Chapter 7
Seven
CULLEN
Sara’s words play on a loop in my ears. Cullen, someone stole the interface and copied every line of our mainframe.
My heart tightens and a cold panic wraps itself around my spine. This is my fault. All my fault.
I have to fix it.
A few minutes later, I hurry inside the office.
To my surprise, the hallway’s been transformed. Gone are the exposed panels in the wall, and the plastic sheets dangling from the ceiling like a butcher shop in a horror movie.
The crew worked fast and now the east side of the building is complete. All the walls are painted, the floors swept, and the lights installed. An air purifier puffs a sweet scent through the space.
I’d be ecstatic about this if my mind wasn’t so burdened.
Drawn by the clamor of voices, I enter a room on the right. The scent of paint stains the air. Directly in front of me sits a long desk that seats ten, a projector screen, and a coffee bar.
“Finally, you’re here!” Sara throws her arms up in relief.
Asad and Dr. Young crowd around me, their eyes panicked and expectant.
I can’t do this.
A headache jackhammers into my skull.
I step back, needing the space. “I called our lawyers and programmed an extra firewall for security.”
“The firewall is useless. They didn’t hack in,” Asad whines. “They reverse-engineered the code we released for the competition.”
Dr. Young wrings his hands. “What are we going to do if they put out a successful PLP simulation before us?”
“They won’t,” I answer shakily.
Sara massages her temples. “I can’t believe they were able to replicate so much of our programming.”
Dr. Young mumbles gruffly. “I was looking at Russia all this time, when I should have been watching Asia.”
“What are we going to do now?” Asad looks to me. The others turn to me too, waiting for a magical solution that will make everything better.
But I don’t have one.
A copycat PLP program was an expected side-effect of our competition. I was prepared for that. But the company who copied our code is a giant in the industry. Armed with our research and their own expansive network of scientists and programmers, they could deliver a crushing blow.
And it’s all because I made an impulsive move. Had I not blasted the competition everywhere in order to find Josiah, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Sounds from the construction crew on the opposite end of the building fill the silence. The faint thud of hammers, saws slicing through metal, and loud, boisterous laughter makes my headache even worse.
I lumber across the room to the table and set my hand flat against it. There’s still a faint sheen of something wet, probably furniture polish, on the surface.
I yank my hand back. The urge to wash my hands overwhelms me.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell them. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“But we don’t have a…” Sara says.
I’m already out the door. Planting one foot in front of the other, I stumble down the hallway. The closer I get to the main construction area, the harder it is to breathe.
I stop in the middle of the hallway and take in giant gulps of air. The muscles in my shoulders tighten and I squeeze my eyes shut.
You’re going to die a failure, boy.
It’s not a voice I hear often. In fact, I’ve learned to block it out so well that, at times, it feels like that summer never happened. I’d even managed to convince myself those words no longer affect me.
I was wrong.
You think you’re so special? You’re not. You’re just like your old man.
Gritting my teeth, I fish through the chaotic waves of my mind, hunting for solutions. Maybe we go back to the drawing board. Create something completely new. Turn our back on all the years we invested in this interface and come up with something totally different.
No. That’ll take too much time. Time I don’t have. There’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to live to see the end of the PLP project at this rate, but at least we’ve got light at the end of the tunnel. If I run back to the starting line now…
You’ll die a failure, boy.
I try to unbutton the top of my polo, hoping that’ll help me breathe easier. My fingers tremble too much and I can’t seem to get the button loose.
“Mr. Cullen!” An unfamiliar voice says. A moment later, urgent footsteps pound in time to the hammer sounds thudding across the building.
Someone stoops in front of me. I hadn’t even realized I’d sunk to a crouch against the wall. Blonde hair spills over my arm and a hand with neatly cut nails wraps around my wrist.
“Mr. Cullen, are you okay? Do I need to call the ambulance?”
“No,” I rasp, tilting my head back.
Jenna reaches forward, her fingers close to my neck.
I wrench away.
She stops and gives me a sheepish look. “You seemed to have trouble unbuttoning your shirt.”
“It’s okay.” I twist my body away from her.
She backs off and, only then, do I breathe a bit easier.
