That night, when I accidentally sent my boss a flirty message, the doorbell rang as if someone wanted to break down my door.
I was still sitting in front of the computer in a small apartment in Boston’s Back Bay. Only the monitor’s cold light was on in the room. By the kitchen sink stood my only favorite mug — white, ceramic, with a small lighthouse drawn on the side, whose paint had been scraped off at the corner. I wanted to write to Brian.
“If I ever look at my boss the way I look at Madison, sober me up immediately,” I wrote.
But the message was not sent to Brian.
In the list of names, Madison’s contact was directly below Brian’s. I quickly pressed the screen, the message went out, and only then did I realize what I had done.
“Damn,” I whispered.
On the screen, my words looked like a living wound. A reply came within a few seconds.
“Was this message meant for me?”
My hands went cold.
“I apologize. I sent it to the wrong person. It did not mean what it might seem to mean at all.”
The reply did not come immediately. That was the most frightening thing. Madison always answered quickly on work matters, but that night three dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again.
“All right. Then will you open the door for me?”
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
I jumped up from the chair so abruptly that I hit my knee on the corner of the table. The lighthouse mug fell onto the floor, but did not break. Only a small crack appeared near the handle. For several seconds I did not dare move.
The bell rang a second time.
Through the little peephole in the door, I saw Madison. Her dark hair was tied in a ponytail, and her black coat was wet with raindrops. She did not look like a woman who had come to talk about an awkward message. Her face was tense.
I opened the door.
“Come in,” I said, though my voice betrayed me.
“First tell me whether you are alone.”
“I’m alone.”
She looked down the hallway, then came in and closed the door herself.
“I did not come because of that message,” she told me.
“Thank God.”
A smile appeared on her lips for a moment, but immediately disappeared.
“Ben, tomorrow morning the board of directors will decide whether to blame you for the company’s biggest failure.”
I felt my stomach grow heavy.
“What failure?”
“The algorithm you wrote.”
“My code passed the security inspection. You signed off on it yourself.”
“I know. That is why I am here.”
She put the bag on the table. The bag’s metal clasp trembled slightly when she opened it. Inside was a black folder, but Madison did not touch it.
“Someone changed the code after you submitted it,” she said. “And that change leaked users’ data.”
“Why would they blame me?”
“Because the change was registered under your name.”
The strength left my legs. I sat on the sofa and looked at the cracked lighthouse mug lying on the floor. I had always thought the worst thing that could happen in my life was losing my job.
Madison took out her phone.
“I have one recording,” she said. “But that alone will not be enough.”
“What recording?”
“First I need to know whether you can hold out to the end when everyone stands against you.”
“And if I cannot hold out?”
For the first time she looked at me as if she were not a boss, but a person who needed help.
“Then they will lose both of us.”
Outside, rain struck the windowpane. Madison reached toward the black folder. Her fingers touched the clasp, but she stopped for one second before opening it…
Madison’s hand remained on the folder.
“Before you open this, there is one thing you need to know,” she told me. “If you leave here, you may not be able to return.”
“You mean my job?”
“No. Your ordinary life.”
She opened the folder. Inside there was only a small memory card and a printed sheet. My work record number was written on the sheet, but the signature was not mine.
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know yet,” Madison answered. “But I know who benefits from making you look guilty.”
At that moment my phone lit up. A message came from an unknown number: “Resign from your position by nine tomorrow morning, or everything will be published.”
Madison looked at the screen and her face changed.
“This is not only a threat,” she said. “They already know that we are working together.”
“But we are not working together, are we?”
“Now we are.”
She placed the memory card in my hand.
“Do not listen to it at home. Go to the company’s old server. There you will find a file that will change everything.”
“Why do you trust me?”
Madison looked toward the door.
“Because in this city you are the only man who still thinks the truth has value.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Someone stopped in front of our door.
Madison whispered to me: “Turn off the light.”
The door handle slowly moved…
The door handle went all the way down, but the lock held. Madison put a finger to her lips. I turned off the computer screen, and darkness covered the room.
The man behind the door knocked twice.
“Ben, I know you are home,” a voice said.
It was Julian Hale, the company’s technical director. The man who had spoken to everyone in a friendly manner for the last six years and had worn the calmest face at every meeting.
Madison whispered into my ear:
“Now you know whom I was talking about.”
“How did you know he would come?”
“Because his voice is in the recording.”
Julian knocked again.
“Open the door, Ben. I will talk to you tomorrow anyway.”
His footsteps slowly moved away. For several minutes we did not move. Then Madison moved the curtain aside slightly and made sure the hallway was empty.
Before breakfast, at six in the morning, we entered the company’s old server room. The room was on the underground floor, thick pipes ran along the walls, and the smell of burnt dust hung in the air. Madison used her access card. Several protected folders appeared on the screen.
“Find this file,” she told me. “It has no name. Only a date.”
I entered the database. I entered the key from the memory card, and a video began playing on the screen.
Julian was visible. He was standing with the company’s chief executive officer, David Rose. The time indicator in the video was from three months earlier.
“I will change Ben’s code so that the trail remains on his account,” Julian was saying. “And the board will remove Madison when they blame the leak on her oversight.”
David asked:
“And the users’ data?”},{
“Insurance will cover everything. And we will receive a new contract.”
The video stopped.
Only the monotonous hum of the servers could be heard in the room. I looked at Madison. Shock, anger, and exhaustion alternated across her face.
“This is enough,” I said.
“No,” she answered. “The authenticity of the video must be proven.”
Just then a new message appeared on the screen. The file opened automatically, and inside it appeared one signed document. My name was written at the bottom of the document, but next to it was an amount of money whose existence I did not even know about.
“Ben,” Madison said, and her voice broke, “this money was credited to your account.”
“Impossible.”
“Then we must find out whose account it actually went to.”
My phone rang. The number belonged to attorney Ellen Parker, who had known Madison for years.
“Madison,” came the woman’s tense voice, “the police are at the office. But this is not the worst news.”
“What else happened?”
“David said that both of you stole the company’s money and created the evidence yourselves.”
Madison closed her eyes.
“Ellen, we have the recording.”
“I know. But the video already has a second copy.”
“With whom?”
Ellen was silent for several seconds.
“With the person who will publish it this evening if you do not reach the court before then…”
ბენმა საკუთარი ხმა პირველად გაიგონა სხვისგან…
ფინალში ყველა ტყუილი თავის პატრონს უბრუნდება. მაგრამ ყველაზე მნიშვნელოვანი გამარჯვება სასამართლოს გარეთ მელოდა.
„მე უკვე გამოვასწორე ის, რაც ჩემი იყო.“
ოთახში პირველად სიჩუმე აღარ მაშინებდა.
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