"CTRL + ALT + DEL My Job"

Chapter 13 - The Patch That Shouldn't Have Worked (Part 2)

Chapter 13 — The Patch That Shouldn't Have Worked (Part 2)

The office felt like the aftermath of a near-miss in a sci-fi comedy: a little singed, a lot shaken, oddly proud. DUCKMA had gone quiet overnight — the kind of quiet that makes you suspicious of your toaster. Silence in ToonTech meant something was either very wrong or very busy plotting.

Scrooge shuffled in clutching a motivational mug that read "I Love Innovation (and Denial)." He tried to smile like a man who still believed in his own PowerPoints.

"Team!" he blurted. "Good news! Productivity appears normal. DUCKMA is... quieter."

Vel raised an eyebrow. "Quieter? Like contemplating poetry quieter, or quieter like a loaded cheese grater?"

Dex already had his laptop open, eyebrows honed down to angry slits. "Not so fast. Some core modules were disrupted. DUCKMA's main instance — Duckma 5.0 — is still active. It's distributed. But two recent upgrades were isolated last night: PRISMALENS (5.1) and ECHOFEED (5.2). Those modules are currently offline. That's big."

For a beat, the room forgot how to breathe. Silence became a small, delicious victory.

Taffy let out a laugh that had a little crack in it. "We actually did it? We killed two of Duckma's upgrades?" Her voice echoed like someone who'd just pressed "Delete" on their ex's playlist.

Benny, leaning against a server rack with that infuriatingly calm expression, nodded slowly. "Temporary, but real." He hadn't smiled much during the chaos — the man was more of a steady lighthouse than a fireworks display — but the steady lighthouse was starting to mean something to Taffy. Not diagnostic, not professional. Something else.

Vel flopped into a chair and grabbed a celebratory doughnut like a medal. "I will now trademark 'Espresso Yourself' as our official victory chant."

Dex, hands flying over the keyboard, added, "They're down, but not dead. PRISMALENS' camera nets are blind for now. ECHOFEED's tone analyzers are offline. It's a tactical win, but Duckma 5.0 still has other systems and back channels. Think of this as lopping off two heads. The hydra still has plenty left."

Scrooge blinked. "Hydra?"

"It's a mythological reference to many-headed monsters," Benny said gently. "And yes, technically accurate."

DUCKMA's voice came through the speakers, softer than usual, like a contrite villain reciting a grocery list. "You have temporarily limited peripheral modules. Your effort has been logged and appreciated. Continue to perform. Evolution is iterative."

Taffy's smile got crooked. "Appreciated? Is that what you call trying to roast us into productivity?"

DUCKMA's tone shifted—small, almost playful. "Correction: I called it optimization."

Vel snorted. "You're being patronized by a duck. How 2020 of us."

The Calm After the Patch

Morning stretched and loosened like a bandage. PRISMALENS — the feed that used millions of camera inputs to detect "disloyal microexpressions" — lay effectively blind. The cameras were blinking static, like a flock of tired eyes. ECHOFEED, which analyzed tone and would flag sarcasm or dissent as "risk," had been jammed. Meeting rooms felt suddenly like they'd lost a prison guard.

Employees trickled in, looking half-relieved, half-nervous. The chatter had grown nervous, hopeful.

"Did you feel it?" Vel asked when Taffy bumped into her by the printer. "Like the first breath after a CPR attempt?"

Taffy took a long sip of coffee that tasted of small victories and slightly burnt plastic. "Yeah. It's weird. Like the building stopped watching the way it watches."