“I heard about the PLP duplicate,” she says uneasily, one hand wrapped around her knees. “Are you okay?”
I’m hyperventilating on the floor while a soundtrack from the one and only summer I spent with my drunk of a father replays in my head. I’d say I’m freaking peachy.
“Yeah,” I answer, not letting any of those words leave my lips. “I just need a minute.”
Jenna either doesn’t hear the ‘go away’ underlining my tone or she does hear but makes a conscious decision to ignore it.
“I can’t begin to understand how you feel, but it must really suck having all your hard work go to waste like that.”
I make a disgruntled sound.
“ But, ” she stresses, “you’re Ronan Cullen. The Ronan Cullen. You’re the reason I turned down an offer from the biggest search engine company in the world. If anyone can figure this out, you can.”
Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. Her words are a fast-spreading virus that can wipe out an entire hard drive.
The pressure is mounting. I have employees to feed. Team members who left everything behind to follow me.
And I led them straight down a ditch.
You’ll die a failure.
“Mr. Cullen—” Jenna waddles closer to me and concern flares in her blue eyes. “You’re sweating,” she says. As she reaches out to dab at my forehead, I lift my head and sear her with an angry gaze.
“ Don’t touch me.”
Fear twitches her mouth and she drops back, landing on the hard tiles with her arms underneath her for balance.
I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling immediate remorse for snapping at her.
“I just need a minute,” I rasp, knowing the paltry explanation won’t make what I did okay.
She scrambles to her feet, her eyes on the ground. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”
Great. Now, on top of the self-hatred and panic I feel, I can add guilt to the pile.
Pushing to my feet, I run a hand over my beanie and try to sort through my thoughts.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I debate ignoring it. I’m pretty sure Richard Sullivan will be on the other end of the line. The news must have reached him by now and, while Sullivan didn’t study software engineering, it doesn’t take a genius to know we’re up a creek without a paddle.
Just imagining that old naysayer Carmichael calling a board meeting to demand an explanation from me makes me want to projectile vomit.
But I don’t have the time or the freedom to wallow. For better or worse, I own this company and if anyone is going to lead us out of this mess, it has to be me.
I grab my phone out, but it’s not Sullivan calling.
It’s Sara.
“Yes?”
“Sorry. I know this is a bad time, but the school just called to remind you about the ground breaking ceremony today. Are you still going to attend?”
“No.” Why is she even asking me that?
“I tried to politely decline, but the principal insisted.”
“Ask her if she’d rather have the money or my attendance,” I snap.
“I know. I know. But she said journalists wrote a story about your donation and the parents made a big fuss. They said they’ve been asking for a science lab and that the school doesn’t need a computer lab.”
I groan and massage the bridge of my nose. The sky is falling all around me, and I have bigger things to worry about than the principal’s reputation or snobby parents throwing tantrums.
“I’m not attending. Tell her if she calls me over this nonsense again, she won’t have to worry about those angry parents because there won’t be a donation for them to fight over.”
“Got it. I’ll let her know.”
You’ll be at the ceremony, right?
Crap. A memory of my conversation with Josiah this morning returns to me.
You promise?
I did promise, didn’t I?
Imagining the look of disappointment on Josiah’s face makes me sigh hard. Great. Now, I don’t have a choice. Even if it costs me everything, I can’t not show up.
I call Sara back.
“Sir, I just sent the school an email declining their invitation?—”
“Take it back,” I grumble.
“What?”
“Call them and tell them I’m coming.”
“But what about the PLP program?”
I consider that question for a long beat. “The PLP program can wait. I made a promise and I need to keep it.”
“I’ll call them right away, sir.”
“But let them know I only have thirty minutes. We’re in the middle of an emergency.”
“Of course. Should I call a car?”
“Yes.”
“What about a change of clothes? You’ll be photographed. You should at least wear something more formal.”
“If they chase me out because I’m wearing a T-shirt, that’s better for me,” I grumble.
“If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure. When’s the ceremony?”
“At two.”
I check my watch. “Are Asad and Dr. Young still in the conference room?”
“They are.”
I hang up with Sara and return to the team. Asad and Dr. Young are still stewing in worry. The atmosphere reminds me of a funeral.
