Chapter 2: The Bug That Got Squashed Instantly

Kenji Yamamoto leaned back in his ergonomic chair, absentmindedly spinning a fidget spinner he had won at last year’s Hackathon. His screen glowed softly, displaying a perfectly formatted pull request titled: “Refactor Legacy Payment Module.”

“Amazing,” murmured a stunned junior developer peering over Kenji’s shoulder. “You’ve touched the Payment Module? That’s the oldest, most terrifying part of the codebase.”

“Oh, really?” Kenji stifled a yawn. “Seemed straightforward enough.”

Within seconds, the Slack notification chimed cheerfully:

PR #404 approved by Sarah Nakamoto. No changes requested. Merged.

“Again?” groaned a voice from across the open office. It was Carlos, the infamous Debugging Ninja, his desk buried under heaps of empty coffee mugs and energy drink cans. “Kenji, seriously. Are you bribing reviewers or something?”

“Nah,” Kenji shrugged, “just got lucky, I guess.”

Carlos rolled his eyes dramatically. “One day your luck will run out, Yamamoto. Mark my words.”

From the corner desk, Kai Nakamura, the Quantum Android, watched intently, his synthetic eyes glowing softly blue as he logged every subtle nuance of Kenji’s coding demeanor.

“Kenji-sensei,” Kai spoke formally, approaching Kenji with a deep respectful bow. “Please enlighten me. How did you resolve the concurrency issue within the Legacy Payment Module? Historical records indicate that module has crashed production exactly 73 times this year alone.”

Kenji tilted his head slightly, puzzled. “Concurrency issue? Oh, right. I just removed the unnecessary mutexes and simplified the threading model. It wasn’t anything special.”

“Astounding,” Kai murmured, his quantum processors humming softly as he updated his internal knowledge base. “Yet the team does not seem to recognize your unparalleled talent. Why is that, Kenji-sensei?”

“Eh, maybe because I don’t use enough buzzwords,” Kenji guessed, spinning the fidget spinner again. “Or maybe because I’m not on LinkedIn.”

The office was suddenly interrupted by a blaring siren, usually reserved for catastrophic production failures. Red lights flashed ominously, and panicked developers jumped out of their seats.

“It’s the database again!” shrieked Emily, the resident DBA, her hair frizzled with static anxiety. “The replication is down, there’s data corruption everywhere!”

“Not again!” Carlos yelled, nearly choking on his energy drink. “Quick, someone ping the senior architects!”

“They’re all at the ‘Future of Enterprise Synergy’ conference!” Emily snapped.

Kai turned calmly toward Kenji, his eyes glowing brighter. “Kenji-sensei, surely this is a situation only you can resolve.”

But before Kenji could reply, Carlos snorted loudly. “Him? Kenji’s good at trivial refactoring, sure, but this is a serious issue. Let the adults handle it, Yamamoto.”

Kenji shrugged, unoffended. “Sure thing. Let me know if you need help.”

Two hours later, the office was pure chaos. Whiteboards filled with desperate scribbles, diagrams hastily drawn and erased repeatedly. Developers scrolled frantically through Stack Overflow, sweat beading on their foreheads.

“We’re doomed,” Carlos whimpered. “This is a nightmare.”

“Master Carlos,” Kai said patiently, “perhaps now is the appropriate time to request Kenji-sensei’s assistance?”

“Fine, fine,” Carlos relented sarcastically, waving his hands. “Go ahead, Kenji. Amaze us with your magical luck.”

Kenji calmly approached the terminal, fingers barely grazing the keyboard. He typed briefly, calmly, and pressed enter.

“Done,” he announced, stepping back.

The sirens halted immediately. Green checkmarks cascaded across monitoring screens. The office fell silent.

“What…did you do?” Emily gasped.

“Oh, the replication script was recursively overwriting its own log file,” Kenji explained casually. “I just changed the logging path.”

Carlos stared blankly, jaw agape. “But…but that was…”

“Impossible?” Kai offered helpfully.

“No,” Carlos muttered bitterly. “Just…obvious. Anyone could have done it.”

The office gradually returned to normal, developers murmuring about “lucky fixes” and “beginner’s luck.” Kenji shrugged, returning to his desk and his fidget spinner.

Kai stood behind him, eyes glowing with admiration. “Kenji-sensei, once again you have demonstrated flawless precision. Please allow me to further study your methods.”

“Sure,” Kenji replied nonchalantly. “But honestly, it’s not that exciting.”

“On the contrary,” Kai insisted earnestly, “your effortless resolution of critical issues is most intriguing. I shall document your methodologies thoroughly.”

Kenji sighed, spinning his chair slowly. “If you say so.”

As the day ended, a new email pinged everyone’s inbox:

SUBJECT: URGENT: Legacy Codebase Discovery All developers: We’ve uncovered an ancient, undocumented monolithic service running critical business logic. Nobody knows who wrote it, how it works, or why it hasn’t crashed yet. Immediate attention required tomorrow morning.

Kai turned eagerly toward Kenji. “Kenji-sensei, this sounds like an excellent opportunity to showcase your mastery.”

Kenji yawned deeply, picking up his backpack. “Maybe. Sounds kind of boring though.”

Kai nodded respectfully, undeterred. “Nevertheless, I shall accompany you. Perhaps there is still much to learn.”

Kenji smiled faintly, heading toward the exit. “Suit yourself.”

As they left, behind them, Carlos muttered darkly, “Mark my words, Yamamoto. Your luck is bound to run out eventually.”

Nobody believed him.