Chapter 2

The jealous looks from the coworkers around us only got sharper.

Haley was shaking with anger, on the verge of standing up to say something.

I grabbed her hand and held it down, giving her a look.

Then I turned to Cyrus, plastering on my best professional smile.

"No problem, Mr. Griffin. Since you gave us such a generous bonus, of course we'll give it everything we've got."

I made sure to stress the words generous bonus, and gave the roaring computer tower a friendly pat for good measure.

Dust billowed up in a cloud, drifting through the sunlight.

Cyrus choked on it, coughing twice and stumbling back a step.

He frowned and waved a hand. "What's wrong with this thing? Why's it so dusty?"

I explained, my expression the picture of sincerity.

"Mr. Griffin, this is the blind-box grand prize you awarded me yesterday. You said it yourself; this is exactly the hardware the tech department needs.

"I figured, since it came from the boss's own heart, I owe it to you to build the core module on it. Have to soak up some of that good fortune."

Cyrus's expression froze for a second.

Clearly, he had no memory of the drunken speech he'd given the night before, and he definitely hadn't expected me to actually use the thing.

But in his mind, as long as something could run code, it might as well be an abacus doubling as a server.

"Fine, fine. As long as you've got the right attitude. Whatever equipment you use, I want to see results by Friday.

"If you can't deliver... well. The company does have every right to claw back that hundred-thousand-dollar bonus."

With that, he shot us one last meaningful look and sauntered off, hands clasped behind his back.

"He's really getting into character now, isn't he?" Gabe muttered a curse under his breath.

Drew looked ready to smash the keyboard over the back of his own head.

"Taylor, why'd you stop Haley? This junk heap takes ten minutes just to boot up. How are we supposed to run code on it?"

"Exactly. The color on this monitor is so far off, red comes out looking like baby-diaper yellow."

I watched Cyrus disappear into his office and shut the door.

The smile on my face went cold.

"Listen up. The boss has spoken, so we're going to listen. He says the tech department needs this hardware. Fine. We'll only use this hardware."

I unplugged my own high-performance laptop, the one I'd been using all along.

Then I pointed at the wreck of a tower still roaring away on the desk.

"Drew, your code doesn't need comments, does it? The keyboard's basically unreadable anyway, so typos from typing blind are only natural.

"Gabe, the mouse is unresponsive. If you accidentally delete a few database tables or drag the wrong file, that's completely understandable too.

"Haley, just design the interface to match this monitor. If it shows white, then as far as we're concerned, it's white."

The three of them froze.

They traded a glance.

Drew was the first to catch on. He picked up the popped-off keycap and snapped it back into place, not bothering to check whether it was even in the right spot.

"Got it, Chief. This keyboard's got terrible feel, my enter key keeps sticking. If the code runs a few thousand extra lines into an infinite loop, that's really not on me."

Gabe plugged in the grease-slicked mouse too.

The cursor twitched wildly across the screen like it was having a seizure.

"Would you look at that, this mouse is way too sensitive. I try to click save, and somehow it keeps sliding over to format instead."

Haley wiped her tears away.

Looking at the monitor, half of it lit up and speckled with static, she wore the most relaxed smile she'd had all year.

"Chief, I actually think this retro filter on the display is kind of nice. Didn't the client want 'colorful black' anyway? I think I can deliver exactly that right now."

I nodded, satisfied.

Working with smart people was always this easy.

If the boss wanted to play blind-box roulette with our hearts, then I'd make sure his own heart didn't stop racing for the rest of the week.

I clapped my hands together. "Let's get to work."