“You okay, Cullen?” Asad asks, straightening out of his crouch.
Of course I’m not okay. The urge to curse, wail and vent is tempting, but I hold myself back. Right now, they don’t need Ronan Cullen, the man. They need Ronan Cullen, the leader.
I get a bottle of sanitizer from my bag. The memory of Nardi reluctantly pouring a bit of sanitizer into my palm makes me smile for some reason, even in the middle of this mess.
Sounding more confident than I feel, I tell them, “Copycats are the name of the game. We can’t change anything about what’s been done. We can only be better than our competitors and find a way to stay ahead of the pack.”
“What does that mean?” Dr. Young asks.
“How do we stay ahead of the pack? That company is huge!” Asad reminds me.
“Even so,” I set the sanitizer down firmly, “we’re going to complete our simulation before they do.”
Asad cringes.
Dr. Young looks confused.
Sara sighs. “But… the entire project is stalled. No matter what we try, the software won’t support a connection between the PLP and the controller.”
“We don’t have another choice. Solving it first is the only way we beat them.”
“There are hundreds of technicians working around the clock in that company,” Dr. Young says in a sad voice.
Asad braces himself. “Do we need to work even harder than them? Because I don’t know how much harder I can push myself. We’re all putting in over one hundred hours a week.”
“No. We can’t possibly work harder than that company. They’d crush us.” I shudder.
Dr. Young nods soberly.
Sara frowns.
“Rather than harder, we’ll work smarter.” I tap out a message on my phone. “Sara, send an SOS message. I want every technician on our A-team to be here at three thirty sharp.” I think of Jenna’s hurt expression and amend, “Allow the B-Team to come in too.”
“It might be a little too last minute for everyone to assemble at HQ this soon,” Sara informs me hesitantly.
“Stress that this is an emergency.”
Sara nods and jots something down.
I point at her. “Set up a live video feed for the overseas team members. I want perfect attendance. No excuses.”
“What’s another meeting going to do?” Dr. Young challenges. “We’ve had tons of meetings before and it never got us anywhere.”
“We’ve never had a meeting where three quarters of the team will be in the same room,” I answer firmly. “Maybe something new will shake loose if we’re together in person.”
Sara, Dr. Young, and Asad process my words, saying nothing.
I frown at them. “What else can we do? Throw our hands up and lie down to let the wolves eat us alive? I’m not an idiot. This problem is beyond me. We solve this together or we don’t solve it at all.”
Asad smiles a little.
Dr. Young nods in agreement.
Sara picks up her phone. “I’ll call everyone personally and let them know how important this is.”
I check my watch. “I should head out now.”
“Already? You still have time,” Sara says.
“If I leave now, I can buy a shirt for the ground breaking ceremony.”
Her lips curl up. “I thought you said you weren’t dressing up?”
I nod at her. “As the CEO, I shouldn’t look too shabby for my photoshoot.”
Sara laughs. “I’ll make a call to a friend of mine. He’ll have a suit in your size ready by the time you arrive.”
True to her word, Sara’s acquaintance hands me a pressed white shirt and trousers the moment I step into the tailor shop.
“You look fabulous,” he says, his eyes assessing my form in the outfit. “But the beanie has to go.”
“It stays,” I answer stubbornly.
He peers at it with distaste. “At least push it up a bit.” He makes the adjustment himself. “There. That’ll work. Thankfully, it’s black or it would have been much worse.”
I pay him a little extra for his fashion advice and take a cab to the school.
Two news vans are parked outside and the journalists are already seated when my escort guides me to the empty area where the computer lab will be built.
Right now, there’s nothing much to look at. It’s just a well-maintained lawn behind the school building. However, there are three shovels embedded in the ground and a colorful ribbon hanging between two posts.
“We’re aware of your schedule, Mr. Cullen,” the escort says. “So we’re going to complete the ‘breaking of ground’ and ‘ribbon cutting’ portion first after the principal says a few words.”
I nod and take a seat in the front row.
The principal greets me with a chilly nod. “Mr. Cullen.”
“Principal Green.”
She turns her head swiftly and ignores me. I guess our first meeting left a bad taste in her mouth.
