He turned the sphere over in his hands and shrugged. “I don’t know what this is. Sorry.”
“I’m talking about the programming inside it, Matthew.” Cheyenne leaned forward and raised her eyebrows. “The access design. You know, activating new programs and relaying simple commands. Gathering information and sending it back to a control center. And I’m not talking about syncing up with the cloud, either.”
With a self-conscious smile, he studied the metal sphere again and shook his head. “Well, unless you’re going with a private radio frequency or jacking into a server somewhere else, I don’t know how else that’s possible. I don’t see anything in here that would support plugging in directly.” He scratched his cheek and tossed the metal sphere back at Cheyenne, who batted it aside like a fly.
The metal ball thumped onto the couch cushion beside her. “Don’t insult me.”
Matthew chuckled. “Seriously, Cheyenne, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And insulting you is the last thing I wanna do.”
“Because you’re trying to keep up the nice-guy act? Not buying it.”
“Would you buy it if I said I’m honestly a little scared of what you’d do to me if I got on your bad side?”
“You’re already on my bad side, Matthew.”
“Okay.” Ember set her mug down on the coffee table and raised a hand to head off Cheyenne’s impending outburst. “Can we backtrack a little and start at the beginning?”
“What does Combined Reality, Inc. do?” Cheyenne sat up and folded her arms.
“Cheyenne.”
“I’m giving him the chance to lay it all out there, Em.” The halfling gestured toward their sincerely confused-looking neighbor. He’s got a good poker face, I’ll give him that. “Now’s your chance to start talking about what this other private company does, man.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “You’re being an asshole.”
“No, it’s okay.” Matthew uncrossed his legs and settled both feet on the area rug beneath them. “I’m flattered that you’re so interested. Like I said, Combined Reality, Inc. doesn’t operate in the public sector.”
“Neither do I.”
He pulled back with a laugh. “What?”
Ember drew her hands down her cheeks and glanced at the ceiling. “Oh, my God.”
“We’re not talking in a public capacity, Matthew.” Cheyenne glanced around his apartment and shrugged. “We’re sitting in your living room. Are you the expert on your own businesses, or do I have to go hunt somebody else down?”
“Whoa. Hold on.” Their neighbor spread his arms and blinked. “I have no problem talking about it, but I thought you guys had some kind of cybersecurity issue you wanted to talk about. Right?”
“So it’s not cybersecurity, then. Okay.” Cheyenne nodded and gestured toward the metal sphere beside her. “Does Combined Reality, Inc. write all the programming for stuff like this? Or are you just housing data storage? I didn’t go too deep, but I’m having a hard time imagining that it’s one without the other.”
Matthew took a deep breath and smiled at the halfling. “You don’t have a problem you want my advice on, do you?”
“Oh, yeah. We have a problem. It’s you.” Cheyenne stood up from the couch with a crinkle of paper as she gathered the printed sheets from beneath her legs.
“Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.” Ember lurched forward in her chair, thinking her friend was about to go straight for the jugular.
Instead, Cheyenne stormed around the coffee table and slapped the stack of papers down on Matthew’s knee. “You can skirt around answering my questions all you want, but now you know what I know. Or at least some of it.”
Matthew frowned at her without looking at the printed sheets. “What is this?”
“I asked first.”
He gazed down at the papers and shuffled through them one at a time, his eyes scanning quickly before he moved on to the next page. Then he flipped through the rest and blinked. “Wow. This is insanely thorough.”
“I’m still waiting for a thorough explanation.” Cheyenne stepped away from him and folded her arms. “Go ahead. Go through as much of it as you want. I know you know what you’re looking at.”
“Of course I do.” Matthew chuckled and stroked his chin. “I don’t say this to a lot of people, Cheyenne. Again, the last thing I wanna do is insult you, so I hope you can take this as a compliment when I say I’m seriously impressed that you found any of this.”
“Great. Now tell me what the hell you’re doing with those programs.”
He laughed in disbelief, shaking his head as he flipped through the rest of the stack. “I built one of the country’s leading cybersecurity firms from the ground up. I wrote all our processes myself, so I know how strong my own data security is. Seriously, how did you get this?”
“That’s none of your business.” Cheyenne pointed at the papers. “But obviously, you’re all up in mine.”
“I wasn’t aware this had anything to do with you.”
“Cut the shit, man!” She clenched her fists and breathed slowly through her nose, fighting the urge to burst into full drow fury and light a fire under the guy’s ass in a different way. Sparking ball of black energy right under his nose would get him talking. Just keep breathing. “I found what you’re hiding, okay? Game’s up. You’re coding programs and syncing capabilities into those machines, and you need to start talking before I—”
“Cheyenne!” Ember’s barked command sounded so much like Bianca Summerlin, it pulled the halfling right out of her rage.
She spun to face her friend. “What?”
“Can we talk in private for a second? Maybe out in the hall?”
“No, no. Stay here.” Matthew waved the papers in his hand, staring at them as he stood from the loveseat. “I’m happy to give you guys some space. I should probably go draft a few emails anyway.” He looked at Cheyenne with a confused smile.
“Go write your emails.” She folded her arms and glared after
