The catastrophe
1275 Words
Lesnar blinked at her. For a moment, he didn’t even recognize her face. Then he frowned. “Who are you?”
“Jennifer,” she answered. “System department.”
“Sir, ignore her,” Mr. Pascal said quickly. “She’s talking nonsense.”
Jennifer’s pulse hammered in her ears, but she didn’t back down. “No, I’m not. The system’s failure isn’t from external attacks. It’s from corrupted root codes in the last update. If I can access the backup nodes...”
Pascal cut her off with a sharp tone. “You think you know more than me?”
“I think you are missing something critical. It's something that can be resolved. No need to sell the company." She said firmly.
He laughed and turned to Lesnar. “Are you going to listen to her, sir? She has only spent five months in this company, and she thinks she’s an expert."
He turned his attention back to Jennifer and asked. "Do you even know how lucky you are to still have this job?”
Lesnar’s gaze shifted between them, confused. Jennifer could see he was seconds away from dismissing her. She spoke faster. “Sir, please, just ten minutes. If I can’t stabilize the core, you can fire me yourself. But if I can…” Her voice softened. “Then you’ll save Skylife.”
Pascal slammed his palm on the desk. “Enough!” he barked. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Her husband fired her because she wasn't good enough, and now she wants to talk down at me? I’ve worked here for ten years! She’s just—”
Lesnar’s phone started ringing again. He held up a hand for silence. The room went still, except for the faint hum of noises outside.
Lesnar turned away, answering the call. His tone dropped to a whisper. “Yes, I told you, I’m ready to sell. You’ll take the company for how much? Five hundred million? No, I understand.”
Jennifer felt her heart twist. Five hundred million. The company was worth 35 billion dollars 5 months ago.
She looked at Pascal, who folded his arms with smug satisfaction. “See?” he said. “Stay out of grown-up matters, Miss Jennifer. You are lucky we’ve been managing you this long.”
But Jennifer didn’t move. She just stared at Lesnar’s back, waiting and hoping he would listen to her.
When he finally ended the call, his expression said everything. “He’s not interested,” he muttered. “No one wants to buy a dying company.”
He sank into his chair as the weight of his failure crushed him. Jennifer stepped forward, setting her laptop on the table. Her voice came out calm but fierce. “Then don’t sell it. Let me prove I can save it. Allow me to do something."
Lesnar's attention turned to the screen instead.
Numbers on the big screen were tumbling, blood-red digits bleeding into one another as Skylife’s valuation dropped lower and lower. It continued to drop until finally, it flashed $0.00.
The room went still. The quiet wasn’t a peaceful one, but a suffocating one. Every pair of eyes stared at that single number as if staring could bring it back to life.
Lesnar’s hand slipped from the table. “That’s it,” he muttered. "Skylife is gone.”
Jennifer felt something twist in her chest. Gone? The word echoed through her skull like a scream. She stepped forward before she even realized she was speaking.
“Let me try,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the room’s tension.
Lesnar turned slowly, his eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “Try what? Jennifer, there’s nothing left to save. We’ll shut it down and cut our losses.”
She shook her head. “No. Let me work on the system. Please. I can fix this.”
Pascal, the head of the systems department, gave a derisive snort. “You? Fix it? ” he said, smirking. “If you were half as smart as you think, maybe your husband would have kept you in his company instead of throwing you here to rot in our department.”
Jennifer felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but she didn’t break eye contact. “At least I didn’t bring this company to zero,” she shot back.
The smirk on Pascal’s face faltered. Lesnar pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking up. “Enough! Both of you! This company’s finished. I will have to close it down before it buries me in debt.”
Jennifer took a step closer and said what shook everyone. “Since you want to close it down, give it to me.”
The room froze again. Pascal let out a startled laugh, then another, until he was laughing so hard tears shone in his eyes. “Give it to you? A dying company? You’ve really lost it.”
Lesnar just stared at her, incredulous. “Jennifer… do you know what you’re saying? If you take over, you take everything. The debt, the lawsuits, the mess. You will be walking straight into prison.”
“I'm not scared," she said with a bold voice. “You’re going to throw it away anyway. Let me try. I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens.”
Pascal folded his arms. “You’ll regret this.”
“No, I will only regret it if I don't have it." She replied.
Lesnar studied her for a long moment before he sighed and stood.
“You’re either very brave or completely insane. But fine. If that’s what you want…”
He crossed to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a thick folder and a form with the company seal embossed in blue. He signed, and the manager signed. When they were done, he looked up at her, “Sign it.”
Jennifer stared at the paper for a moment before she picked up the pen and signed her name.
Lesnar nodded once. “From this moment, Skylife is yours.”
At this moment, Pascal’s smirk was gone, replaced by something colder. But Jennifer didn’t even care. She turned towards him. "Take me to the main system room.”
He blinked. “What? ”
“You heard me.” She didn’t wait for his answer. She was already walking away.
Lesnar watched her go. Something about the sight made him stop breathing for a second. There was a strange fire in her walking steps. He found himself whispering under his breath, “God help her.”
In the hallway, the noise of panic filled the entire building—phones ringing off the hook, staff whispering, some already packing their desks. Jennifer didn’t slow down. Pascal followed behind her, muttering under his breath about the stupidity of it all, but she didn’t respond.
When they reached the secured door to the system control room, she turned to him. “Open it."
He hesitated. “This is pointless, Jennifer."
“Open it,” she repeated with a kind of tone that makes people obey before they think.
He swiped his card, and the door hissed open. The room was dim, humming with dying servers and flickering monitors. Red alerts flashed across the screens, indicating errors, system failures, and corrupted codes.
Jennifer stepped inside and scanned the large room. This was where Skylife had fallen apart, but maybe, just maybe, where she’d begin to rebuild it.
Lesnar, back in his office, sank into his chair and looked once more at the screen flashing the same merciless red number: $0.00. He picked up his personal belongings and left the building.
- Writer
