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Chapter Four

Andrew

My heart is still pounding when I make it back to my office, clutching my cup of coffee.

Justin still didn’t recognize me.

Even hearing my voice didn’t clue him in to my real identity. Granted, I probably didn’t actually speak much around Justin in high school because my single mission was to do everything possible to evade attention.

My accent has also changed a lot in the last ten years. When I was at MIT, I quickly learned to disguise my Texas twang by mimicking my professors’ clipped consonants and measured cadence. Changing my voice helped me feel I was leaving high school Andrew behind.

I’m both relieved and annoyed about Justin treating me like I’m just a new IT guy he’s never met.

Relieved because executing my plan relies on Justin not recognizing me. When his technology starts to turn on him, I don’t want him to suspect I’m behind it.

But I’m still angry he doesn’t recognize me. It feels like he’s rubbing my nose in the fact that I was so insignificant to him that it wasn’t even worth remembering my face.

I didn’t matter.

I’m going to make it so I do matter in Justin Morris’s life, even if he doesn’t know it.

With that vow, I take stock of my workstation.

Aside from the standard-issue laptop, my desk is currently spartan. Harriet, the previous occupant of this cubicle, left behind a drawer of paperclips arranged in neat color-coded piles and a stress ball shaped like Thomas the Tank Engine that’s been squeezed so many times its face has gone slightly demented.

Cheryl comes over to find me studying the stress ball.

“Sorry, Harriet, who used to sit here, must have forgotten to clean everything out. She left in a hurry.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. She’s one of those train-spotting junkies, and she got headhunted out of the blue to work in the railroad industry, so she leapt at the opportunity.”

I try to stop the blush creeping up my neck.

Because yes, for the record, I do now own a medium-sized logistics company specializing in railroad freight.

But I needed to create a vacancy at DTL Enterprises. And from stalking the IT department members on social media, all of Harriet’s selfies showing her beaming next to various locomotives meant her love of trains wasn’t that difficult to deduce. I actually liked seeing her unironic enthusiasm—it’s rare in adults—so I made sure she got offered her dream job with triple the salary she was previously on and a corner office with a view of the railyard. Which then created a vacancy in the IT department at DTL Enterprises.

It’s a win-win scenario.

Once Harriet resigned, it was simple for me to produce a résumé where I had just the right amount of experience for a help desk technician in a sporting goods wholesale company. My résumé contained glowing references from my previous employers, backed up by actors I paid a handsome amount to wax lyrical about my patient demeanor when dealing with password resets and my knack for explaining technical issues in ways that don’t frighten small children or confuse CEOs.

You should never underestimate what throwing a bit of money around on Fiverr can achieve.

And the whole visa situation? Let’s just say immigration lawyers earn their exorbitant fees. A carefully structured shell company called Technical Solutions Unlimited meant DTL Enterprises could hire me as a contractor without asking too many questions. The paperwork listed my legal name in microscopic font at the bottom of page seventeen, while Drew Smith appeared prominently. Sometimes, the best hiding places are in plain sight, tucked between legal jargon and clauses.

“So, here’s the manual you should read through.” Cheryl hands me a hefty folder. “Xander and Adam will arrive soon, and I’m sure once Adam arrives, he’ll have lots of advice to give you.”

She rolls her eyes before she retreats, leaving questions in my mind and nerves growing in my stomach.

I’ve actually never been an employee before.

I started my company when I was at MIT, and by the time I graduated, I already had ten employees.

I’ve never had to handle internal politics before, figure out the complex dynamics of who gets the good chair in meetings, or master the art of looking busy when your boss walks past.

And even though my main aim involves using my tech skills for nefarious purposes, I’m still determined to be a good employee for DTL Enterprises.

I turn my attention to the manual Cheryl gave me.

I scan through the chapters titled things like Why Turning It Off And On Again Really Does Fix 90% Of Problems and What To Do When Someone Microwaves Their Laptop To Dry It Out . That’s apparently a real thing that happened. Twice.

My eyes feel scratchy under the contact lenses I’m wearing, but I continue to plow on.

When I get to the explanation of the operating system of DTL Enterprises, my breath catches. Because it turns out DTL Enterprises runs NovaCore SecureFlow.

Given that I wrote the code underpinning their whole database, it will be slightly embarrassing if I’m unable to troubleshoot any issues.

My nerves begin to settle. I can do this. It’s only a job.

There’s a noise at the door and I glance up as a guy slouches into the room. His hair is oily, and he’s wearing a T-shirt with the Dragon’s Sphere logo, which I recognize immediately, having spent a lot of my high school and college years obsessed with the game.

“Ah…hi,” I say awkwardly.

“Hullo,” he says in a monotone voice.

“I’m Drew. Harriet’s replacement.”

“I’m Xander,” he mutters without making eye contact as he sits in his cubicle.

When Adam breezes into the room five minutes later, he’s the opposite of Xander. He’s all about eye contact while he shakes my hand intensely.

“Nice to meet you, Drew. I’m Adam, the systems administrator. I saw on your résumé that you’ve only worked at smaller companies before. Don’t worry, I’ll explain anything that confuses you.” He gives me a smile that could power an entire condescension factory. “People often find our systems quite overwhelming at first.”

“Ah…thank you. I appreciate that,” I say.

