The R720 had thrown a purple diagnostic screen (PSOD) and wouldn't reboot. The error: Corrupted system boot bank.
Leo laughed, a dry, coughing sound. "Welcome to the end of life, kid. Check your local archives."
She did. The company’s internal NAS had everything—old Windows ISOs, database backups, memes from 2018—but the VMware-ESXi-6.5.0-4564106-depot.zip was missing. Someone had deleted it to save space.
Aria Chen stared at the blinking cursor on her terminal. It was 11:47 PM on a Friday. The alert on her dashboard was crimson and unyielding:
"Install ESXi, preserve VMFS datastore."
