Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MATEO
While things were an epic shit-show at the condo, they were slightly better in the office.
He was still working with Jonah and a small team of his coworkers, testing each workstation for any red flags they needed to address before installing all the new protocols Roz insisted on.
Mateo got lucky being assigned a kitsune’s workstation that was almost as meticulously kept as his.
The sweet man who worked there was only around long enough to explain that he hadn’t noticed any issues or red flags on the system and that he would be out of the office most of the day, half to run his experiments and half to volunteer for a trial in another division, so the workstation was free for Mateo to do his thing before he scurried off to his work.
The relief made Mateo slump in his seat, and he set to work with a contented hum as he ran through the malware scanning programs first before checking the basics for any red flags.
The ease of that project might have given him a false idea of how things were going to go for the rest of the day, though.
In general, it took him about three hours to do a full audit of a system, checking for past hacking attempts, back doors, unauthorized data tools, etc.
plus installing the new protocols and firewalls Roz created herself.
If he had access to each workstation without getting in anyone’s way, he might be able to run several at once.
However, researchers were finicky about their workstations, hovered over his shoulder, and asked him every few seconds what he was doing, what the purpose was, and how it might affect their research projects.
He couldn’t walk away once he started without risking them getting onto the workstation to do their own work and messing with things while they were still scanning.
One delightful time a researcher tried to cancel a firewall install in the middle of it and somehow managed to corrupt the system.
With the need to babysit each workstation, he and his coworkers only managed to do one to two workstations a day. And his second one was a doozy.
“How old is the system?” he asked dubiously.
The goblin with the bulldog expression and oversized ears looked up at him with a stubborn frown on his face. “What does that matter? It still works. It’s fine.”
Maybe it still turned on and managed to accept data input, but could it even access the internet?
The goblin narrowed his eyes up at Mateo suspiciously. “You’re human, ain’t ya?”
Mateo felt his spine straighten at the out of the blue question.
He hated that question. It almost never led to polite and professional interactions.
He couldn’t ignore the question either, though, since doing that had led to people getting seriously pissed off in the past. People who asked that question almost always looked for ways to pick a fight with him.
“I am. Are you connected to the internet at all or just the internal systems?”
The goblin scoffed, giving Mateo another onceover that was even more judgmental than his question had been.
“What does it matter? You can’t do nuthin’ about it.
You can’t even check for magical interference.
I’m not wastin’ my time waitin’ around for another tech to come check it a second time just because the company’s gone all soft for humans.
Go find someone who can actually do the job and leave me be. I got work to do.”
He turned his chair around, effectively dismissing Mateo while grumbling to himself, “Don’t know why they even bother hirin’ humans. They’ll be dead before they manage to make any real contributions ‘round here. Waste of time, in my opinion.”
A big part of Mateo wanted to argue. Most hacking attempts these days didn’t include magic, since magical signatures were a lot easier to trace than hacking using a spoofed IP or an offsite device not connected to a specific person or place.
He could do his job just as well as someone with magic could.
Not to mention every single member of the team, even those who could see tech magic and trace it, was given a charmed USB to test for magic so they could lock in signatures and any unwanted magical interference for testing later.
He didn’t need magic to see if there was a magical problem.
But he knew without even opening his mouth that there was no arguing with the goblin.
If he was using a computer as ancient as he was, he doubted the guy would budge even with the best arguments in the world.
Since Deshawn had actual tech magic, he went looking for him instead, figuring an actual techno mage would satisfy the grumpy goblin’s demands. He found him working at a familiar workstation, the dwarf who he’d seen Dax helping the other day tinkering on his project a few feet away.
“Hey, Deshawn?”
The man didn’t look away from the screen as he pulled one of his headphones away from his ear and asked, “Yeah?”
“Can we switch? The guy who’s workstation I was supposed to be testing only wants someone with magical ability to do the reset.”
To his surprise, Deshawn’s head whipped around so fast, it made Mateo jump, and he looked pissed by the insinuation. “He sent you away because you’re human?”
Mateo shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “He said it’d just need to be checked by someone with magic anyway, and he didn’t want to waste his time with two checks. His computer looks about as ancient as he is, so I figured it wasn’t worth the argument.”
The dwarf from nearby snorted, but didn’t comment.
Deshawn wasn’t so nice. “He’s going to regret being so fucking speciesist,” he growled as he shoved to his feet. “You’re just as capable as anyone else on the team. And you’re nicer than I am.”
He walked away still grumbling after Mateo pointed him in the direction he needed to go. After he was gone, Mateo looked at the dwarf, who finally lifted his head long enough to look at him, raising an eyebrow when Mateo didn’t move right away.
“Well?”
“Do you have a problem with me working on your system?” he felt the need to ask. The guy didn’t look at him with disdain like the goblin had, but he wanted to be sure.
The dwarf rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a crap who works on the system as long as you get it to stop glitching every time I run my project.
The other guy said it needed some kind of upgrade to keep up with my tech and that wasn’t what ya’ll were down here to do, but there’s a damn ticket in that stupid system. Isn’t that enough?”
