Primary Key

Security not always known to her, but exactly what Michelle felt in this summer's heat. The devilishly handsome classmate was swooned over for his long, flowing hair with curls that encapsulated those piercing blue eyes as he studied to take over his family’s company. She always felt desired, but never truly understood, partially due to her fear of opening up to others, but Luke was able to pick apart Michelle’s brain the first time they met in the computer science course they both enrolled in. He could visibly see her passion and drive, but also the depths of her loneliness and fears of rejection inside.

The two enjoyed playing video games, especially first-person shooters like Call of Duty and Halo 2, but also the newly released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas role-play game, and this led them to brainstorming an outlandish idea after one of their group project meetings. They were all coding a function to import and export files into a database, but kept running into errors that took a tremendous amount of time to debug. “This would be so much faster to fix if each change we made automatically saved, like checkpoints in campaign games like GTA,” Michelle moaned, clearly frustrated by the amount of time it was taking them to execute the code. Then, she saw Luke poke his head up from behind the computer screen as his eyes met hers.

“Hey, that’s actually not such a bad idea, and I dig the analogy, although the COD campaign mode would’ve been a much cooler comparison,” he teased.

One of the group members, Jacob, unexpectedly chimed in. “She probably just saw the disc sitting on her brother’s desk and thought it would make her seem more attractive to pretend to be a gamer.”

This seemed to rub Luke the wrong way, giving Jacob a scowl before turning to Michelle. “What do you have to say? Is he right?” he asked with intent.

She pondered this for a moment before releasing a deep sigh. “I actually don’t have a brother, or any siblings for that matter, and I don’t see how pretending to be a gamer of all things would make me more desirable, but, nonetheless I am not lying, and I have pictures to prove it.” She turned to grab the backpack resting beside her chair and pulled out her cell phone, quickly pressing buttons to navigate to her photo album and scanning through for the photos of her growing video game collection. “Here,” Michelle said as she handed the phone to Jacob while the rest of them hovered over their computers to see. She could see their eyes widen as they viewed the image on her tiny flip phone screen of her Xbox and three video game disc cases stacked to the right of it.

“Well, I guess that settles it then,” Luke says as Michelle grabbed her phone and shoved it back into her bag. Jacob swivelled his chair back around to his desk and slowly slouched, his nose almost touching the screen, trying to hide his embarrassment from his classmates.

While everyone returned to their computers to frantically scan hundreds of lines of code for the syntax error throwing their function off, Luke rolled over to Michelle with his coffee in hand. “So, I’d like to hear more about that checkpoint idea you were talking about,” he says as he takes a sip out of the steaming styrofoam cup.

Michelle didn’t know how to react at first - no one had ever approached her to discuss one of her ideas before, and especially not someone as handsome and charming as Luke. Stumbling on her words at first, she finally was able to mutter out, “Oh, uhm, sure! What about it?”

This seemed to amuse Luke who flashed a quick grin as he leaned in towards her. “Well, walk me through your thought process and let’s build this idea together.”

Taken aback at first, she nervously smiled and began explaining that while completing missions in GTA, you hit checkpoints after finishing micro-missions like stealing cars or loot. After these checkpoints, she told how any time you die in a mission you will instantly be revived back to the last micro-mission you successfully completed, the checkpoint. “Now, if there was a way to instantly save code after a major checkpoint, like finishing a block of code, that would save a lot of time when errors like this happen.” She scanned his eyes for any clue of a response forming, but she immediately sensed his intense focus on her words and so she continued. “I know that best programming practice is to copy and save versions of the file you’re working in, but honestly, how often does every programmer forget to do this?” She was enthusiastic about this topic, her body movements sporadically emphasizing each point until she sunk back into the chair and anxiously tapped her feet against the floor as she waited for Lukes’s response. At first, she thought he might be daydreaming, lost in deep thought about some nonsense much more interesting than this, but his focus slowly returned as his gaze returned hers.

“Version control”, was the only thing he said after what felt like an eternity. “We could create a repository system for code that automatically commits changes made back into the repository working directory as a new version of the file, completely eliminating any human error because of bad memories,” he explained, a smile forming from teasing Michelle.

