Jonah turned on his heel and headed back in the opposite direction, dashing through the blackspot until the office was in sight again. He hurried into the building and stepped into the lift, cursing as it stopped on every floor until it came to the FG/Blutecc landing.
His laptop was in the bag he carried over his shoulder. He retrieved it as the lift shuddered to a stop, tapping on the cloud, but he couldn’t get in. The WiFi connection was down. “Shit,” he exclaimed, glad the lift was empty. Sacha had been right to note that Jonah rarely swore in general conversation—only during sex, and situations of high stress, which this was fast turning out to be.
The lift doors took an age to open. They clunked halfway there. Jonah wrenched them the rest of the way and stumbled onto the landing. The reception desk for FG was empty. At the Blutecc desk, they cast brief stares in Jonah’s direction before they respectfully returned to their work.
Jonah rounded the FG desk and pushed into the office. At first, nothing struck him as out of the ordinary, then he saw the smartphones balanced on every desk, and the tense frowns of every face in sight. “Where’s Carl?” he asked the room. “And what the hell is going on?”
“WiFi’s down,” someone called. “And the cloud crashed too. We thought it was wiped, but the new guy next door restored it in time for Carl to get the Fairside pitch. He’s still working on the rest.”
The influx of information made Jonah’s head spin. He soaked it in, piece by piece, battling to prioritise. He needed to know what they’d lost, both in time, content, and personal data, and figure out a recovery plan, but as he opened his mouth, the least important question bubbled up his throat. “What new guy?”
“The Russian one with the eyes.”
“The eyes?”
“Apparently so.” The voice from across the room materialised as Nico, Jonah’s IT specialist. The stress in his face mirrored Jonah’s, but there was humour too. His eyes had the twinkle of someone who’d survived a crisis. “I haven’t seen them myself. I was too busy shitting a brick when we couldn’t access the cloud.”
“But you’ve accessed it now?”
“Yeah. He hacked into my portal and accessed everything remotely using Blutecc’s network. Some stuff is still missing, but he said he’d come back later if we don’t get back online before then and see what he could do.”
“Wow.” Jonah blew out a long breath. “Sounds like we owe him a drink.”
Nico nodded. “And then some. Carl pretty much had a heart attack when the Fairside people turned up. We all did. I don’t know how they didn’t notice.”
“Doesn’t matter if they did. What matters is what happens in that room.” Jonah pointed at the conference room, the windows obscured by the same blinds Jonah had in his office.
“Nothing would’ve happened without the written pitch,” Nico said. “Carl’s a visual presenter. He’d have died on his arse if he’d had to wing it.”
Jonah was inclined to agree, but he said nothing and retreated to his office to take a deep breath and eat another of the pastries Sacha had gifted that morning. It went down in three bites, leaving Jonah to lick his fingers—again—and spend the rest of the day mediating between Nico and the IT providers who seemed to want to set each other on fire.
It was late when he finally came up for air. He’d missed every meeting he’d had scheduled and added a million things to his list of things to do, and worse than that, the only glimpse he’d caught of Sacha had been as Sacha had left the building at lunchtime.
He hadn’t come back—Jonah knew it because he’d glanced up every ten seconds to check, giving himself neck ache—and when he came in the next morning, there was still no sign of him, even in the hidden alcove where Sacha, according to office legend, spent most of his time.
It was lunchtime on Friday when Jonah finally sensed his presence. The Blutecc team were gathered in their main space, shoulders hunched and tense as Sacha addressed them.
His shoulders were tense too, but his back was turned to the FG windows, leaving Jonah unable to see his face, a state of affairs that frustrated him enough to pour hot coffee on his hand.
“Bollocks.” He slung the empty jug back under the machine and moved to the sink to rinse his hands.
Carl shot him a curious glance. “Everything okay?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because you’ve been glaring at everyone and everything all day and that’s totally not your style. If it was, I’d work for Saatchi & Saatchi and make the big bucks.”
“I pay you big bucks.”
“Yeah, but I could get more there if I wanted to wake up every morning and stick my head up my arse.”
“Charming.”
“I try.” Carl grinned, then his features fell serious again, and expectant.
Jonah shook his head. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long week. I’m sorry if I’ve been difficult. Let everyone know I’ll buy them a drink across the road after work, all right?”
“That wasn’t what I was getting at, but okay. I’ll let the hordes know it’s a free bar.”
