“Hey,” he said.
Xia looked up at him and smiled. “Hey.”
He pulled out a chair and sat, putting his backpack on the table. They were silent, neither looking the other in the eye. Xia marveled at how awkward the moment was. They met in a programming class in college and were inseparable. After college, they applied for a Your Better Life peace mission together, spending two years on the mission before going full corporate. They were best friends, and when they occasionally became more than friends, they never had a problem going back to being nothing more than best friends. Now they were acting like shy middle school kids.
Finally, Jacob said, “It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
“All right. Just working, mostly. I’ve been so busy with new projects, I haven’t had much time to do anything else. I guess that’s not totally true. I just don’t go out much. I spend most of my off-hours reading, streaming shows, or gaming,” she said, thinking she was talking too fast and making a mental note to slow down.
“Gaming? I remember trying to get you to game, but you never really got into it.”
“Some people on a former coding team convinced me to give it a try. I didn’t have much else to do at the time, so I gave it a try,” she said. She started to take a drink then stopped, remembering her cup was empty.
“You want another drink? I’ll get you one.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve more credit here than I think I can ever use,” he said, getting up.
“Really, I don’t need more caffeine. I’m going a hundred miles an hour already.”
He sat back down. “Suit yourself.”
“What about you?” she asked. “How’ve you been?”
He told her about getting off probation, about working with Gomez at a place called Retro Media, about dealing with a crazy kid named Two-Step who worked with them, about living in The Galleria and outside the corporate system. By the time he was finished, they both were more relaxed and started talking about the good old days.
“Remember that time in Johannesburg,” Jacob said, “when we went to Soweto and you insisted on getting some street food?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“What do they call that sandwich?”
“A Kota sandwich, I think.”
“Yeah. You got so sick. I told you not to get the chicken.”
“I still think it wasn’t the chicken. It was all the Amarula I drank,” she said.
They both laughed, and the conversation fell into a natural lull.
“I guess you’re wondering why a messaged you?”
She was also wondering when he would get around to it.
“To be honest, I almost dropped my phone when I saw the message. So what’s up?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
A change came over Jacob. He looked more serious and perhaps a little concerned. He started turning his coffee cup on the table, holding it by the lip.
“You mentioned new projects you are working on. Any chance they have something to do with a type of quantum chip?”
Xia wasn’t sure how she reacted, but it was enough to get Jacob to quickly say, “Don’t worry, this place is a safe zone. They’ve got all surveillance blocked and the network here is running through a floating IP. There’s no way the corporation will hear any of this. That’s part of why I asked you to meet me here.”
Xia looked around, nervous despite Jacob’s assurance. “I don’t know. I’m not even supposed to be talking about it outside the research team,” she said, the words not coming fast enough. “How the hell did you find out about it? I mean, there are people who work down the hall from our team who don’t know what we are doing.”
She tried to read his expression. Was it worry? Fear? She couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, she could tell he wrestled with something. He took a deep breath and exhaled toward the ceiling.
“How I found out is what I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused. She could see this was hard for him to say. “I need your help with something. Something big.”
◆◆◆
Xia’s voice shook so much as she spoke the command to unlock her apartment door, she had to take a calming breath and repeat the command before the door unlocked and opened. She walked in, shutting the door behind her, standing in the dark for a moment. Finally, she said, “Lights, medium intensity. Music, Vaporwave for China.” She sat down on the couch. Her legs would not stop shaking, so she stood again. Pacing the floor, she decided on a drink to calm her nerves. A drink and some anti-anxiety code would be better, but her chip was not scheduled to release her prescription for another thirty minutes. She was briefly tempted to send an extra dose to her chip, but the company had recently started making random checks to make sure employees were not using code without a prescription.
Sometimes doing things by the book sucked.
Twice more she tried sitting, and each time she resumed pacing. What was she thinking? How could she have allowed herself to tell Jacob she would help him? She didn’t even know what she would have to do. He didn’t have a plan, and God knows what his plan would be. How did he get caught up in this? What happened to him in three years?
She fixed herself another drink.
Regardless of what happened to him in the last three years, he was still Jacob. He took all of the blame for her when he didn’t have to, and she owed him
