Page 29 of Dev Girl

It wasn’t a strange question, but it was a little odd that he’d never asked before now. “You’re only just wondering?”

“Well, no. But I used to think it was a wonderland reference and then I realized there’s no Wonderland Crew without me, so why would Onyx give you that nickname before he met me, and then every time I remembered to ask, it wasn’t the right time.”

Onyx chuckled. “Your logic, as always, is impeccable. It’s because Alys is a bunny rabbit.”

“That’s too obvious,” Maddox said. “And it feels like it’s missing some details.”

Onyx wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder. “Say you’re looking at a den of lions. They’re all big and tough and strong, but you really can’t tell just by looking which one is the toughest. And then you notice a little bunny rabbit in the middle of the room. The lions all know she’s there. None of them will hurt her.”

“Still not quite following.” Maddox furrowed his brow.

“The point is, out of all those bad asses, the bunny rabbit survived. And that makes her the baddest ass bitch in the entire bunch. Do you want to take on the bunny rabbit who walks out of a den of lions on her own two feet?” Onyx sounded pleased with himself.

Maddox shook his head. “I do not. Bunny sounds like a perfect name.”

My phone rang, jarring me, and I glared at the screen. Why would…? “It’s Xander.”

“Ung.” Maddox grunted and leaned in to push the Answer button. “Wrong number.” He sounded drunk.

“I didn’t call you numb nuts, I called Alys.” Xander didn’t sound like he was having nearly as much fun as we were.

Once again, why was Maddox’s older brother calling me in the middle of the night on a Friday? I doubted it was to ask about our contest entry. I pulled away from Maddox and Onyx, letting them tumble into each other, and I walked across the room, to help wake me up.

“Hello,” I said into the phone.

“I’m sorry to call now,” Xander’s tone was rushed and lacking apology. “I have a project I’ve invested in, and they’ve hit a critical snag. I need a top notch developer. Tonight.” He was a venture capitalist with an angel firm that took on a lot of technology investments.

I still didn’t know why he’d called me. “There are other people who are better—”

“There aren’t.” Xander talked over me. “Everyone else I work with tends to specialize. I need you, because you have a broad scope of knowledge, and this tech is… it’s obscure. If you can’t fit this in, tell me now. If you can, I’m paying a top rate plus a completion bonus. I need this fixed tonight. Dominic swears on… something holy probably… that the contract is fair to you.”

The longer Xander talked, the more my brain perked up. I loved challenges like this—it was why I’d built Gage’s ordering app. The way I got to exercise my brain muscles was always fun.

“Send over all the details, talk me through anything that doesn’t translate well to paper, and I’m on it.” I grabbed my laptop from the kitchen table and relocated to the guest room. Hopefully that would diminish the distraction for Onyx and Maddox.

I spent the next few hours sifting through code, hunting down a critical error, and making changes. I went through multiple rounds of testing with Xander and a programmer he brought on the line.

We were waiting for another round of testing to come back when Xander said, “Did you ever do anything with that algorithm you were working on?”

“The music one?” I had a project I pulled up off and on that dissected songs and compared them on a tonal and beat level. It was kind of a version of people who listened to may also enjoy… but it wasn’t driven by sales data. It was all based on the core components of the songs themselves. “I still have it.”

“But you don’t do anything with it.”

“Like what? I use it to find new songs sometimes. But it’s not like there’s a practical application for it.”

Xander scoffed. “You just said otherwise.”

I rolled my eyes at the empty room. “Yeah, but you ever switch music apps? Then you have to train a new one to know what you like, and you have to move your playlists over, and convincing thousands of people to do that with an unknown app? Like I said—no practical application.”

“Hmm.” Xander’s grunt was familiar. But it would be, since it was Maddox’s too.

I was going to ask him to expand on the thought, but our test results came back, and we were on the clock again.

When I finally got sign-off and a solid we’re good, the sky was turning from black to gray outside the window.

“I see why Maddox worships you,” Xander said. “Get some sleep. See you Sunday.”

Because a lot of our friends would be gathering with us at Joystick’s to listen to the radio station announce who made it past the qualifying round. “Sounds good.”

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