Chapter 45: Clash.

Weeks passed. Mallory had been tricked once more. As empathetic as she was, she was unable to see the trickery and manipulation around her.

She called me to her office. I tried to explain: I was playing along the misdirection of the company. Her misdirection. The friction wasn't mine ⁠—⁠what I couldn't do is just to be absolute passive. Decisions had to be made. And stick to those. It was a fucking dating site, not an aerospace company. Seeing how little they invested in real advances, it shouldn't have been difficult to stick to one of their multiple plans.

The new ‘match finder’ was just an ineffectual skeleton of my grand design. And there she was, giving more stuff related to the backend.

“Fuck you and fuck Dangerous Crush. I quit.” ⁠—⁠no, I couldn't say that there, I couldn’t do that then.

Also, Mallory had always treated me with respect. It would have been unfair to insult her ⁠—⁠even in the unlikely scenario that the shock therapy would generate a teachable moment.

I stomped out of Mallory's office and darted to Hank's desk.

“And you, you're a piece of shit. You know my research wasn't copying from anyone else. You know you're fucking up all the time.” ⁠—⁠part of me wanted to say that. Did I?

Hank stood still. Everyone in the office was paralyzed. The office itself was paralyzed. It stopped talking in its distinct low humming voice.

“Then it's reasonable to use a NoSQL database for the additional data nodes, right?” ⁠—⁠Mallory inquired.

I stood up, and slowly walked away from her office. The humming of the office had become a whirling sound ⁠—⁠much like the wind from the desert nights talking to my despair.

I walked to the elevator. Its doors opened as soon as I got there. I wanted to run back home. Where was that, though? Spiritually disenfranchised, I felt I had no home.

There was a button already pressed. The terrace.

I hadn't ever visited the terrace.