Читать книгу Damaged Hearts - Jan St. Marcus - Страница 19

Gratefully, I have managed to pull my shit mostly together by the time I pull into the garage of my building. I’m early, but then again, who cares? I don’t have a specific time or even a specific number of days I need to be in the office. I really hope to hell that Marty doesn’t push me today. I’m not in any kind of mood where I would try to keep my red friend contained. Of course, I’m not saying that I want him to appear and complicate my already messed-up life, but I’m kind of beyond caring right now. Yeah, I’m glad I’m early, it might give me time enough to get the rest of my shit together. As soon as I sit down at my desk, I begin going through my breathing exercises. I’m going to try to get through the morning without a panic attack and without a visit from my red friend. It’s a tall order, but I’m thinking I can make it. More like hoping, but either way, I’ll do my best.

I spend the next twenty minutes returning innocuous emails and trying to stay off the internet. At ten minutes till eleven, I grab my bag and head down the hall to Sal’s office. When I get there, Marty is already there. I’m glad he looks nervous. Maybe he’ll not be so much of a tool.

“Hey, Michelangelo,” Marty says with a gleam in his eyes. “I was just showing this to Sal. Did you see it?” He spins his iPad towards me and touches the screen. He starts laughing. “These douchebags on the boardwalk got totally owned by a guy a couple of nights ago.”

I watch the video again, trying to mute my reaction. “Yeah, I saw it.”

“It’s gotten like two million hits. Oh—here it is—the guy gets his arm broken!” A second later, I hear the cracking sound and then the screams. “I bet you wish you were a bad ass like that, huh?”

I look at Sal. “Is it politically correct to laugh at someone getting physically hurt for being a douchebag?”

“I don’t know. My subscription to Politically Correct Magazine got cancelled,” Sal says.

Marty laughs. “Who cares? It’s karma, dude. Karma’s a bitch.”

“You’re such a cliché, Marty,” I say. It’s only when Sal and Marty both look at me with a shocked expression that I realize I’ve said this out loud. “Oh, sorry. Did I say that out loud?”

Sal smiles and moves quickly to diffuse the situation. “Let’s get started. You’ve got a conference call in a little bit, right Michelangelo?”

“Yes I do. Thanks for remembering, Sal. So what can I help you with, Marty?”

Marty puts the iPad away and opens his laptop. He shows me his screen and starts droning on about his assumptions and the various methods he’s tried to get his algorithm to work. I’m pretty good at acting like I’m listening without really listening. I don’t need an explanation when the equation is on the screen in front of me. I reach up and press the down arrow button to reveal more of his equation as I run the formulas through my brain. His voice fades to a low rumble as I become immersed in the symbols and numbers and variables. Then all I can hear is my heartbeat and the clicking of the down arrow button as I continue to scroll. I’m vaguely aware that I’m smiling as I lose myself in the equation.

This is the coolest part of what I do. There’s something about math that takes over my brain and body. It’s so comforting to be immersed in a world that is pure and definitive and logical. There are no gray areas in math. There’s no room for interpretation or opinions. Or feelings. It’s as simple as yes or no. On or off. Correct or incorrect. Nothing in between to complicate things. I have no idea how long I’ve been working before I find the problem. It’s a pretty subtle inversion of a couple of variables in a sub-formula. I can see how it could have been easily missed by a less precise mind. It actually looks right, but the inversion causes a slight deviation in one of the principles . . . wait . . . this won’t make any sense to you. Let’s just say I found the problem. I reach up, highlight the problem area, correct the variables, and spin the computer back to Marty. “That should do it.” I stand up.

Marty looks up at me like I’m an alien. “That’s it?”

“Yeah,” I say matter-of-factly. “No biggie. Anything else?” Sal is shaking his head. Marty is reloading the equation and getting ready to run the algorithm. I’m heading for the door.

“Don’t you want to see if it works?” Sal asks me.

“No need. It works,” I state without hesitation. Then I realize that the polite thing to do would be for me to stay until Marty is satisfied. I smile. “Conference call, remember?” Marty is shaking his head. I can see the tops of his ears are glowing bright red. I realize that if I stayed, he would be even more embarrassed when he had to thank me. And then I’d be remiss if I didn’t get in a jab about how basic the problem was and Marty would feel even worse about himself than he must already feel. So in a big way, my leaving is not impolite at all. In fact, I’m actually being more polite by sparing him the embarrassment of having to admit in front of Sal that he is a dumbass. Yeah, I should leave. “See you guys later.” I glance at my office as I’m leaving and decide to step in and call Devon.

“Hey, Devon,” I offer hesitantly when he picks up. “Are we secure?”

“Yes. Secure. What’s up?”

“I heard that the stupid video is getting out of control. Should I be worried?” I ask.

“Nah. We scrubbed the video, made sure your voice was altered enough to prevent a positive voice ID, and we’ve put a sniffer out on the Bad Ass Samaritan tag. You’ll be in the clear.”

