“And permanently damage half your hardware,” I cut in. “But please, go ahead if you think you know better.”
The room fell silent.
“Twelve hours,” I repeated. “And I’ll need complete autonomy to restore the systems properly.”
Octavia nodded tersely.
“Do it.”
For the next twelve hours, I sat alone in the darkened server room, watching temperature gauges slowly drop. I used the time to document everything: the override commands Garrison had implemented, the warnings he’d ignored, the alerts that had been dismissed. I compiled it all meticulously. When the time came to restart the systems, I did so gradually, implementing the proper cycling protocols. As servers came back online, relief spread throughout the company. By morning, everything was functioning normally. I was escorted to Octavia’s office, where Garrison sat tight-lipped and silent.
“The systems are stable,” I reported. “But there’s something you should know.”
What I revealed next would change everything, not just for me, but for the entire company. The house of cards Garrison had built was about to come crashing down, and I had positioned myself perfectly to emerge from the rubble stronger than ever. But as I opened my mouth to continue, a notification pinged on Octavia’s computer. Her face drained of color as she read it.
“We have another problem,” she whispered.
Octavia turned her screen toward me. Customer complaints were flooding in, not just about the outage, but about corrupted data. Some transactions from the past week were showing errors. Others were missing entirely.
“This wasn’t part of the server overheating,” she said accusingly.
“No, it wasn’t.”
I set down my coffee.
“This is the cascade effect I warned about in my quarterly report last spring. When you force continuous processing without proper cycling, data integrity checkpoints get skipped.”
Garrison slammed his hand on the desk.
“That’s convenient, blaming your design flaws on us.”
“My design accounted for human error,” I countered. “Including the error of ignoring design specifications.”
The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on. Outside Octavia’s glass office, employees hurried past, stealing glances. News of the catastrophe had spread through the company like wildfire.
“How long to fix it?” Octavia asked, her composure cracking.
“The data corruption? Three days minimum. Some of it may be unrecoverable.”
Garrison stood up.
“Unacceptable. I’ll bring in an external team.”
“Who won’t understand the architecture?” I interrupted. “They’ll take twice as long and recover half as much.”
Octavia’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen, eyes widening.
“It’s Hudson, the company’s largest client.”
She took the call on speaker, her voice suddenly warm.
“Hudson, good morning.”
“Is it?”
The man’s voice was ice cold.
“We’ve lost access to our entire inventory management system. Our warehouses are at a standstill. That’s millions in shipping delays. What exactly is happening, Octavia?”