As Adam explains the NovaCore system, I discover it’s uniquely humbling having to feign ignorance about code I wrote during a caffeine-fueled weekend when I was nineteen. I imagine this is how Shakespeare would feel if he had to sit through a high school teacher explaining the “possible meaning” behind Hamlet while biting his immortal tongue.

“And the beauty about the NovaCore system is the way it’s designed to prevent database conflicts while maintaining optimal processing speed.”

Thanks, Adam. I’ll take that compliment .

As Adam continues to explain the system architecture, pausing at each feature to ensure I’m sufficiently impressed, my mind wanders back to when I first got the idea that underpins the NovaCore product range.

It was during my Information Technology class my freshman year of high school.

After watching the system freeze up when too many students tried to access the same files, I’d outlined ideas in my notebook about a system that could prevent users from interfering with each other’s work. I never imagined that, one day, it’d be the first major product in my tech company.

Ironically, that Information Technology class was also when Justin and his friends first started bullying me.

Up until that point, high school had been going okay for me.

I’d grown up in a rural area just outside San Antonio. It had been a big adjustment coming from a small, rural middle school to the enormous Coyote Creek High School, with over fifteen hundred students.

I’d vaguely known who Justin was before high school because he’d attended my elementary school for six months in fifth grade.

I remembered him as a quiet kid who once helped me catch my escaped hamster during show and tell, crawling under desks with me until we cornered Mr. Whiskers together.

He’d moved away during the summer between fifth and sixth grade, one of those people who slipped out of your life and you never thought about again.

But in high school, I definitely noticed him. As a freshman, he was named captain of the junior varsity team, which immediately propelled him to the upper echelons of the social ladder. All the cheerleaders hung around him, squabbling like seagulls around a dropped ice cream cone.

When I noticed Justin and his football friends Tad and Connor sitting behind me in the Information Technology class, I hadn’t had any sense of foreboding that this would be the turning point in my high school career, setting the stage for the years of misery to come.

About a week in, most of the class locked themselves out of their accounts trying to access the new online textbook platform. Twenty frustrated faces stared at error messages on login screens while Mr. Peterson attempted to help.

I’d slipped from desk to desk, walking each person through the reset process, keeping my voice low and explanations simple.

“Thank you so much for your help, Andrew,” Mr. Peterson said as I returned to my seat. “It’s handy to have you in class.”

Connor had turned around with that smirk I’d come to recognize as his signal that he’d found fresh entertainment.

“He’s Handy Andy,” he’d said, sliding a look at Justin. I’d already noticed how everyone in the popular crowd seemed to look to Justin for approval. It was like Connor was a wolf showing his pack leader he’d picked up a scent.

There was a moment where time seemed to pause. Justin, with his golden-boy looks and quarterback shoulders in his letterman jacket, his light-brown hair still damp from morning practice, turned to look at me.

He’d glanced at the Pride sticker on my folder, and his lips had curled into a sneer.

“That must be why you’re so good with computers. All that time alone in your room practicing being handy.” The innuendo dripped from his words like poison.

And that was it. The moment when everything began.

Because Justin’s comment seemed to give everyone explicit permission to make me their metaphorical punching bag for the remainder of high school.

Besides the occasional trip or shove, the bullying wasn’t particularly physical. But I soon learned words can leave bruises that last longer than any punch.

All my classmates called me Handy Andy. It got to the point where some of the teachers slipped up and also called me that by accident.

Then there were the countless jokes linking my sexuality and hand jobs. They’d mime inappropriate gestures whenever I raised my hand in class. The elaborate mocking in the cafeteria if I happened to pick up a banana or hot dog for lunch. The way they’d target anyone friendly to me had the net result of turning me into a social pariah.

Every time they saw me, Conner and Tad would make a beeline toward me, with Justin trailing behind.

Justin wasn’t usually the one to initiate the torment, but he had this way of delivering carefully crafted comments with surgical precision, each one finding the exact spot that would hurt most. “Careful, everyone. Handy Andy’s getting excited,” he’d say with that practiced smirk when I’d raise my hand in class.

I’d once shared a solution in computer science, only to have Justin drawl, “English, please, some of us don’t speak virgin,” causing laughter to ripple across the room.

Once, I’d worn my NASA sweatshirt from space camp to school. Justin spotted it from across the cafeteria and loudly wondered if my space mission was to find someone willing to touch me.

I still remember once, when I was a sophomore, Connor had deliberately bumped his shoulder into me after Chemistry, causing me to drop the armful of stuff I was carrying. Justin had waited for his friends to leave before he’d bent down and scooped up my battered copy of Snow Crash with its carefully preserved Neal Stephenson autograph, smoothing out the crumpled cover before handing it back to me without looking me in the eyes.

Somehow, the flashes of humanity Justin occasionally showed made it worse. He knew how wrong it was, and he knew that at any time, a simple comment from him would stop my torment, yet he still continued.

These memories are fresh in my mind, so as soon as Adam has retreated to his desk, I log into my computer and examine DTL Enterprises’ system’s security settings.

Yeah, not great.

It’s like they’ve installed a high-tech alarm but left all the windows wide open.

The code flows easily, muscle memory taking over. That old spark shoots through me, the pure satisfaction of solving a problem through elegant programming. It reminds me of the early days of NovaCore, before board meetings and profit margins replaced the simple joy of building something that works.

It only takes me ten minutes of coding to create a backdoor into the system that’s as invisible as I tried to be in high school.

Although this time, I’m choosing to be invisible.

Because the revenge game is about to begin.