“That is exactly the solution I’m looking for!” She said as she raised her arms and caught the attention of the group who, if they didn’t already realize, now knew for certain that they had not been doing a single thing. Awkwardly avoiding any eye contact, she focused on the notepad in front of her that was filled with random notes and sporadic ideas she had for school and personal projects. She was brought back to reality when she felt Luke lightly brush his knee against hers, causing her eyes to burn at the place they collided, and she felt this weird sensation inside of her; not butterflies, exactly, but something more subtle, like their cocoons rattling against her heart causing the rest of her organs to vibrate.

When Luke finally saw her come back to present he continued on. “Well, why don’t we build that solution then, together, just the two of us?”

While the rest of the group was debugging, Michelle and Luke were developing Git, their version control idea coming to life. Not able to stop brainstorming after the meeting ended and their classmates filed out, they decided to move their conversation to Luke's dorm room located only a few blocks away. After packing up their things, both excitedly rushing to shove their supplies in their bags, Michelle and Luke rushed over to the large dorm building towering over nearby buildings with a myriad of windows providing students with a tiny escape from the taxing realities that their newly embarked educational journeys have served them with.

As he turned and placed his bulky body over hers, Michelle could feel the weight of the world escape from her chest. She wasn’t sure how they got to this moment; one second Luke was rummaging through his khaki pants in front of the deep blue door located on the third floor of the dorm building, desperately searching for his keys. The next moment, she was taken into his large, strong hands that gently pulled her face towards his, shattering any boundaries Michelle was trying to put up between them. All that mattered to her now was here, in this room, right in front of her, with eyes searching his for the key they'd both been looking for.

This passion lasted throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning as they saw the sun peek its way through the tiny gaps between his shutter curtains, the annoying design choice made by the university to block sunlight from disturbing their students who so desperately needed any rest they could afford. This change from night to day woke Michelle up from her trance and she felt a sudden need for rest in her own bed, under her own covers, with the sole company of her own ruminating thoughts and the comfort of her protected heart from emotional hurt. She knew it was too early to make it home without questioning from Luke, but she also wanted to stop this passion with him without suddenly seeming uninterested.

“Luke”, she quickly breathed between his shaky groans, “I don’t think I can handle much more.”

He seems to take to this and with an amused grin slowly spreading across his face, he returned to lay on his side and settled in with an intent look at her. “Why I shall think to take that as a compliment and leave you to your rest, my genius gamer girl.”

She couldn’t help but smile at this, and without thinking, she turned so his face was against the back of her neck as she settled her thighs between his and her shoulders became entangled by both of his arms, tightly wrapping around and cocooning her beneath him. Moments later, she dozed off into a deep dreamy sleep, completely breaking her own boundaries as Luke stroked her thick, tangled hair and stared into bright white light seeping its way through the tiny slits between curtain panels that hung from the ceiling, a smirk forming that he couldn’t put to rest.

A few hours later, Michelle’s senses were woken up by the sweet aroma of coffee grounds being pressed and heated into a smooth, creamy mixture of rich espresso and frothed milk. She could definitely get used to this, she thought as she smoothed her tousled hair and slowly climbed out from under the heavy duvet cover she slept beneath while wrapped between Luke’s legs, and then hunted for the pieces of clothing that were scattered about.

Luke was quick to notice her awaken as he greeted her with a soft kiss on her forehead while she was putting on her socks and he placed a latte between her shaky hands. She had never done something like this before, stayed the night over with a man she barely knew, never mind not telling anyone of her whereabouts. She quickly swallowed this surge of panic with a gulp of the warm drink she was desperately holding onto as she soaked in the view of this man she shared a night of passion with. They slowly moved to the kitchen where he started whisking up batter for what would later turn into fluffy, golden brown pancakes doused in syrup and placed next to them on the pale green laminate countertop. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so at ease, oblivious to the storm brewing between them.

//

Planning and developing took a lot more time than either of them anticipated, and they ended up spending most of their waking hours together coding until the sun went down and they hid under the sheets. She was alone for most of her life, and so Michelle learned to keep people she cared for at a distance. With Luke, though, all her guards went down and senses went astray as she indulged in his faint musky scent, got lost in those deep blue eyes and fell in love with the ideas emerging from within him each moment they spent together. This made concentration on her goals difficult and getting rest almost impossible for the rest of the semester as he consumed virtually all of her thoughts, even trickling his way into her private dreams. What she wasn’t focusing on, though, was the present moment and the way he tricked her into completing all of his class work with no hesitation.

