Debug my heart

Chapter 3: The Debugging Phase

Abigail sat at her new desk in Pod 4, her heart still hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The scent of Alexander Collins—sandalwood and expensive rain—seemed to have latched onto her blazer, a lingering reminder of her disastrous first five minutes in the building.

Pretentious? She thought, her grip tightening on her stylus. I’m not pretentious; I’m efficient. There is a difference.

She stared at her monitors. Most junior engineers would be overwhelmed by the hardware—three ultra-wide 4K displays and a vertical terminal for logs—but to Abigail, this was her natural habitat. She felt the eyes of the other developers on her. She was the "First Class" hire from Seattle, the one Liam had been bragging about. And thanks to the coffee machine incident, she was also the girl who had told the CEO he should have his credentials revoked.

A notification pinged on her primary screen. It was an assignment from the Lead Repo: Project Junk-Drawer: Legacy Code Refactoring.

Abigail’s eyes narrowed as she scrolled through the ticket. It was a "cleanup" task—the kind of tedious, mind-numbing work usually reserved for interns or automated bots. It was a massive library of spaghetti code from five years ago that needed to be documented and optimized for the new server architecture.

"He's testing me," she whispered to herself.

She could almost see Alexander’s cold, dark eyes as he assigned this. He wanted to see if the "First Class" girl would complain. He wanted to see if she would break under the boredom.

Challenge accepted, Mr. Frozen Laptop, she thought. She pulled her hair back into a tighter, more aggressive ponytail and reached for her noise-canceling headphones.

The world around her faded. This was what she was built for. To Abigail, code wasn't just text; it was a sprawling, three-dimensional landscape. She saw the inefficiencies like potholes in a road. She saw the redundant loops like unnecessary detours. She began to type, her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with a rhythmic, percussive click-clack that sounded like a war drum.

She wasn't just refactoring; she was performing surgery.

Two hours into her flow state, a shadow fell over her desk. Abigail didn't look up until she reached a natural breaking point in her script.

Liam was standing there, leaning against the glass partition with two cups of tea—real tea, not the "pretentious" espresso from the hallway.

"I heard you met my brother," Liam said, his voice low and sympathetic. He slid a cup toward her. "I’m sorry, Abby. Alex hasn't had a software update since 2012. He forgot how to interact with people who have... you know, emotions."

Abigail sighed, pulling her headphones down to her neck. "He thinks I'm a joke, Liam. He gave me the legacy refactoring. That’s a week’s worth of busy work."

Liam looked at her screen, his eyebrows shooting up as he saw the thousands of lines of code already cleaned and condensed. "A week? For a normal human, maybe. But you’ve already cleared forty percent of the backlog."

He paused, his expression softening. "Don't take it personally. Alex is... complicated. Ever since our father stepped down and left him the company at twenty-four, he’s felt like he has to be a machine to keep the stock price up. He doesn't trust easily. He thinks if he lets one 'bug' into the system—whether it’s a bad line of code or an unpredictable person—the whole thing will crash."

"I'm not a bug," Abigail said firmly.

"I know that. Maya knows that. Heck, even the coffee machine knows that now," Liam chuckled. "Just keep doing what you’re doing. He’ll see it eventually. Speaking of Maya... she’s determined to get you out of the 'Kitsilano Hermit' phase. We’re going to a lounge in Gastown tonight. Low-key, good food."

"I should probably stay and finish this," Abigail said, glancing back at her monitors.

"Maya already said you’re coming. And," Liam hesitated, a mischievous glint in his eye, "Alexander is coming too. I told him he needs to see how the other half lives before he turns into an actual block of ice. It’ll be a 'culture fit' meeting outside the office."

Abigail felt a cold shiver that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. A double date? With the man who had just looked at her like she was a smudge on his window? "That sounds... agonizing."

"It’ll be fun! Think of it as a debugging session for his personality," Liam waved as he walked off.

Abigail didn't go to the lounge at 5:00 PM. She stayed until 6:30 PM.

