. She caught up to him, slightly out of breath. "I am so sorry about that," she said, her eyes wide with sympathy and anger. "He's just... I don't know why he's still like that. It's a shame. It's no wonder he called this reunion, just to brag."
Winston just shrugged, allowing the calm to settle. "Don't worry about it," he said, his voice level. "A job is a job. He doesn't know what he's talking about." He paused, a soft, genuine smile finally coming to his face. "I told Lily I saw you. She was excited. Lily misses you."
Gwen's face lit up instantly. "Oh my goodness, Lily! How is she?" Her eyes, filled with a sudden, genuine happiness, looked at Winston with an affection reserved for family. She had known Lily since she was a toddler and had always looked at her like a little sister. "Tell Lily I love her so much. I miss her so much."
"How about lunch tomorrow?" Winston asked, a flicker of hope in his voice, needing that tether back to normalcy. "Me, you, and Lily. There's a nice five-star restaurant just around the corner from my place."
Gwen smiled, her mind already made up. "That sounds good," she said, and her mind went to her wallet, already decided she would be covering the bill to make up for today's humiliation. "It sounds perfect." She gave him one last compassionate look before heading back inside.
Winston smiled as he hailed a taxi on the street, the bitter irony of the act a profound, heavy pill to swallow. He was a man who owned a Rolls-Royce, a man who had a driver waiting for him just three blocks away, but he was still, in his heart, a man who had to hail a taxi to get home—a final, self-inflicted act of professional identity. He gave the driver his address and sank into the worn backseat, the silence of the old car a welcome, authentic relief. The driver, a kind, elderly man with a quiet face, glanced at Winston's immaculate suit in the rearview mirror.
"Tough night?" the driver asked, his voice soft and sympathetic.
Winston just nodded. "Yeah," he said, the word a weary exhalation. "You could say that."
He looked out the window, at the endless stream of city lights, at the sea of faces, at the world that had once been his. He had everything he ever wanted, everything he had ever worked for. But in a single, brutal moment, he had learned the bitter truth: money couldn't buy him respect. It couldn't buy him a clean slate. It couldn't erase the past. And the gilded cage, he realized, was less a sanctuary and more a beautiful, inescapable prison.