“And?”
“And what?”
“Did you talk to him about funding? As in, we don’t have any.”
“No.”
“Okay,” Helga said. “How much of their content do they think we’re buying then?”
“I told Winona we would take as much as we could use.”
“We can’t afford that with our budget.”
“I know. I will pay for whatever we cannot from the company account.”
Helga braced her fists on the table and loomed over Sacha. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not on you to fund this project, and even if it was, Flash Gray charge top-end rates for their services. We’re talking silly money, Sacha.”
“I have silly money. You forget that I do not do this shitty job for the same reasons you do.”
“I can’t forget something you’ve never told me. I don’t know anything about you outside of this office.”
“What do you want to know, Helga?”
Helga sighed. “I don’t know. And thinking about it in any depth gives me a headache.Yougive me a headache, in actual fact. It would be easier to hate you.”
“You don’t hate me? That is sweet.”
“Take that back. I am not sweet.”
“I’ll take it back if you will fetch me some coffee?”
“Why do you need me to do that? You literally just came from the break room.”
Sacha didn’t have the words to explain the disaster his excursion to the break room had become. He searched out his blandest smile and plastered it on his face in the hope it would sway Helga into satisfying his caffeine cravings without further need for flaying conversation.
Eventually, it worked. Or perhaps he creeped her out enough to leave him alone. Regardless, she vanished, and returned with coffee and a Christmas turkey sandwich from who the hell knew where.
Sacha inhaled both, then spent the rest of the day hunched over his laptop.
It was dark when he came up for air. Quiet too. Even Helga had gone. A silent office was usually Sacha’s idea of heaven, but as he glanced around, contentment was hard to find. It was eight o’clock and he’d coded his way to a place where perhaps they could start to breathe, but with no one around to share it with, it was a hollow victory.
You’re getting soft. Since when have you needed a standing ovation to appreciate simple things?
Since never. It wasn’t validation he craved, but company, and the devil on his shoulder could set itself on fire as far as he was concerned.
Sacha shut his laptop and reached for the bottle of painkillers he’d finally remembered to stash in the drawer. It was already half empty, only two doses left, but with the lion’s share of his work now complete it worried him less.
He swallowed the pills and searched out his coffee cup to wash them down.
It was empty.
Sighing, he packed up his things and tried to remember where he’d left his coat. Though it was by far not the latest hour he’d found himself leaving the office in recent days, it seemed like a year had passed since he’d arrived that morning.
He rose with heavy legs and exited the alcove. Helga had left her computer on. He bent over it to shut it down, but found himself instantly absorbed in the graphics splashed across her screen. They’d been developed in the hours since Sacha had last seen them, streamlined to the top designs Blutecc had requested, and then expanded with more detail. Or less where required.
There was an email exchange open too, between Helga and Winona at first, then with Jonah copied in until the conversation had slimmed down to just him and Helga.
Helga:Basically, we want as much of the concept as we can afford to licence, but we’re limited by budget. Our finance department aren’t going to budge on the final figure I sent to Winona this morning. Anything extra we’d have to crowdfund, or Sacha is threatening to pay for it himself.