Dr. Gordon was a longtime professor at the university and a skilled programmer in his early days at Microsoft who had a driving passion for teaching others the intricacies of code and how it could effectively be used to enhance business profits, fix major worldly crises and build new innovations. More recently, though, he became interested in promoting female programmers, something inherently lacking in the industry that was easily spotted in the male-dominated culture he found himself immersed in during his time at Microsoft. Leading the development of IBM’s operating system for their first computer, he saw the gender discrepancies as clear as day with the only females occupying roles in reception or other low-wage, junior-level positions that offered little to no career advancements other than ascending in elevators to take meeting notes for their male senior managers and company partners.

Having raised two young daughters with his dear wife, Dr. Gordon was surrounded by the intelligence and quick wit of females for the majority of his life, teaching him a great deal more than any profit-driven leader he’s worked alongside. The rising interest of programming in females brought him great joy, but he also saw that there was a long way to go in terms of fairness and equality between the two groups. The belief that most of his male counterparts struggled with, he believed, was that they were entitled to whatever they wanted at the expense of any woman, using them merely as a disposable means to their ends.

Although Luke received just about everything he could ever want in life, this seemed leave him wanting even more. Coming from a wealthy home of loving parents and a slew of friends and sports teams he was popular with, his childhood and early adulthood were picture-perfect, and yet could never seem to settle with what he had.

He excelled in every sport he tried, ranging from volleyball and baseball to football and lacrosse, before finally discovering a love for hockey that he never felt for anything before. Couple this with his equally impressive grades throughout school and you have the model young man that any woman would unquestionably swoon for, and oh, did they ever. Utterly desirable and undeniably attractive, females were simply magnetized towards him and couldn’t seem to get enough. The dating prospects he had to choose from were endless, but he was simply never satisfied with his choices; that was, until he met Michelle.

Her sense of humour and immense knowledge of programming paired with curiosity that sparked from just about anywhere instantly attracted Luke, something he’d never seen in such a beautiful woman before. It’s not that the ones that came before her were not any of these things; it's just that they simply didn’t have the courage to display it to the world with such courage that Michelle did. Underneath all of this, though, he could sense that she withdrew from showing her complete self. He was determined to explore her mind and find out just exactly who Michelle really was, underneath this mask of independence and courage.

//

While marking individual coding assignments one brisk fall evening, sitting on his outdoor patio with laptop placed on his lap, Dr. Gordon was sipping on a glass of merlot and enjoying the serene view of the quiet lake in the distance of his backyard. He found this spot to be both relaxing and refreshing, something that proved to aid him while grading assignments. He wasn’t sure how he managed to get so lucky, but was happy he was able to share this fantasy with some of the women he loved most. Working in this peaceful environment allowed him to focus on each line of code he was grading. This in-depth analysis was hard to accomplish on such a peaceful night, but Dr. Gordon was thrilled to have done so when he noticed something shocking about some of the students’ submissions. He was reading through Luke’s code when he got a sudden feeling that he’d marked it before. Triple checking his grading book, he was certain this was not the case and so he searched through each assignment in search of the similar code. At last, he found the culprit in the assignment handed in by Michelle. Initially shocked, he slowly came to understand how this could ever have happened with his brightest student in the class; manipulation was difficult to escape.

The following morning before class, he found Michelle and Luke to ask them to meet him after class. When they did, they were shocked to see their individual assignments from a couple weeks ago displayed in front of them on their professor's desk. Not sure what to say, both looked at each other and then back to the papers now being held firmly by Dr. Gordon.

“Well, I asked you both to come see me today to discuss the solo assignments you two seemed to have helped each other with”.

Confused, their eyes each widen as they search for the right words to say. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, professor,” Luke begins.

“Yeah, I don’t understand.”

“Well, let me try and clarify so we’re all on the same page. While I was grading the class assignments last night, I couldn’t help but notice the shocking similarities between two submissions in particular” Dr. Gordon said as he took in a deep breath as he placed the papers back down. “Surprisingly, those assignments were yours.” He looked across his desk at the two students standing across from him; one displaying a pout of disappointment, the other exerting a façade of failure. “Now, since this is the first time either of you have done anything of such offence on record, I will merely distribute a failure to each of you on this assignment and put a stop any further academic punishment. If either of you are caught helping with individually-graded assignments in the future, though, I will have no choice but to inform the head of the department who will take further, more severe actions.” He loosened the grip of his tie against the top of his neck as he dismissed the two of them from the lecture room, disappointed that he wasn’t able to call out deceit when he saw it clear as day.