By the time she stood up, the "Project Junk-Drawer" wasn't just cleaned; it was perfected. She had written a script that not only refactored the legacy code but also implemented a predictive cache for future updates. She had turned a week of "busy work" into a masterpiece of efficiency.

She grabbed her tablet and headed for the top floor. The elevator ride to the executive suite was silent and smooth. When the doors opened, she was greeted by more glass, more shadows, and a view of the Vancouver harbor that was breathtakingly expensive.

She walked toward the corner office. The door was open. Alexander was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, his jacket off, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that were—annoyingly—very well-defined. He was staring out at the rain, a glass of amber liquid in his hand.

Abigail knocked on the glass doorframe. "Mr. Collins."

He didn't turn around immediately. "Ms. Johnson. I assumed you would have left with Maya and Liam."

"I don't leave until the job is done," she said, walking into the room. She felt the power dynamic shift. This was her turf now. She set the tablet on his desk. "The legacy refactoring is complete. I’ve pushed the changes to the staging environment and ran a full diagnostic. Performance is up by twenty-two percent."

Alexander finally turned. He looked at the tablet, then at her. His gaze was unreadable, but there was a slight tension in his jaw. "Twenty-two percent? On five-year-old legacy code?"

"I optimized the UI wrapper," she said, a small, defiant smirk playing on her lips. "It turns out the original developer was quite... pretentious."

The silence in the room stretched. Abigail waited for the reprimand, for the cold dismissal. Instead, Alexander walked toward the desk. He picked up the tablet, his fingers scrolling through her commits.

"You didn't just refactor," he murmured, his eyes scanning the logic. "You redesigned the entire data structure."

"Efficiency is the only metric that matters, right?" Abigail challenged.

Alexander looked up. For the first time, he wasn't looking at her; he was looking into her. He saw the first-class mind. He saw the girl who wouldn't be intimidated.

"It’s... adequate work," he said, though his voice had lost its icy edge. He set the tablet down. "Liam says we are going to Gastown. I assume you’re coming?"

"I am," Abigail said, her confidence surging. "But don't expect me to fix your drink if the ice-to-whiskey ratio is unoptimized."

Alexander’s mouth didn't move, but his eyes flickered with something that might have been a ghost of a smile. "Get your coat, Ms. Johnson. Try not to be late for the car."

As Abigail walked back to the elevator, she let out a breath she felt she’d been holding since Seattle. She was still terrified, and he was still a jerk, but she had made her first commit. And for the first time, the "Frozen Laptop" had encountered a user he couldn't just shut down.

The walk to the executive parking garage was a study in synchronized tension. Alexander walked with a long, predatory stride that forced Abigail to quicken her pace just to keep her shoulder level with his. He didn't offer to carry her bag, and she didn't expect him to. In the sterile, fluorescent light of the garage, his car—a sleek, matte-black electric sedan—looked less like a vehicle and more like a stealth bomber.

He tapped the door handle, and the car hummed to life, the door handles presenting themselves like a silent invitation. Abigail slid into the passenger seat, the smell of high-end leather and that faint, lingering sandalwood wrapping around her.

As they pulled out onto the rain-slicked streets of Vancouver, an oppressive silence filled the cabin. There was no radio, no hum of an engine—just the rhythmic thump-thump of the windshield wipers.

Say something, Abigail’s internal monologue screamed. You’re a First Class graduate. You navigated a thesis defense. You can survive a twenty-minute car ride.

She glanced at Alexander. His hands were at ten and two on the steering wheel, his profile illuminated by the passing streetlights. He looked perfectly composed, but she noticed the slight muscle jump in his jaw.

"The regenerative braking on this model is impressive," she blurted out.

Alexander didn't look over. "It’s a custom tuning. I rewrote the torque vectoring software myself."

Abigail bit her lip. Of course he did. "Most people just drive the car, Mr. Collins. They don’t rewrite the OS."

"Most people are content with inefficiency," he replied. He finally spared her a glance, his dark eyes catching hers for a fraction of a second. "And I believe we agreed that you aren't 'most people,' Abigail."

