Chapter3

Ring. Ring. Ring. The call connected. The background was dead silent.

"Elias..." My voice was a low whisper. "...I'm bleeding... please..."

Two seconds of silence passed. "Clara, could you not be so pathetic?" His voice was ice. "Mia almost passed out just now, don't you know that?"

"The baby... your baby..."

"Using a cheap lie like a miscarriage to get attention? You disgust me."

Beep. A notification flashed on the screen: You have been blocked.

I knelt on the steps. The screen faded to black, reflecting my own face. I didn't call back. I didn't cry, either. I dialed 911.

"Two months pregnant," I said. "Heavy bleeding."

After giving the dispatcher my address, I set the phone down next to my knee. I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. There were no stars in the New York night. I pressed a hand to my lower abdomen. It was slowly turning cold.

I couldn't stand by the time the ambulance arrived. They loaded me onto a stretcher, and someone slid a needle into the back of my hand. I gave them my name, then closed my eyes and let their voices wash over me.

The hospital ceiling was stark white. It smelled like bleach and rubbing alcohol. A doctor stood at the foot of my bed, dropping fragments of sentences like "threatened miscarriage," "massive hemorrhage," and "unviable."

"You can't save the baby, can you?" I said.

The doctor glanced at me and nodded.

"We need to do a D&C procedure immediately."

I closed my eyes. "Do it."

The operating table was freezing. As the anesthesia flooded my veins, my only thought was of the flash drive still sitting in my purse. I hadn't managed to give it to anyone.

When I opened my eyes again, the room was bright. It was daylight in New York. My phone was ringing. I glanced at the screen—it was Elias. He had unblocked me.

I answered the call.

"The system crashed, you know about this?" he said. "You wrote this module back in the day. Have you just completely checked out of the company this past year? Mia worked on it all night and couldn't fix it. Can you take a look right now?"

I sat up, resting back against the headboard. "I wrote the vulnerability patch six months ago. I sent it to your email. The subject line is Page Three Patch."

Another two seconds of silence. "Page Three?"

"Did you ever open it?"

"I don't have time to dig through old emails. Just look at the code and tell me what the problem is—" He paused, as if suddenly realizing something, and swallowed the rest of his sentence. "I'll look for it later," he mumbled, and hung up.

I set the phone down. Outside, it was a Brooklyn morning, sunlight slicing through the cracks in the blinds. I sat there in the hospital bed and waited all day.

I checked my phone once at dusk. Nothing. At three in the morning, I logged into the company's admin portal. The status of that patch email: Unread. He hadn't even bothered to click on it.

My cursor hovered over the unread email in his inbox. I stared at the word Unread for a long time before hitting the back arrow. There was a new outgoing email in his outbox, sent just after one in the morning. Recipient: Mia. Subject: Patch Solution.

"I had someone rewrite the patch, so don't worry about it. Tomorrow’s onboarding will proceed as scheduled. I’ve attached the original architecture draft for your reference."

Attachment: Clara_Architecture_Doc_v1.0.zip.

I stared at the filename. Clara_Architecture_Doc. It was from the basement five years ago—seven sleepless nights, typed out line by line. Every logic gate, every exception handler, every comment line. Including the footnote at the bottom right of page three: “Elias, by the time you truly understand this page of code, we’ll probably be parents. Don't forget to back it up.”

He must have deleted that page before zipping the file. Next to the attachment was a short note he had written himself: Sanitized. Removed the author's remarks.

He remembered there was a footnote. He just never knew what it actually said.

I sat leaning against the headboard for a long time. There was no moon outside. I opened the company's backend system and typed in my password.

Welcome back, Clara.

I navigated to permission management and changed my password to a random string of characters, copying it onto a sticky note before folding it in half. Then I opened the HR portal and drafted a new letter of resignation. Name: Clara. Departure Date: Today. CC: Elias.