I breathe a noticeable sigh of relief. “What about Bran?” There is a long pause, and I hear Devon breathe a loud sigh. Oh shit.

“That’s going to be more . . . complicated.”

“Shit.”

“You want the good news or the bad news first?” he asks.

“Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.”

“Well, some of the commenters think they know who he is. At least, they claim to have seen him before. Might not be long before someone puts two and two together,” he explains. “I don’t think there’s any danger or anything to be too worried about. But it might draw attention if too many people are actively looking for him.”

“But?” I ask, sensing there’s more he’s not sharing.

“But that could change in a heartbeat. You know, a wildfire has just as much chance of fizzling out as it does of turning into a raging inferno. No way to tell. This story could fizzle out in another day or two. If Justin Bieber farts in public, this will be gone so fast nobody will remember it.” He laughs.

“Yeah, or one of the Kardashians could post a nude selfie.”

“So you get the picture?”

“Got it. What’s the good news?” I ask.

“No red flags on him crashing with you. He’s pretty clean. Not pristine, but like I said, no red flags.”

“That doesn’t seem that complicated. What gives?” I’m confused.

“You know how you don’t like me digging into people you know and telling you all their shit?”

“Yeah,” I offer slowly. “What does that have to do with Bran?”

“Well, there’s some pretty interesting stuff that I think you’d want to know, but you made your wishes pretty clear. So if you want to know it, you’ve got to be really clear with me about it.”

“Seriously, Devon. With that kind of lead-up, how can I not want to know?”

He laughs. “I warned you it was complicated.”

I’m silent for a long moment. Then I feel trapped. Then I start to grow even more curious. When I first learned that NSA thought I was so important I needed some sort of security apparatus, I was pretty unnerved. I mean, what the hell was I doing that warranted all that trouble? It’s not like I was a spy doing international espionage or anything. I just developed some algorithms, tested them with datasets NSA supplied, and shared some results. Shit. I guess I realize that some of the stuff they were sending me might be actual operational files or real-world applications and data, but did that really put me in danger? Hell if I knew. After I got over the initial shock, I never really thought too much about it. But I didn’t want to know too much shit about people I was friends with or might become friends with. It always seemed like I was cheating at life. If I knew the secrets of the people around me, I would feel dirty. Especially since I couldn’t even tell anyone what I really did for a living—or for whom. So while I accepted them doing background checks on people I would be interacting with, I never wanted to know their secrets. Hell, I’m already socially awkward. There’s no way I want to add this on top of everything else I’m struggling to deal with. I laugh when I realize that I barely have any friends as it is.

“You really think I would want to know?” I ask softly.

“Yeah, I kind of do.”

“Shit. Let me have it,” I say, hearing the resignation in my own voice.

“You sure?”

“No I’m not. But I’m trusting the heck out of you. I’m socially awkward as it is. Knowing shit about him is going to make it all the more difficult.” I hear a muffled laugh on the other end of the phone. “I know, it’s funny.”

“It’s not that,” Devon offers. “It’s just that you are so direct and honest. It’s refreshing. I’m surrounded by these slick, secretive, duplicitous bastards all day and you just say whatever honest shit comes into your head. You’re not wrong, of course.” Now he laughs. “You are kind of . . . what’s the word you used? Awkward?”

“Yeah.”

“What you said. Anyway, your friend Bran is an honest-to-God war hero.”

“Wait! What?”

“I know, right? Short story is that when he was in Afghanistan, his squad was ambushed. His sergeant got hit in the noggin by a sniper right in front of him and they were pinned down, taking heavy fire from three sides, but Brandon pulled a superhero cape out of his ass and saved almost everyone. He was singlehandedly drawing enemy fire so his squad could get the wounded out of danger, then he slipped into the sniper’s nest, killed that son of a bitch and used the guy’s scoped AK to take out most of the other bad guys. Reading the commendation, I’m shocked he only got a Silver Star out of it. It was some really crazy, heroic shit. A couple of guys on his team said they thought he was trying to get himself killed. No matter how you look at it, it was insane.”

My brain is spinning in my head. None of that made any sense. “What the hell?” I mutter, still in shock.

“Like I said, he’s an honest-to-God war hero. When he got back, he out-processed from Camp Pendleton and disappeared. He didn’t even stay long enough to collect his medal. Just up and disappeared.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Devon sighs again. “I don’t know, man. I can’t tell you what to do. But I have to tell you, when I watched that video after learning all this, I was really glad you were there and did what you did.” We are both silent for another long beat. “If it ever does get out who he is, I wouldn’t want to be any of those other guys. That’s for damn sure.”

“Thanks, Devon. I gotta go. And I’m sure you have more important shit to worry about than my awkward ass.”

Devon laughs. “Don’t worry about this. I got your back if anything starts bubbling over. You’re a good guy, Michelangelo. And you did a good thing. Take care.”

Devon disconnects the call and I sit there at my desk. Mind blown.