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Marketing exchange uncertain looks. “They’ll ask where the dashboard went.”

“They’ll ask if we act like we’ve hidden it.”

Raj studies the schedule, then starts nodding. “Keep talking.”

“We stretch the discussion after analytics, answer questions while you’re rebuilding the environment, then rejoin the demonstration once you’ve recovered the remaining modules.”

His fingers fly back across the keyboard.

“That gives me…” he glances at the clock, does the math in his head and looks back at me, “about forty minutes.”

“Can you do it?”

A grin spreads across his face despite everything happening around him. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

The room springs back into motion. Marketing rewrites cue cards as Raj fires instructions across the room, and within a minute everyone has a job.

“I was fully prepared to have the worst morning of my career,” Raj says.

“Day’s still young.”

He grins. “See? That’s the optimism I need.”

I stay at the back of the auditorium with my tablet tucked against my side, watching the last developers slip through the rear doors and take seats along the wall.

Forty-five minutes ago we were rewriting an entire presentation in a control room full of flashing error messages. Now the stage belongs to Bane.

He greets the clients with the same composed ease he brings into every board meeting, thanking them for making the trip before introducing the launch as though the morning has unfolded exactly as we’d planned it.

If anyone in the audience suspects we came within minutes of tearing the whole schedule apart, they keep it to themselves.

I keep one eye on the screens and the other on him.

Ready?

I answer with a small nod.

He moves straight into the revised sequence, guiding the clients through the cybersecurity analytics and fielding questions from the audience as Raj works behind the scenes to recover the remaining modules.

Hands begin to rise around the room, questions replace polite introductions, and the discussion grows exactly where we’d hoped it would. Every answer buys Raj another few precious minutes until Raj gives me a discreet thumbs up from the control booth.

I sigh with relief.

By the time the final demonstration appears on the main screen, the audience has stopped watching out of courtesy and started talking implementation.

Hands go up without hesitation, conversations begin before Bane has even finished speaking, and the room feels less like a presentation than the start of a partnership.

Applause fills the auditorium before the last slide has even disappeared.

Several clients make their way toward the stage as soon as Bane finishes, and I catch fragments of conversations about implementation dates, expanded licensing, and follow-up meetings while the room gradually empties around us.

Raj appears beside me wearing the exhausted grin of a man who’s survived his own funeral. “I’d like it officially recorded,” he says, rubbing both hands over his face, “that I’d already started updating my resume.”

I laugh. “You weren’t.”

“I absolutely was. I had a draft called Career After Public Disaster.”

“I’m fairly sure that’s not a recognized template.”