Axis
ZORA'S POV
I had been with the company three months. Don't ask questions on how I got there. I was there. Most people thought I was a slacker. HR was scared to death of me. The CEO had gotten a recording that would make him rethink ever letting me go.
And then there was Cheeto hands.
Three months from a major product launch that had been built on Axis Technology's own blockchain. Except it hadn't been.
THE CHEETO HANDS STORY
You see, most cities have a dirty underground. This one did. I actually loved this city—Pittsburgh. But the ugly part of any city existed. Two movies came to mind: Jack Reacher and Batman.
Anyway, numbskull had wanted to get laid. So he went to a questionable strip joint. Someone there had known he was a programmer with Axis. They'd recorded the encounter and blackmailed him into changing the blockchain.
Cheeto hands had thought he was smart enough to outsmart the Russian Mafia. He'd changed one piece of the code he thought protected everything. He'd fucked everything up royally.
I knew what he'd done. I knew what he'd missed. And he still thought he was god with the mob on his side.
Poor guy.
Why did anyone care what a stupid tech firm's tech geeks had done? Because this was going to be the first transaction to go live that traded energy royalties and had real government backing. Canada and the US. The stakes were high.
They had vetted the company. Yet there I was.
Someone had hired me.
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That day, though, was the first time things had started to get interesting. Stockholders and investors had been on site. Including a very nice looking six-foot-four dark-haired French Canadian.
His name was Alec.
I watched him go by and I watched him catch that I was playing Tetris. My trademark. I was a slacker.
He walked by me again on the tour and hit the spacebar, making me miss a move.
I hit his hand. That earned me a look.
He thought he had an easy job. I could tell by the way he looked me over. I blushed appropriately and looked at him adorably over my glasses.
I gestured to my security badge on the pocket of my white button down.
Alec looked at the name. "Zora."
"Forgive." I bit my lip. "Um…" I looked at his security badge. Attached to his belt. I reached for it as he moved enough to act startled by my reaction, causing me to brush his crotch. "Oh!" I blushed more.
"I'm so sorry…"
"Alec," he said.
"Well, Alex, I am so sorry."
"It's Alec." He repeated it so I would remember.
"Right…Alec," I said softly, looking away.
I watched the tour move on and went back to my game and following Cheeto hands' obvious trail.
About his second week in, I decided it was time. We needed a proper meeting. He had pulled my time stamps and computer logs, which mainly showed Tetris. I kept the other screen with the proper security code blocking screen so he couldn't see, and used a predictable admin login to snoop.
Time to let him think he was hunting me.
