Conor:Maybe when the to-do list is done, you can branch out? Even serial killers need hobbies.
Star:Maybe.
Star:Conor?
Conor:Yes, Star.
Star:Do you think I’ll complete it?
Conor:I have every faith in you.
Star:You do?
Conor:Yes. And I won’t rest until it’s complete either…
Star:I’m not sure what to say.
Conor:How about, ‘Welcome aboard the killing train, Conor.’?
Star::D Welcome aboard.
5
CONOR
YES - COLDPLAY
PRESENT DAY
CIA HQ wassomething I’d mostly only seen in episodes ofThe Blacklist. Thus, the fear I was about to be murdered kicked up a notch.
A part of me was certain I was about to be taken to a black site, only I wasn’t. I was guided down a multitude of empty hallways and led into a large office where a group of ‘engineers’ were strumming away at their keyboards as if they weren’t making code, but music.
Ifnoxxiousdidn’t exist, then this was my favorite kind of track to listen to.
The office housed around thirty technicians. Each of their faces glowed in blue light, their attention fixed on their screens and not on what was happening in the rest of the room.
These guys weren’t the usual white-collar morons I dealt with.
They didn’t dress in grocery-store suits and look like they were dealing with the aftermath of a wedgie. They were like me.Regular me.They wore jeans and had tattoos on show. One kid had a green mohawk; another appeared unsure about the year of our Lord because she thought being emo was in fashion.
A challenge, then.
That was my first take on the situation.
The second was that maybe my ego was bigger than I thought.
Said ego had been bruised by Star’s repeated invasions into my code, yet as a result, my work had never been tighter.
It was true that only when your mettle was tested did you know what you were capable of.
And Star was the benchmark by which I measured everything.
She was my peer.
My equal.
My fucking everything.