Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
To my dueling chagrin and girlish glee, I didn’t have to wait very long to talk to Quinn. It happened during my second week on the job.
Cypher Systems was an extremely efficient, well-oiled machine of a company, and it was very secretive.
Almost immediately, I learned the necessity of the non-disclosure agreement I signed on my second day, and at the end of the first week, I was beginning to feel confident in the general maintenance of my accounts, systems, and the structure of the business office.
I loved my new job.
I managed what Steven called all the public accounts, which were mostly moderately large businesses that used a subsidiary of Cypher Systems called Guard Security.
Guard Security provided security for various corporate properties and buildings, and personal security details for CEO types.
I quickly discovered why Steven didn’t use column headings on his spreadsheets.
Steven told me that Cypher’s firewall was under nearly constant attack; all data files and identities were coded.
Thus, for the first half of the coming month, during the bulk of my training, I wouldn’t know whose account I was working on; I would only know the code.
Steven said that after the first two weeks, he would provide me with a code key on a flash drive and give me only one day to memorize which code belonged to which customer for each account.
Steven managed the private accounts, which, from what I could infer based on his vague description, were contracts with individuals, private citizens, and high-level families.
In addition to security, the contracts also often included investigative work.
This subsection of Cypher Systems was also a subsidiary, and was referred to as Infinite Systems.
In addition to Guard Security and Infinite Systems, Cypher Systems had other holdings and was the parent company to a number of other businesses, but Steven and I were the only two accountants in the security division.
In fact, Cypher Systems was actually quite small, if you didn’t count all the sub-companies, with only nineteen staff members in the office.
Even so, my company exclusively occupied the entire top floor, and every office was a window office along the north perimeter of the building. According to Steven, the offices and location were new; the company had moved into them just a few months prior.
There was no view of the lake from my window, but the northeastern corner office likely had a respectable panorama.
Regardless, part of me wanted to move into my office and live there; I found myself distracted by my amazing view of downtown, and frequently pinched my arm to remind myself it was real.
The rest of the space was mostly blocked off with only one heavy door as an entrance.
In order to gain entry you needed to pass a five-finger and retina identity scan.
When I asked Steven what was inside the room, he shrugged noncommittally and said, “Data storage.”
I had met almost everyone by my second day.
I counted Quinn among my eighteen coworkers even though I didn’t know his role yet, and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since the Saturday before I was hired.
Eight of the eighteen were accountants; some of them shared my title of Senior Fiscal Project Coordinator, and some were titled just plain Fiscal Project Coordinator.
In addition to Carlos, there was only one other director in the office, Director of Human Resources, and she didn’t seem to have any staff other than her administrative assistant.
The rest of the group included Keira, the receptionist and something of a telephone operator, one desktop support guy named Joe, two computer programmers, and another administrative assistant named Betty, who I never spoke to but did see every so often when she walked by my office.
Betty worked for the company CEO, who also happened to be the CIO, CFO, and COO, but everyone just called him the boss.
It became clear to me that Betty and the boss, or as Steven called them, B she just seemed very busy all the time.
My Quinn happenstance occurred on the Wednesday of my second week at Cypher Systems.
I noticed that I’d never seen Betty leave the office.
She was there when I arrived, no matter how early, and she was still there when I left, no matter how late.
Betty’s perpetual busyness prompted me to offer to pick her up some lunch that day.
I think I confused her at first because she repeated the word lunch several times, as though it were a mythical thing she’d heard of in a bedtime story long ago.
Finally, with a plainly grateful smile, she accepted the offer and requested a bowl of vegetable soup, a side salad, and a giant oatmeal cookie from a deli called Smith’s Take-away and Grocery.
It was a well-known deli and sandwich shop, with a few grocery items for sale, just one street over from our building.
I left early so that I could eat out and still return before noon. The deli had a few tables, all along a far wall. I was sitting at the corner table rereading one of my favorite comics, an anthology of a series in a bound paperback.
When most people think of comic books, they recall the small pamphlet style with only a few pages and, at the beginning of each pamphlet, the story picks up where the previous one left off in another comic book that always ended with to be continued.
The larger, paperback bound anthologies are like watching an entire season of a TV show on Netflix or on Instant Videos.
You can gorge yourself on the entire series and immerse yourself in graphic novel goodness in one epic sitting.
I had lent the anthology to one of the kids I tutored, and he’d just returned it to me last week.
Over the past two years of tutoring, I’d become something of a comic book lending library for the kids.
I didn’t mind; they took excellent care of them and loved to discuss the stories after they were done.
My thumb moved back and forth over the place where I’d torn the cover several years ago as I sank deeper into the story. My legs were curled under me, and I was just getting to the part where the really bad guy is about to kidnap the good guy’s best girl when I heard a voice immediately to my left.
“What are you reading?”
I stiffened, my heart leaping, and I automatically turned toward the voice. I found Quinn looking down at me, his expression guarded and neutral except his eyes. His eyes always seemed to be a shade of up-to-no-good blue. I struggled to make sense of his presence and blinked at him several times.
Acutely, I became aware that my mouth was hanging open. I snapped it shut and looked away, habitually running a hand over my hair. It was pulled into a severe bun and seemed to be on its best behavior, which was more than I could say for any other part of my body.
I cleared my throat and showed him the cover of my book then glanced at him again.
I noted that he wasn’t wearing a security guard uniform.
Rather, he was dressed in a very nice wool gray suit, white shirt, and gray tie with threads of blue silk running through it.
If we had been in Victorian England, I would have called him dashing; but, since we lived in the twenty-first century, I had to settle for the wordier GQ-model hot.
“Hmm…” He craned his neck and leaned closer to read the cover then he straightened, his expression impassive. His eyes skimmed over my face. “You read comics?”
I nodded, absentmindedly stroking the cover. As usual around his aura of handsome manliness, my mouth felt dry when I finally spoke. “Yes, I do.”
“Hmm,” he said again. We watched each other for a moment and, like clockwork, I could feel the warm awareness that always accompanied his presence start spreading from my lower belly to my neck, toes, and fingertips.
Suddenly, he said, “Scoot over.” Then he abruptly picked up my bag, which had been resting on the bench next to me, and placed it on the bench opposite. Setting down his food next to my empty sandwich wrapper, he took off his suit jacket, folded it with care, and draped it over my bag.
“I—uh—” Flustered, I could only push myself farther into the corner of the booth as he slid in next to me, but my efforts did little good.
The booth wasn’t really meant for two people.
It was maybe meant for one and three quarters, which meant that even with my back pressed to the wall behind me, a big guy like Quinn and a big-bottomed girl like me barely fit.
When he finally settled, his leg pressed against mine from upper thigh to ankle.
I chewed on my bottom lip and set the book on my lap. It must have been the effect of the graphic novel paired with Quinn’s sudden closeness and being quite trapped by his large form, but whatever the cause, I felt like swooning.
“Kind of a tight fit,” he remarked with a small smile, turning toward me, his face inches from mine as he unwrapped a sandwich.
“Yeah, well, I can go if—”
“No, no. Stay. How do you like the job?” He bit into his sandwich and turned the whole of his attention to me.