The Hard Goodbye

A tech support worker grieving the loss of her mentor Aggie reconnects with a colleague named Megan and begins planning to leave her unfulfilling job. Drawing on Aggie's legacy of rubber-duck debugging and patient troubleshooting, she finds renewed purpose in the idea of starting an independent IT group with coworkers. After returning to the office, she finds Aggie's rubber duck hidden in a desk drawer and hands in her two-week notice. The story ends on a cliffhanger with a mysterious executive summons.