The Hiring Clause

In a rain-lashed corporate town in the fictitious state of North Meridia, Elliott Voss—a terminated systems analyst—spirals into solitary obsession. Convinced that his former employer destroyed his career through coded racial bias in its promotion algorithm, he constructs an elaborate digital phantom: a bitcoin-funded assassination contract on the company's CEO. But the hit never happens; the only murder is inside Elliott's mind, until a retired hacker surfaces with evidence that someone else executed the contract—and Elliott's fantasy is no longer his own.