Hard Byte
Page 22
I walk up to his desk. “Do you know where he is?”
Robert shakes his head.
Damn it. “Can I use your computer to check my email?” I ask, beginning to feel defeated.
“Sure, but please make it quick.”
He gives me access, and I remotely log into my work machine and check my emails.
Nothing from Alex still, but there is a reply from Bella:
Hey, hon. Just tried to conference with you, but you didn’t pick up.
Bugger. I want to videocall her back, but this is Robert’s computer, and I’m supposed to make it quick.
I’m about to sign out when I see an email from Alison.
Another moment shouldn’t hurt.
I click on it.
Alison says she’s triangulated the origin of the rumor and has a name for me.
I read the name, rub my eyes, and read it again.
Yep.
Still Buckley.
Then it hits me.
The “To” in the message I just saw on his screen—I’m pretty sure it was Dr. Piper’s email. Or if not, definitely someone with an @nyulangone.org address.
But why would he email them? Unless…
I storm over to Buckley’s desk.
“You’re the Evil Consultant?” The question comes out much louder than I planned.
Buckley clears his throat. “What?”
“No more games,” I growl. “You spread lies about me at the office, and you torpedoed my project?”
His next two throat clears sound angry. “What lies?”
“That I slept with Alex,” I hiss under my breath.
He rolls his eyes. “And you didn’t? I saw how he looked at you when you were here the last time. ‘Sexual harassment’ was practically written on his forehead.”
I’m the most anti-violent person I know, yet I have to fight the urge to punch him. Hard.
“Why would you do something like this to me?” I ask instead, though I already suspect the answer.
“Why?” He clears his throat twice more. “Office romances aren’t proper,” he says with a British accent that I think is supposed to be a parody of my speech. “I guess that’s only when it doesn’t help your career, right?”
Twat. He is mad about my rejection of his advances.
Since I’m too busy seething in anger to reply, he clears his throat four more bloody times—as though he knows how painful that is for me to hear. “I should have been the CTO,” he says, his tone dripping with bitterness. “Not you.”
So it’s not just the rejection. He is sour that I got promoted to CTO over him.
“That project at the hospital was extremely important,” I say. “Not just to me, to little kids too.”
He shrugs, a nasty expression on his face. “You’re not my boss anymore, so there isn’t much you can do about it.”
“No,” Robert says. “But I can.”
Blinking, Buckley turns to face his new boss—who I now realize must’ve been there through the whole exchange.
Buckley looks like he’s just choked on a throat clear. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Robert crosses his arms over his chest. “Didn’t you just admit to making libelous claims about the owner of this very company?”
Buckley’s next set of throat clears sounds frightened. “You can’t fire me over something like that.”
Robert’s eyes narrow. “Oh, I can. I could fire you even if you weren’t on the probationary period. But since you are, it won’t even require that much paperwork.”
Buckley glares at me. “I hope you’re happy.”
“Ignore him,” Robert says.
I give Buckley a look designed to shrivel his manhood for at least a year. “Oh, don’t worry. He doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.”
Turning, I hurry back to the elevator.
As soon as I’m home, I grab my laptop and video conference Bella.
The dial music rings and rings.
“Please pick up,” I say to the empty screen.
The app keeps ringing. Just as I’m about to hang up, Bella’s face shows up and grins at me. “Hi, Holly. Sorry, I’m all over the place today. My other company is dealing with an emergency: Woody Harrelson is suing us for using his likeness for our line of butt plugs.”
“Hi,” I say breathlessly. “Do you know where Alex is?”
As though in reply, a bark sounds in the background.
It’s a strangely familiar bark, one that makes my chest ache.
“Beelzebub,” Bella says sternly.
Wait, why is he there?
The puppy barks again.
Bella glares at someone outside the camera—presumably, the adorable koala-dog hybrid. “I bet this is why Alex wants you in doggy school.”
Doggy school?
“Where is Alex?” I ask again.
She looks back at the camera. “He didn’t tell me. Just dropped off the little demon and asked about the school where Boner learned to be so well-mannered.” She frowns. “Now that you mention it, he did seem very stressed. Is everything okay?”
“Bloody hell,” I mutter. “I looked for him at our offices, at his home, and then even at 1000 Devils. Where is he?”
Her frown deepens. “What happened?”
What can I say? There’s no way to explain everything without coming clean about the sabotage—and if I do, I’ll lose her, just as I’ve lost Alex.
But I can’t not tell her. She has the right to know.
“It’s a long story,” I say, and taking a deep breath, I launch into it, starting at the beginning.
To my shock, when I get to the part about sabotage, she just sits there calmly, looking almost bored.
“You’re not upset?” I ask her when I finish.
She cocks her head. “About which part? If it were up to me to decide who my brother sleeps with, I would choose you, hands down.”
I lean closer to the screen. “But I almost sabotaged your venture.”
