Glitch of the Good Samaritan

Chapter 1: The Excel Sheet of Doom

"Oh, come on! You've got to be kidding me!"

Henry gasped, sucking in a lungful of dry, recycled air that smelled strongly of burnt hazelnut coffee and cheap carpet cleaner. He bolted upright, his palms slamming against the familiar laminate surface of his old desk.

"Wait. No. This isn't right," Henry muttered, looking down at his hands. They were smooth. Unwrinkled. No liver spots, no tremors from the stroke that had just killed him in his sleep at age fifty. "Did I... did I just wake up in 2024?"

Before he could process the sheer absurdity of his situation, a blinding flash of light erupted right in front of his eyes.

`[WARNING: CARDIOVASCULAR ANOMALY DETECTED.]`

`[CHRONO-RESTORATION COMPLETED. CURRENT STATUS: FRAGILE.]`

`[QUEST ACTIVATED: THE CUBICLE COMPASSIONATE.]`

`[OBJECTIVE: FIX YOUR NEIGHBOR’S CORRUPTED EXCEL SPREADSHEET.]`

`[TIME LIMIT: 02:59]`

`[PENALTY FOR FAILURE: INSTANT, EXCRUCIATING HEART ATTACK. HAVE A GREAT DAY!]`

"A heart attack?" Henry yelled, staring at the floating neon green text. "Are you serious? I just survived a temporal rewind, and my reward is a digital threat on my life? What even is this?!"

"Henry? Are you talking to yourself again?"

Sarah’s voice drifted over the partition of the cubicle to his left. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears, her breathing shallow and frantic.

"Sarah?" Henry turned his head. "Is that you? You look... so young. And not divorced yet."

"What? I’m twenty-six, Henry! And I’m about to be fired!" Sarah wailed, pulling at her hair. "I broke it. I broke the entire system. The quarterly budget pivot table is just... it’s all `#REF!` and `#VALUE!` errors! The VP is coming in ten minutes! I’m going to end up living in a cardboard box under the highway, Henry! I’ll have to sell my organs!"

"Okay, okay, calm down," Henry said, trying to stand up to walk over to her desk. "Let me take a look at—wait. What the hell?"

He tried to push himself out of his ergonomic chair, but his legs refused to move. He couldn’t even lift his feet. His torso was locked tight, glued to the mesh backing of his seat.

`[ERROR: SYSTEM LOCK IN EFFECT. MOTOR FUNCTIONS RESTRICTED UNTIL QUEST ACCEPTANCE.]`

`[TIME REMAINING: 02:15]`

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" Henry screamed at the empty space in front of him. "Unlock me! You stupid, glowing piece of malware! Let me move!"

"Henry, who are you screaming at?!" Sarah sobbed, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at her screen. "Is there a ghost? Did a ghost corrupt my spreadsheet?!"

"No, Sarah, there is no ghost! It’s just... a very aggressive piece of UI!" Henry gritted his teeth, his chest tightening as a sudden, sharp pain flared near his ribs. The timer was ticking down. 01:59. "Fine! I accept the stupid quest! Just let me move my hands!"

`[QUEST ACCEPTED. TEMPORARY MOTOR CONTROL GRANTED FOR DESIGNATED TASK AREA ONLY.]`

With a sudden jolt, Henry’s hands shot forward, gripping the edge of his desk. He still couldn't stand, but he could roll. He grabbed the plastic armrests of his chair and aggressively kicked off the carpet, wheeling himself backward and then sliding sideways into Sarah’s cubicle like a drift racer in a Honda Civic.

"Whoa! Nice entrance!" Sarah gasped, wiping her nose. "But seriously, look at this! It's a massacre!"

"Let me at the keyboard," Henry commanded, his voice dripping with absolute, life-or-death intensity. "Move your chair, Sarah. Now! We have exactly one minute and forty seconds before my heart explodes!"

"Your heart? What about my career?!" Sarah scrambled backward, letting Henry slide into her workstation.

Henry stared at the monitor. The spreadsheet was indeed a complete disaster. A tangled web of broken VLOOKUPs, circular references, and misplaced commas. To any normal junior analyst, it would take hours to untangle. But Henry had spent twenty years in this digital hellscape before his death. He knew these formulas better than his own mother's birthday.

"This is amateur hour," Henry muttered, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Who still uses VLOOKUP in this day and age? It's all about INDEX MATCH, you beautiful disaster."

Suddenly, heavy, slow footsteps echoed down the tiled hallway.

"Oh, look who it is," a smug, nasally voice sneered. "The dynamic duo of the finance department, huddled together like rats in a sinking ship."

