Take the Money and Come

Chapter 4: Feed Me Fireworks

Chapter 4: Feed Me FireworksOlivia’s next two months went famously. She spent time with Byron after work and on weekends until they were seeing each other every day. In fact, they'd had such a good weekend at a cabin in the nearby countryside that she was in a downright good mood when she got to the office that day, even when she saw that her ticket queue had managed to completely fill itself over the weekend.

The sound of her phone ringing nearly made her jump out of her skin. It wasn’t the singsong voice of her cell, but the demanding tones of the landline office phone that sat on her desk. The fact that it was not covered in dust was entirely thanks to her frequent take-out orders. Olivia picked up the phone, wincing when a nasal voice simply shouted.

“COME TO MY OFFICE!”

She knew the voice, of course. It was her best friend in the world, Dr. I’m-too-smart-for-you-pesky-humans-but-I-can’t-connect-my-wifi Parker, Ph.D. Olivia thought about ignoring him. The operations manager had told her firmly on her very first day that scientists were egomaniacs and it wasn’t her job to take abuse. Maybe she’d keep hanging up until he said please? That sounded like fun, but she knew that if she made him boil he’d take it out on one of his lab assistants, and those kids did not get paid enough to put up with that crap.

As she made her way upstairs she wondered if he’d accidentally formatted his hard disk again, or if he’d unplugged the printer by accident. The other doctors apologized every time they called her regarding anything that wasn’t highly specialized, but not Parker. Nope, he’d just huff and find some way to make his ignorance her fault.

She could see his pinched face, red as a tomato and twisted into a scowl that could have turned milk sour. She seriously considered not getting off the elevator, but he’d seen her. He made a single sharp waving motion before storming into the rear door of his office.

Olivia sighed and followed.

Parker was standing next to his desktop, quaking with rage. He jabbed one finger toward the screen.

“What is this?”

Olivia looked at the screen. It was her email from several weeks earlier.

“That’s the email I sent you regarding our encryption policies.”

Parker’s eyes narrowed.

“You took it apart! Who do you think you are, taking apart MY--”

“Illegal encryption and partition, sir?” Olivia cut him off and gave him no chance to argue with her. “Those policies are in place for a reason, Dr. Parker. There are government bodies and review boards, there are corporate spies and black hat hackers. There are people out to hurt you, to hurt this company using data and computers. It's my job to protect us from that, and I’m going to make sure the company and you personally are protected. This is serious business. “

She stopped to let him speak for himself, but she could tell from his pinched expression that he wasn’t going to say anything worthwhile. It was similar to the look Nelly got when her mother told her no.

“Haven’t you read the news, doctor? There are people mining for data in corporate servers, spreading around trade secrets and personal information across the web. Ever hear of Leak Planet? SawIt.com? Entire websites, huge websites dedicated to collecting data.” Olivia sighed, running out of energy for this particular argument.

“It’s really for your safety that’s you don’t do that, sir. If you need to encrypt data, please come talk to me. I’ll help you set something up that will follow the guidelines and keep your data safe.”

Parker seemed frozen between rage and something else. Fear? His lips were pursed and pale.

“Thank you for the explanation, Miss Burnard. “ He told her through gritted teeth. “Goodbye.”

The deference was forced as all get-out, but she was perfectly happy to settle for forced civility when it came to Doctor Parker.

Parker stayed in his office when she left, all but slamming the door behind her with a scowl. She made her way through the lab toward the elevator, stopping on her way to admire the prototype that was on display.

The new technology that Parker and his team were working on used an innovative nuclear-powered design that minimized soil displacement by taking the earth inside its chassis, extracting what it needed and re-depositing the rest out it’s back end while moving on to the next load of earth. The project was playfully nicknamed “FeedMe” by the staff because of how the machine’s nose seemed to look like a pleading, hungry face.

The newest prototype was lovely, so well engineered that its body remained smooth and balanced, even with the high level of mechanics involved in its function.

“It’s going to market soon.”

The voice sounded behind her. Olivia knew the grad student as Petrov. He’d been working with Parker for more than two years on FeedMe.

“Really? I thought that wasn’t until next year.”

Petrov's grin was bright with the force of his pride.

“Nah, we got such great feedback on this prototype that they’re moving it up. There are already pre-orders for thousands of FeedMe from a bunch of different mining companies. Heck, a lot of them are using prototypes right now in order to field test them.”

Olivia smiled at him.

“I’m so glad to hear that. I hope the launch goes well for you guys!”

“Or, rather, just me, right?” Petrov said with a wink.

Olivia chuckled, eyes darting toward Parker’s office door.

“No...” she muttered unconvincingly.

There was a pause.

“Except yes, right?” Petrov teased her. “Don’t worry, I know he’s an ass. If anything, he’s gotten worse these last couple of months. He’s convinced that everything is going to fall apart at the last second.”

Olivia sighed. Maybe she’d been a little hard on Parker. After bidding Petrov farewell, she turned to catch the elevator. It wasn’t until she stepped inside of it that she turned and saw Parker staring at her through the small window in his office door. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth twisted in a sneer. The sight of him nearly made her jump, her heart starting to beat wildly under that rage-filled gaze. She no longer felt any sympathy for the old doctor.