She shakes her head. “Alex told me about your break-in the day we went for that dog walk. He also told me why you did it, and that made me like you even more. In my experience, driven people are rare.”
I tap the screen so it zooms in on her face. “So you knew?”
She nods.
I suck in a giddy breath. “And you still want to be friends?”
She grins. “Hells yeah. And before you ask—I’ll be your friend even if my brother ends up being stupid enough to let you slip through his fingers.”
That brings me right back to earth. I draw back from the screen. “So you really have no idea where he is?”
She shakes her head. “Let me text him.”
I watch her do it and wait. And wait.
“Hmm. Let me try calling.” After a minute, she mouths “voicemail” to me and rattles out something in Russian. Then she hangs up and says, “Why don’t you chillax for now? When I hear from him, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you. Just please tell him that the code mess from Sunday wasn’t another sabotage. It was an honest mistake that I’ve already fixed.”
“Will do.”
“Okay,” I say dejectedly. “Talk to you later.”
“Yep, and we’ll arrange a brunch then too.”
I nod and hang up.
Even the prospect of brunch with Bella can’t cheer me up right now.
Getting to my feet, I begin to pace.
An hour passes.
Then two.
No more videocalls from Bella.
Did Alex not call or text her back? Or maybe he did but asked her not to tell me?
Could it be that he doesn’t believe the mistake story? Or is he just pissed that I stormed out of his apartment the way I did?
More importantly, where is he?
A completely unsubstantiated idea sneaks into my brain—and makes my knees go weak.
What if Alex got hurt on the way to work?
He has been missing for a while.
Wait. Something Bella said earlier triggers a memory.
He seemed stressed, she said. And I remember Alex telling Jacob that when he’s stressed, he turns off his phone and plays War of Sword… for hours.
I exhale a relieved breath.
Can the answer be that simple?
If not for that unpleasant encounter with the security guard, I’d rush back to Alex’s apartment and demand to go up again. As is, I grab a VR headset.
As I download War of Sword, I do my best to banish the memories from the last time I played this game. Between the violence and the four-fingered limbs, this will be as fun as getting punched in the stomach… four or six times.
Still, since this is the fastest way to banish the specter of Alex in an accident, this is what I will do.
Yeah.
Brimming with determination, I click the game icon.
Four-fingered creatures, I will be your doom.
Chapter Forty-Five
Appearing in the medieval village, I do my best to ignore my elfin hands with their abominable finger count.
If Alex is playing, I should be able to reach him the way I did the last time.
Taking out the special yarn he gave me for this purpose, I give it a shake.
Whoosh.
I show up in a dank underground hall littered with body parts.
Unsheathing my sword, I scan the battle raging all around me and fight my gag reflex.
All manner of creatures are fighting to the death here, and the violence once again feels nauseatingly real.
Still, I will not quit this time. Not until I find what I came for.
Tightening my grip on my sword, I look for Alex’s avatar amid the chaos.
With a sudden battle cry, a dwarf jumps at me, holding an ax bigger than his head is in his lets-not-count-how-many-fingered hands.
I sidestep the ax swing and behead the dwarf, fighting the urge to vomit at the digital gore.
Then my heart leaps with joy.
There’s a minotaur with Alex’s features a few feet away.
He’s not in the hospital or someplace worse. As I hoped, he’s simply playing his game to destress.
I wonder if I’m the cause of that stress—and where he is in the real world. Was he home when I came by his building but chose to avoid me? Or did he not even realize I was there?
Before I can think up more questions, I spot an orc rushing at the minotaur at full speed.
Bugger. Alex is currently fighting a female elf. He’s going to get slaughtered.
Well, not if I have anything to say about it.
Drawing my bow, I send an arrow into the orc’s head.
Squelch.
The arrow pierces the orc’s eye, killing him instantly.
At the same time, Alex pierces the elf with his right horn.
Hmm. Do I need to be jealous?
“Holly?” Alex says, spotting my avatar.
I grin in the real world. “Privet.” Here, I switch the bow for the sword and disembowel a pink goblin mid-leap.
“Behind you!” Alex yells.
I duck as I turn, and a cyclops’s spear misses my shoulder by half an inch.
I swing my sword in a wide arc, cleaving the cyclops in half.
Turning around, I see Alex fighting his way to me.
Great idea. Fighting like a berserker, I kill a golem with my sword and shoot an ogre with my arrows while Alex uses his horns and trident to decimate a group of gnomes and leprechauns.
Soon enough, we’re fighting back to back.
“No fair,” booms a bigfoot-looking fella. “Collaboration isn’t allowed in a free-for-all.”
Alex silences him with his trident.
“He was right,” hisses a hydra, but I cut her snake body in half.
If only winning arguments were so easy in the real world.
We keep fighting until only the two of us are left.
“What are you doing here?” Alex asks.
I turn to face him, my real-world heart pitter-pattering in my chest. “I didn’t sabotage the code. It was a mistake, and I fixed it.”
