Page 6

Chapter Six

Andrew

Something about being part of the IT department at DTL Enterprises makes me feel like an anthropologist observing an exotic culture. It’s a culture where the ability to reset a password is treated with the same reverence ancient civilizations gave to fire-making and where the person who remembers to order more printer paper is hailed as a prophetic visionary.

My colleagues are worthy of study in their own right.

Today, Xander slouches at his desk like his spine has gone on strike. He’s wearing the same Dragon’s Sphere T-shirt he’s worn for the past two days, now accessorized with a stain I’m hoping is ketchup, but I fear might be blood.

Meanwhile, Adam looks like he’s auditioning for the role of Corporate IT Drill Sergeant with his precisely ironed shirt and meticulously arranged desk supplies.

So far, Adam has treated me like I’m barely qualified to turn a computer on, let alone fix one.

He’s at my desk now, hovering like a particularly anxious hummingbird.

“Drew.” Adam’s voice carries the same tone teachers use when explaining to kindergarteners why glue isn’t a food group. “I’ve got a slightly tricky one for you. Marketing has been complaining about their social media scheduling platform timing out whenever they try to bulk upload content for multiple brands. Can you check their browser settings? You know how to do that, don’t you?”

“Sure thing,” I say.

I head up to the marketing department, where I’m met by Kieran, who demonstrates the problem they’ve been having.

“Has it always done this?” I ask.

“No, it started about two weeks ago when we added some new client accounts.”

Bingo. The issue is easy to spot—their session tokens are getting mixed up because they’re trying to handle multiple brand logins simultaneously. It’s exactly the kind of problem I anticipated when coding the failsafe, which is why there’s an elegant solution built right into the system.

“Mind if I…?” I gesture to his keyboard.

“Be my guest. Adam said we probably needed to clear our browsing history…”

I hide my smile as I quickly modify the platform’s access setting.

“Try it now.”

Kieran’s jaw drops as his backlog of content starts uploading seamlessly.

“How did you do that so fast?”

“Just a little trick I had up my sleeve,” I reply.

I head back to my desk, my mind still whirring through the marketing department issue. How can I stop the same problem from arising again?

There are no new IT tickets, so I start a scan of the marketings system’s architecture. It’s a mess of tangled integrations like someone tried to solve a Rubik’s Cube by peeling off all the stickers.

I’m halfway through writing them a custom integration layer when an email pings in my inbox.

My breath leaves me.

It’s what I’ve been waiting for.

The sender is Justin Morris, and his email contains detailed illustrations that suggest someone’s been overthinking the “and they lived happily ever after” part of fairytales.

I have to say, the illustrator I hired for this project outdid herself. And she deserved the bonus I paid her for finding ways to make rocky protrusions and mossy beards seem almost…romantic. Her invoice included a line item for emotional recovery time .

I send a furtive look at my colleagues to gauge their reactions, but it’s impossible to tell whether they’ve seen the email. Xander continues his impression of a wilted houseplant draped over his keyboard like he’s photosynthesizing from his screen’s blue light. Meanwhile, Adam clicks away with his mouse with his usual efficiency.

My hands shaking slightly, I turn my attention back to writing the marketing integration. But I can’t help my swirling stomach.

Any moment now, Justin will call our department or appear at our door with his laptop in hand, demanding to know why his email spammed the entire company with illicit troll images.

And while I covered my tracks extremely well with layers of encryption, nerves continue to breed in my stomach.

What happens if I’m found out? I don’t want to be discovered yet. I’ve still got more plans to implement.

But time ticks on, and Justin doesn’t call or show up.

Nothing.

What the hell?

Not seeing the fruit of my labor feels slightly…deflating.

I mean, I need to do this subtly, but there’s something unsatisfying about not getting to observe Justin’s reaction to my pranks. Not seeing him flustered and embarrassed. Not watching that easy charm falter, witnessing him experience what it’s like to be the center of attention for the wrong reasons for once.

Just as I’m about to head to lunch, another email from Justin pops into my inbox.

To: All

From: Justin Morris

Subject: About those anatomically ambitious trolls…

Sorry, everyone, it appears one of our clients decided to play a practical joke and spammed you with an inappropriate email from my account.

I promise that going forward, any emails from me will contain strictly G-rated content about sports equipment—though I suppose those clubs could be considered sports equipment….

My deepest apologies to anyone who can no longer look at bridge trolls the same way.

Best regards,

Justin

PS I think we can all agree that some things, once seen, cannot be unseen. If anyone needs the number for a good therapist, let me know.

I read his words a few times, trying to make sense of it.

He’s dismissing the email as a client playing a practical joke? What the hell?

Somehow, he’s managed to take my carefully crafted revenge plan and spin it into an opportunity to show off his wit and charm.

And from the tone of his email, it seems he found the whole thing amusing.

Something twists in my stomach. Where’s the mortification? The shame? The overwhelming desire to crawl into a hole and disappear that I used to feel every day of high school?

Surely, I caused him some momentary distress, at least.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he’s the kind of guy who can shrug off something like this as a joke. He’s probably sitting in the sales department now, laughing about it. It’ll be just another thing to include in the backslapping in-jokes Justin and his kind have.

Judging by the replies already flooding in with cry-laughing emoji and dubiously tasteful jokes about trolls and clubs, he’s winning over his audience.

Some things never change.

Justin’s still the golden boy, and I’m still watching from the shadows.

And somehow, my best-laid plans just made him shine even brighter.

My next few days consist of dealing with the bread and butter of the IT department help desk: convincing Paul from Operations that his computer freezing wasn’t actually caused by the office being too cold, explaining why computers don’t like having tea spilled into their keyboards—looking at you, Dave—and helping various staff members understand that ctrl+alt+delete isn’t actually a magic spell that fixes everything.