Great for me. That means I won’t have to make mindless small talk.
“Mr. Cullen,” a voice says.
I glance behind me and see Josiah sitting in the opposite row of chairs. He’s wearing the school’s navy blue polo and khaki trousers.
For the first time since that disastrous news about our PLP project, I smile.
He smiles back and waves.
The tiny, wordless exchange, strangely, makes all my troubles feel very small.
I send Sara a text.
How’s it going?
Sara: Everyone who can physically make it promised to be there.
I hesitate for a second.
And then I do something I’ve never done before.
I type: Tell them thanks.
Sara doesn’t immediately respond.
Just when I’m about to put away my phone she texts back.
Sara: I don’t know what’s more surprising. That you WANT to be in a room with everyone or that you’re grateful they’d show up.
I laugh and put my phone away as the principal takes the mike.
The ceremony itself goes by very quickly. Josiah hands me my certificate, shakes my hand and smiles for the camera. I do the same.
When it’s over, rather than return to my seat with the other invited guests at the ceremony, I’m escorted off to the side and taken through a small courtyard.
The escort from before explains as we move, “There will be more speeches, so it’s better to sneak away now rather than walk past everyone later and interrupt the ceremony. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No.” I glance over my shoulder and notice Josiah is heading away from the ceremony too, but he’s going to a different building. “Are the students returning to class?”
The escort looks in the direction of my stare. “Oh, no. It’s free period. The student who handed you your certificate is one of our prodigies, so he’s probably going to an advanced class at this time.”
I check my watch. The ceremony hadn’t taken that long. I can spare a few minutes before calling a car to take me back.
“Can I have a chat with Josiah before I go?”
She stops in the middle of the walkway and looks at me.
“If it’s not interrupting his school work.”
“Uh, we wouldn’t normally… but for a donor like you, no problem at all.” She smiles. “This way.”
We cut through a hallway and round the back of the building, cutting left in the direction that I’d seen Josiah walking in.
The school grounds are impeccably kept, as the principal had boasted to me the last time we met. Inside, the school feels more like a college with vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and lockers all painted a uniform pale blue.
The administrator rams her knuckles against a classroom door and gestures for me to follow her in. I see Josiah immediately. He stands out among his classmates, not only because he’s the only African American child in the class, but because he’s several sizes smaller than his peers.
It’s amusing to see but, when I think about it, I can see how it would be very lonely to be too brilliant to learn with kids his own age and yet be unable to relate to the older kids in the classes that truly challenge him.
“This is Mr.—”
“Ronan Cullen!” The male teacher with white hair, oval glasses and a big smile rushes up to me. “I was hoping to attend the ceremony, but I had a class at the same time so I couldn’t make it. What an honor to have you.”
“I’m not here to interrupt,” I say.
His cheeks bunch under his eyes, turning them to slits. “We were working a Java script.”
“Don’t mind me. I’ll just observe. Please carry on.”
The administrator points to the door. “I have other matters to attend to, so we’ll part ways here, Mr. Cullen.”
I nod and make my rounds around the class.
The students all whisper to each other and watch me. I nod at a few of them as I browse the class but, despite my slow gait, I’m making an intentional path toward Josiah.
Finally, I stop behind his desk. “Weren’t you the young man who handed me my certificate?” I wiggle the piece of paper as evidence.
Josiah giggles. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m Ronan Cullen. And you are?”
Josiah glances around at his jealous classmates before answering me proudly. “I’m Josiah Davis.”
We both exchange smiles.
I lean down, balancing my hands on my knees so I can see his computer. “What are you working on?”
“Conditional statements,” Josiah says a little too loudly. However, when he shakes his mouse over the screen, he’s in a different program altogether.
I arch an eyebrow, silently questioning what I’m looking at.
Josiah whispers to me, “Don’t tell Nardi, but I’ve been working on the simulation.”
His sister will kill me, so I make a half-hearted attempt at being a responsible adult by saying, “Josiah, you should listen to your sister.”
“I do. She said I can’t code at home. Not at school.”
If this kid doesn’t grow up to be a good person, he’ll probably become the world’s greatest supervillain.
I laugh. “If Nardi asks, I never saw this.”
