At least he talked to me,she thought grimly.That’s more social interaction than I’ve managed with anyone else.
She stayed under the spray much longer than necessary, letting the hot water beat against her neck and upper back. Her muscles ached from hours hunched over her keyboard, and her eyes felt like someone had sandpapered them, but her brain was still buzzing with the satisfaction of a job well done.
The new security system was beautiful, if she did say so herself. A hybrid architecture that combined traditionalfirewalls with adaptive machine learning, capable of identifying and neutralizing threats before they even fully materialized. It was the kind of work that made her feel powerful. Competent. Valuable.
Code had never abandoned her. Code didn’t forget her birthday, or shuffle her from house to house, or look at her with that mixture of pity and exasperation that she’d come to expect from every adult in her life. Code did exactly what she told it to do. Code made sense.
People were messier.
Finally, reluctantly, she turned off the water and reached for her towel. The air outside the shower stall was cool against her flushed skin. She dried off quickly, suddenly aware of how exposed she felt in the empty locker room. The soft padding of her feet on the tile floor seemed unnaturally loud.
She dressed in her backup outfit—a cropped t-shirt featuring a cartoon robot giving a thumbs up, paired with ripped jeans and her favorite pink combat boots. It was her uniform. Her armor. A carefully constructed visual shorthand that said “I don’t care what you think of me” while secretly hoping that someone, somewhere, would see past the fortress walls she’d so meticulously built around herself.
Her hair was still damp as she made her way back towards the elevator, her shower bag slung over one shoulder. During the day, these halls buzzed with activity. Now they were silent, lit by the soft glow of emergency lighting and the first rays of sunrise streaming into the central atrium.
She stifled a yawn. The post-shower warmth had made her drowsy, and the adrenaline from her all-night coding sessionwas finally wearing off. Maybe she’d crash on the couch in her office for a few hours before the day shift arrived. Or maybe she’d actually go home to the small apartment she’d rented in town, the one she’d barely spent three consecutive hours in since moving in.
Home.The word felt strange, even in her own head. She didn’t have homes. She had rooms. Temporary arrangements. Places to store her stuff while she waited for the next inevitable disruption.
Stop it,she told herself firmly. This is different. This is a real job. A real opportunity. Derek believes in you.
Derek had seen past her awkward silences, her tendency to stare at a point somewhere over people’s shoulders instead of making eye contact, her complete inability to engage in small talk. He’d seen what she coulddo.
“I spoke to Professor Rhineland about you,” he’d said during their video interview, studying her thoughtfully. “He says you’re brilliant. Creative. Someone who doesn’t play by the rules.”
The professor had been her mentor since the first day she’d arrived on campus, a formidable elderly man with a shock of white hair and a penchant for bowties who’d taken one look at her and announced, “You’re not like the others. Good.”
“He also mentioned your aversion to people,” Derek added, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m not averse to people,” she’d mumbled, staring at a framed map of Monster Island on the wall behind him. “I’m just… better with machines.”
He gave a half-shrug. “Not a problem. The position I have in mind doesn’t require much interaction. What it does require is the absolute best.”
He paused, letting the compliment wash over her. “Our current systems are… adequate. But adequate isn’t enough. TalkToMe handles sensitive communications for some very important clients, human, monster, and otherwise. We need to be impenetrable. I need someone who can build us a fortress.”
A fortress. The term resonated with the little girl who tried so many times to build forts from worn sheets or flat cushions, a fragile protection against a harsh world.
“I can do that,” she said.
A week later, she was on the ferry to Monster Island.
That had been three weeks ago. Three weeks of proving herself, of building something that could actually protect the company’s users—monsters and humans alike—from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Three weeks of hiding in her office and avoiding the social events the company sponsored.
Baby steps,she reminded herself again.Rome wasn’t built in a?—
The thought evaporated as she rounded a corner and walked directly into a wall.
Except walls didn’t grunt on impact.
Walls didn’t have arms that shot out to catch her as she stumbled backwards.
“Whoa. Easy there.”
The voice was deep. Commanding. The kind of voice that expected to be obeyed.
Her hands had somehow ended up braced against a chest that felt like it had been carved from granite. Warm granite. Breathing granite. She blinked up—way up, God, how tall was this guy—and found herself staring into a pair of golden-brown eyes that suddenly flared bright gold.
Oh no.
