“We’re giving the money to Conrad,” Dad said. “Now get out. You’re fired.”
I just stared at him, like my brain had missed a step.
“So you sold my patents?” I managed.
Mom laughed, soft and bright, like this was dinner theater.
“We sold our company.”
The lawyer stood up.
Actually—
There is a specific kind of silence inside a server room. It is not quiet, exactly. It is a hum—a deep, vibrating drone of cooling fans and spinning drives that sinks into your bones.
For the last twenty-five years, that hum had been the soundtrack of my life. It was Loicor Solutions breathing, and I was the one making sure it didn’t suffocate.
That Tuesday, I was on my knees on anti-static floor tiles, replacing a burnt-out optical switch in rack four. It was six in the evening.
Most of the staff had gone home, except the cleaning crew and, unfortunately, my brother.
I heard Conrad before I saw him: the heavy thud of Italian loafers on hallway linoleum, followed by his voice, loud and sharp, barking into his phone. “I don’t care if the market is down, Todd. Liquidate the position.
I need cash for the down payment.”
Conrad burst into the server room without swiping a badge. He never carried a badge. If the door didn’t open, he kicked it until the magnetic lock gave up or someone came running to do it for him.
He was forty years old, wearing a suit that cost more than my car, and he still had the frantic energy of a teenager who just crashed his dad’s Porsche.
“Valerie!” he shouted over the hum. “Why is the Wi-Fi down in the executive wing? I’m trying to move some assets and the connection is crawling.”
I didn’t look up.
I clicked the new switch into place and watched the status light flicker from amber to a steady, reassuring green. “The Wi-Fi isn’t down, Conrad. You’re probably throttling the bandwidth again.
What are you uploading?”
“Nothing,” he snapped, stalking closer.
He looked down at me with that familiar mix of pity and annoyance. To him, I wasn’t the chief technology officer. I was the janitor of the internet.
“I’m just trading some crypto files,” he said.
“Look, just fix it. Dad is flying to New York tomorrow, and I need to show him these projections.”
I stood, dusting off my jeans. I was forty-eight, my hair graying and tied back in a messy bun, wearing a NASA hoodie that had seen better decades.
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