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“Understood,” I said curtly.
She smiled warmly. “Excellent! We have a busy day ahead of us. I’ve forwarded you four job interviews we will be conducting. Please review their respective CVs before we meet with them.”
When I went upstairs, I wandered over in the direction of Owen’s office. The frosted effect was disabled on his windows, and I could see him sitting in his chair, feet up on the desk while tossing a tennis ball back and forth between his hands. He looked like he was on a conference call. Even though I was in his line of sight, he never glanced in my direction.
Fine. Be that way.
Jude was in his office. He raised a hand and smiled in greeting, and I nodded back at him before going into my office and settling in to work.
I spent the first two hours of the morning reviewing the roadmap for the ACS expansion. I mapped out every single large-scale objective Jude had explained, then I listed out all the sub-objectives that needed to happen to meet each one. Thenthosewere broken down into individual functions, programs, routines that needed to be coded.
I had never worked on a project this big. Not even helping create ArgoCoin. It was satisfying taking a wide view of our core objective (expanding to support more cryptocurrencies) and then breaking them down into their subsequent parts. When I was done, I had a Gantt Chart and a spiderweb diagram listing out the entire project. Now, when we brought other coders in, I could easily assign them specific tasks and they could hit the ground running.
I got another cup of coffee and a Cliff Bar from the kitchen, then sat down and began the code work for one of the smaller tasks. Chipping away at the huge mountain of work looming before me. It would be easier when we had a team of two dozen working here, but for now it felt good to grab a pickaxe and get to work by myself.
With my headphones blasting wordless techno music, I got into a groove for a while. The only thing that made me look up from my screen was whenever Jude walked by my office. I tried not to look like I was outwardly staring at him, but I watched him above my middle computer monitor. Sleek glasses. Freckled cheeks. Those intense blue eyes that matched his button-down shirt today.
He’s my boss, I thought.Not the guy I flirted with at the bar.
I probably would have kept on working for several hours if not for Melinda appearing at my door and giving it a little knock. “Hi there. Sorry to interrupt. The first interview is here.”
“Oh! Right. Sorry, I’ll be right down.”
“Did you get a chance to review his CV?”
“Sure did,” I lied.
I finished the program I was working on, gathered my laptop up, and left my office. Jude was coming up the stairs as I was going down them, a mug of coffee in his hand and a smile on his face. I stopped at the top of the stairs to wait for him.
“I finished the roadmap for the crypto expansion,” I said, a note of pride in my voice.
His smile became more crooked. “I saw. I was going to grab two of the tasks to work on today.”
“Be sure to mark them on the Gantt chart, so I know which one.”
“Of course.” He cleared his throat, and for a moment he looked like the awkward guy from the bar again. “I heard what you did last night.”
I winced. “I was wondering if you would bring that up. I only hacked Owen’s laptop. I didn’t go messing around with anything else here. I want you to know that.”
“Of course. I didn’t assume. I mean, I hoped that’s what you would do. It’s actually pretty funny. Owen was worked up about it all morning before you got here. I guess he scuffed his shoes while climbing out of his window? They’re an expensive collector pair or something.”
I tried to hide a smile, failed, and then leaned into it instead. “You should have seen it. Once I was on his network, I exploited a SQL injection vulnerability in his smart fridge to gain root access to his Home-AI.”
“I told him those smart appliances are a security nightmare.” Jude shook his head in wonder. “I’m shocked he didn’t fire you. Don’t know why, but I don’t think you’ll get another free pass.”
He didn’t fire me because he knows who I really am.I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of his office. I could barely see his desk from here. Owen was smiling smugly at me.
“I have an interview,” I said, nodding to Jude and continuing down the stairs. Burying my head in my work this morning had allowed me to forget what Owen had said, but now the words played in my head like a PA announcement.
You always blow things up. Because you’re afraid of failing.Because you aren’t as good as you think you are.
It was strange having someone call me out so accurately. Like he had hacked into my brain, read my private thoughts, and then recited them out loud for me. It would have been unsettling in any circumstance, but especially coming from someone like Owen March.
The first interview was with a coder named Sanjay Matthews. While Melinda chatted with him about his education and experience, I hastily pulled up his resume and skimmed the relevant parts. He answered Melinda’s questions deftly and with confidence.
“Three years working on Ruby?” I asked when it was my turn. “That’s more than most. Everyone I know gets sick of it after two years and goes back to basic scripting.”
Sanjay flashed a flawless white smile. “I don’t know why. I love Ruby on Rails. Especially for online stores.”
