He needs to fucking chill.
The quiet atmosphere in our shared office is punctuated only by Misha’s frustrated sighs as he digs through piles of papers and tech gadgets. I lean back in my chair with my hands behind my head, watching him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
As usual, Misha lost something—his notebook—during yesterday’s meeting in another colleague’s office to discuss integration strategies.
It makes me think back to the day we all met at MIT, which was as random as it was chaotic, thanks entirely to Misha, of course, who was on one of his typical quests to find something he’d misplaced. That time, it was his wallet.
I was in the study room, minding my own business, deeply engrossed in code, when this whirlwind of energy burst in. I had never met him before, but he just made himself at home, upturning books and papers in his search. His disruptive determination was oddly charismatic, and he made it clear he wouldn’t leave until he found what he was looking for. Exasperated and wanting to get back to my work, I reluctantly agreed to help him so he would fucking leave faster.
After turning the study room upside down—with no success—Misha decided we needed more eyes. That’s when he dragged Oliver into it, whose only mistake was walking past us in the hallway at the wrong moment.
Oliver’s calm demeanor and apparent shyness was a stark contrast to Misha’s outgoing energy. None of us knew each other, but Misha wasn’t bothered by such details.
After searching what felt like the whole damn campus without luck, Misha decided it was time for a break. He had some bags of chips in his dorm and offered them as a thank-you for our help.
We settled into Misha’s room, and our moods lightened while we ate. We laughed and talked, and it turned out we had quite a bit in common.
Nerdy loners with a knack for coding.
While lounging and joking around, Oliver accidentally nudged something under the desk.
Misha’s fucking wallet.
From that day on, we were inseparable.
Despite the absurdity of how our friendship began, or maybe because of it, we formed a bond that was as strong as it wasunexpected. Misha’s chaos, Oliver’s meticulousness, and my realism somehow blended into a perfect mix.
We went through college together, and by the time graduation rolled around, sticking together wasn’t just an option.
It was the only plan that made sense.
These guys are my family, the ones I chose and who chose me back.
We found each other when we needed it most.
I have a family, but my parents are always abroad, traveling for their careers and choosing their jobs over their son. My grandpa raised me. He quit his job as a professor of law at Harvard, and moved back to Seattle to take care of me when my parents decided to up and leave when I was three. He did an amazing job at that, but Misha and Oliver… they’re the family I never really had.
I’m snapped back to the present by Misha’s exasperated voice. “I can’t find it anywhere! It had all my notes from yesterday’s meetings. This is a fucking disaster!”
“I told you so many times to make notes on your phone or tablet.” I sigh.
We’re working in tech, for fuck’s sake.
“Would you come walk the hallways with me to look for it? It’s not in Jensen’s office, either. I already checked.” He looks at me with puppy dog eyes.
Rolling my eyes, I stretch my arms over my head. “We’re not going to walk down every damn hallway like peasants,” I grumble, turning the chair to sit properly in front of my monitor. “I’ll check the cameras. See where you went yesterday.”
Misha perks up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, although his voice is wary. “You can’t just hack into the company’s cameras.”
I huff out a laugh, amused. It’s not my problem if Elysium’s security measures are laughable. But it’s not my job to point thatout to them. I’m only responsible for the safeguarding of our AI’s integrity and user data privacy.
And let’s be honest, just because it’s easy for me doesn’t mean it’s easy for anybody else.
“We don’t hack into company assets. We give them free performance tests,” I tell Misha in an innocent tone, making him grin. “Also, they’re so far up our asses, they would never say a word about it, even if they did find out.”
As I pull up the footage, Misha leans over my shoulder, making me slightly uncomfortable with the proximity. “There! That’s when I went to Jensen’s office,” he points out excitedly as we watch him on screen. “God, I’m looking good from that angle.”
I ignore his nonsense and meticulously track his movements along the hallways, a skill honed from years of needing to keep everything tight and secure in our projects, until I notice he entered a room with his notebook and exited it without it.
