by Sarah Noffke
“You can look through to see if one of the FGA agents has been here?” she asked.
“I can try,” he answered. “Isn’t my first job to determine if there’s coding that’s making it so couples are pitted against each other on FriendNet, resulting in breakups?”
Christine sighed dramatically. “While you’re pretty much doing nothing, I have to maintain a conversation with a hipster about things that aren’t cool and music that’s irrelevant and doesn’t sound good. And I might have to eat something like hummus to fool them into thinking I’m a hipster. Have you had hummus, Faraday? No one likes it. Ever…”
Paris had to stifle her laughter. “It’s true. Hummus is for those who are trying to persuade themselves into believing that cheese isn’t the nectar of the gods.”
“Cheese isn’t the nectar of the gods,” Faraday corrected. “I believe that’s—”
“Oh, would you go already and do your squirrel business?” Christine waved him off Paris’ shoulder, where he ran down to the floor and scurried through the open space to the offices on the other side of the area
Paris laughed. “It’s funny how you pretended that the squirrel wasn’t our only way to figure all this out.”
Christine forced a bored smile as Handlebar Mustache and another guy with a beard strode in their direction. From cracked lips, she said, “I gave our ride a way to call up our limo.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
“So play it cool,” Christine urged as Handlebar Mustache and a guy with a big beard who was probably twenty-something ambled their way. “By cool, I mean, act like you don’t care, and you also care a lot.”
Paris gave her friend an annoyed expression.
Christine held up her hands. “What? It’s hard being a hipster. I’m sure they’re exhausted all the time. No wonder they drink so much coffee.”
“Hi!” Paris squeaked as the head programmer walked over with the guy with a mustache. “We were hoping to chill with you two and understand your processes over some froyo if you’re down with it.”
The guy’s faces went through a series of expressions but thankfully settled on passable by the end.
“I was going to grab us some craft beers after I introduced you to Dash,” Handlebar Mustache said. He pointed at Paris and Christine. “This is Starflake and Rosewater.”
“Cool to meet you. I think some frozen yogurt would be good for my gut health,” the guy with the beard said. He shouldn’t have one that large until he was a hundred years old, but hipsters excelled in growing facial hair. He turned to his friend. “Would you take our new friend to grab some for us from the organic, dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free shop down the way?”
“Wow, that place sounds so quaint,” Paris remarked, sounding dreamy and hating every moment of it.
“It is.” Dash looked at Christine. “Do you want to go with my friend to get us yogurt? He can fill you in on our ways during the errand if you like.” He indicated Handlebar Mustache, who apparently couldn’t have a name because that would make him known and real, and a hipster couldn’t have that. Paris decided that after reinstating love, she was killing anyone who used a record player. She should warn them now to throw them out.
“Do I?” Christine gushed, batting her eyes at Handlebar Mustache. “I’ve already made a friendship bracelet, but let’s wait until we’ve been friends for, like, five years. Then I’ll give it to you.”
Handlebar Mustache held out his arm to Christine, offering to lead her off, and smiled. “I feel like you might be my multi-soul mate. You get me like only a few dozen in this world might.”
Christine nodded and strode off with the sad excuse for a human being, doing her best to keep their cover while Faraday did the real work.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Holding out his arm at the open space, Dash glanced at Paris. “Well, what do you want to see? We’ve innovated things here at FriendNet, but we’re always looking for ways to make things more synergistic.”
Paris looked around where various people worked on tiny laptops or typewriters on the floor or were seated in the bean bag chairs. She swept her eyes over to the corner office where she’d seen Faraday run off to. Thankfully, he wasn’t easily visible typing at a computer, although glass walls enclosed most of the offices. The chair in front of the desk obscured him from view unless she craned her head to the side.
Angling her body to the side, encouraging Dash to put his back to the offices, she pretended to study the area. “Well, my firm specializes in creating workspaces that support maximum inspiration,” Paris said in an airy voice earning a smile from Dash.
“Now you’re talking my language,” Dash stated. “We’re always trying to revolutionize our work environment. Like, check this out.”
He picked up a small black remote that was lying on the shelf next to a record player. “We were sitting around in here one day. I was like, I need some fresh air. Someone else was all, ‘I wish we didn’t have walls confining us.’ Then I had this brilliant idea.”
Dash clicked a button, and all of the floor-to-ceiling windows retracted, lowering and disappearing. The exterior barriers to the building had pretty much all disappeared, save for support beams along the walls and corners. A sharp breeze shot straight into the warehouse office space.
Paris covered her exposed arms, missing her leather jacket. “Whoa, aren’t we on the twenty-sixth floor?”
Dash nodded proudly. “Yeah, pretty cool, huh? It’s my outdoor-slash-indoor office.”
Paris neared the closest windowed areas, which were completely open now. She peered over the edge where the window, a barrier, and wall of sorts, had been seconds prior. There was no guard rail. She looked down to the alleyway below, getting a daunting feeling as the crisp San Francisco winds swept into the office, not stopped by a window or a wall any longer.
Pulling back, Paris worked to keep the repulsed expression off her face. “Is that safe? Anyone could fall out.”
