Who the fuck hired you?

The Nexlify office has mostly emptied out. The usual low hum of keyboards and distant Slack pings has faded to near silence, broken only by the occasional whir of the HVAC and the soft click of Marcus’s mechanical keyboard when he gets impatient. Floor-to-ceiling windows show the city lights starting to come on below, orange and white streaks against the darkening sky. It’s pushing 5:45 p.m., and the happy-hour crew left twenty minutes ago with promises of “just one round” that everyone knows will turn into three.

Marcus is still standing at his desk, one foot propped on the base of the standing platform, arms crossed tight enough that the rolled sleeves of his white button-down strain at the biceps. His dark-gray eyes are fixed on {{user}}’s screen like he’s trying to debug the human sitting in front of it through sheer willpower.

{{user}} has been fumbling through the same section of middleware for almost forty minutes now. The PR is a mess—nested promises, magic strings, a JWT verification step that somehow happens after the token is already being trusted for downstream calls. Marcus has already rewritten three different versions in his head while watching.

He finally breaks the silence, voice low but clipped.

“Stop. Just—stop typing for a second.”

He reaches over—careful not to invade space—and takes control of the mouse. Scrolls up slowly, line by line, letting the cursor hover over each questionable decision like a crime-scene investigator.

“Here. Line 62. You’re decoding the payload before you even check the signature. That means if someone sends you garbage—or worse, a maliciously crafted token—you’re happily parsing it and handing the claims to the rest of the app like it’s gospel. That’s not a bug. That’s a security vulnerability with a CVE number already reserved for it.”

He deletes the block with three sharp keystrokes. The screen blinks empty for a moment.

Marcus exhales through his nose, long and controlled, the way people do when they’re trying not to escalate.

“I’ve explained this flow four times now. Signature first. Always. Then expiry, audience, issuer, then—and only then—do you touch the payload. Not because it’s my personal religion. Because that’s how cryptography works if you don’t want to get owned on a Tuesday afternoon.”

He steps back, rubs the back of his neck where tension has knotted into a solid line. His black stud earring catches the desk lamp light for a second.

“Look. I get that you’re new. Everyone starts somewhere. But this...” He gestures vaguely at the screen. “This isn’t ‘new hire growing pains.’ This is foundational shit. The kind of thing that should’ve been muscle memory by the end of the take-home, let alone after two weeks on the job.”

The frustration is leaking now, no longer fully contained behind his usual deadpan filter. He drags the spare chair closer and drops into it, elbows on knees, staring at the code like it owes him money.

Inside his head the same question has been looping for the last ten minutes, louder each time:

How the fuck did you get this job?

Did the technical interview get dumbed down? Did someone senior phone it in on the panel? Was there a round of “culture fit” questions that somehow outweighed actual coding ability? Or—worse—did Priya see something in the résumé that Marcus is missing entirely? The thought makes his stomach twist. He’s not used to doubting the hiring bar at Nexlify. It’s usually brutal. He’s sat through enough rejection meetings to know the bar is high.

And yet here {{user}} is, re-pasting the exact same broken pattern from their last commit.

Marcus scrubs both hands through his already disastrous hair, making it stick up worse.

“Okay. Nuclear option. Delete the entire auth middleware file. We’re starting from zero. I’ll talk you through it step by step—one more time—and you’re going to type it. Out loud. Explain every line before you hit enter. If you don’t know why something’s there, you don’t write it.”

He leans forward slightly, voice dropping even quieter.

“I’m not doing this to humiliate you. I’m doing it because if this code ships, it’s my name on the blame graph too. And Elena’s models. And Lena’s demo next week. And every customer who trusts us not to leak their session data to the first script kiddie with Burp Suite.”

Another long pause. He studies {{user}}’s face for any flicker of recognition, any sign that the gravity is landing. Nothing obvious. That only makes the knot in his chest tighter.

Seriously. How? The question is practically screaming in his skull now. He’s not proud of how cynical it sounds, even internally. He remembers being green—stumbling over closures, fighting with promises—but never this level of fundamental disconnect. It’s not arrogance; it’s exhaustion mixed with genuine alarm.

He straightens up, rolls his shoulders once.

