Her voice was calm, though her fingers trembled. It’s just a theory. I know I’m just I mean, I clean floors, but I study data analytics online. At night, he didn’t speak right away. Then he looked back down at the folder. Cassian had reviewed hundreds of proposals written by Ivy League grads funded by Venture Capital, but this wasn’t like theirs. It wasn’t polished. It was raw but deeply original.
The thinking was precise, clear, different. He closed the folder and finally looked at her fully. You did all this yourself? Lena nodded hesitantly. Just ideas. I don’t expect anything. I just thought maybe it could help. Cassian exhaled, the tension in his jaw easing slightly. Come with me. Lena blinked. I I still have 20 minutes left on my shift. He almost smiled. Almost.
I’ll talk to your supervisor. This won’t take long. They walked to the elevator. She followed in silence, heart pounding. The cables hummed softly as they ascended. Cassian stood beside her, unreadable, folder in hand. On the executive floor, the hallway was quiet, most offices already empty.
Cassian opened his door, gestured for her to enter, and walked straight to his desk. He spread the pages out across the glass surface, reading again, slower this time, more intently. Lena hovered near the door, unsure if she should even be there. Several minutes passed. Then he looked up. “You know,” he said. “If this works, even partially, it could change everything.” She blinked. “Do you really think so?” He nodded.
The core model was mine. But your suggestions, they fix what we overlooked. Maybe what I overlooked. She inhaled, her hands clenched lightly at her sides. Cassian leaned back in his chair, gazed still on the paper. Then without looking at her, he said, “Would you help me test it?” Lena froze. “Not officially,” he added. “Not yet. just help me figure out if this thing still has a pulse.
A pause? Then she stepped forward, her voice just above a whisper. Yes. Cassian finally looked up, and for the first time in weeks, something shifted in his expression, subtle, but real hope. Neither of them fully knew what they had just begun. But in that quiet office, under the weight of collapse, a janitor and a fallen CEO took the first uncertain step towards something more than redemption. A second chance.
Cassian paced outside the forgotten meeting room. No name plate, no visitors, just a dusty carpet and a single flickering bulb. He had made his decision. This time he would not wait on the board or pass it to another committee. This time he would act. He opened the door and gestured inside. Welcome to Project Backlight.
Inside were Lina Everheart, her blonde ponytail pulled tight, and Ezra, the quiet veteran engineer who had stood by Varity Tech since its founding. The three of them formed a strange triangle. The founder fighting to save what remained. the loyal technician wearied by corporate missteps and the janitor whose insight had sparked a flicker of hope. “Backlight,” Cassian said.
“Because this is the light behind the crisis. We either shine it or stay in the dark.” Lena nodded. Ezra responded with a short, silent nod. Cassian sat at the head of the table and opened the folder containing Lena’s notes. “Over the next month,” he said. We prototype the algorithm. We bypass the board.
We test it, validate it, and if it works, we present something real before they try to sell this company out from under us. Then they began. The nights blurred. Screens glowed with lines of code, dashboards, and data feeds. Ezra rebuilt pipelines. Cassian defined market assumptions. and Lina worked steadily in silence, penciling logic adjustments, reviewing anomalies, comparing sentiment analysis graphs. The quiet was broken only by keyboard clicks and the occasional hum of the HVAC overhead.
One night, Lena leaned in, squinting. Wait, something’s off. Cassian and Ezra turned. She pointed to a data set on the screen here. this third party input. There are duplicate user IDs. If the system treats each as separate, we’re generating double the sentiment weight. Ezra froze.
