Version 1.09.0

  Friday October 21st- Saturday October 22nd

  The thing about promises is that they're easy to make when you're feeling guilty and drinking wine with your best friend. They're harder to keep when you're alone in your apartment at 2 AM, staring at a wall that's exactly the shade of dark red you made it with your mind, thinking about all the ways you've been wronged. I'd been formally let go this afternoon. An at-will state the company was 'going through restructuring', 'it wasn't me', they 'wished me luck in my next endeavor' and got off the phone with an NDA in my email and the promise of a six month severance if I signed it.

  I got exactly zero hits on my resume and job applications so far. No one wanted to touch anyone from Holloway right now with the rumors flying around concerning Meridian. You'd think that with as much money as I could poof into existence that I'd be happy- but for a workaholic it felt like my skin was itching.

  So, I resolved myself, there in bed that since I had nothing to do. I wasn't going to do anything, looking wasn’t really doing anything, right? Digging around through Daniel's personal files had been a thrill, a new challenge and I felt a wild sense of accomplishment that I only felt after completing a client presentation and landing Holloway tens of thousands of dollars.

  Greg's work email was easy to access. I'd mapped Holloway's systems during my sabotage of Daniel, written which symbols to find and concentrate on in my journal. They hadn't appeared to have changed their security protocols yet. Ironic, given all the new password requirements Kate had mentioned. The IT department was so busy monitoring the employees that they hadn't bothered to patch the actual vulnerabilities. Or maybe the vulnerabilities existed outside of what IT could control.

  I told myself I was just checking. Just seeing if Greg was saying anything interesting about the situation. About me. About the "security failures" he was so eager to blame on my department.

  What I found was weirder than I expected. Greg's work email was remarkably clean. Professional. Boring, even. Lots of scheduling, lots of corporate speak, lots of meaningless back-and-forth with HR, usually Rebecca, about "optics" and "stakeholder management." Nothing incriminating.

  But there was a pattern. Every few days, he'd forward certain emails to a personal address. Not his official personal email, the one listed in his HR file. A different one. A Gmail account with a random string of numbers in the name. The kind of email you create when you don't want anyone to know it's yours.

  I should have stopped there. I'd seen enough to know that Greg was hiding something, and that was interesting, but it wasn't my problem anymore. I'd promised Kate. I was moving on.

  Instead, I went deeper. The burner email account was harder to crack than his work account. Different security protocols, two-factor authentication, the works. But I was getting better at this. The code was becoming more familiar, more intuitive. Where I used to have to concentrate until my head pounded, now I could slip into the patterns almost without thinking. It took me three hours, but I got in. And what I found made me sick.

  * * *

  Emails. Dozens of them. Years' worth. Employees who'd made mistakes and been quietly encouraged to resign rather than face "formal proceedings." Employees who'd raised concerns about Greg's behavior and found themselves suddenly underperforming in their reviews. Employees who'd filed complaints that had mysteriously disappeared from HR records.

  And the women. God, the women.

  I didn't read all of the emails. I couldn't. But I read enough to understand the pattern. Greg would take an interest in someone. He'd mentor them, promote them, make them feel special. And then, inevitably, he'd make his move. And if they said yes, he'd find a reason to push them out anyway, once he got bored. And if they said no...

  There was a spreadsheet. An actual spreadsheet, meticulously maintained, tracking payments. Severance packages that were really hush money. "Consulting fees" to former employees who'd signed NDAs. Legal settlements that had been buried so deep they'd never see daylight.

  One name caught my eye. Jessica Hudson. I knew that name. She'd started at Holloway around the same time Kate and I did, back when we were all bright-eyed junior designers who thought we were going to change the industry. Jessica had been talented, ambitious, always the first one in and the last one to leave. And then one day, maybe two years in, she was just... gone. Resigned for "personal reasons." I remembered Kate and I wondering about it, speculating over drinks about whether she'd gotten a better offer or had some kind of family emergency.

  We'd never heard from her again. She never returned our texts or Kate's calls. Last update I'd seen on LinkedIn was she was working in consulting as a freelancer. Seemed to be doing alright for herself.

