by Julie Olivia
If I’m going to be putting in the effort to cyber-creep on Owen, I may as well take the plunge and do it in person.
Fran: Fine, I can take a quick work break.
My stomach lurches further, tiptoeing to the edge of my cliff of comfortability and teetering over the side. No, it’s hanging off the edge, swinging back and forth like a circus performer with no net. Why is a circus performer at the edge of the cliff? Good question. I have a better one for you: Why in the hell am I going to lunch with this man?
Prick McGee: Same coffee shop?
It’s the only coffee shop in New York, apparently. Cue sitcom intro music.
Fran: See you at noon.
7 Owen
Ryan responded with a conference call within ten minutes of me replying.
Around eleven o’clock, I load my meeting app with my glass of water in hand, anxious for not only the conversation about to be had but about the other one afterward. At noon, I’m supposed to meet with Fran, and my mind can’t stop snagging on that, pulling at that thread, unraveling everything that comes with it.
Ryan logs on and, within a minute of that, my notification rings. I answer the call.
I haven’t seen my old business partner’s face in a couple years—not since our last project together—which makes it all the more surprising when his video pops up. He’s more ragged than I remember but still makes it seem purposeful, like a prodigy just working his way through his own internal genius. Though his hair is normally shaved close, it looks a bit more grown out than usual, likely forgotten amidst all his work. The scruff on his chin and gaunt cheeks look like they belong to a man putting in too many hours and not getting enough return—or maybe in Ryan’s case he’s getting too much return, a thrill to continue working without self-care.
His eyes light up when my camera loads—you can see it in the way his cheekbones grow slightly rounder and the circles under his eyes disappear into the crease. For a man who looks like he could be dealing drugs out of his trunk, Ryan’s smile can transform his whole demeanor from stranger danger to charismatic hero in the quick spin of a coin on its edge. Where it falls is the real mystery.
“Owen!” he says, holding out his hands to the camera. “How ya doing, buddy?” Ryan settles his elbows on the arms of his computer chair, wiggling in as if making himself comfortable once more.
“Getting along.”
“That’s great. Just great. I was thinkin’ ’bout ya the other day.” I always thought my accent was thick, but Ryan’s is another level. I almost laugh, wondering if Fran would need closed captioning to understand his Jersey accent like I do.
“You emailed me, so that makes sense.”
“Yeah, ya look good.” The sentence drawls off as his eyes pierce through the webcam.
I clear my throat. “Well, you look…”
“Tired,” he says after I hesitate. “I know, and I am.” He still smiles, but it’s lost a bit of its charm. The sentence carries more weight, as do the bags under his eyes.
“What’s been going on?” I ask.
“The usual. Jobs and such.”
By ‘jobs,’ I know exactly what he means. Illegal contracts.
“Still squeezing by, I see.” And by ‘squeezing by,’ he knows what I mean. Not getting caught.
“It’s why I’m getting thinner,” Ryan says with a laugh and a couple light slaps to his arms. They’re noticeably lankier, containing much less muscle than he had in college. I want to ask just how many ‘jobs’ he’s acquired over the past two years, but by the way he looks, I’m willing to bet he must always be working. Who has time for food when you’re busy making money?
“Funny,” I say.
“I’m kidding!” Ryan’s hand waves past the camera as if bashfully throwing me out. “I’m doing fine. In fact, I’m doing great.” The last word is punctuated with a toothy grin, and the silence that ensues is what drives my next heavy sigh.
“The line is secure,” I state.
“I know,” he says.
“So, is this where you pitch bad things to me?” I ask. “I’m not getting caught.”
Without skipping a beat, he answers, “Not if you’re smart.”
Not if you’re smart.
Notorious words someone utters right before they go to prison for the rest of their lives. I used to keep up with the dark web hackers. They’re not commonly picked off, because most of those dudes are smart. However, when one does slip up, gets a bit too cocky for their own good, and hacks into the wrong company that hired just the right pentester…well, bye-bye freedom for sixty years.
But Ryan also knows exactly how to feed into my ego: ‘Not if you’re smart.’
“So, what makes this worth it for me?” I ask.
“Money.” Ryan’s large yet bony shoulders shrug.
“I don’t struggle with money.”
“Then how about animal testing as a motivation? How’s that?” he says. His lips curl up, and he knows he has me cornered. I know because he adds in another jab for good measure: “You bleeding heart, you.”
This is undoubtedly ‘the big one.’ He’s got me there. Tell me it’s related to animals and I’m too much of a softie to say no. I majored in animal science in college. I wanted to be vet. I fell in love with coding more.
I groan, and he smiles wider. He knows. I know. We both know I can’t back down.
“Your magnum opus,” I mutter.
“No, no, your motherfucking Sistine chapel,” he says, adjusting in his chair, leaning an elbow on the table the computer rests on, pointing a finger into the webcam. “Get out the consulting chair, Owen. We always talked about doing something like this one together.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, and it’s been ten years since we did. We’re not like some college sweethearts.”
Ryan tilts his head to the side. “Aw, I guess I should throw away my memory box with movie tickets then.”