If there was any tension between Michelle and Luke before, then what they experienced since their meeting with Dr. Gordon was nothing comparable. Michelle could hardly look at him during the rest of their group meetings, and when Shelley, one of the other group members noticed Michelle’s scowling glances towards him, she leaned onto Luke for support with her idea for the final part of their submission that was completed just days later. As the leaves on the ground quickly disappeared under blankets of weighted snow, so did any real communication between the two former lovers.

“Did you reset the password to our repository?” Michelle inquired to Luke through Facebook chat one evening, desperately waiting for an answer as she propped her knees up on her bed, resting her dreary head against them. She was up all night desperately trying to get into their files so she could work on an idea she just sparked.“Did you reset your password?” She asked again, desperate to hear anything from Luke. After a few moments she noticed the tiny chat bubble emerge, his response being typed. She instantly sprung up and clung a pillow against her chest, too nervous to bear any words he had to say without the support of something. Minutes passed, and after what seemed like forever, Michelle finally released her grip and sunk back into the sheets, defeated by the now obvious betrayal of Luke and his former midnight promises unambiguously sealed with a kiss.

Over the next few months, word spread across campus that a student successful pitched a business idea to a few classmates-turned-major investors. This was said to be the next greatest technological advancement to support open-source development and collaboration between programmers, a document repository system called Git. Instantly breaking Michelle’s heart, the betrayal she first felt in the dingy classroom held in the basement of the science building suddenly returned with intense force that knocked her off her feet and onto the nearby bench at the cafeteria lounge. “How could this have happened?” she thought as she rested her head against her arms crossed on the table in front of her. This heartbreak marked the beginning of years of struggle for Michelle who, after graduating at the top of her program, went awol and hid between the walls of her one-bedroom apartment, surrounded only by the presence of her needy three-year old cat and the California mountain views through the single window.

One morning, as Michelle was walking through her quiet residential neighbourhood like she normally did, she suddenly fell lost in thought while staring into the sky as the sun emerged from the cloudy horizon that blocked the sunny city’s light for days. Working a low-salary, entry-level position three years post-graduation was funding the lifestyle she desired but was definitely not offering the same satisfaction and financial security years later. She longed to work in the familiarity of her home while emerging herself in projects that truly sparked interest and manifested joy within her. She was tired of tracking each bill paid for on different cards she'd accumulated to manage the debt stacked up from years of avoiding internal feelings with travelling and unnecessary stuff.

Fuelled by anger and desire for more, she stormed back to her apartment and opened up her MacBook that she hadn’t touched in the years since graduating. Instantly feeling the memories emerging as she opened the fully charged laptop up to its loading screen and awaited the password prompt. As if on cue after dragging her mouse into the textbox, her fingers instantly typing the password her computer was requesting; one that she hadn't used in years. Folders containing hundreds of projects for courses she once took popped up on the screen of the outdated operating system the late MacBook ran on. Her eyes veered over to the far right corner where the folder labelled “Git” sat untouched after receiving the disheartening years from her computer science professor after class one day in the same room she refused to step into again. It had been years since she looked through the initial brainstorming and planning of the idea she created with her former flame. It amazed her to see the creativity her young mind possessed and the spirit deep in her that believed this idea could come to pass. Never did she think that the idea would be stolen by the same person that took every inch of security she created for herself since losing her father and then the protection of her mother shortly after.

Over the next few days, Michelle barely emerged from the dingy unit on the third floor of the rustic building she rented as soon as she received her credentials pasted on a yellow parchment and signed a job offer in a town halfway across the country. The memories of those early days were captivating her as she came up with new creative ideas she never thought possible from someone living such a dull life. Using her original creation as inspiration served as a huge success as the final touches of the software hosting system were being done. Of course, she could not have accomplished this alone, but she learned the hard way that selecting a partner to run a business with was no minor decision; it would change the course of their relationship together in ways she was scared to think about. This is why, when walking through the old university corridors one evening to gain inspiration, she was surprised to walk into Dr. Gordon exiting an empty lecture room she hadn’t realized anyone was still in.

