Mote: The Old Office

The office still smells faintly of burnt coffee and dry-erase ink. You unlock the door like you’ve done a thousand times before, but this time no one’s inside. The desks are bare. The monitors are dark. The whiteboards still carry half-erased plans that once felt urgent enough to change the world. As you walk through the rooms, your own voice follows you — fragments of late-night promises, investor calls, pep talks you barely believed yourself. Every corner remembers something. The conference room where you swore the team would make payroll. The break area where sugar and adrenaline stood in for sleep. The quiet desk by the window where someone once said, “We’re close. I can feel it.”…