“We’ve all embraced that could be our fate,” Dash stated. “Isn’t it worth it to have a conducive workspace? I mean, how are we supposed to do our best work with walls caging our creativity.”
“Yeah, I feel you,” Paris muttered, wondering if she’d get kicked out of Happily Ever After College for killing a bunch of hipsters. She reasoned that they were blocking love with their annoying ways.
“Do you want a tour of the floor?” Dash asked. “We can start with the most stifling areas, our offices.” He indicated the area where Faraday was hopefully hacking into FriendNet—gaining covert information. “Then we can work our way to the more creative places and reward ourselves with a treat.”
“I don’t want to see the offices yet,” Paris said in a rush, turning to face the record player. “How about some tunes? That’s the best way to introduce me to a space.”
“I agree.” Dash picked up a record on the top of the stack. “Let’s see. Have you heard Blind Pilot? They have a nice mellow sound.”
Trying to be cool, Paris nodded. “Yeah, I love them.”
He sighed and chunked the album onto another stack. “Oh, well, then I’ll find something else. This is a new space to you, and you need new music.” His eyes lit up. “Oh, in my office, I’ve got a brand new album that isn’t yet released. It’s by an experimental band that doesn’t use instruments. Mostly, it’s ambient noises like lights flickering to life or dishes being put away. Let me go grab that.”
“No!” Paris exclaimed too loudly, making many in the open area look up at her. She forced a smile. “I mean, no, that’s not my jam. I prefer the banjo.”
“Banjo?” Dash asked.
“Only the banjo,” Paris stated with conviction.
“You know what you like, and that’s impressive.” Dash smiled at her.
A cold wind swept through the open office, kicking up loose papers and making Paris’ hair fly in her face.
Dash closed his eyes, enjoying the gust of wind that was disrupting the area. The winds on the twenty-sixth flo
or could be intense in San Francisco most days, and this one was no exception.
Stealing a glance at the office, Paris noticed Faraday getting blown around as he tried to type furiously on the computer. The wind was doing a number on the squirrel since the open wall was directly at his back. Plus, the draft from the opposite end of the large workspace where she and Dash stood was causing suction.
“Isn’t this so good for our working spirit?” Dash opened his eyes and looked at Paris.
She jerked her head back, pulling her eyes away from where Faraday was working.
Dash glanced in the direction of the office, skeptical curiosity on his face. Paris desperately hoped he didn’t see the look of worry on her face.
“Can I get one of those craft beers?” Paris asked in a rush. “I’m super parched, and I do my best work when I have a libation.”
Dash nodded slowly, careful speculation on her. “Yeah, I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”
She plastered a serene, hippie smile on her face and nodded, waving and watching as he retreated for what she guessed was the breakroom on the far side of the open room.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Trying not to appear as if she was rushing, Paris dawdled along the space, pretending she enjoyed the brisk wind tearing through the open window walls. When she caught sight of Faraday clinging to the keyboard of the computer, his tail whipping in the torrential wind, she hurried, not caring if anyone saw her. She’d say that her support squirrel was exploring and had gotten lost. That had been the plan all along. However, she didn’t think that he’d get lost by blowing out the open wall behind Dash’s desk.
Nearly running, Paris rushed to the glass-enclosed office. Faraday jerked his head up when she entered the office—his eyes frantic.
“I found evidence of a program that uses algorithms at FriendNet to instigate tensions in relationships,” Faraday said urgently, holding onto the mouse for dear life.
Paris looked around for a way to close the wall, but there wasn’t one of those little black remotes, and Dash had pocketed the other one. Rushing behind the desk, Paris put herself between the squirrel and the open wall.
“It’s incredible,” Faraday related, scrolling through what looked like a foreign language to Paris. “There’s a giant database full of each FriendNet member’s dislikes, exes, allergies, phobias, aversions.”
“He’s using the data the social media source has on people to make them upset, fight, and break up,” Paris said, confirming what she and Christine had speculated. “Can you shut it down? There’s like one hundred thousand breakups a day because of this dude.”
“I’m working on it but need another minute.” Faraday swiveled around from the blistering wind.
“A minute to undo a program set up by this hipster. That’s impressive for anyone, especially a squirrel.” She worked to put her body more as a shield for the talking squirrel.
“Thanks,” Faraday chirped, bouncing around on the keyboard, pecking at it with his paws.
Her eyes flickered to a graduate’s diploma certificate on the wall from MIT. “And you’re undoing the work of a software engineer from the illustrious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Paris’ eyes narrowed on the name of the degree, and she grimaced. “Oh, hipsters are the worst. Dash is short for raz8.dash.”
“Yeah, I thought that was his user name at first, but it’s his legal name,” Faraday explained, his tail like a flag in the wind.
“Can you tell where the program originated?” Paris asked. “Maybe Dash isn’t involved—but finding out where it originated is important. Can you link it to an agent at FGA?”
“I haven’t had a chance to check the security cameras,” Faraday muttered, the wheels of his brain spinning as he typed out what looked like code to Paris. “I’ll try and look into that later, but this program originated from this computer. As far as I can tell, it’s isolated.”