  According to Greg's spreadsheet, she'd received $50,000 to sign an NDA and go away quietly. I sat back from my computer and realized I was shaking. This wasn't about me anymore. This wasn't about Daniel or the Meridian presentation or my ruined career. This was about years of abuse, covered up and paid off and swept under the rug by a man who smiled at company meetings and talked about "Holloway family values."

  I thought about Kate, still working there. Still under Greg's authority. Still vulnerable. I thought about all the women whose names I didn't recognize, whose stories I'd never know. I thought about my promise. And then I thought: fuck it.

  * * *

  The next week was a blur of research and righteous anger. During the day, I maintained appearances. I went to the coffee shop. I updated my resume. I even applied for a few jobs, though my heart wasn't in it. I texted Kate casual updates about my job search, and she texted back about office drama, and everything seemed normal.

  Monday October 24th

  Kate: How's the job hunt going? I heard they are hiring at some of the faang companies right now.

  Me: maybye.

  Me: maybe* I put in a few applications at some local places. I'm not looking for a long commute right now. Or even worse- moving.

  Kate: shit. I didn't even think about moving as a prospect. Couldn't you work from home?

  Me: I don't know that working from home is for me. I've only been here a few weeks and im so stir crazy already

  Kate: i hear that. oh You know Jonathan in accounting? he and Rebecca have been going to lunch every day this week. that settles that. I need to get back out there. we should try out that bar one night and see if anyone catches our attention.

  Me: I don't know Kate... I'm pretty busy. ??

  Kate: haha.

  Kate: it's a date. Friday after Halloween?

  Me: pick me up at 8. Don't forget the roses.

  Kate: lol very funny. And don’t forget you’re not getting out of Halloween either. I have some vacation time set up next week and we are going to enjoy ourselves.

  Me: I’ll make the costumes.

  The audiobook kept me company during the daylight hours, Aurora and Allister's slow-burn romance playing out in my earbuds while I pretended to be a functional human being counting down the days until my next real human interaction.

  “‘You think I'm a monster,' Allister said, his wings folded tight against his back. 'And perhaps I am. But I've never lied to you, Aurora. Can you say the same? You can't tell me that you've never considered giving in. That this,' he said gesturing, 'isn't what you desire. Maybe I am a monster but you are drawn to me. You're drawn to the dark and everything it holds.' He drew in close, lips parted, eyes blazing."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Kate would definitely be into this book, I mused to myself, laughing as I wandered around a closeout store looking at random knickknacks and people-watching.

  An older woman walked past me, cart overflowing with nearly expired Fancy Feast. She was in a hurry and had nearly knocked over another woman who had a cart full of school supplies… and were those potholders with dolls sewn on? What have I been missing out on not shopping for so many years? Yeah, Amazon was convenient, but this was a new level of entertainment.

  I found myself in the home-goods aisle, running my fingers along a set of mismatched ceramic mugs. Each one was painted with a different inspirational quote. "Live Laugh Love." "But First, Coffee." "Not Today, Satan." I picked up the Satan one. It was hideous. I loved it.

  A teenager walked by, face buried in her phone, completely oblivious to the world around her. Her cart was full of what looked like supplies for a dorm room: a mini fridge, a cheap desk lamp, those foam mattress toppers that every college kid thinks will make their twin XL bearable. She had no idea how much her life was about to change. I wondered if I'd ever been that young, that unaware of how quickly everything could fall apart.

  I was also practicing manipulating objects. Changing the color of shopping carts when the shoppers' backs were turned. A red cart became blue. A blue cart became green. Nobody noticed. Why would they? People don't pay attention to things that are supposed to be mundane.

  I got bolder. An area rug in the clearance section went from 5x7 to 6x8. The price tag stayed the same. A ceramic vase shifted from a dusty rose to a deep teal that actually looked much better. I placed it in my cart.

