Chapter 3

I slid Liam's coffee over to her.

"I don't have much to offer, but here, have this coffee to keep your energy up."

Without suspecting a thing, Chloe took the cup and downed it in a few gulps.

"Make sure you finish all the food, Ethan!"

She couldn't stay in the dev department for long, so she waved and walked out.

I watched her leave, my eyes dead and cold.

"I'm not really hungry. You guys split the food," I told the team.

"Awesome! I've been dying to try Chloe's cooking. Thank you, boss!"

The devs cheered and dug in.

Time ticked by.

I looked at the corner of my screen. It was launch time.

Right on cue, my phone vibrated. It was Chloe.

"Ethan! We have a disaster! The system crashed right after going live!"

"We are losing a million dollars a second!"

I glanced around the office. The devs who had eaten Chloe's food were all slumping over their desks, completely out of it.

In my past life, I had eaten all the food and drank the coffee. Yet, I fought the heavy drugs in my system and forced myself to patch the system to save the company.

And my reward? Handcuffs and a trip off the roof.

I leaned back and spoke slowly. "I think you called the wrong number. Shouldn't you report this to Donald first?"

Chloe gasped, her voice dripping with disbelief.

"Ethan, are you insane?! Report to Donald right now?!"

"We are bleeding cash in real-time!"

"If you don't believe me, check the servers! People are exploiting the backdoor and draining our assets!"

"The company is going to go under in minutes!"

I let out a cold chuckle. "Didn't Donald say we have to follow protocol? I'm waiting for the official ticket approval."

Seeing that I wasn't moving, Chloe lost her mind.

"Ethan! How can you be so selfish? I totally misjudged you!"

"The entire company is dying, and you're just sitting there—"

I hung up on her.

Seconds later, my phone rang again.

It was Liam. I tapped accept.

"Ethan! Everything is falling apart!"

"There's a massive exploit in the launch build!"

"The company is losing a million dollars a second!"

"I'm rushing back to the office right now. Please, do something to mitigate the damage first!"

In the office, the devs were fast asleep, completely oblivious to the chaos.

I held the phone away from my ear. "Oh. I'm waiting for the ticket to be approved."

Liam practically screamed through the speaker. "Ethan! A million dollars a second!"

"Just lock down the servers first! Lock out the users so they can't exploit it!"

I stretched lazily.