“So, what?” I ask. “We bleed the company dry of their secrets and watch them crumble from the inside out? Who’s paying you this time around?”
“Sounds about right,” Ryan says, ignoring the second half of my question. He holds his hands behind his head and reclines in a position of satisfied power, like I’ve already signed on the dotted line.
“And why am I involved?” I ask. “Instead of just consulting work?”
I see the cockiness in his eyes break a little.
“Because we can’t get in,” he says simply, but there’s more to it than that and I know it. That’s the point of a security firewall—to keep out the unwanted criminals, the hackers stealing information about dirty deeds from behind secret, locked doors.
“What makes this place different?” I ask. “How long have you even been trying?”
“It’s under lock and key.”
“That’s kinda the point,” I say, echoing my existing thoughts. There’s something he isn’t telling me. I push further. “They must have good security.”
“Yeah, but we have a better hacker—you.” I sigh, but he quickly continues, tilting his head to the side in a questioning glance. “What’s the difference between walking me through it and putting your hands on the actual keyboard?”
“Prison.”
“Do I look like I’m in a prison?” Ryan says, louder this time, long arms outstretched to draw attention to the whole of the scenery behind him. It’s freedom personified, and not in the ‘America home of the brave’ sort of way, but in the true sense of the word: ownership. Paid for in full. High ceilings and bookshelves full of things he’ll never read and surrounded by paintings that are authentic and probably a hundred times the price of knockoff department store décor.
“Do you see that painting?” he asks, pointing behind him. I shrug. “I don’t even know what the hell it’s called, but it’s mine.”
Ryan is changing gears—away from the reason why they want me and more toward my resistance to the project as a whole. He’s trying to goad me into a false sense of security. It’s jus
t foreplay. He’s buttering me up for something, and I want to know what.
“I don’t need more money,” I say. “Hence, I don’t need you. Why don’t you get some bright-eyed wunderkind to help you out? They love this risky shit.”
“No,” he says, leaning back in his chair once more, and I hear the subtle squeak and bump of it slightly reclining under his weight as he pushes against the back. Being the only sound in the room aside from our silence makes it more threatening than he intended—or maybe it’s exactly how he wanted it to be. “We need you. And we need something of yours.”
And there we are: at a place I knew we’d end up in. I can tell by the shift in his tone, the slow drawl of his words, and the gesture of his eyes twitching to the side that he has an ace up his sleeve, one he’s about to reveal, and I’m not going to like it.
“What?” I say, more of a demand than a question.
“We’re using your old calling card.”
The sentence strikes me harder than I expect. He’s hacking into sensitive systems with my old username? It’s dirty. It’s immoral. It’s incriminating. But, then again, so is all of this.
My stomach pinches and dread flows through me like poison in my veins, only to be punctuated further by the heat rising up my spine and to my temples.
I slam my fist on the desk, rattling the pens and mouse.
“So you’re either in or you’re not, but you’re on the bill either way,” he continues, and it doesn’t make me any less pissed.
“Ryan, what the fuck?!” I yell, shutting my mouth before I lose it even louder and the neighbors. It might be a secure conference line, but my wall’s padding isn’t exactly security level here.
“We got noticed a time too many then they kicked us out,” he admits, the edge of his mouth twisting into the bottoms of his cheek like it’s a simple mistake, nothing major in the grand scheme of things—but I know better. Not only is he dragging me into this, he made a mess of it and potentially incriminated me in the process before even bringing me in. It’s just one hit after another, one more to add to the growing pile of bones being shoved back into my closet of skeletons, the door creeping open more and more at his prying hands.
“You got me involved without any discussion. This is identity theft,” I say through gritted teeth.
“You want it done right or not?” He shrugs again, like this conversation is nothing to him, but I know what it is. It’s all manipulation. He knows I like control, knows I can’t have my name involved in something if it isn’t done right. But, it’s more than that. I can’t have my identity attached to something that will go wrong because, if it does, I could end up in prison for a very, very long time. And, for that matter, so could he. In fact, if I go down for this, I’ll make damn sure he’s dragged through the mud with me, though I can tell it’s not even about him anymore. He doesn’t need to say it for me to know it. He’s done too many of these shady deals, gotten too good, too routine…he needs a fresh set of eyes, and what are a couple mistakes under a false name to drag in the one person who can help, especially when weighed against the immense pile of his various other sins? One more life ruined and tossed to the side in Ryan’s quest for fame and fortune, another necessary sacrifice on the altar of his ego.
And then there’s my unscathed life, and the vulnerable: Emma and Taylor. If he goes down, I’m already incriminated with him, and if that happens, so are they.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “But, Ryan, understand that you’ve crossed a line, and if push comes to shove, I’m not in your corner.”
“Oh good,” Ryan says, but the words don’t express any form of surprise.
“Blackmail doesn’t look good on you.”
“I’m willing to deal with that.” His eyes bore into me, the icy blues just barely visible from the light of the monitor shining on his face, a crescent like a moon half on display in the sky. I inhale sharply and look at my watch, flipping my wrist so it shifts to the outside of my palm.