  Then I tried something more ambitious. A 6-pack of white undershirts, the kind that came in plastic packaging with a cardboard insert. I focused on the fabric itself, trying to make it softer, higher quality. The code was dense, complicated, threads of information woven together like the cotton itself.

  I pushed too hard. The 6-pack was now a bag of unwoven string in a bathwater grey. The plastic packaging had warped around it like melted cheese.

  "Shit," I muttered, shoving the ruined package behind a stack of throw pillows. Note to self: fabric manipulation requires a lighter touch. Costume design not quite my forte yet.

  A store employee walked past, and I held my breath, but she didn't notice the hidden evidence of my crimes against textiles. I grabbed the Satan mug, and my teal vase and headed for the register, feeling simultaneously powerful and ridiculous.

  At night, I practiced something a little more technical. Greg's personal computer was better protected than his email accounts. Home network, encrypted drives, the works. But every system has weaknesses, and I had all the time in the world to find them.

  I continued shopping. A lot. It started with practical things. A new desk chair, because my back was killing me from hunching over the laptop for hours. A second monitor, because switching between windows was getting annoying. A better coffee maker, because the one from Target was fine but not great, and I missed espressos at Holloway.

  Then it became less practical. A new bed because I wasn't sleeping and the bed must be to blame. A massive TV, because if I was going to spiral, I might as well do it in 4K. Even more new clothes, because if I was going to interview for jobs I wanted to look amazing.

  I bought Kate a present. A beautiful cashmere scarf in deep burgundy, her favorite color. I told myself it was a thank-you gift for forgiving me. I didn't examine too closely why I felt the need to buy her things.

  One evening, I checked my bank balance and felt a small shock at the number. I'd spent over eight thousand dollars in the past two weeks. My fabricated fortune was draining faster than I'd expected.

  I thought about adding more. It would be easy. Just a few tweaks to the code, a few extra zeros appearing from nowhere. But something held me back. Maybe it was superstition. Maybe it was the lingering fear that someone would notice, that there was some cosmic auditor tracking impossible transactions. Maybe it was because the severance would be there soon though and that would be more than enough to tide me over. Maybe I just wanted to prove I could stop.

  Later, I told myself. I'd add more later, if I needed it. For now, I had work to do.

  * * *

  Thursday October 27

  The breakthrough came on a Thursday night. I'd been poking at Greg's home network for days, looking for a way in. The security was good, but not great. Whoever had set it up knew what they were doing, but they'd made assumptions. Assumed no one would be this persistent. Assumed the threat would come from outside, not from someone who could see the code itself.

  I found a vulnerability in his smart home system, of all things. His fancy internet-connected thermostat had a metaphorical big gaping hole in it. From there, I could access the home network. From the home network, I could see his personal laptop, security cameras, iPad- you name it.

  And on that laptop, I found everything.

  Not just copies of the emails and spreadsheets from the burner account. Original documents. Scans of signed NDAs. Records of payments made through shell companies. A folder labeled "Insurance" that contained enough blackmail material to destroy half the Holloway board, the mayor, and I’m fairly certain half of the wealthy folks in our city.

  Greg wasn't just a predator. He was a careful, methodical predator who kept receipts and his tentacles in a lot of various pies. I shuddered and shook my head trying to remove the image my brain had conjured up.

  Disgusted, I dove deeper, pulling files, mapping connections, building a picture of just how rotten the foundation of Holloway Design really was. His history of exploitation went back to when he was in university. His father, Greg Sr., was the first to pay off a family whose daughter dropped out for "personal reasons." There were records of so many people both inside and outside of Holloway that my stomach turned.

  I copied things over from his drive to a burner and the more I did, the deeper I went the more nauseated I felt. My head was pounding and suddenly the window through which I was viewing Greg's computer began glitching. The security camera feeds were popping on and off, pixellating and becoming increasingly harder to view. I grabbed the last batch of proof as a blinding pain flashed through my vision and then everything was dark.

  The code flowed around me like water, dense and intricate, and I swam through it without thinking, without effort, without-

  LEVEL UP.

  The voice rang through my head, calm and clear. It felt different this time. I wasn’t ill, I wasn’t in massive pain. I felt clearer. More aware.