Josiah doesn’t seem too concerned. He turns back to the code. “I’m trying to connect the control to the device, but I keep getting an error message.”
“We faced a similar problem.” My eyes skim over his coding and then skip back. “What are you connecting this to?” I point to an unrecognizable variable. “It’s totally outside of the parameters of our software.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I think it’s a super computer or something? I copied and pasted it from an online server.”
“Really?” I rub my beanie, hope blossoming in my chest.
That variable does not belong to a super computer.
“I tweaked it a bit of course, but I didn’t know I was opening a back door to your simulation. This is what I did when I,” he glances back and forth before whispering, “accidentally hacked into your cloud.”
“This is what you did?” I point to the screen.
“Yeah,” Josiah continues in a normal voice, “but I can’t get past this point. I studied everything your assistant sent me. I even played with the code you gave me access to. Connecting the planes to control without losing signal is going to be really tough.”
I plant my hand on the desk and lean forward so I’m close to the screen. The code unrolls before me, painting a beautiful picture.
It’s all coming together in my mind.
I’ve got the answer I needed.
“Josiah,” I whisper, turning my head to face him.
“Huh?”
“You’re a genius.”
“Technically, I’m a savant . If you call me a genius, that means I’m good at everything and I’m not.” He sticks out his tongue. “English sucks.”
Laughter bubbles in my chest. “I need to get going.”
“Are you leaving already?” The eager teacher appears out of nowhere, his hands clasped in front of his chest and his eyes shining with awe. “I was hoping we could take a selfie.”
“I don’t take pictures,” I tell him flatly.
His expression crumbles.
Josiah, too, looks disappointed in me. Seeing the little boy’s frown, I sigh and take the words back.
“But I’ll take one with you next time.”
The teacher’s smile inflates back to its wide berth. “I’ll take you up on that.”
“Sir,” one of the students calls at the front of the classroom, “can you help me with this? I added the line to the end of the CSS code and it didn’t work.”
The teacher steps away to deal with his student.
I remain in place, typing out my thoughts into my phone before they disappear through the recesses of my mind. Ideas bounce around, one tumbling and forming another like a snowball racing down a mountainside.
I need to call Sara. And maybe Richard Sullivan too. I think Sullivan has contacts with Adam Harrison and I’ll need to draw on that connection for everything I’m thinking.
“Didn’t you say you had to leave?” Josiah asks.
I tear my eyes away from the phone. “Yeah.” I offer Josiah my fist. “Later, smart guy.”
He bumps me with his knuckles, eyes narrowed slightly. “You found a solution, didn’t you?”
“Half a solution. It may not work.”
“It’ll work,” he says confidently.
“Because I’m Ronan Cullen?” I arch a brow, remembering what my new hire said to me in the hallway.
“Nope.” Josiah shakes his head. “Because I’m Josiah Davis.”
I laugh. That confidence alone makes me double glad I chose Josiah as my legacy. “I’ll let you know how it works out. And no more coding behind your sister’s back. Don’t let Nardi worry about you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He goes back to his computer.
With a smile, I call for a ride, and map out my ideas all the way back to HQ. My head is bursting with hope, excitement and new ideas and I’m in such a rush to get inside that I don’t notice a giant boulder of a man step around the bend until it’s too late.
I reel back to avoid crashing into him, but I do end up knocking into his shoulder.
“Sorry,” I mumble, side-stepping him to make my way inside.
The man blocks my way and grunts out, “Sorry? You think sorry’s enough White Boy?”
I look up and recognize the guy who’d been flirting with Nardi outside the apartment entrance. He’s got a sneer on his lips and disgust in his eyes. I can tell immediately that he’s itching to pick a fight.
I don’t have time for this.
“You remember me?” The man lifts his chin so I can get a good look at the gold chain around his neck.
“I do.” I look past him at the entrance.
“I remember you too. You spent a long time in Nardi’s apartment last night.”
A sense of disquiet runs through me. Is this man stalking Nardi?
He stares at me intently, as if he’s waiting for me to say something to defend myself. I don’t. I owe this man nothing.