“Meaning that the chief programmer is behind this. That’s what we thought,” Paris mumbled, her eyes scanning the admin area outside the office for signs of the hipster.
“Well, shutting this down will pause the problem,” Faraday stated. “But he’ll figure it out and turn it back on.”
Paris tapped the desk impatiently. “That’s fine. Just find me some evidence, and I’ll snap a picture on my phone. It’s all that Willow needs to turn over to Saint Valentine. Then his authority will shut FriendNet down.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
FriendNet was hooked into everything. Not only that, but Dash had apps that gave him access to everything from traffic lights to convenience store security cameras. Using a picture he grabbed from the security footage taken in the lobby of FriendNet earlier, Dash uploaded it to his facial recognition app on his phone.
He sensed something was different about Starflake and Rosewater. However, that curiosity had quickly morphed into suspicion when Starflake started acting nervous. And banjo, really. He shook his head. Banjos were popular in the West Coast folk music scene. Anyone who had a true appreciation of music wasn’t listening to the overly popularized folk stuff.
What made Dash wary of Starflake was that she felt similar to the fairy who had assigned him the breakup project—Agent Ruby. The magical creature from FGA had said that there would be someone who tried to stop their efforts. Maybe it was a young hippie fairy. Dash waited for the facial recognition results to populate.
A moment later they did, and his eyes narrowed. The results read:
97% facial match to a Paris Beaufont.
He scrolled through the information listed that was the private property of FriendNet. Although Paris wasn’t very active on FriendNet, she had updated her profile recently. She’d been trying to get in touch with some of her exes, but they didn’t appear to want anything to do with her.
Dash scrolled through various photos of Paris from the public cameras. She’d been all over recently. The images told a story that most would never have access to. Although much was unclear, one thing was evident to Dash—Paris Beaufont was no consultant.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Agent Ruby picked up the phone after the first ring, wanting an update from the chief programmer from FriendNet. Dash had delivered, doing an excellent job of breaking up couples. The love meter had never been so low.
The FGA board was furious with Saint Valentine, believing his mismanagement led to these problems. No one had connected the plummeting levels of love to FriendNet. Well, no one but Paris Beaufont from what Agent Ruby could discern. He had been intercepting the reports from Matters of the Heart, and it didn’t appear that Saint Valentine was aware that FriendNet was behind the low levels of love.
Agent Ruby didn’t know how the halfling with demon blood had figured out the problem, which was why he’d enlisted a special spy. He’d learned that Paris and a student named Christine Welsh had taken it upon themselves to research FriendNet, figuring out much of what Dash had done to sabotage love. That wasn’t all though, and the bonus information Agent Ruby learned was quite interesting, to say the least.
“What?” Agent Ruby said into the phone, accepting the call.
“We have a situation here at FriendNet,” Dash informed him.
“What is it?”
“There are two people here from Happily Ever After College posing as consultants,” Dash explained. “Did you send someone? Or are you aware of what they are doing here?”
“I didn’t,” Agent Ruby said through clenched teeth. “Who are they?”
“I only was able to identify one so far,” Dash answered. “Are you familiar with a Paris Beaufont?”
Agent Ruby growled. “I am.”
“Well, do you know what she’s doing here?”
“She’s trying to figure out what we’re up to so she can invariably stop us.”
“Well, I think it’s highly unlikely that she’ll be able to find anything of use.” Dash uttered a conceited laugh. “I mean, she’s a fairy, and I’m a genius programmer.”
<
br /> Agent Ruby’s eyes swiveled to the large orange cat named Casanova, sitting next to him in the sitting room of the fairy godmothers’ mansion. “Don’t underestimate her. Does she have a squirrel with her?”
“Yeah, my buddy said it was her support squirrel before he introduced us,” Dash answered. “I saw videos of her talking to it in various places.”
“The squirrel talks,” Agent Ruby said bitterly, having learned a great deal from the tattle cat.
“No way,” Dash muttered.
“Way.” Agent Ruby had trouble keeping his patience with the hipster. He glanced at Casanova, who explained about the squirrel named Faraday. “Where is Paris now?”
“Don’t worry,” Dash stated. “I left her in the community workspace.”
“And the squirrel?” Agent Ruby asked.
“Oh, I haven’t seen him,” Dash answered.
“Go now and find them!” Agent Ruby yelled, turning off the phone and shaking his head. He had no idea that it would be a halfling that caused him problems, but he was still hopeful that his plans were far enough along that she couldn’t ruin them.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“No one is shutting down FriendNet,” Dash said, sliding into the doorway, a look of menace on his face.
Paris tensed at the sight of the hipster. “Hi. I’m not sure what you think you heard, but—”
“I heard you talking to that squirrel.” Dash pointed at Faraday, who pulled his paw off a key and straightened. He tensed and gave Paris a look like he’d eaten a handful of nuts and was having an allergic reaction. “He was talking back to you.”
Paris forced a laugh. “Talking back to me? That’s ridiculous. Animals can’t talk.”
“I heard you talking to him,” Dash stated.