I also spend an enlightening hour explaining to Roger why keeping his passwords on Post-it notes stuck to his monitor might not be the height of security.

Despite the menial tasks, I actually find myself enjoying work. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed having a job. Colleagues to talk to. Tasks to keep me busy, even if it is just helping Margaret from Accounting understand that her computer isn’t possessed by demons when her caps lock is stuck.

Between jobs, I finish my marketing department system update and put the last touches on my latest revenge plan for Justin.

Justin’s calendar shows he has a big presentation to a customer at ten-thirty on Friday morning. At twenty past ten, I upload the custom program I wrote that should result in some embarrassing chaos for Justin during his presentation.

It’s a brilliant piece of coding if I do say so myself.

“You coming to morning tea?” Xander asks just as the upload finishes. Xander’s a big fan of morning tea, I’ve discovered. Along with second breakfast, mid-morning snack, pre-lunch appetizer, and what he calls his “creative energy refueling sessions,” which seem to occur every hour on the hour.

Anything to get him out of actually doing work.

Because Adam’s away at a management training course today, Xander’s been even worse than normal. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s spent his entire day watching YouTube tutorials about Dragon’s Sphere egg-hatching techniques and organizing his extensive collection of energy drink cans by flavor profile.

“I think I’ll just work through morning tea today,” I say.

Xander gives me an incredulous look as he lumbers to his feet.

I’m sitting at my desk logging printer cartridge replacement requests into a spreadsheet when, suddenly, the door to the office bursts open.

It’s Justin.

His perfect hair is slightly ruffled like he’s been raking his hands through it, and he’s holding his laptop like it’s a grenade about to detonate.

Shit. Why is Justin here? He’s supposed to be in a meeting with his clients from Strikers Sports right now.

My heart lodges somewhere in my throat as my fight-or-flight instincts kick in. Even after all these years, having Justin this close makes me feel like that scared kid again.

He scans the room, his eyes slightly wild with desperation.

When his gaze meets mine, his shoulders drop, relief washing over his face.

He takes a step toward me. “Drew, right?”

“Um…yeah.”

“Thank god you’re here. I really need your help.”

I grip the armrests of my chair as he comes close to me. My face feels frozen in what I hope passes for a helpful-IT-guy expression while the rest of my body thrums like I’ve mainlined one of Xander’s energy drinks.

“What’s the problem?” I manage to keep my voice neutral.

He leans forward, bracing one hand on my desk, his usual grace replaced by barely contained panic.

“I’m supposed to be in a meeting with really important clients. But they called to say they’re stuck in traffic, so I practiced my pitch one last time, and my PowerPoint keeps corrupting.”

Damn. Justin wasn’t supposed to discover my handiwork until he was in the middle of his presentation.

“Can you show me what’s happening?” Really, I should get acting awards for how I manage to keep my expression concerned yet professionally detached.

Justin opens his laptop and clicks to start his presentation. “It starts off fine…” He advances through his introduction slides. “But when I get to the product specifications?—”

The screen flickers, and instead of product details, up pops: Recent searches: Why do my toes look like baby carrots?

Justin makes a strangled noise. “That’s not— I didn’t—” He frantically clicks again, only to have How many times can you wear jeans before they walk away by themselves? appear where his market analysis should be.

“So, it’s just displaying your recent search history results?” I ask.

“I swear these aren’t my searches,” he says, his face flushing as Is it weird to have full conversations with my refrigerator? pops up next.

I manage to keep my features schooled in helpful-IT-guy mode while simultaneously suppressing the urge to let out an evil genius laugh.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” I ask.

“Sure.” He pushes his laptop toward me and then starts pacing behind me.

I put a serious frown on my face as I scroll through his presentation, causing a whole lot more search histories to populate the slides.

Why do British people say ‘bloody’ so much?

Why does my belly button smell like that?

Can you get addicted to hand sanitizer smell?

“Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s possible to become addicted to a smell,” I say in my kindest voice.

“I don’t get it. I’ve never searched for these things.” Justin’s voice is full of bewilderment.

“If it helps, I talk to my microwave all the time,” I say.

Justin glances at his watch. “Oh shit, they’re going to be here in ten minutes. These are important clients, and Roger’s trusting me to give the presentation. I don’t want to let him down.”

He claws his hand through his hair as the sound of his ragged breathing fills the office. Suddenly, I’m reminded of myself in high school, hiding in the computer lab during lunch, trying to control my own panic attacks.

The parallel makes my stomach twist uncomfortably.

Oh shit. I can’t do this.

I actually can’t do this.

“It’s okay. I’ll fix it,” I blurt out.

He looks at me with wide, hopeful eyes. “Do you think you can?”

“Just give me a minute.”

I pull up the command prompt and start reversing my handiwork, line by line. It’s surprisingly easy to undo hours of vengeful coding.

Justin’s reflection in my screen shows him alternating between checking his watch and tugging his tie.

“There, all fixed,” I say as I tilt the laptop so Justin can see it, running through the slides to show him everything is working properly.

He lets out a deep breath and his million-dollar smile returns. “Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”

His eyes meet mine, and there’s such genuine gratitude in them that I have to look away, guilt churning in my stomach.

“You’re welcome,” I reply woodenly.

“I’ve really got to run, but seriously, I owe you big time.”

I don’t get a chance to respond because he’s out the door, leaving me alone in the IT department of DTL Enterprises.

The silence in the office feels deafening as I process what just happened. All my careful planning is now undone because I couldn’t handle seeing Justin panic.

Being the bigger person should make me feel good, right?

Instead, I feel empty. Like I’ve failed Past Andrew.

After all, Justin never showed mercy or compassion toward me in high school, did he?

I’m a better person than him.

Maybe I can take some comfort in that fact?