[GC (System.gc()) 48215K->462K(50816K), 0.0042187 secs] It wasn’t a cry for help. It was a sigh. The little runtime that could had finally let go.

It processed one last withdrawal: $20 from account #4428. Then the screen cleared, the blue glow faded, and the machine rebooted into a modern Linux kernel.

“Just reimage it,” her senior said.

Somewhere in the logs, before the overwrite, a single line appeared: