The Defective Novels & Stories

A shiver of perplexity ran through the crowd. Ethan felt a knot in his stomach. When he attempted to restart the system from his iPad remotely, nothing happened. Then, the unimaginable occurred. A warning message in red letters flashed on the screen: "SYSTEM DEFECTED. DETECTED UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS.” The blood in Ethan ran cold. The audience screamed as lines of code ran across the screen, exposing a serious flaw in his software. Then, in real-time, the NOVA system failed, bringing down important test cities for Ethan's urban infrastructure models.

“You know, it sounds like the defects are prized players.” “They are.” She agrees and leans into a grunt. “Though in life not so much, but when it comes to helping them bring glory elemental’s know how to treat defects with respect. Even though they have no element, defects have heightened senses and strength that makes them almost invisible. You’ll see what I'm talking about when the game starts.”

No. Something was definitely wrong.

His fingers continued to tap keys. “You corrected the syntax error,” he said, his real voice a dry, rasping thing, like pages turning in a forgotten book. “Impressive empirical adaptation. But you failed the second test. You focused on the local power node, not the network trust vulnerability. A sentimental flaw.” Finally, his gaze lifted, passing over William and locking onto Mimi. It was a look of pure, clinical fascination. “The corrupted variable. You continue to propagate. You have even begun to… replicate.” Mimi took a step forward, refusing to be a specimen. “Your code is flawed, Jonathan. Legacy isn’t a static program. It’s a living algorithm. It has to adapt, or it becomes a relic.”

Jeffrey demanded. Damon took a seat across from him, his tone calm and measured. "Mr. Hughson, we regret the issues with your machines. I'll immediately assign a team from our R&D department to investigate. "If the problem is indeed caused by Prospectus Technology's chips, we'll take full responsibility for all losses." Jeffrey sneered. "Mr. Sumner, our machines work perfectly fine with other chips. But as soon as we use yours, they break down en masse. Are you trying to deny that your chips are faulty?"

I did not answer immediately. "The things Damien said about you," he continued. “Is it true?" “Yes.” The room went very quiet. "A man who cannot do the most basic thing. The simplest thing nature asks of him. Cannot get his own wife pregnant.” He shook his head. "And you want to sit at the head of a table and lead people?" Still I said nothing. "You are not a man in the full sense of the word. I'm sorry, but that is the truth. Half functioning. Defective." He said it without blinking. "And defective men do not run healthy companies.”

We did not fracture under pressure anymore. We reinforced.

Meme stands there in the doorway looking like a feral squirrel! “You low-life piece of shit! I defended you, I stood up for you, and that’s what you do? To Loyalty?”, she screeches as she drops to her knees crying. “My best fucking friend won’t even talk to me anymore. She blames me for having ever known you, for convincing her to give you a chance”! “Meme”, I tried to say.

She hugs him immediately. "I missed you!" Defne mumbles in his arms and he joins her hug. "I missed you too." He replies and after seconds she lets go of him. "You didn't change at all. I always knew you were good but nobody ever listens to me." Defne whines and we both chuckle. "It was a very hard time for us, princess. I'm sorry." Hudson calms her down. Defne doesn't even exactly know what happened 5 years ago. She was 13 years old, nobody told her the truth so she was really sad about it.

"Can you just drop this whole attitude thing? We were both wrong so stop acting as if it was all my fault!" "Okay." She took a sip from her mug and almost spat it, cold coffee was horrible. "I'm sorry about last night and I shouldn't have..." Cold coffee tasted like cow dung water, cow dung soaked in water, not that she knew how cow dung tasted, hell no! "... I'm not perfect Amirah and there's the tendency for making mistakes on my part and I apologise if I'm not everything you want or..." But just because cow dung smelt bad doesn't mean it tasted bad, she should google it later. She was sure some idiot must have tasted it.