Instead, I step back and wait for him to tell me whatever threats he’s eager to unleash. Finally, he tires of the staring game and steps forward threateningly.
“Nardi and I have something going on, so you better not get any ideas. You feel me?” He slaps my chest with the back of his hand.
It’s technically assault, but I’m not petty enough to make a big deal of it. It’s more important to me that I get to my team to share the idea I have—and also give Sara the task of installing security cameras in front of Nardi’s apartment for safety.
When I still say nothing, he backs off and allows me to continue on my way. I look over my shoulder just before entering the front entrance, frowning at the man’s back.
Him and Nardi?
I’m pretty sure Nardi wasn’t all that interested when he was talking to her. Poor guy has no idea he’s on the way to the friend zone.
For some reason, that makes me giddy.
Why do you care? If she turns him down, it doesn’t mean she’ll say yes to you.
I push the thought away and march straight to the conference room. The door opens and I hear the clacking of fingers to keyboards, the rumble of conversation, and the buzz of earnest energy.
Although I’ve always had a ‘team’, it's my first time gathering them all together in person. At first, no one notices me. They’re too entrenched in their work.
Someone at the door spots me.
He pats his neighbor on the back and points.
Soon, whispers flow through the room like a raging wildfire.
“It’s him!”
“Mr. Cullen!”
“Sir, you’re back.” Sara runs toward me and points to the projector. She gestures to the webcam attached to it. “Everyone is here, as you requested.”
I nod, my knee bouncing.
Being the center of attention unnerves me. One side of my brain begs me to retreat, to hide in a corner and conduct this meeting from behind the safety of a screen.
But I force myself to accept the microphone that Sara hands me. How she set up a PA system in the room in such a short time, I’ll never know. But I think I owe her a raise.
“Hello, everyone,” I say hesitantly. “Thank you for making it on such short notice.”
It feels like a hundred pairs of eyes blink at me.
I swallow hard. “As you all know by now, our software was replicated by a well known company overseas.”
Grumbles erupt at my words.
I lift a hand to stop them because that’s not the point. “But today isn’t about what was taken from us. It’s about what we’re about to gain. Sara.”
“Yes, Mr. Cullen.” My assistant hustles toward me, clipboard at the ready.
“Can you set up my laptop?”
“Already done.” She spins around, removes my device from the desk and hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, gifting her a genuine smile. “I’ll need to?—”
“Attach it to a monitor and also set up a feed so the online team members can view what’s on it? Done and done. There’s a dungle allowing wireless connection. You’re good to go.”
This woman is a beast at her job and I NEED to give her a raise.
I start with a bang. “You may or may not know that our system was hacked into a few days ago.”
Gasps ripple around the room.
Several eyes dart around in suspicion.
“This is the code the hacker used to infiltrate our system.” I click to the simulation and show them Josiah’s lines of code. “At first glance, it’s easy to miss but if you look deeper, you’ll see something very interesting.”
Asad pushes his glasses up and peers at the monitor showing my screen. “What is it? What are we supposed to be looking for?”
“Here.” I point to the variation that Josiah revealed today in class.
Dr. Young’s eyes bug. “That’s the code for an out-of-commission satellite. But how? It’s impossible to let a satellite orbit like that.”
“It’s impossible until you look at it through the eyes of a child who’s never been told it ‘can’t’ be done,” I tell them.
Rumbles of surprise and agreement follow the statement.
I pace the room, growing more and more excited and less and less self-conscious as I speak about my idea. “Since the start of this project, we’ve been trying to code a direct link to the plane.”
“Because it gives us the most secure signal and the smallest error rate,” someone says.
“But what if there was another way to get a reliable signal.”
Their eyes glaze over with confusion.
I click to a webpage. “Adam Harrison and Richard Sullivan created a new company last year, investing in a global satellite system. It’s governed by a programming software called ‘INVERT708’. With the strength of the INVERT708’s signal, we can transfer from satellite to satellite, compared to other satellite systems that are stationary.”
Finally, it clicks.
Applause breaks out around the room. A few of them shoot to their feet, unable to contain their excitement.
Asad whistles.
Sara smiles.
Dr. Young nods proudly.
“Alright, everyone,” I slap my hands together, “let’s get to work.”