  I blinked, and the world that came back into view looked different. I was unable to connect to Greg's home network. I felt as if it was no longer accessible or was broken. All around me however, the code was still there, but I didn't have to look for it anymore. It was just... visible. The walls of my apartment, the furniture, the air itself, all of it underlaid with patterns that I could see as easily as I could see colors. Only I could turn it off and on with a thought. Sections that I could manipulate, or had manipulated in the past, stuck out to me as if in a bolder font.

  Level 4.

  I grabbed my journal and flipped to a fresh page.

  * * *

  Stats

  Current Level: 4

  Abilities I’ve tested:

  Code Vision: Can see the code of the universe.

  Color Shift intermediate: Can adjust color of most objects.

  Size Adjustment beginner: Can adjust size and shape of non complex objects. Warning: Tiny bagels still seem to contain the same amount of calories as a regular sized bagel. Do not recommend eating multiple. Again.

  Textile Tinkerer beginner: Can successfully destroy clothing. Changing color not a problem, changing the fabric feel needs practice.

  Temperature beginner: Can change the temperature of objects. Mostly coffee.

  Digital Manipulation: Can successfully navigate and access secure and unsecured networks. Unlocked all of the premium channels and content through my smart TV. Better than Napster. Pushing too hard may result in overloading the system.

  Plant manipulation: Plants don't handle color change well. That or they have received too much or too little water. Maybe both.

  New Skills:

  Code Switch: Not to be confused with codeswitching. I can just turn the code off and on when I'm looking at stuff.

  Emboldening: Seems like specific symbols I've interacted or changed before are now bolder or easier to see. Will greatly decrease the time it takes for me to change the color of things.

  Physical symptoms:

  Headaches (moderate → minor)

  Nausea (moderate → minimal)

  Nosebleeds (rare)

  Current emotional state: Pretty amazing.

  * * *

  I stared at the page for a long time. Sketches of the symbols lined my pages. Ones that I knew I could manipulate and others I'd learned to avoid. Was I becoming a comic book hero? Or was this more like The Sims - a game I'd played in college where some overlord was controlling the world and all the people in it and somehow I'd just broken my strings? I thought about my lackluster job search. About Thanksgiving with my mom and what I was going to tell her. She'd must've heard about Meridian incident on social- I knew because of the voicemails she'd left me demanding I call her.

  The problems felt distant, abstract, like they belonged to someone else. I had work to do, I had a villain to stop. I turned back to my computer and started planning. My phone buzzed.

  Kate: Costume crafting Sunday morning? I'm thinking matching outfits. Something fun. Maybe villains? ??

  I looked at the files on my screen. Enough to destroy Greg Harrison. Enough to blow Holloway wide open. Enough to get justice for Jessica and everyone else. But Kate had vacation time. We had plans. The first real fun we'd have together since everything went sideways.

  Me: Perfect, I have some ideas.

  Later that night, Kate called. Not to plan costumes. Just to talk.

  "Work was awful today," she said. "Staff meeting about the 'new direction.' Everyone pretending things are fine while nobody actually thinks things are fine."

  "Sounds delightful."

  "The worst part is I can tell exactly who's faking it. I walked into the conference room and it was like..." She trailed off. "I don't know. I could just feel it. Rebecca's barely holding it together. Jonathan's already looking for another job. And Priya is furious. She thinks Rebecca let you take the fall."

  "How do you know all that? Did Priya tell you?"

  "Not in so many words. Everyone is just so stressed out. I've got a massive headache from the whole thing."

  "You should take something for the headache."

  "I've been living on ibuprofen. Barely touches it." A pause. "Anyway. Costumes. Sunday. Be ready."

  Kate always had a knack for reading people. It's what made her good at her job. And these days, everyone at Holloway was stressed enough that their emotions were probably written on their faces.

  Greg could wait. He'd been getting away with this for years. A few more days wouldn't matter. After Halloween. I'd figure out what to do after Halloween and maybe this time, Kate could help me.