They Laid Off the Savior

Episode 1

It's 2100, and the world is losing. Volcanic upheavals have awakened colossal monsters, and every nation is racing to build giant intelligent mechs as humanity's last hope. Titan Group is closest to winning that race—thanks to chief engineer Bryan Smith, the hacker known as XOmaster. When 500 of the world's best hit the system at once, he takes them all down alone.

Then the chairman's daughter, Alexandra Sloan, arrives on her first day as acting chairwoman and finds him sleeping after an all-nighter. She assumes he's a connection hire and fires him on the spot.

Episode 2

Alexandra Sloan isn't done cleaning house. She sweeps through the office declaring that efficiency is life, firing people for slacking, for arguing back, even for crying over a broken collectible—and then makes one employee pay back what it cost.

Her confidence is total. She has a new degree and something to prove, and she believes she's cutting dead weight. The staff, meanwhile, are stunned: Bryan Smith saved the whole company the night before, and now he's gone.

She finally reaches Bryan himself, still groggy, and tells him he's fired without even knowing his name.

Episode 3

Bryan Smith doesn't beg. When Alexandra Sloan demands to know what he even does here, the records come up oddly blank, and he answers her questions with a calm that infuriates her. He points out he was here all night; she fires back that nobody made him stay.

She kicks him out of the building. Only afterward does a colleague dare to say it aloud: he was the chief engineer, and firing him might not be so simple.

Then a call from her father, the chairman, warns her not to touch Mr. Smith—but which Smith does he mean?

Episode 4

Recovering in the hospital, Sloan's father talks about the Smith who runs Titan's entire Mech project—the one who has presidents lining up to shake his hand. Sloan hears the name Bryan Smith, Stanford PhD, and relaxes. That's the man she kept.

Her father is pleased she cleared out the dead weight, and she promises to handle the office while he heals. Her friend teases her about the handsome, accomplished Bryan, but Sloan brushes it off—she's already talking to someone online she considers far better.

Then the lab calls. The Mech is losing control, and nobody can operate it.

Episode 5

The Mech has gone rogue, and Titan Group is in free fall. The system crashed after taking too much load during the attack, and now it could go off at any second. Sloan orders people to fix it—and learns the brutal truth: everyone who could service that Mech is gone. Because she fired them.

The building descends into chaos as casualties mount. Refusing to believe a company this size can't manage without a few washouts, Sloan tries to lock down the lower levels and send a response team.

Out of options, she reaches for her online contact, XOmaster, and begs for help on the Mech project.

Episode 6

Sloan rushes to meet her mysterious online savior, and the voice on the line sounds strangely familiar. Sloan shrugs it off—there's no time.

While she's away, someone picks up a phone left behind, unlocked, and starts scrolling. The name on the screen stops them cold: Bryan Smith, the man who just stabilized the system.

In that moment, everything clicks into place. Sloan is chasing after the "nobody" she fired, and neither of them knows who the other really is. For the person holding that phone, it's a gift: get her, and Titan Group comes with her.

Episode 7

The meeting lands. Sloan realizes the online contact she's been confiding in is Bryan Smith—the very man she fired—and he realizes she's the chairwoman he's been talking to. Both are stunned.

Bryan keeps it light, suggesting they stay formal around the office, and brushes off why someone this good is still a junior engineer: he likes a low profile. Then he gets to work.

Whatever he does, it works. The Mech is brought back under control, and Titan Group survives the night. Sloan's relief is short-lived, though—because the moment it's over, someone wants Bryan stopped.

Episode 8

Across town, Alice Morgan, chairwoman of Aurora Group, has been watching Bryan Smith for years. Word reaches her that Sloan fired him herself, and she doesn't hesitate—this time, nothing gets in her way. She orders two squads of her newest Praetorians brought along, just in case.

At Titan, Sloan confronts Bryan, who no longer works there and makes clear he'll stand wherever he likes. She accuses him of causing the so-called accident out of grudge.

Bryan doesn't flinch. But Sloan is about to learn exactly who she's been pushing—and what he's willing to hand back.

Episode 9

Sloan demands Bryan sign a statement pinning the disaster on himself so Titan's name stays clean. He refuses to put his name on someone else's mistake, and the insults fly both ways.

Then Bryan does something nobody expects. He offers everything back: every paycheck and bonus Titan ever paid him—40 million—plus the house and keys her father gave him when he signed. He wants nothing from them.

Sloan can't believe it. Her father would never hand a nobody that kind of money, so she accuses Bryan of skimming from the company for years. He asks if her father knows what she's been doing.

Episode 10

Sloan lets Bryan go, but her people aren't finished. Convinced he's carrying Titan's core files, they search his things and destroy a gift from his mother looking for a hidden drive. He warns them they'll regret it.

The cruelty escalates: they want him stripped in the lobby and threaten neural extraction—a procedure that would leave his brain permanently burned out. Sloan hesitates, then gives the order.

Bryan answers with root-level shutdown commands for Titan's sentinels, proving exactly how much he knows. When someone moves to grab him, he dares them to try.