Chapter 12: The Comeback

Today was the day Vivid’s new feature was launching.

In the past, I’d be nervously glued to the livestream of the launch event.

Now, Parker and I sat side by side on the deck, watching our fishing rods.

“Got one! Got one! Reel it in!”

The pull from underwater was massive. I steadied myself and hauled the rod up with all my strength.

A four-foot sailfish!

Parker, the yacht captain, and I—three grown men—shouted with excitement.

Finally, I held up the sailfish, the captain held the measuring tape, and Parker snapped a commemorative photo.

In the photo, I stood tall, features tense with effort.

I’d be bragging about this for a year.

Just then, Parker’s phone started ringing nonstop.

He answered, listened for a bit, then yelled, “Whoa!”

He rushed over: “Check the headline news—now!”

I looked at his phone’s news feed.

The screen was flooded with headlines: “Vivid Completely Paralyzed, User Data Lost.”

[Vivid’s new feature launch crashes, product totally paralyzed.]

[CEO abruptly ends launch event, says repairs underway, recovery time unknown.]

[Some users report logging into Vivid only to find their accounts wiped clean.]

[Vivid’s products are integrated into daily life, with high membership fees and in-app purchases. If user data is lost, it’s a devastating blow to Vivid.]

I knew the situation was dire. After washing my hands, I sat down to read carefully.

I watched the launch event recording and scrolled through countless user complaints on Reddit and Twitter.

Combining what I knew about the hidden risks after the upgrade, I started tracing the code backward...

We toasted with cold beers, salt spray stinging our faces, and for a second, I forgot about everything except the fight on the line.

As I hunched over my laptop, the scent of salt and sunscreen filling the air, I realized my phone was buzzing with messages. My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. For the first time, it wasn’t spam—it was Vivid, and they needed me. Not just from Lillian, but from half the tech leads at Vivid and even a couple of board members. My fingers itched to dive into the code, to prove—once and for all—who built the real heart of Vivid. As the yacht cut through the waves, I grinned. They thought they’d erased me. But you can’t delete the guy who wrote the code.