by CD Reiss
Masy and I shared a two-bedroom apartment in a complex near Market Street. It had two floors, two parking spots, a porch, and a courtyard. We were so busy we were barely ever in the house at the same time. Maybe now we’d find time to hang out.
I’d gotten my ID and had two days of orientation. I’d chosen my health insurance package and enthusiastically signed on to the eight pages of company policy. They had a cutting-edge non-fraternization policy they wrote after an infamous lawsuit. The upshot was simple. The regular folk had a regular fraternization policy that centered around respect and non-harassment. Executives lost their jobs. Period.
I liked that. It would keep my skirt on.
I signed two and a half pages of nondisclosure agreement, and studied a thumb drive describing a complex system called the “information plexus.” I’d memorized the flowchart over the weekend. Soft engineering could route the system assurance team anything through nodes A, B, D, and G, and system assurance could tell package design A, B, and G, but not D, whereas if anyone in customer service heard a whisper of A or D, you could rest assured, an ex-employee was getting sued.
I beeped in with my new ID, walked with Masy through the glass-enclosed lobby and into the grassy courtyard with the Alexander Calder sculpture and the circular amphitheater in poured concrete.
“I’m this way,” she said, pointing left with her coffee.
“I’m here.” I pointed right. “Thank you again.”
“Thank me in five years.”
“I will. I know it.” I hugged her and went to my new office.
Chapter 3
RAVEN
I barely had a handle on the most direct route to the bathrooms before I was pulled into a meeting by Lonnie, the president of HR. She had been at Neuronet from the beginning, when Alexander Burke started the company out of his parents’ kitchen in Menlo Park. She probably had a few hundred million in stock options. She was six inches shorter than me and wider, but she carried herself as if she owned the joint, which—in stock options—she practically did.
“We have outside legal counsel coming in to audit the benchmarking system before implementation,” she said, shuffling down the hall, nodding at everyone she passed. “Burke wanted to have some clear-eyed oversight to make sure we hadn’t built bias into the system. Every employee, five thousand of us, all will get raises and promotions based on what’s input in this system. Since ‘Nolan’, it’s important to get it right or these guys’ legal fees are going to be peanuts compared to another settlement.”
This system was the reason I’d been hired. Neuronet was still recovering from a pay-bias lawsuit that had cost them nearly a billion dollars.
George Nolan had been fired for releasing a screed about gender roles at Neuronet on his blog. George thought women were mostly (not all) lousy coders and mostly (not all) ill-suited to power positions. He was in the process of suing for wrongful termination and Neuronet was in the process of proving his point had been moot.
It was my job to make sure the implementation was smooth. I had programming experience, thanks to Taylor, and enough HR to know how grading and compensation systems worked. I didn’t need a babysitter.
“What’s their involvement?”
“Looking over your shoulder and making you crazy.”
“We don’t have in-house legal?”
“We do, we do. But they went through it already.” She stopped before she went around the corner, facing me and speaking gently. “We brought them in to pick it apart from an adversarial vantage. We need it.”
“Of course,” I replied, deciding not to bristle. It was my first day. “I’ll make sure they have all the information they need.”
“Good, because they brought in the guy who got the Deton Industries pay-bias settlement.”
She led me down the next hall, along a bank of windows to the corner conference room. It was like all the others in stark white, glass, and chrome. One thing was different. The people at the long table.
Not all of the people. They looked like business-casual Silicon Valley lawyers. Suits-no-ties, jacket-and-sneakers, chinos-as-trousers types. One person was different. One man in a perfect gray suit and purple tie. I knew right away he dressed like that every day. He didn’t get dolled up for a meeting at Neuronet. This was his five- or six-day-a-week look and it was breathtaking. The way the shoulders looked broad but not padded and the knot of the tie was wide and thick against the spread of his white collar.
He nodded and smiled, tilting his head so the parentheses of light brown hair that escaped into our line of sight didn’t come between us.
“This is Roman Bianchi,” Lonnie introduced. “He’s the team lead.”
He held his hand out. Looked me in the eye. Green. Brown. Gray. Was that called hazel? Or had this man invented something completely new? He was proof of unfairness in the world. No one should get to look like that. I’d met good-looking men before, but when he looked at me over our clasped hands and said “Nice to meet you,” I forgot what I was supposed to say in response.
Luckily, Lonnie sent my handshake around the table. Five other lawyers. I memorized the names easily and sat down.
“So,” Lonnie said, “you’ve got five here? You’ll need space. We’ll set you up with terminals—”
“Just me,” Roman said. His voice had the flat, passionless intonation of a man relaying not just information, but the fact of every assumption surrounding that information. Just him. No questions necessary. “Jan’s staying in our office in Sunnyvale doing data analysis. The rest of the team will be in and out. You should set up a few desks, and if you can spare an office for me, I’d appreciate it.”
