Most people don't understand interfaces. They think it's just heads-up displays and status bars. But when you work with The Cloud's code every day like I do, you learn the truth - an interface shapes how you experience reality itself.

I was debugging a client's custom UI module when my apartment's power cut out. Not just the lights - my entire Horizon interface went dark. For a moment, I was interface-blind, seeing the world raw and unfiltered. No data overlays. No analytics. Nothing.

Then emergency power kicked in, and interface rebooted. Something was wrong though. The interface showed massive power fluctuations across the grid. Not a normal outage.

"Warning: Compute Futures up 300%. System resources limited." The alert scrolled across my vision.

My phone buzzed. Text from Sarah at The Cloud: "Marcus - Critical bug in production. Need you onsite. Double your daily rate."

I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. Outside, others were interface-blind, stumbling around without their familiar overlays.

The lobby was chaos. Employees clustered around terminals, trying to restore their Cloud connections. Security guards stood nervously by the entrance, their weapon interfaces offline.

Sarah met me at the elevator. "Thank god you're here. Some idiot pushed bad code to our interface compiler. It's causing cascading failures across The Cloud's network."

"Why call me? You have hundreds of devs."

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"Because you're the only one who still knows how to code without augmented intelligence assist." She led me to their server room. "Everyone else relies on AI code completion. With Compute prices spiking, they're useless."

I cracked my knuckles and got to work. Raw coding, like my grandmother taught me. No AI assistance, no interface shortcuts. Just pure logic and syntax.

Hours passed. My eyes burned from staring at scrolling text. But slowly, I traced the bug's path through their systems.

A presence loomed behind me. I turned to find a tall figure in an expensive suit. The CEO himself.

"I understand you can fix this," he said.

"Yes. But you won't like the solution."

"Try me."

"You need to shut down quantum processing entirely. Revert to classical computing."

His face darkened. "That will set us back months."

"Better than burning through your Compute reserves trying to fix it live." I showed him the resource graphs. "At current prices, you'll be bankrupt in hours."

He stared at the numbers, then nodded curtly. "Do it."

I executed the rollback. Around the building, interfaces flickered and stabilized as systems returned to normal operations. Compute prices began dropping immediately.

Sarah handed me a credit chip. "Four times your daily rate. And a bonus."

I checked the balance. Maybe even enough to finally develop my own interface system, free from The Cloud's control.

The CEO was still watching me. "We could use someone with your expertise full-time."

I pocketed the chip. "Sorry. I don't do corporate. Bad for my independence."