The breakroom coffee at Very Core Logistics tasted like it had been filtered through a gym sock that survived Desert Storm. But at 10:15 p.m. on a Tuesday, I didn’t care about flavor—I just needed caffeine to keep my heart from giving up on me. I’m Rebecca Miller, lead systems architect. Nine years in, which sounds fancy but really means I’m the janitor for the internet, cleaning up messes left by executives who think “the cloud” is literal. Three days before Project Onyx, our global shipping integration launch, and my eyes already felt like sandpaper.
I was in the zone, rewriting a legacy patch from 1998, when the glass door to my office slid open. It wasn’t a knock—it was an invasion. Brad Johnson, VP of Operations, stepped in. He smelled like sandalwood and overconfidence, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my first car.
“Becky,” he started, smiling in a way that said HR buzzwords were about to ruin my night.
I didn’t look up. “The integration layer is desynchronizing. I’m patching the hole before the load test tomorrow. If I don’t, the Asian markets will crash the system before lunch.”
Brad laughed hollowly. “Exactly what we need to talk about. You’re always in the weeds, Becky. Too slow. We need agility, freshness. My niece Tiffany thinks your protocols are ‘legacy drag.’”
I finally turned. “Legacy drag? That drag keeps hackers out and shipments moving.”
Brad raised a manicured hand. “Effective immediately, Rebecca. You’re… let go. Security will escort you out. Tiffany is taking over at 8 a.m.”
I froze. Three days before the biggest launch in company history, fired because a 22-year-old thought she could improve my code. My blood turned to ice water. I grabbed my purse and pack of cigarettes. I would have to watch everything I built either succeed or explode under Tiffany’s hands.
By the time I reached the elevator, I realized the cherry on top: my parking pass was still in my office. I left it next to the server keys and rode down, heart hammering. On the lobby monitors, the system I’d kept alive for years was flashing warnings—Tiffany had already started “optimizing” it. I knew the timeline in my head: eight minutes, and the database would lock, transactions would corrupt, and Onyx would fail catastrophically.
I sat on the couch, cigarette in hand, counting. Waiting. Watching the digital countdown to disaster. Five minutes to impact, and nobody else knew what was coming. The world I built was moments from chaos.
The first flicker came at 10:34 p.m. The global shipping map froze. Glattis, our night receptionist, frowned. “That’s weird. My email’s dead too.”
I didn’t answer. I knew why: the backend shared storage with the logistics database. A flaw I’d reported three years ago. Brad said fixing it was too expensive.
Two minutes later, Kevin, a junior dev, came barreling down the stairwell. “Rebecca! It’s gone! Tiffany hit the migration script. The backups aren’t mounting. Everything’s red!”
I nodded. “She disabled safety interlocks, didn’t she?”
Kevin’s face was pale. “Yes… she said they were slowing her down.”
I clenched my fists around the stress grenade on my desk. “Good. Then the system is about to burn itself out.”
Larry, the night security guard, watched silently. He had always liked me—knew I wasn’t a threat. Now, he just tried to stay invisible. I wasn’t allowed to touch company equipment. I had already calculated the fallout. Trucks sitting at docks, perishables spoiling, millions in losses.
Then Marcus Stone, CEO, appeared in the lobby. Loosened tie, top button undone, phone in hand. “You knew?”
“I predicted. I corrected. Difference is huge.”
He looked at the clock: 10:45 p.m. “Can you fix it?”
I picked up my notebook, battered and coffee-stained. “Depends if we’re talking about the servers or the glitch that caused them.”
Marcus didn’t hesitate. “Servers. Do whatever it takes.”
Back upstairs in the executive elevator, the world outside glimmered, unaware of the impending disaster. Tiffany was sitting at my desk, laptop open, oblivious to the nuclear bomb she held in her hands. The load balancer was about to fail, and with it, the entire Onyx launch.
We got to the IT command center. Brad and Tiffany were screaming, monitors flashing red warnings. I walked past them, cigarette lit. “Step aside. You’re done.”
Kevin and Sarah waited. I gave orders: mirror the transaction logs, flag nodes for maintenance, shut down gateways. Every command calculated. Every sequence anticipated.
The core database was thrashing like a beast. I hit the root process with a forced shutdown, black screens everywhere. Seconds felt like years. Then green text appeared: System reboot initiated. Legacy protocol found: Rebecca is paranoid v2.0.
I watched as my hidden partition, my backup of the entire architecture, began restoring the system. Kevin opened the gateways on my mark. The global map flickered from red to yellow to green.
“System online!” I yelled. The room exhaled as trucks started pinging again, shipments resumed, and the hum of servers returned to a steady rhythm.
Marcus stepped closer. “You saved it.”
“I didn’t save it. I corrected it. The company still has problems—but the system works. That’s enough for now.”
The next morning, the boardroom was sterile and tense. Men in gray suits, sparkling water, worried eyes. Marcus at the head. I sat to his right, hoodie and jeans, my badge opening every door, cigarette stubbed in the ashtray beside me.
“The incident last night has been contained,” Marcus said. He gestured at me. “Thanks to our new CTO, Rebecca Miller.”
Heads turned. Not to see me, but the firewall, the insurance policy. I spoke, voice hoarse. “We’re moving back to a stability-first model. No more vibes, just math. No one touches the core without my fingerprint.”
Questions about personnel came next. I laid it out: Brad removed, Tiffany back to school, and all actions documented. The board nodded—they liked math. Math made money.
I walked out, key card in pocket, salary that looked like a phone number. Down in the server room, Kevin, Sarah, and Mike were calm, focused. The panic had gone, replaced with order. I smiled. “Good work, Kevin. Patch the Exchange server properly this time.”
Back in my office, I pulled up the logs. All green. Every truck moving. Every container tracked. I poured a small shot of bourbon, drank it slowly. Turned on a 10-hour loop of Danny DeVito eating an egg. Absurd, comforting, grounding.
Sometimes the world needs chaos before it respects order. Sometimes, the person you fire is the one who keeps it from burning down entirely.
I leaned back in my busted lumbar chair, headphones on, cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. The system was running, the parasites gone, and I was still here.
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After all, someone has to hold the keys. Might as well be the person who knows where the bodies are buried.