He smiled at Lonnie and I melted like butter on a skillet. My boss seemed unaffected.
“I can find something for you. You want to be near human resources?”
“Who’s my point person?”
“Raven’s managing implementation. Give her a few days to get on her feet.”
“First day?” he asked me as if asking if I was a virgin. As a matter of fact, when he asked me that, it was the question I heard. First day? As if the point of the question was filthy, and he was asking me just how virgin the virgin could be.
“No,” I said without thinking. He raised an eyebrow. He knew it was my first day. He’d just been making suggestive small talk. My auto-verbalization script kept running unchecked; “I mean you.” Fuck. “I mean yes. Yes, it’s my first day.”
“Well, now that that’s straightened out,” Lonnie said when everyone was done laughing.
I felt like a fool. That wasn’t going to work. Not at all.
Chapter 4
RAVEN
It was late. There was never enough time to meet everyone from every department to note the specific challenges and complaints of every single department leader and member. So I scheduled another seven p.m. meeting. The fourth in the two weeks I’d been at Neuronet. The sky got a little bluer every time as we got deeper into spring, and my attraction to the lawyer on the other side of the table didn’t abate one bit.
Lonnie had put Roman in an office right across from mine. There was a narrow hall between us with two desks for assistants. His assistant desk was empty. My assistant was Oona. She came with the job. She knew everything about the company and sat a little to the right so I had a clear view of him.
I wasn’t obsessed, necessarily. But I did do a little mild, lightweight hacking I’d learned at QI4. More than I should have done. More than I was comfortable with. But he was pretty tempting, and every time I saw him, I wanted to know more.
FILE UNDER: Friend of Alexander Burke.
FILE UNDER: Mediocre high school record.
I could have asked him, but I remembered the rock solid executive non-fraternization policy and went for the hacks. The policy was strict for executives, but when it came to contractors, it included damages. We were his client, but he was also ours, and there was no tolerance for it.
FILE UNDER: Sky-high LSAT score.<
br />
I was up late too many nights digging into Roman Bianchi’s life, especially if we’d had a meeting that day. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it any more. This would be the last seven p.m. meeting that sent me into the dark web.
Oona asked to be excused to pick up her nephew. Lonnie begged off for her anniversary. The IT point person was optional on the calendar. I grabbed my laptop and bag. I could leave right from the meeting without stopping back at my office. Roman’s office was already empty. He was probably waiting in the conference room with his klatch of lawyers.
I rounded the corner and the conference room came into view, but the constellation of lawyers I expected didn’t greet me. Just Roman Bianchi, tapping his phone at the head of the table. Enough light came from the windows to keep the fluorescents off, but not enough to keep the twilight from softening the atmosphere around him. I hadn’t prepared myself to be alone in a room with him. Hadn’t thought I needed to. But when I saw his solitary form, relaxed because he thought no one was looking, I smiled so wide I had to remind myself that uncontrolled giggling was unprofessional.
“Hello.” I put my laptop at the opposite end of the table. He looked up from his device.
“Hey.” He pivoted, putting his phone down. “You’re awfully far away.”
“I always sit here.”
He indicated the empty seats. “The table’s usually lined with people.”
I sat and opened my laptop. “Your team’s out, too?”
“Apparently.”
“Short agenda tonight,” I said. “I think we can plow through.” If I could just pay attention to the agenda in the first place. I had to start at the top. Breathe. “Item one.”
“Skip,” he said. “Jan’s still working on it.”
I checked it off.
“Item two. Product design targets.”
He held up his hand. “Problem.”
I glanced at him, then clicked my laptop to the relevant section. He was looking at me. Ten tons of hot lawyer funneled into a gaze and weighed on the part of my brain that made words. The clause looked like alphabet soup.
Take your time.
I began, “Design team goals are calibrated against concurrent quarter sales goals in associated departments.”
“You can’t make the design team responsible for sales goals. We need to minimize variability tied to performance.”
I looked over the edge of my screen. He leaned forward on his elbows, laptop closed.
“Why not?”
He folded his hands together in front of him, looking at me across the table, pushing forward. He took my breath away.
“Because product design is sixty percent female. Sales is run by men. You’re tying a woman’s pay to the performance of men.”
I closed my laptop. “That’s crazy.”
“Sometimes fairness looks crazy.”
“You’re taking this too far.”
He tapped his fingertips together.
“I arbitrated a case at Apex Intel. Small company, but instructive. They’d met gender equity goals by filling their customer service department with women. Coders and engineers were all men. A contingent of their customer service employees sued when their performance surveys started getting downgraded by people calling about faulty programming. You want to know what that cost Apex?”
I slid my laptop away so I could lean forward.
“Three million, of which you took one point two in fees. And your written argument about the way the surveys were structured was brilliant.”
“Thank you.”
I stood as if I was done with this meeting. “Even if completely immoral.”
