Page 30 of Fake It For Glory

JENSEN

Iwas at work, my heart pounding in my chest as I stared at the monitor, the code scrolling in front of me. Something had gone terribly wrong, and we were way past the point where we should be facing a crisis of this magnitude.

I went over it a good ten times before I let the panic and anger set in. This could not be happening. How had someone managed to fuck this up this badly? I slammed my hand against my desk and got to my feet.

I was suddenly very hot in my once comfy room. I shrugged off my jacket and tossed it over the chair. Then I rolled up my sleeves. This was serious. This could destroy everything I had been busting my ass to do over the last year. I stomped out of my office and toward the area where the developers worked. It was a series of desks inside cubicles.

My frustration was boiling over as I approached them. “Conference room, now!” My voice carried over the flimsy walls that were several inches shorter than I was.

Everyone’s heads popped up. Most of them were wearing glasses and had looks of genuine concern and I hoped a little fear. They all knew how damn important this was. I walked into the conference room with the team of five scurrying in behind me. I didn’t bother closing the door. I wanted the whole office to know just how serious I was about making sure the launch was absolutely fucking perfect. There would be zero mistakes.

“This is unacceptable!” I snapped, my voice filled with irritation. “We can’t afford to have these kinds of issues at this stage. What the hell happened?”

I could feel the tension in the room, my developers exchanging nervous glances. But I didn’t need finger-pointing. I needed solutions, and I needed them immediately.

“I don’t pay you all to twiddle your thumbs and screw around,” I continued, my tone harsh. “I pay you to leave your mark on the most state-of-the-art AI program the world has ever seen. I expect exceptional work, not mediocrity. Is that clear?”

“Sir—” One of the developers calmly moved to close the door until I shot her a glare and stopped her in her tracks before she could get it all the way closed.

“No! I don’t want to hear the same tired fucking excuses! We’ve been working on this thing for months! Months! How the hell do we get weeks from roll out and this shit wasn’t found?”

My voice was rising with each word, my frustration bubbling over. The developers were shifting uncomfortably in their seats, eyes downcast. I could see the fear in their eyes, and I knew I had to rein it in before I lost their respect.

“Look,” I said, my voice softer, “I know this is a difficult project. We’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible here. But that doesn’t mean we can afford to let things slip through the cracks. We’re better than this. We’re the best damn team in the business, and I know you can rise to the occasion.”

“The problem is—”

I held up my hand to stop him from finishing his sentence that would absolutely include some kind of excuse. “Don’t.” My voice was so low I barely heard myself. “I don’t want to hear any fucking excuses, is that clear?”

Just as I was about to let my frustration boil over, the door to the conference room swung wide, and Merida walked in. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening as she took in the tense scene. Her eyes locked on mine before she surveyed the room.

“That’s all,” I said. “Get to work and figure this shit out. No one is leaving this office until it’s fixed!”

I stomped out of the conference room. When I looked back, Merida was still in the conference room looking just a little shell-shocked. With a quick motion of my hand, I beckoned her to follow me into my office. Once we were both inside, I gestured for her to close the door behind her, and she did.

She raised an eyebrow, her expression a mix of curiosity and concern. “Jensen, do you always treat your people like that?”

I glanced up at her, my mood dark and stormy after the earlier debacle with the team. “If they screw up? Yeah, I do.”

Merida shot me a dirty look. Her disgust for me was written all over her face. “You know, maybe this kind of thing is why people think you need softening. If you weren’t so tough on your staff, you wouldn’t need to pay half a million bucks to keep a nice girl on your arm for the cameras.”

I clenched my fists, feeling my anger rising at her words. How dare she insinuate that I needed a woman to soften me? “Excuse me?” My voice was a low growl.

Merida stood her ground, her eyes flashing with defiance. “You heard me, Jensen. Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole, you wouldn’t need to pay a total stranger to put up with you.”

I advanced on her, closing the distance between us until we were almost nose to nose. “Careful, Merida,” I warned her, my voice dripping with venom. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know me. You don’t know what kind of pressure I’m under. You’re playing with fire.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve learned guys like you are a lot of hot air. You curse and shout and act like you’re this big bad ass. When push comes to shove, I’m guessing you’re a big pus—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” I warned.

“Pushover,” she said defiantly.

It was a better choice of words than I thought she was going to use. “Tell me, Merida, when was the last time you programmed an AI? What kind of experience do you have starting and owning your own flourishing tech company? How many people are watching you and waiting for you to fail simply because you’ve been so successful and they’re jealous?”

She snorted, her arms folding across her chest. “Listen to you, talking about your own success like it’s some kind of plague. If you’re so bothered by your success, why do you keep trying to impress everyone? Maybe you should take a vacation instead of trying to pack your schedule with events you don’t want to do.”

“I’m not saying my success is a plague,” I shot back. “I’m saying people are hoping this tech fails. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction. I pay those people out there a lot of fucking money. The least they can do is make sure shit is done right!”