11:40.
My heart stutters. So, what do I do now? Do I get coffee with the girl whose job it is to stop people like me? Who believes I’m spending my days doing the same?
“I gotta go,” I say.
“Okay, that works,” he says, almost bored. “I need to walk Brutus anyway.”
“You named your dog Brutus?” I ask dully.
“Yeah, isn’t he cute?”
Ryan lifts up a small ball of fluff, pulsing rapidly in his hand. It doesn’t take long to recognize it as just an overeager Pomeranian puppy, barely the size of a teacup. It’s cute, and yet another manipulation.
Of course I’ll save the damn animals.
All I’m left with before logging off is his stupid lazy grin. He knows he’s got me right in the palm of his hand, just like Brutus.
“It’s for the greater good anyway,” I mumble.
That’s what I tell myself, at least.
8 Francesca
I didn’t overthink my outfit for lunch, but I also didn’t underthink my outfit for lunch. That doesn’t make sense, but I’m making it make sense because I can’t justify how long I stood in front of my mirror for a simple coffee shop hangout. Overthinking would have meant thirty minutes in front of a closet. I only spent twenty-five. See? A perfectly normal amount of time to plan an outfit.
I walk out of my apartment building, letting the cool September breeze whisk past me.
I’ve noticed with New York that there’s an art to stepping off your stoop and into the crowd, especially around lunch when schedules are like clockwork and you want don’t want to be the person to disrupt the flowing river that is the ecosystem of the city.
I fall in line, taking large strides and trying to focus on the start and stop of foot traffic in the two blocks it will take me to get to the coffee shop.
This is not a date. This is a hangout. A meeting, really. A partnership. We could shake hands. We may as well. We could do something that does not matter at all, like the hokey pokey or—
I automatically pause in front of the café window, spotting the tousled hair and tall, broad frame of Owen already situated in the same seat near the window. Today he’s wearing a black jumper, loose with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His laptop is propped open and his thick eyebrows are furrowed as he bites the tip of a pen in the corner of his mouth. When he taps the trackpad for his laptop, his bony wrists give a small twitch. I never noticed how large his hands are. I mean, I did, but wow they’re large.
I must have stopped moving for one second too long because my shoulder is bumped by a passerby, and I’m corralled forward by the crowd until I can veer off into the coffee shop’s entrance alcove. I pause at the door.
What if I just didn’t go in? No, that’s a coward’s move, and what do I care about meeting with him? We were assigned to each other. Though, it’s not like that’s a binding contract, is it? Of course not. I’m sure if I didn’t turn up to the meet-up next week, nobody would even notice. Life could go right back to my modus operandi of playing hermit in a solo studio apartment with only my cat and work. This whole detour down the road of Owen and meet-up groups could be a distant memory.
But New York isn’t having that for me.
“Lady, can you please move?”
The irritated man behind me heaves the greatest exhalation of all exhalations and waves a hand, indicating that I’m blocking the door. I swing it open and walk in, giving the man behind me a red-carpet-like gesture. He grunts and I take a deep breath, treading over to Owen’s table only six feet from the door, though it feels like an entire mile into the unknown.
“I don’t imagine this is secretive enough for our confidential conversations,” I say.
Owen’s head shoots up, his hair flopping around. When his eyes meet mine, his brow unfurrows and the lines around his eyes soften into nothing.
He looks me over from head to toe. I can tell he tries to do it fast so as not to get caught, but I still catch it—the subtle glance at my straight hair down to
my peach-colored sundress topped with a light denim jacket. Owen meets my eyes once more, gaze less intense than it was just moments ago.
“I don’t think this is a spy group,” he says.
I toss my canvas backpack into a chair at the table then sit across from him in the remaining seat. “We could be.”
“And what confidential conversations do you have in mind?”
“You’re the one with the error issue—you tell me.”
He sucks in a quick breath, the air zipping past his teeth. Even though they are impeccably straight, I’m still reminded of the grinning, gap-toothed little kid clutching his spelling bee trophy like his life depended on it.
“Right,” Owen says, scrunching up his nose in disdain. “That error.”
I hum to myself and reach toward his computer. Like any normal human being, Owen should have reflexively clung to his keyboard. It most likely holds tons of private information, especially given our industry, but instead, his fingers remain crooked around his pen and not even the hint of a flinch is detected.
“May I?” I ask, still maintaining politeness despite his obvious—and, quite frankly, irresponsible—lack of concern.
Owen shrugs, waving his free hand in the air and scooting the edge of the laptop’s bottom in my direction. “By all means.” His tone is inviting, as if daring me to try to crack the issue that’s been haunting him for hours.
How odd, though—a pentester unconcerned about the privacy of his computer. Either he’s really good at what he does, or he doesn’t really care.
“Wow, security risk,” I snort, before hovering my finger over the trackpad.
The sides of his screen have green sticky notes scattered along them. I take one off, reading his blocky handwriting.
“Buy more pillows?” I ask, reading the note.
“Hey, I like my green stickies. Put it back.”