“I’m not paid by the diocese or the government. You, on the other hand…”
“…are on the way out.” I picked up my computer. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Went to USC. Finance. Top honors but ended up in HR.”
“I like people. Can’t say the same for you, being a video game nerd.”
“You beta tested Harbinger Four. You should know.”
“I was sixteen.”
He leaned back and clicked his pen.
“I know.”
This motherfucker had hacked me the same way I’d hacked him. Maybe he used the same methods I’d learned from Taylor or maybe he just did lawyer magic. Maybe it was all in the public record, but I was so irritated I could barely see straight. He’d outdone me, and I wouldn’t be outdone.
“Why did you miss your graduation from Loyola?” I asked.
“Family obligations.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“That was a long time ago.” I was on my way to the door when he continued. “Speaking of fathers, I saw one of your father’s sculptures in the lobby at Apple.”
I was at his side of the table when he stopped me cold.
“Really?” I put my things down, fully committed to this dick-swinging contest. “There to see your old buddies from the Borden case?”
“Actually, I went to see the sculpture.”
“Why?”
“Your father made it. I thought it might give me a little insight into you.”
I put my knuckles on the table. He didn’t move. Didn’t try to empower himself by standing. He just leaned back, letting himself slide down the seat a little. The posture didn’t make him smaller. Didn’t make him cowed or weak. It made him look more competent and confident. How did he do that?
“Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
He tapped the end of his pen against his lips. Was he trying to draw attention to them? Because that was exactly what he was doing.
“I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Who do you think you’re dealing with?”
His head tilted ever so slightly, and his lips curved just a little. The expression was bathed in a subtle sexuality that made me uncomfortable in the most sexy way.
“Someone who left a very lucrative post at a growing disruptor. Our job as outside counsel is to question everything house counsel does. Alexander Burke loved you, and he runs this show. But for us, it’s a red flag.”
I stepped back so he could stand. I didn’t want to be too close to him. I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions, except that I would be.
“Really? How’s that?”
He slid his computer into his satchel.
“We needed to make sure you left for the reasons you said.”
“I did.”
“We know.”
I had nothing else to say. I picked up my things and opened the door.
He spoke before I was all the way out.
“We should play Harbinger some time. I hear Seven is trip-A.”
“In your arrogant opinion.” I used a common gamer phrase. He smiled.
“Indeed.” He closed his bag. Even the way he ran the zipper across the top was sexy. “Truthfully, I haven’t been that plugged-in since I was a kid.”
“Me either.”
“But we could have fun.”
Fun? With him? The thought sent a rigid tingle up my spine and a liquid throb downward. Was he asking me out? Was he coming on to me? Did he just want to play Harbinger Seven? I hadn’t even played since the fifth iteration.
It didn’t matter what he wanted. It mattered what I wanted.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, walking out before he could say another word. I didn’t know how much strength I had against him.
Chapter 5
ROMAN
If Raven Crosby hadn’t picked up some hacking tips from QI4, I’d eat my shoe.
She’d left as they were growing. Kept her stock options. That never happens. She was also still friendly with Taylor Harden, the hacker brain behind QI4’s quantum system.
I figured they’d parted on good terms. Maybe with something hanging over Taylor’s head.
My team ended up with a few folders on her. I told myself I was a lawyer. Collecting data on people was what I did for a living.
&
nbsp; But this was different.
A week in, I was obsessed with her ebony hair and eyes. Lashes drawn on with black Sharpie. Her voice was hypnotic in meetings, and was only heard after long stretches of listening. The night before, she’d tipped her hand, showing me that she’d peeled the curtain back to get intel on me. I didn’t feel violated as much as vindicated. The attraction was mutual. She wouldn’t have done it for any other reason.
“I’ll be there at eight,” I said to my sister, Teagan. We had a dinner planned half an hour before, but I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t the rain that pounded on the windows. It wasn’t my sister. Teagan was fine, but the office was empty and Raven was right across the hall, working in the glow of a desk lamp.
“You better be,” she said. “I’m starving and I need to get drunk.”
“Get a head start at the bar.”
“I’m not going to sit at the end of the bar by myself with a drink. Do you even know what it’s like out there for a girl?”
I didn’t know firsthand, obviously, but I knew enough from her. Teagan was a career gamer and game designer. One of the best. She had a sweet, harmless face that made her approachable to even the most beta of betas. Regardless, even the betas tried to compete with her once they knew what she did. I was exhausted on her behalf.
Across the hall, Raven stood and clicked off her desk lamp.
“Leaving now,” I said, cutting the call. I grabbed my things and headed out, timing it perfectly so we met in the hall.
“Hi,” I said.
She nodded and gave me a non-committal smile. We spoke often, but never a word that didn’t have to do with the human resources software implementation and how it would protect Neuronet from liability.
“It’s raining,” I said. “You taking the elevator to the parking lot?”