Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

"Anne... God, how I miss you... Can't you come back?" Murray murmured.

The only thing that answered him was the pitch-black living room and the relentless, howling cold wind outside the window.

The next morning, Roseanne was up with the birds. She showered, cooked breakfast, got ready, and prepared to head out to the lab.

As she was about to close the door, she noticed a paper bag hanging on the doorknob. Inside, there was a tube of the allergy nasal cream she always used. She glanced around. Who could have left this?

Suddenly, her eyes landed on the door across the hall. Roseanne looked at the nasal cream and then examined the paper bag more closely.

Just as she was about to knock on the door to ask if it was Owen who'd left it, the door abruptly swung open.

Owen stepped out, his face stern. Upon seeing her, he paused.

Sensing something was off, Roseanne asked, "Is something wrong?"

Owen replied, "Let's talk on the way to the lab."

"Okay," Roseanne said, her tone serious, momentarily forgetting about the nasal cream.

On the way, Owen received a phone call.

Whatever was said on the other end made his expression darken and his voice grow even more grave.

"...Alright, I understand. We're on our way now, should be there shortly."

After hanging up, without waiting for Roseanne to ask, Owen took the lead and said, "There's been a glitch with the lab's computers. All of this week's experimental data has been wiped. We haven't managed to recover it yet, and the worst-case scenario is—" He paused for a moment: "We've lost everything. We'd have to start all over."

Roseanne frowned, "Don't we have backups for the lab data?"

"The screen just went black suddenly. When we rebooted, we realized most of the backup was gone too, less than thirty percent was left."

To prevent data leaks and maintain computer performance, the lab's data is cleared monthly.

Last Monday was the end of the month, and they had just performed a cleanup.

Normally, there shouldn't be any issues, especially since data is backed up twice for safety. But... accidents still happen.

Was it really just an accident?

Owen thought it was too early to say.

...

At eight sharp, everyone in the lab had arrived, including Owen and Roseanne.

In addition, there were tech specialists who had signed confidentiality agreements to work exclusively for Kingswell University's lab.

Right after the computer glitch was discovered, Stoddard had immediately called for help.

The tech team was dispatched without delay.

However, even after half an hour, there was no progress.

Owen asked, "What's going on?"

Stoddard replied, "I just got a call from Liz. She booted up the computer to enter data, and it just went black. When she restarted it, the data was gone, and most of the backup was lost too."

"The techs have checked everything. Apart em the lost data, there's r

other issue. They're trying to

the lost backup now."

Jen frowned in concern.

Liz always handled the overall data management, and the entire team's reports went through her. Errors were rare.

This sudden mishap could mean that weeks of hard work were for nothing.

She must be feeling terrible right now.

Sure enough, when Jen looked up, she saw Liz pacing anxiously, her expression fraught with worry.

Sammy, not knowing much about computers, had been watching for a while. Every so often, he couldn't help but ask, "Hey boss, is there any chance we can get our data back?"