Page 23 of Takeover-
The words and the assumption—that Sam was technically incompetent—pelted like sleet on bare skin in winter. Heat, not the pleasant, enjoyable kind, rose in Sam’s chest and he had to force himself not to grit his teeth. “Actually, I started out in IT, managing a room not so different from this one.” He let that nugget sink in and enjoyed the coloring of Michael’s cheeks. “Why areyouhere?”
The muscle under Michael’s left eye twitched.
Sam slid a cool smile into place. “Crashed the router again?” He couldn’t help throwing that at Michael.
“I didn’t crash it. Development’s shitty build did. I’m here to do my job.” He moved, brushing past Sam to where one of the zone routers was racked. He pulled a keyboard out from behind a small monitor and banged on it. “God damn, even the console’s locked up.”
Not good.
As part of testing, they ran different parts of the office network through Four Rivers’ equipment—and woe if a zone went down, since Michael heard about it from fellow coworkers. Immediately.
The lights were illuminated on the router, but several of them were red.
“I really don’t like doing this.” Michael stared at the box for a moment, then pushed the power switch to off.
Sam winced in sympathy. The router would either reboot fine, or not. If not, they’d either managed to fuck up the flash or one of the processors on the line cards. Either way, off to hardware the card would go. Fixing it would cost precious time and money.
They both exhaled as the boot sequence flashed on the console and scrolled through normally. Michael logged in, ran a quick diagnostic. “Core dump.” He logged out. “I can do the rest from my desk.”
“Glad it came back,” Sam said. There weren’t many spare line cards around. Too expensive to keep a stockpile—not when customers needed them.
“Me too.” Michael shoved the keyboard back behind the monitor and then faced Sam. “I doubt you’re here to fix a server, though.”
Sam let go of the chip that had lodged itself on his shoulder. “I was recovering from the board meeting.”
“Ah, yes. Suit food. I saw the remnants of upper-crust fruit salad in the lunchroom. Someone claimed there had been lobster rolls, but they were gone by the time I got there.”
Michael’s sneering tone was so blatant, Sam tasted the bitterness on his tongue. “There were three left, I think.” He headed for the door, adjusting his tie as he walked. “So sorry you didn’t get one,Mike.”
“Sam.”
He stopped, despite himself.Damn it all to hell.Michael would always be there, under his skin. It took more effort than Sam expected not to turn around. “Yes?”
“The meeting? How’d it go?”
He didn’t want to have this conversation now, not with his head throbbing and heart threatening to beat its way out of his rib cage. “As well as could be expected.” He reached for the door handle.
“Did they accept our plan?”
Our plan.As if they’d actually talked these past few weeks, rather than communicated by group e-mail. Sam brushed the smooth, cool, silver finish of the handle with his fingertips. Freedom lay beyond the door. He let his arm fall to his side. “Of course they didn’t,” he said, turning around. “You know how these things go.”
Michael’s face was a mask. “What did you agree to?”
“Three weeks.”
“God damn it, Sam! Four was barely acceptable. Three?”
Michael’s outburst only increased the ache in Sam’s head. “Three. Plus the draft protocols will be beta, so you don’t have to worry about those.”
Michael didn’t say anything for a moment, though his jaw worked. “You threw us under the bus. So much for all your promises.”
Every muscle in Sam’s body tightened. The pounding in his head matched his heart—too damn fast. Calm snapped like brittle wood and he pulled himself to his full height. “Stop being so fucking melodramatic. I don’t have time for this shit.”
Sam might as well have slapped Michael. His face reddened and he took a step back.
There was a certain grim satisfaction in that.Yes, I can be the suit you so hate. Surprise. “Three weeks,” Sam repeated. “Can you accept this?”
“I—don’t know.”
