“No,” I agreed, “but that’s because I couldn’t handle it. Like,once, when I was ten or so, I begged my mom to let me pick my own notebooks and binders for calc. I’d seen thisShake It Upbinder at Target and begged my mom for it. She said no. I threw a fit about never getting to pick my own stuff. Mom said the other kids would make fun of me, that she was protecting me by being so controlling. But I insisted.Iwould never make fun of anyone for their binders. Why would anyone else do the same to me? Well, wouldn’t you know it? The football bros in class saw me in the front row,Shake It Upbinder and all, and played keep-away with it until the damn thing ripped. Taking weeks of work I’d done on a proof with it.”
Hudson sank down to the floor in front of me.
“So you went back to letting them call the shots.”
“I was smarter than they were, but not in the ways that mattered. Not smart enough to handle myself. Clearly. Then, I got through college and grad school and everything that followed. I became even more awkward and isolated and didn’t understand anything about people. Especially men. I was still finishing up at MIT when I was hired at GalacticSolutions, working in their propulsion department.”
Happiest day ever, getting that call from GS, learning that I’d be making half a million dollars a year to head up their fledgling propulsion department.
But I guess I just wasn’t allowed to be happy for too long. Because soon, that happiest day curdled into my worst era.
“Now, the thing to know about GalacticSolutions is that they’re one of those companies thatisn’ta tech company butactslike they’re one. They said that it made them agile—”
“Let me guess,” Hudson mused. “They said it made them agile, but really, it just meant they gave a college-age whiz kid a ton of responsibility because she didn’t know how to say no to overtime, and because she was disposable if she fucked it up.”
“And don’t forget, if she somehowdidmanage to succeed,which all signs pointed to, then they’d have an amazing Zuckerberg 2.0 story for the media. Look at this young, female engineer, barely out of school and ready to start the new age of space exploration.”
He held his hands aloft, framing me like a photographer. “You would look great inForbes.”
I chuckled. The sound was barely audible over the hum of the poorly wired overhead light. “So I get there and I was really fucking good at my job. Every minute up to that point had been spent trying to get there. I belonged. I worked my ass off. I was succeeding in literally every way. But then…Lloyd got assigned to oversee my division. And I was a stupid girl who’d never been shown any attention before. Boys did not like nerds with greasy hair and no concept of reality outside of its scientific provability. But Lloyd…Lloyddidlike me. He flirted, he gave me his number, he made moves…”
A familiar wave of nausea overtook me. I tried to keep Lloyd locked away in a memory vault because any time I examined the memories too closely, I made myself literally sick thinking of what a stupid girl I’d been.
“Of course you felt flattered. Scout, you’re acting like you made the worst mistake in human history.Everyonefalls for the wrong person at least once.”
A sweet way to look at what happened. Also an inaccurate one. I ignored him. “After years of having everything dictated to me by my parents, I thought I could finally handle myself. That I was a grown-up with a grown-up job and could make my own decisions. So Lloyd and I started…Back then, I thought we were dating. We didnotdate. We didn’t even go on dates. We were hooking up. We didn’t have sex,” I clarified. “I told him I wasn’t ready, and I don’t know. Maybe he liked the chase. But it worked out fine anyway, because he loved blowjobs. Andhandjobs, too, but only quickies in the elevator. I think it was a power thing.”
“Guess I can checklearn about a billionaire’s sexual proclivitiesoff my bingo card.”
“He’s not a billionaire yet. Daddy has to die first. And speaking of Daddy, Lloyd didn’t want to tell him about us. I thought it was cool. Having a secret like that. But then…the rocket blew up.”
“Not a euphemism,” he said, shaking his head.
“I wish. You sort of know this story, right? About the Ilium? My first big project?” He nodded. Its explosion was one of the biggest stories in the tech world at the time, and we’d talked about it that day in the Cleveland airport. “I told them that we were not ready for the testing phase.Everyonetold them that. But Lloyd told his father he’d beenpersonally overseeingmy work and that I was just being modest. These guys…there’s no one else on earth like them. They just don’t have any concept of failure. Like,Of course it’s going to work, even if the experts tell me it won’t. Nothing ever goes wrong for me!”
“But itdidgo wrong.”
Sometimes, when I put my head down on the pillow at night, I could still see the fireballs exploding up into the sky. It was a remote-controlled ship, not for human transport or operation, so thankfully no one was hurt. But my work exploding before my eyes…I’d never forget it. Or escape it.
“And disastrously. There were so many problems. They hadn’t given the departments enough time to coordinate before the test. The internal sequencing was busted, the cabling was interfering with the rudders…Avoidable problems, if we’d been given the time and the money. But we weren’t. And Lloyd and his father were confident, so they invited almost two thousand people to come and view the rocket live. Two thousand people saw my project go up in smoke.”
“Tests sometimes fail,” Hudson said. “They should have known that.”
“Should have. But Senior and the money guys behind him were furious and humiliated. They decided it was my fault. Lloyd told them it was my fault. They wanted a head on a platter…and when a corporate raider got hold of thousands of leaked documents and texts…”
“They found out about you and Lloyd.”
Oh, did they ever. For weeks I was stuck in sterile boardrooms, listening to teams of lawyers read my most base and salacious fantasies back to me in wry, smug monologues. They always followed up with questions about my fitness for my position, if I knew how much money the disaster with my rocket had cost the company, and whether I’d ever had an inappropriate workplace relationship before.
“Yeah. I was accused of sleeping my way into my position, taking advantage of poor, suggestible Lloyd, and ruining the entire project with my incompetence. And that’s what they told everyone in the space exploration vertical. And anyone else who might even potentially hire an engineer like me. Silicon Valley, the medical sector…Everyone knew that I was a slut who would fuck their sons and send their projects up in smoke.”
The shame pressed down on my neck. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. It was a fundamental law of the universe. Every time I’d ever tried to take control of my own life, I’d fucked it up. Whether it was as frivolous as a binder or my first real relationship, I couldn’t do anything right.
That was why I couldn’t go deeper with Hudson. That was why we needed barriers and guardrails and rules. So history didn’t repeat itself.
“Butyouwere the one who was taken advantage of,” Hudson said.
“I know. And so did they. That’s why they gave me asettlement, had me sign an NDA, and sent me off on my merry waybeforethey started spreading rumors of my incompetence.”