“Michelle! How great to see you. It has been awhile, hasn’t it? You look just the same, wandering aimlessly through the halls, lost in deep thought while clutching onto that MacBook of yours.”

“The same one!” Michelle teased as she shoved the laptop under her left arm and took the professor’s extended hand into hers, embracing each other as they each looked to the other in shock. Their sudden encounter turned into hours of catching up at the nearby cafeteria where they ordered endless refills of black tea and discussed their lives since last meeting.

“It turns out that raising two young women costs a bit more than my wife and I were expecting, and so my lecturing had to continue in order to fund theirs,” Dr. Gordon explained to Michelle while waiting for his tea to cool off. Distraught to hear this, Michelle offered her kind words of encouragement before telling him of her enjoyable times as a student not too many semesters prior.

“I seemed to settle for a job that isn’t challenging me whatsoever,” Michelle went on explaining after Dr. Gordon pressed on to hear more about her recent events, “and it led me to working on my own side project after finding this laptop a few months ago,” nodding at the laptop now sitting on the same table that she once used to comfort her broken spirit. Before even realizing it, Michelle went on to explain that while scanning her old work done on Git, she remembered a huge gap in the service offering that she never had an opportunity to address with her then partner. Any team could use the software, but where would it be hosted? Surely this is a simple hurdle for large businesses to overcome since they have the resources to host a repository, but what about students or companies in their early stages of development? Michelle passionately explained how expelling excess funds on resources such as these was usually out of the question for these organizations having such limited funds. This promoted her to work on creating an online hosting service for software development projects and version control using the same software that was taken from her.

//

After years of legal battle against Shelley, Luke was finally released and able to negotiate a deal with Michelle that she never dreamed would happen in the years of development she underwent to build her company.

Losing the support of his early friends and investors, Luke was left with no choice but to reduce his operations, affecting profits all while making his wife miserable in the process. GitHub, an online hosting service platform developed by old university classmate and professor Michelle and Dr. Gordon, erupted the industry once word of its development got out. It was so promising that his main support system was taken right from under his feet and given in turn to this new venture and funding his main competitor, forcing his team to work twice as hard to stay afloat. This struggle never seemed to end and once the funds he put aside were released, he contacted Michelle to explain his offer.

The number that was provided by Luke was more than Michelle could even fathom receiving for selling her stock in company, so she quickly put the call on speaker and looked to Dr. Gordon to give her advice as they stood hovering over the conference phone. “Could you repeat that?” Michelle asked as she fumbled to search for the sticky notes and pen strewn about on her desk.

“7.5 million US dollars,” came a voice from the other end of the speaker. “This is what we’re prepared to offer your company in exchange for a majority share of the stock.”

Dr. Gordon dropped the pen he was gripping onto the floor and grabbed hold of the chair in front of him. Darting a look at Michelle, he quickly nodded his head in agreement as she leaned further into the microphone.

“I’ll have to talk it over with my legal team and investors, but between us, I am fully prepared to accept this offer and look forward to working with you.” She couldn’t believe what was unfolding right in front of her; not only was she receiving the financial independence she was so desperately fighting for, but she was now given freedom and able to focus her attention on dreams she had envisioned for some time, rather than working to make company investors happy. Even better, she would accomplish these with the support of her team to be executed by none other than the same man who stopped her from reaching her goals in the first place.

Years later, after a successful decade of innovation and business operations, the company was once again contacted to discuss a potential acquisition deal. This time, though, the company in question was the same organization that led Dr. Gordon to teach against its excessively profit-driven values they promoted. Microsoft couldn’t seem to ignore the success of GitHub and was prepared to take them on as a subsidiary of their company for over triple the estimated value, offering the them 7.5 billion dollars in exchange for ownership rights of the company. On top of this, they wanted to take Michelle on to lead the migration as part of Microsoft’s official team and replace Luke with one of their internal staff to guide GitHub employees as they transitioned into the world of Microsoft.

Looking back now, Michelle couldn’t believe the journey it took to get where she was today. She truly hit the jackpot; won the lottery; uncovered lost treasure.

In the end, he had the password, but she had the key.

~

Copyright © 2023 Kalina Bethany. All rights reserved.

Thanks for reading this short bit for the Reset Your Password Challenge.

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