Henry didn't even need to look up to know who it was. Jackson. The golden boy. The snake who, on this exact day in Henry's past life, had planted a thumb drive full of stolen company data in Henry's desk and called security to have him escorted out in handcuffs.

"Not now, Jackson," Henry hissed, his fingers beginning to fly across the keyboard in a blur of motion. Tap-tap-click-tap. "I am literally fighting for my cardiovascular survival."

"Oh, is that what we're calling gross incompetence these days?" Jackson stepped into the cubicle, flanked by two towering, burly security guards in tight polo shirts. Jackson wore a tailored grey suit that cost more than Henry’s car, and his hair was slicked back with enough gel to ignite a small fire. "I’m afraid your little survival game is over, Henry. Gentlemen, if you would."

"Wait, what's going on?" Sarah blinked, looking back and forth between them. "Jackson, why do you have security? Did Henry steal your lunch again? Because I told you, that was an accident!"

"This is much bigger than a stolen turkey club, Sarah," Jackson smiled, a cold, triumphant gleam in his eyes. He tapped a thick manila folder against his palm. "We’ve had a serious security breach. Intellectual property. Stolen client data. And guess where the digital footprint leads? Right to Henry's workstation."

`[WARNING: TIME REMAINING: 00:45]`

`[HEART RATE RISING. PRE-ARREST FLUTTER INITIATED.]`

A dull, squeezing pain clamped down on Henry’s chest. He gasped, his vision blurring. "Damn it... the formula... where is the closing parenthesis?!"

"Are you ignoring me, Henry?" Jackson’s sneer deepened. "You can't type your way out of this one. Security, stand behind him. Don't let him touch anything else. He’s probably erasing the evidence."

"Don't you dare touch me!" Henry roared, his fingers moving at a speed that defied human biology. The keys hummed. "Sarah, what was the cell reference for the Q3 overhead?!"

"Uh... E14! No, wait, F12!" Sarah shrieked, clutching her head. "Or maybe it was G?! I don't know, Henry! The numbers are dancing!"

"It's F12! I know it's F12!" Henry shouted.

`[WARNING: TIME REMAINING: 00:20]`

A guard stepped forward, reaching a beefy hand toward Henry's shoulder. "Sir, step away from the keyboard."

"If you touch me before I hit enter, we are both going to die!" Henry yelled, ducking under the guard's arm with a desperate, wild pivot of his office chair. "Jackson, you absolute parasite, I will deal with you in exactly ten seconds!"

"He's resisting!" Jackson pointed dramatically. "Get him! Put him on the ground!"

"INDEX! MATCH! IFERROR!" Henry chanted like a demonic wizard casting a high-level spell. His left pinky flew to the escape key, his right thumb slammed the spacebar, and with one final, glorious motion, he brought his index finger down on the Enter key like a hammer striking an anvil.

CLACK.

The screen flashed. The sea of red `#REF!` errors vanished instantly, replaced by a beautiful, perfectly calculated column of green, profitable numbers. The quarterly budget sheet was flawless.

`[QUEST COMPLETED: THE CUBICLE COMPASSIONATE.]`

`[REWARD DISTRIBUTION: HEALTH STABILIZED. MOTOR FUNCTIONS RESTORED.]`

`[BONUS REWARD: +1 TO PERMANENT DEXTERITY.]`

Instantly, the crushing weight on Henry’s chest evaporated. A rush of warm, tingling energy surged down his arms and into his fingertips. They felt lighter, sharper, moving with a fluid grace he had never possessed in his entire life.

"Oh, thank god," Henry breathed, leaning back in his chair and letting out a hysterical laugh. "I'm alive. I'm actually alive."

"What the... what did you just do?" Jackson blinked, staring at Sarah's monitor. "Is that... is the budget fixed?"

"It's beautiful!" Sarah wept, throwing her arms around Henry's neck. "Henry, you're a god! You saved my life! You saved my cats!"

"Yeah, yeah, you can thank me later, Sarah," Henry said, gently detaching her arms. He slowly turned his chair to face Jackson, a cold, dangerous smile spreading across his face. He felt the new, rapid thrum of energy in his hands. "+1 Dexterity, huh? Let's see what this baby can do."

Jackson recovered his composure quickly, his face twisting back into a smug grin as he tossed the manila folder onto Henry’s desk.

"A neat trick, Henry. Truly," Jackson said, crossing his arms. "But it doesn't change the facts. Security, restrain him. We found the stolen files on his drive. He’s finished."

The two security guards stepped forward, their heavy hands reaching out to grab Henry’s shoulders.

Henry didn't flinch. In his past life, he had panicked, cried, and let them drag him away. But today? Today, Henry felt fast. Very, very fast.