“Technically, that’s an IT issue, not cyber security—” He could just tell his answer wasn’t what the guy wanted to hear, so he added— “but I can push the ticket to a higher priority so they do it sooner rather than later. Since there will likely be updates thanks to the upgrade, maybe I can get them to come down now.”
The dwarf grunted in acknowledgement but said nothing more on the matter. Mateo didn’t expect him to. He’d take grumpy and quiet rather than outright hostile.
He’d forgotten entirely about Taron’s required lunch meeting for the residents of the condo the following afternoon.
He was busy working on setting up one of the replacement systems he’d set up with Jonah and Sasha for a lamia whose system had died mid-project when Taron popped up out of nowhere and scared the living daylights out of him.
He’d just moved her old system out of the way and picked up the new one and hadn’t thought to be on the lookout for wily shapeshifters.
“Mateo!”
“Holy shit!” Mateo yelped. The computer he was holding slipped from his grip as he jumped nearly a foot into the air and would’ve landed on his foot if Taron didn’t have such quick reflexes.
Not the kind of reflexes to catch the computer.
No, his reflexes were to grab Mateo by the back of his shirt and yank him back against his chest, successfully keeping Mateo from breaking a foot, but letting the computer fall to the ground instead.
The sound of it was so loud, the whole research floor turned to look, including Dax, who took one look at the situation and that same expression that had showed up in the alley when he’d mauled him flashed across his face. He almost looked… jealous.
Taron helped Mateo straighten and patted his shoulder, unaware of the impending storm headed their way, and gave him a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that. I hadn’t thought I was sneaking up on you. I wanted to remind you about our lunch.”
“What lunch?” Dax demanded, a tentacle surreptitiously wrapping around Mateo’s ankle in a possessive grip.
Taron, oblivious to Dax’s tone, just shrugged.
“I tried to have a meeting with the crew from the residential program the other week, but Louis went AWOL and then was too exhausted to participate. I changed it to a working lunch instead.” He glanced at their proximity, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“You’re welcome to join us, Dax. I’ve got Arthur coming along as well since he’s the only one who can get Louis where he needs to be.
” He beamed suddenly. “We’ll go to the same restaurant as my mates. Make it a party.”
Looking around at the mess of computer parts, Mateo gave Taron an incredulous look. “I can’t go to lunch. I have to clean this up.”
Taron waved that away. “There’s spells for that, especially on this floor.” When Mateo gave him a disbelieving look, Taron grinned. “There’s no getting out of this, Mateo. Everyone agreed to do random surveys throughout their stay anyway. This counts. Let’s go!”
The enigmatic shapeshifter didn’t wait around for any arguments, making a circle with one finger pointed in the air and jabbing it toward the elevators. “I’ll just be a second. I need to get Arthur to corral Louis. Head to the lobby. That’s where the rest of the group is meeting.”
Mateo shot a hesitant look at Dax as the man walked away. “How hard, exactly, is it to get one of those spells?”
“Luckily, they’re pretty much everywhere,” Dax reassured him with a soft smile.
“Hold on, I’ve got one in my desk. We’ll use it on the tower, set it to rights, but you’ll want to check it over after lunch.
While they’re great for putting pieces back together, when it comes to electronics—it can get a little hinky. ”
Great. Roz was going to be pissed if the system ended up needing to be replaced. And Mateo was totally throwing Taron under the bus if it did. Maybe Taron would learn his lesson about sneaking up on people carrying electronics if he had to face Roz’s wrath.
The lamia, thankfully, was more understanding than he’d expected since she’d actually seen Taron sneak up on him.
When Mateo interrupted her research to explain the delay, she slithered over to him, squeezing his arm reassuringly with a bright smile.
“I don’t blame you. Taron’s the one who caused the trouble.
I guess this just means we get to spend some more time together. Maybe it’s fate?”
The flirtatious tone didn’t escape him, though it did surprise him. He was so exhausted from trying to act normal around his roommates and around the office that he felt like a zombie half the time. That didn’t scream attractive to him.
“Uh…” He didn’t want to piss the woman off, she could easily break him in half if she wanted to, but he didn’t want to let her think she had a chance either.
Luckily, Dax was nearby, still working on the spell to put the computer back together, and Mateo could gesture at him without making her think he was making up a boyfriend to escape her attention.
He’d done that once when a particularly aggressive werewolf kept asking for his number.
The man had been incredibly offended that he’d lie to get away from him.
That was before Mateo knew werewolves could smell lies.
“I’ve actually got a boyfriend. He’s over there.”
Her gaze tracked where he gestured and Mateo felt the tension ease in his shoulders when her eyes lit up and her smile turned less flirtatious and more friendly. “You’re dating Dax? You’re so lucky. He’s a nice guy. We’ve worked together on projects before.”
Mateo nodded in agreement. “I am lucky. He’s pretty perfect.”
And still somehow interested in Mateo with all his ‘idiosyncrasies’, as his mother so kindly called them. Sometimes, Mateo still had to ask himself why.