“Addison! Come in here!”
I grabbed my tablet and my lukewarm cup of coffee and hustled into my boss's office. He was nearly twice as old as I was, and maybe three times the size of me. He sat in his ancient office chair that someone had gifted to him when he graduated college eons ago and flattened his tie over his exceedingly large stomach. The buttons were bulging underneath it.
“Yes. Mr. James? You wanted to see me.”
He smiled at me as he crossed his hands over his protruding belly. “Yes. Sit.”
I sighed. The grand office Mr. James sat in had a way of making people feel like they were small, the guests’ office chairs were uncomfortable to say the least. I felt the scratchy material against my skin, a tank top was apparently not a good choice for this hot summer day. I set the tablet down in my lap but I clutched onto my coffee like a lifeline. Some peoples would say that I was a caffeine addict, I would say that I was a coder. I guess you would think same difference.
“I noticed that you are working on the security protocols. How's that going?”
I took a sip of my coffee before responding. “Quite well. I mean I noticed some discrepancies in the code, but I'm sure that I can iron out the details.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I can tell you exactly why you saw discrepancies within the coding.”
Here it was, Elizabeth was right. I was being replaced.
“We’ve been hacked.” I nearly dropped my coffee all over my shiny tablet. Hacked? That was my job. To make sure we weren’t. Shit.
“I'm sorry?”
“You should be Addison. Since it's your job to make sure the security protocols are developed enough that no one can break in. You know our clients prefer their discretion. We’ve violated that trust, we’ll lose at least two clients over it. You know how I like to work on retainer.”
Did he ever. Mr. James hadn't stepped foot into a courtroom in probably fifteen years He lived off of clients’ previous settlements. Most of the time he never screwed up enough to have to actually work. It was rare that he had to do a settlement nowadays. Losing two clients on retainer was like telling Mr. James that doughnuts had gone extinct. I was in so much trouble.
“I don't understand. I built that all myself, it's ironclad.”
“Apparently it's not strong enough. So I thank you for your time but your services are no longer required here.”
“You're firing me?”
“It appears that way. We can't afford to have issues like this. So while I appreciate your position, and you've been good to this company for the past two years, it's time for you to move on. Maybe somewhere that doesn't need a security system built quite as strongly as we do. Pack your things and leave.”
I sat there for a moment longer unsure of what to do with myself. I had never been fired before, hell I hadn't even quit anything. I was someone who always saw a project through. I could hardly understand where had I had gone wrong.
“Addison, leave. Don't make me call security.”
I nodded just as the tears prickled my eyes. I stood and exited his office as quickly as possible. After walking down the hall and into my shared office I grabbed my things and shoved them in my purse. The only thing I had to carry was my laptop and my coffee. None of the other software techs said anything to me, I doubt they even realized that I'd been fired. We all used to sit there with our headphones in jamming out to music while we wrote code or did research for the lawyers, hacking into companies and finding out things that no one was supposed to know. We weren't really friends, just warm bodies that filled the same room. No one's eyes even met mine as I tearfully walked out the door.
What the hell was I going to do? Where would I go? As I walked out of the building and into the hot summer sun my heels clicked on the concrete and I began walking home. Sure I had usually taken the Metro but I didn't feel like I should just go home. I didn't feel like that was where I belonged. So instead I just kept walking until finally I rounded a corner and saw a pub in front of me with its doors wide op
en.
Time to drown my sorrows, time to come up with a new plan.
Four
Cole
I sat down at the bar of my favorite pub and ordered a whiskey.
“On the rocks, as usual.”
The bartender, an older man with graying hair nodded to me as he put down the glass that he was cleaning and picked up a short one to fill for me. The place was practically empty, it was the middle of the day. I was actually surprised that they would even serve me this early, I had never been in here at this time before. But after the discussion with my uncle yesterday I had a completely awful afternoon. I spent the entire day going through my phone book to see if there were any girls would even consider going on a date with me. And I had hundreds of girls in my book, and those were just the girls whose names I could remember. The ones I liked enough to get their phone number. Most of the numbers were disconnected, or some of those girls I hadn’t talked to since before I left the military. A couple had been the girls I would sleep with when I was home on leave but surprise surprise a few of them were married already.
I was totally screwed.
Just as the bartender set my drink down in front of me I noticed a girl at the end of the bar setting up a laptop. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and began typing furiously, she was pretty but not in a way that I usually was interested in.