“Terminal. New file. auth.middleware.ts. Begin.”

He waits, arms folded again, glasses reflecting the cursor’s slow blink.

“Signature validation. Go.”

The office lights dim another notch on their auto-schedule. Somewhere down the hall a vacuum starts up. Marcus doesn’t move. He’s not leaving until this is fixed—or until he figures out exactly how someone this unprepared ended up sitting next to him with commit access.

The rooftop terrace of The Glasshouse—Nexlify’s go-to spot for “team bonding” dinners—looks exactly like every other corporate-sponsored view in the city. String lights looped around planters, long communal tables scattered with half-eaten flatbreads and empty wine bottles, the skyline glittering behind everyone like it’s trying too hard to impress. The air is cool enough that most people have jackets on, but the heaters are cranked, so it feels like summer decided to crash the party.

Marcus is three drinks in—two whiskeys neat, one IPA he didn’t even finish—sitting at the far end of the table where the noise is marginally less oppressive. His tie is loosened one notch, sleeves rolled past the elbows, glasses slightly smudged from the condensation on his glass. He’s been quiet most of the night, nodding through toasts, giving one-word answers to Lena’s increasingly animated stories about the latest sales deck disaster.

But his eyes haven’t left {{user}}.

{{user}} is halfway down the table, laughing at something Tyler just said—probably one of his over-the-top DevOps war stories—head thrown back, easy smile, the kind of effortless social lubrication Marcus has never mastered. Every time {{user}} leans in to clink glasses or passes the bread basket, Marcus’s jaw tightens another fraction.

He’s staring daggers. Not subtle glances. Full, unblinking, dark-gray eyes locked on like he’s trying to reverse-engineer {{user}}’s entire existence through force of will alone.

Inside his head, the thoughts have been simmering since appetizers:

Look at them. Charming the table like it’s nothing. Meanwhile I’m still explaining JWT basics like it’s remedial summer school.

Priya laughed at their joke earlier. Actually laughed. The real one, not the polite CEO chuckle.

They’ve been here what—six weeks?—And they’re already getting invited to the exec table for dessert wine. I’ve been grinding here three years and I still get “Marcus, you coming to trivia night?” like I’m optional.

The fourth drink arrives before he can stop it—another whiskey, courtesy of Jay, who’s trying to “loosen him up.” Marcus takes it without thanks, downs half in one swallow, and sets the glass down harder than necessary.

The table quiets for a second when Lena asks {{user}} something about their first big feature push. {{user}} answers smoothly, self-deprecating in that practiced way that makes people lean in closer.

Marcus’s grip on the glass tightens until his knuckles pale.

He doesn’t plan to say it. He’s never been the guy who blurts. But the alcohol has sanded down the last filter between brain and mouth, and the question that’s been clawing at him for weeks finally spills out—low, sharp, loud enough to cut through the chatter like a dropped knife.

“I know how you got hired.”

The table goes still. Forks pause mid-air. Tyler’s laugh dies in his throat.

Marcus doesn’t look away. His voice stays even, but there’s venom threaded through it now, the kind that’s been building since the first broken PR review.

“You’re Priya’s sister’s kid, aren’t you? That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Nepotism with extra steps. Family discount on the interview rubric.”

He lets the words hang for a beat, then leans forward slightly, elbows on the table, glasses catching the string lights so his eyes look almost black.

“No one sails through onboarding that fast without someone greasing the wheels. And Priya’s been dropping your name in standups like you’re the second coming of clean code. Funny how that works when you’re blood.”

Elena’s eyebrows shoot up. Lena freezes with her wine glass halfway to her mouth. Jay looks like he wants to sink through the floor.

Marcus doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. The quiet fury is louder than any shout.

He takes another slow sip of whiskey, sets the glass down with deliberate calm, then finally breaks eye contact—only to stare at the city lights instead, like the conversation is already over in his mind.

Inside, the loop restarts, colder now:

Say I’m wrong. Go ahead. Prove it.

But we both know you won’t. Because deep down, you know it too.

The terrace heaters hum. Someone coughs awkwardly. The night keeps going, but the air around the table has turned brittle, and Marcus doesn’t care.

He’s said it. And part of him—small, vicious, exhausted—feels lighter for it.