The use of her first name felt like a sudden surge in the electrical system. She turned her head toward the window, watching the neon signs of Gastown blur into streaks of light, her heart performing a series of unoptimized flutters.

The venue was an upscale, "hidden" lounge tucked behind a heavy velvet curtain in a restored Victorian building. Liam and Maya had already secured the private room in the back—a space filled with low-slung leather chairs, dim amber lighting, and the muffled sound of jazz.

"Finally!" Maya cheered as they entered. She was sitting dangerously close to Liam, a half-empty glass in her hand. "We thought the two of you might have started a logic war in the parking lot and forgotten to come."

Alexander sat down with a stiff elegance, choosing the chair furthest from the bar. Abigail sat next to him, feeling the heat from his arm even though they weren't touching.

"Abby, sit closer! We can't hear you over the music," Maya said, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Maya wasn't just Abigail’s best friend; she was a self-appointed "Professional Matchmaker" who viewed silence as a bug that needed to be patched.

"So," Maya started, leaning forward on the mahogany table. "Enough about refactoring and UI wrappers. I want to talk about real life. Alex, tell the truth—what was the last thing you did that wasn't for the company? And no, 'sleeping' doesn't count."

Alexander took a slow sip of his water. "I read."

"Technical manuals?" Abigail asked, her wit returning now that she had Maya as a buffer.

Alexander’s eyes shifted to her. "Biographies of failed emperors. It serves as a reminder that ego is the greatest system failure."

"Deep," Liam laughed, throwing an arm around Maya. "See, Abby? He’s a riot at parties."

Maya rolled her eyes. "Okay, let’s pivot. Abigail, tell Alexander about the 'Baking Promise.' I told Liam about it, and I think it’s the most wholesome thing I’ve ever heard."

Abigail felt her cheeks flush. She hadn't intended for her boss to know about her domestic side. "It’s nothing. I just... I promised my mother, Sarah, that I wouldn't lose our traditions. She’s a master baker. I have her recipe book in my bag right now, actually."

"She’s obsessed," Maya added, nudging Abigail. "She thinks baking is like coding. If the measurements are off by a milligram, the whole 'output' is ruined."

Alexander looked at Abigail, his expression shifting from cold indifference to a flicker of genuine curiosity. "Precision is a virtue. What is the most difficult thing in the book?"

"Macarons," Abigail answered immediately. "The humidity in Vancouver is a variable I haven't accounted for yet. In Seattle, I had it down to a science. Here... I might need to recalibrate."

"A software engineer who fears humidity," Alexander mused. It wasn't a laugh, but the edge of his voice had softened. "Perhaps the 'Frozen Laptop' has found its match in a 'Master Baker.'"

"Wait, did you just make a joke, Alex?" Liam leaned in, shocked. "Mark the calendar. The system is evolving."

Maya seized the opportunity. "Since we're being personal... Abby, what’s the one thing you miss most about Seattle? Besides your parents, Michael and Sarah?"

Abigail looked at the amber liquid in her glass. "The noise. My house was never quiet. My dad was always fixing something, my mom was always humming in the kitchen. Here... my apartment is just a collection of boxes and a workstation. It’s quiet. Sometimes, silence is just another word for 'empty.'"

She didn't realize she was looking at Alexander when she said it. For a brief second, the CEO of Collins Tech didn't look like a shark. He looked like someone who understood exactly what an empty house felt like.

"The silence isn't empty if you're productive," Alexander said, but his voice lacked its usual bite. He reached for the bottle of water, his fingers brushing against Abigail’s hand.

A spark of static electricity jumped between them—sharp and sudden.

"Ooh, look at that," Maya whispered to Liam, loud enough for everyone to hear. "The chemistry is literal."

Abigail pulled her hand back, her face burning. Alexander simply adjusted his cufflink, but he didn't move his hand away from where hers had been.

"Maya," Alexander said, his voice returning to its professional chill, though his eyes remained on Abigail. "If you spend as much time on the Q3 marketing roll-out as you do on 'making' people close, we might actually hit our targets early."

"I can do both, Boss-man," Maya winked. "I’m a multitasker."

