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Dillon’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He put his head, forehead first, on the table, between the chopsticks on a fancy rest and the tea-light lamp. His shoulders shook with laughter. Mace waved a bewildered waitress away and moved the lamp.
Nolan had asked for it. Mace had been in the office ten minutes when he’d confronted him. Not quietly, but as though he’d swallowed a megaphone and was organising a building evacuation.
“You’d better have a note from Gates, Zuckerberg, Page and Brin if you think you can slink in here after five days without accounting for yourself.”
Mace stood up, maybe not the smartest thing to do because he towered over Nolan. He said, “I left you a voicemail. I have a doctor’s certificate.”
“That certificate had better come directly from Steve Job on cloud nine before I’ll take any notice of it.”
He’d opened his mouth to respond, only to realise the whole department was prairie-dogging it above the workstation partitions to see what happened next. After that it went from danger Will Robinson to Armageddon.
There was a meeting with HR. Instead of booking a room, Nolan staged it at a table in the middle of the open plan office. Mace was to be written up for a history of unacceptable absenteeism and insubordination. He’d get a formal warning, and if he didn’t change his ways, stop thinking he was better than everyone else, he’d be officially performance-managed out. HR had a problem with that and there was an argument, which only made it worse because Nolan kept using his newly acquired megaphone voice to broadcast it all.
Mace had thought about defending himself for about five seconds, during which he clenched his fist so hard he cracked the scabs on his knuckles and made them bleed. He’d specced half the projects the department worked on, was a leader in every critical response issue, and the most requested tech, with the highest satisfaction rating. The job was boring but it was convenient, safe, it provided a regular income and it looked decent on his resume, but the flamethrower was already in his hands and its heft felt good.
It was a classic take this job and shove it moment and he took it large.
He told Nolan he was a no-talent micromanager who wouldn’t know decent source code it if gave him a lap dance and charged him for penetration. He used his normal voice, but it carried in the artificial silence that meant every ear on the floor was tuned in. He said the company’s IT program was short-sighted, overblown, unimaginative and would cost a fortune to upgrade. He grabbed Cassie, the redhead from HR, bent her over the table and kissed her senseless, while she gripped his arms and gave him tongue and Nolan made noises like a cat in heat.
When the cheering started he stood on a desk and told bad programmer jokes that got roars of laughter, until Nolan’s threat to call security looked likely. He didn’t log off or pack up his desk, he tossed his company phone in a drawer, grabbed his satchel and high-fived and hugged his way to the lift well, tipping an imaginary hat to the two security guards who were on their way in to the department to throw him out. When the lift doors closed and the show was over, he felt like his Vans had sprouted wings. He was high on the adrenaline, his own freakish audacity and the whole fuck yeah of it.
But fuck yeah, if they didn’t get Ipseity up, he’d fucked the only decent job he’d ever had and his chance of getting another one without a reference. If he couldn’t sell the house quickly, he’d need a new job because there wasn’t going to be any severance pay and the funeral had tapped his savings out.
But all considered, he still felt pretty freaking happy. The only thing he regretted was kissing Cassie. It’d felt right in the moment and she’d had no complaints, he’d found a post-it note with call me and her number in his back pocket. But now he wished he’d saved the impulse: changed towers, stormed the executive floor, found Jacinta, hauled her into the nearest bathroom, and had insane monkey sex with her till neither of them could walk.
When Dillon sat up he was still laughing, and he laughed harder after they ordered and Mace related the events of the day.
“Move in with me and rent the house. You won’t have to work on anything but Ipseity.”
“I want to sell the house and with the money we get from it we can finance ourselves for a while.”
Dillon took another helping of the tea-smoked duck. He kept his eyes on the table. A quiet Dillon was a Dillon you worried about. “What?”
“It’s your house, Mace. Buster’s legacy. It’s long-term security, dude. I don’t think you should sell it.”
“Why not?”
“If we fail, you’ll have nothing.”
“We’re not going to fail.”
“Most start-ups fail. Most founders lose everything. You know the successes are so few they’re more like miracles.”
It’s not like he needed to hear that again. “It’s Buster’s legacy. You think she’d want us to give up? When did we ever talk about giving up?”
“Shit, you’re serious about this.”
“It’s one of those moments, Dillon. Do or die.”
Dillon shook his head and his body followed in a shudder. Buster would’ve said someone walked on his grave. “Jesus, Mace.”
He shrugged and emptied the beer he could no longer afford down his soon to be homeless throat. Dillon was serving up shock and awe, but it was preliminary to battle stations.
By time the restaurant kicked them out they were both thoroughly hammered, and Dillon was considering forging his own sick certificate to avoid work the next day. But they had an order of proceedings: debug the software, find headroom in the business plan, sell the house, cohabit; which meant Dillon had to ditch his existing flatmate who was his current on again, off again girlfriend—no biggie. Rework the Summers-Denby pitch and sleep with the next door neighbour of every other VC in the city.
The first part of that workload was shared; the second part was on Mace because he had the time, the talent and the form. He wasn’t taking it gay though. There was only so much he’d sacrifice for success.
It seemed entirely reasonable, except he only knew one woman who lived next door to a VC and she was the only woman he was interested in sleeping with. He thought he might love that woman Lucinda, and he’d kill Antonio if he was anywhere near her with his boofy hair and his yachty shoes.
