LEGENDARY LOVERS

FIRST DAY

Naya set 3 alarms.

6:00. 6:05. 6:10.

She woke up at 5:58 anyway.

Her room in the NYU graduate housing was quiet. Seli was still asleep, buried in her blanket. Outside the window, Manhattan was already starting to move. Delivery trucks. Joggers. The city didn’t wait.

Naya sat on the edge of her bed for a full minute. Today was May 5th. Day 1 at Riaxx Tech.

She had laid everything out the night before.

The outfit took her the longest to decide.

Option 1: Full suit. She owned three . Black blazer, black trousers or blue blazer, blue trousers or red blazer ,red trousers. The black looked more professional.

Option 2: Jeans and hoodie. Comfortable. But this was RL Tech.

Option 3: The middle.

She went with the middle.

Black trousers that actually fit. A white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up once. Her one blazer, slightly wrinkled even after ironing it twice. And her sneakers. White. Clean. Because she was going to be walking, and because she was not going to pretend to be someone who wore heels to code.

She added her watch. Her dad gave it to her for high school graduation. It was simple and still worked.

Hair in a low ponytail. Glasses. No makeup except lip balm.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Professional. But still her.

Bag packed: Laptop. Charger. Notebook. 2 pens. Water bottle. Granola bar and mango flavoured yogurt . Her ID from the onboarding email.

She left at 7:10am.

The subway was crowded. People with coffee, people on calls, people asleep standing up. Naya held her bag to her chest and stared at the map. 42nd Street. Riaxx Tech Tower.

Her stomach kept flipping. What if she got lost. What if her badge didn’t work. What if she said the wrong thing.

She got off at 7:50am. The building was impossible to miss. All glass. 42 floors. Her name was already in the system.

Security checked her email.

Intern, he said. Engineering.

He gave her a temporary badge. Floor 12.

The elevator was full. Everyone in suits. Talking about "standups" and "sprints" and "the board." Naya counted the floors in her head. 1... 10... 12.

The doors opened and the noise hit her. Keyboards. Phones. The smell of coffee.

Floor 12 was open office. Desks in rows. Monitors. Post-its. It felt alive.

A woman at the front desk looked up. Can I help you?

Naya. Chen. Intern, she said. My name is Naya Chen.

Oh right, the woman smiled. Desk 12B. Mr. Reyes will be with you in a bit. Bathroom is there. Kitchen is there. Don’t touch the CEO’s coffee machine on 42.

Naya nodded and found her desk.

12B. It was small. One monitor. One keyboard. One chair that squeaked. There was a sticky note on it: Welcome Naya!

She sat down and plugged in her laptop. Her hands were shaking a little.

For the first hour, no one talked to her. She set up her accounts. Read the employee handbook. Joined the Slack channels. #engineering, #interns, #announcements.

People walked past. Some said hi. Most didn’t.

At 9:30am Mr. Reyes finally came over. Tall. Tired eyes. He had a coffee in one hand and a phone in the other.

You are the new intern, he said. Good. Sit tight. We have onboarding at 10.

The onboarding was 20 other interns in a conference room. HR talked about benefits and code of conduct and " Riaxx Lamps Tech values." Innovation. Integrity. Impact.

Naya took notes. She didn’t raise her hand.

Lunch was at 12:30. Everyone went to the kitchen on floor 12. There was free food. Bagels. Fruit. Naya made a sandwich and sat at the corner table by herself. She ate fast and went back to her desk.

At 2pm she got her first task. Not coding. Just documentation. Read through the API docs and flag anything confusing.

She did it. She found 3 things that were confusing and wrote them in an email. Short. Clear.

Mr. Reyes replied in 5 minutes: Thanks.

That was it.

The rest of the afternoon was slow. She watched tutorials on the company’s internal tools. She learned where the printers were. She learned that people called Zyane Lamps "ZL" and that no one went to floor 42 unless they were called.

At 4:45pm people started packing up.

Naya stayed until 5:15. She didn’t want to be the first to leave. She also didn’t want to be the last.

On her way out she stopped at the elevator. There were 3 banks. One said: EXECUTIVE. FLOOR 42. ACCESS ONLY.

She didn’t look at it for long.

The subway ride home was easier. Less crowded. She got a seat. She opened her notes app and typed: Day 1. Survived.

Back in her room, Seli was waiting.

HOW WAS IT, Seli yelled.

It was fine, Naya said. Quiet.

Did you meet the CEO?

No, Naya said. I’m an intern.

Did you eat?

Yes.

Did anyone talk to you?

Mr. Reyes said thanks.

Seli deflated a little. That’s it?

That’s it, Naya said. And it was enough.

She took off her blazer and hung it up. She put her badge on her desk.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.

She almost ignored it.

Zyane Duah: Welcome to Riaxx Tech, Ms. Chen. Hope your first day was good.

Naya stared at it. The CEO. Texting her. On day 1.

She didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say.

She just set her phone down, made tea, and opened her laptop.

Tomorrow she would come in again. Same outfit, maybe different shirt. Same subway. Same desk.

She had no idea that tomorrow, everything would change.

That by 6pm, the entire company would be in crisis.

And that she would be the only one who could fix it.