As the night wore on, the questions got deeper, the laughter louder, and the space between Abigail and Alexander seemed to shrink. Abigail realized that while Alexander Collins was a machine, he was a machine with a very complex, very hidden architecture—one she was becoming increasingly desperate to deconstruct.

The Gastown lounge had been a tactical error for Abigail’s sobriety. Between Maya’s relentless "matchmaking" rounds of cocktails and the drop in Abigail’s guard after successfully impressing Alexander with her code, the "First Class" graduate was currently operating on a very high-latency brain-to-body connection.

"I think... I think the system is crashing," Abigail giggled as they stood outside the lounge. The cool rain was falling again, but she didn't feel the chill. She felt like she was made of warm, fuzzy static.

"You’re not crashing, Abby, you’re just ‘over-clocked’ on gin," Maya laughed, leaning into Liam. "Alex, you’re the only one sober enough to drive. Please tell me you’ll get the genius home safely?"

Alexander looked at Abigail, who was currently trying to see if she could balance on one foot on a cobblestone street. His expression was a mixture of deep alarm and a curiosity he couldn't quite suppress. "I’ll handle it. Maya, Liam—get home. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow. Try not to be as... loud as you were tonight."

The car ride back to Kitsilano was vastly different from the ride there. The "awkward silence" was now occupied by Abigail humming a tune that was dangerously familiar.

"Ms. Johnson," Alexander said, his voice a low vibration in the quiet car. "Please sit back in your seat. The seatbelt sensor is going to trigger."

"You know what has a great sensor?" Abigail asked, turning to him with a lopsided grin. Her ponytail had come loose, and a few dark strands framed her face. "A shark. They can smell blood. Or... or espresso. Did you know that?"

"I was unaware," Alexander replied dryly, his eyes fixed on the road.

"It’s true! They have a rhythm. Like a loop. A recursive loop." She started tapping a beat on the expensive leather dashboard. "Baby shark, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo..."

Alexander’s grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles turned white. "Abigail. Please. No."

"Baby shark, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo!" she sang louder, her voice echoing in the cabin. She started doing a "jaw" motion with her hands, narrowly missing Alexander’s ear. "Grandpa shark, doo-doo... that’s you! Because you’re so serious! You’re the Grandpa Shark of Collins Tech!"

"I am thirty-one years old," Alexander muttered, though there was a strange, microscopic twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I am hardly a 'Grandpa Shark.'"

When they reached her apartment building, the embarrassment reached its peak. Alexander had to practically peel her out of the passenger seat. As they walked toward the lobby, Abigail decided that the sidewalk was a stage. She began a wobbly, interpretative dance that involved a lot of arm-flailing and a very loud "Doo-doo-doo!" finale right in front of her startled elderly neighbor walking a toy poodle.

"I’m a software engineer!" she announced to the neighbor. "I graduated with First Class honors! And I can dance in... in three different languages!"

Alexander caught her by the waist before she could tumble into a flowerpot. His hands were firm, and for a moment, the singing stopped. Abigail looked up at him, her face inches from his chest. The sandalwood scent was back, mixing with the smell of the rain.

"You're very... high resolution," she whispered, reaching up to poke his tie.

Alexander went perfectly still. He looked down at her, his dark eyes no longer icy, but reflecting a complicated heat. "And you, Ms. Johnson, are a total system failure."

He didn't leave her at the curb. He guided her all the way to her door, waited for her to fumbledly find her keys, and made sure she was inside.

"Abigail," he called out as she started to close the door.

"Yeah?" she leaned against the doorframe, blinking sleepily.

"Tomorrow morning," Alexander said, his voice returning to its CEO authority, "I suggest you take two ibuprofen and a very large cup of 'pretentious' coffee. You have a 9:00 AM stand-up. Don't be late."

As the door clicked shut, Abigail slid down to the floor, her head spinning. She had sung Baby Shark to the most intimidating man in North America. She was either going to be fired tomorrow, or she had just discovered the one bug in Alexander Collins' system that he couldn't fix.