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"Yes, shut it off and reboot," Walter says. "When you're turning it back on, you need to immediately hold the F8 key."
"Why is that?" I ask. "Is something about to melt down on me? You'd at least warn me if that was the case, right?"
"Very funny," Walter says. "No, you need to do this so that you can be taken to an advanced menu."
"And what exactly am I looking for on that menu?" I ask.
"You're looking for the advanced boot options."
"Got it!" I say. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins. It already feels like an eternity to just get to this point, and all I want to do is get the hell out of here.
"Okay, now insert the USB stick and start downloading all of the data from th
e I.E. folders."
"It's downloading," I say, clicking them all and pressing the download option. "But it's taking forever Walter! You'd think the connection speeds would be faster in a high-tech company like this. You even said this was one of the most high-tech buildings you'd ever been in." I'm tapping my feet against the floor with nervous energy. I can practically feel the minutes going by, and with every passing minute, the likelihood of someone finding me increases.
My thoughts go back to what Walter and Simon have both told me separately.
There’s no stealing bits of data. It’s either steal the physical prototype or steal all the files.
Because overtime they upgrade the software to fix bugs or whatever, all of the old data becomes useless. They rewrite a whole new operating system. It’s a failsafe to make sure that old data doesn’t get lost or misplaced and a new product reverse engineered.
It also means I have at most 24 hours to get this to Simon once it finishes downloading.
If it finishes downloading that is.
50 percent—75 percent—92 percent—shit, it's stalled on 92 percent.
"Walter, it's frozen on 92 percent!"
"Calm down. Give it a minute."
"We don't have any extra fucking minutes!" Now I'm really stressed. If this data doesn't load—and soon—I'm fucked. I check back at the status bar.
"Oh good—Walter it's done; it's at 100 percent! I'm ejecting the USB stick; we did it."
I pop out the USB drive, and it slips out of my fingers and onto the floor. Shit. I look around, trying to find it. Just great. Where the hell is it? I get down on my knees and search for it, and I finally find it, nestled behind the leg of a chair. As soon as I have it in my hands, I hear the sound of footsteps approaching.
"What are you doing in here?"
It's Cheryl. Shit.
"I—uh—I just—"
Then I hear Walter in my ear. "Tell her you were looking for an earring that you lost; she'll believe that," he says.
"I was just looking for an earring that I must've dropped," I say.
Cheryl raises one skeptical eyebrow. "You dropped an earring? Here, in Ethan’s office?”
"That's right," I say. "Well, I'm not sure if it was in here, per say. It could be somewhere else, but I just wanted to make sure."
"And why would it be in here?" Cheryl asks. "Or maybe the better question is, why would you have ever needed to be in here? To say the earring might be here is to imply you've spent time here. Only our developers come in here."
"Oh I—uh—I was taking a tour of the place the other day," I say.
"In here?"