The horned avatar’s face doesn’t change—the game lacks that technology.
Before I can launch into further explanations, the minotaur speaks. “I know that. I saw your email when I got home a couple of hours ago. Replied to it too. Then I called you, but you didn’t answer.”
A huge weight lifts off my neck. He came home a couple of hours ago? That means he didn’t ignore me when I came to his building.
And he replied? Bugger. I was so busy waiting for Bella to videocall me, I forgot to check my work email.
“Sorry I didn’t take your call,” I say. “I think I left my phone in your home office.”
“Oh. I didn’t hear it ring—must be on vibrate.”
I realize I might look confrontational with my sword out and proud, so I drop it. “I’m sorry I ran out on you. I was overwhelmed with the bad news.”
He tosses his trident away also. “No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have suspected you’d intentionally mess up the code. In my defense, I didn’t at first, but when I saw how you were acting, I—”
I hold up my four-fingered hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
He cocks his head, a gesture that looks wonky due to his horns. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Not caring that I sound like a crazy stalker, I tell him how I couldn’t reach him and that I looked for him at both of his offices and his home.
He shakes his horns. “Sorry about that. I only checked Morpheus Group emails when I got home from the hospital.”
“The hospital?” Worry tightens my chest again. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a medical visit. I met with Dr. Piper.”
My jaw is gaping open in the real world, but I guess he can’t see that in VR. “Why?”
“I saved your VR pet project,” he says.
“What?” My heart is racing anew. “How?”
He scratches his head, his hand unrealistically going back and forth through his left horn. “Remember the conversation we had the day before we met with the folks at the hospital?”
“The one when you asked me not to mention you were part of Morpheus Group?”
Bugger. That came out bitter.
“That one,” he says. “I reassured you, but later that day, I spoke to Bella about it, and we decided to take a precautionary step in case I was wrong—and I’m glad we did.”
I readjust my headset. “Bella didn’t mention any of this when we spoke.”
The minotaur shrugs. “Maybe the subject didn’t come up?”
I resist the urge to shake the information out of him. “So what was the precaution?”
“We started a new limited liability company. Due to all the red tape, the registration only went through this weekend—and just in time. The new company is called Pet VR LLC, and you’ll be the CEO while Bella is just the silent investor—and through Dragomir’s company, just in case. This way, there should be no porn association, ever.”
I’m on the verge of tackling him in joy, but I don’t yet. If I’ve misunderstood something, I’ll be crushed. “But Dr. Piper already knows about the porn.”
The minotaur’s head bobs. “That’s why I went to talk to him first thing this morning, before he told the others. I convinced him to keep it between us. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve had a change of vendor, that’s all.”
I want to believe this so badly. “And he agreed, just like that?”
The minotaur shrugs his broad, hairy shoulders. “I did have to promise him some favorable terms for when the 1000 Devils contract is renegotiated. He’s a practical man, and he doesn’t really care what Morpheus Group does—only his colleagues would have.”
I walk up to the minotaur and try to kiss him, but the game doesn’t support such a thing, so m
y intention is translated into a head butt.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I say, cringing at the sight of blood pouring from the wound I just inflicted.
“Meet me face to face,” Alex says, his voice roughening. “I’ll think of a way you can thank me then.”
My pulse leaps and my ovaries perform a series of cartwheels. “Yes, please. My place?”
“On my way,” he says and disappears.
Brimming with excitement, I take off the VR gear.
There’s so much to process.
My project is saved, and Alex wasn’t ignoring me today. He was busy helping me—even though he thought I sabotaged his company for the second time.
I can’t believe I even jokingly called him the Devil.
He’s more like a guardian angel and a saint rolled into one.
Rushing into the bedroom, I set up some candles while the implications of what’s happened continue to race through my brain.
Alex is not my boss anymore. Not with the way the new venture is set up.
That means I’m free to date him—and date him I shall.
Actually, I think I would’ve done that even if he’d remained my boss, mess or no mess. In general, I think I’m more comfortable with chaos as of late. I managed to stay in that violent game until the end, I survived the Nerf massacre, and I even held my own with Beelzebub.
Speaking of which, Bella mentioned Alex inquiring about doggy school for the pup. Is that to make my life easier?
Knowing his thoughtfulness, probably.
I smooth out all the creases in the pillows, fold the blanket into a pentagram, and am counting the candles around the bed to make sure there are nineteen when I hear the video conferencing tune in the distance.
And there’s Bella, grinning at me. “Alex just called.”
“I know,” I say. “He told me everything.”
Her grin turns lascivious. “Let me guess. You guys are about to consummate the new venture.”
“When a lady plans to kiss, she doesn’t tell.”
She laughs. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the expression.”
My doorbell rings.
“Sorry, I have to run.”
She waggles her eyebrows. “Good luck.”
I disconnect and hurry to the door.
It’s Alex—and he looks so, so much more delicious without the cow parts.