Work Text:
December 1997
The day began like any other.
Her “alarm clock”—her neighbor Brad revving his obnoxiously loud Camaro—went off at 6:45am on the dot, like always. At least he’s consistent, thought Mavis as she padded into her kitchen and swiped the mug of Folger’s from her coffeemaker.
Her job, too, was consistent. That was the best that could be said for it. Working at Payne Enterprises, Inc., was supposed to be the dream. But it turned out that being a typing instructor at a Fortune 500 company was like being a typing instructor at her previous workplace, a middle school: tedious, unfulfilling, and rife with resentful students. Except here, said students were adult analysts and engineers, most of them male and older than she was.
The CTO, Jan, had hired her earlier that year, citing a study she’d read about a competitor company that had increased their WPM and seen an increase in productivity that translated to $1.9 million. (Was she, Mavis Beacon, supposed to make that amount appear in the company's coffers single-handedly while being paid a mere $29,000 per annum? Apparently.)
Her first student of the day was Leon Archer from IT. She had been dreading the day he’d come into her computer lab.
They had both started working at Payne Enterprises in the same week. It all began benignly enough—they had arrived early to the new employee orientation and were seated a few chairs apart.
—
“Nice patch,” he said, nodding at her bag, on which she’d sewn the Veruca Salt patch she’d gotten from the merch booth at a recent show. “You’ve seen them live?”
“Yeah. It was amazing,” she grinned.
“I wanted to go to that show, but I had to help my sister move,” he said with a shrug. Unbidden, the phrase helps his family appeared on a mental checklist she didn’t know she was keeping.
“You missed a good one,” she said. “Well, what’s the best show you have seen?” This was her favorite icebreaker in social situations, although usually people had to pause to remember, or they said something insipid like Chumbawumba, or—
“Jeff Buckley,” Leon said without pause. “Hands down.”
Her jaw dropped. Buckley had died just months prior. “I’m so jealous you got to see him,” she breathed.
“It was one of his last shows. He was fucking incredible.”
They talked about the shock they’d felt when Buckley had drowned unexpectedly, shared their favorite records of his, and started arguing about whether his cover of “Hallelujah” was in fact better than the original (sacrilege).
A throat clearing impatiently made them both look up. They’d been in their own little world for a while, leaning toward each other. The rest of the room was staring at them. It was 9:02am, and the orientation facilitator had apparently been trying to get their attention.
“Sorry,” Mavis said hoarsely.
After a moment, she dared to glance back at Leon. He was already looking at her. The way his mouth curled up in a small smile had made her heart skip a beat.
—
Inevitably, she had developed a tiny crush on him then. She liked talking to him. She liked looking at him. At first glance, he was blandly good-looking, a man who took care of himself and got regular haircuts. But when her gaze lingered, she noticed the pale blue of his irises, the fine dark brows, the laugh lines starting to settle into attractive creases at the corners of his eyes. On warm days, he rolled up the sleeves of his collared shirt, and she had to stop herself from staring at the way his muscles and tendons shifted in his pale forearms, and the strangely compelling sharp angles of his wristbones and knuckles.
Her interest only grew in strength as they met for lunch occasionally at the taco place around the corner. At first, their lunches together had been coincidental—they ran into each other in line. But then she’d mentioned, daringly, “I always come here on Tuesdays for the lunch special,” and from then on, he’d shown up on Tuesdays, too. It was an unspoken yet treasured routine. Mostly, they talked about music.
—
“Lauryn Hill, Gwen Stefani, and… Posh Spice,” she said.
He scoffed. “Easy. Fuck Gwen, marry Lauryn, kill Posh. Can I just say ‘Posh’ like it’s a first name? Or is it ‘Posh Spice,’ all or nothing…?”
An unforeseen thrill went through her. He’d marry Lauryn Hill, a woman she admired intensely and whom she vaguely resembled (or so she’d been told by her cousin once, a compliment that had stuck to her ribs, even after Mavis had chopped off her locs and got Corporate Hair). That had to mean something, right?
“Your turn,” he said, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Stephen Malkmus, Tupac, and Thom Yorke.”
She sat back. “That’s evil,” she said, and cast her gaze to the ceiling as she considered it seriously.
“Choose,” he prompted after a long silence.
Mavis groaned. “Okay. Kill Tupac—”
“So it was you,” he said grimly.
“Because he’s already dead, may he rest in peace!” She shoved his shoulder playfully. “Fuck Malkmus, marry Thom.”
“You’d marry him? Weird little Thom Yorke?”
“I like sad white boys, what can I say,” she deadpanned.
He raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. She held his gaze.
“Too bad you’re such a happy soul,” she added, and he let out a rare laugh.
—
He was by turns sly and snobbish, and he put a lot of stock in her opinions. But he was a cautious person by nature, and she wasn’t brave enough to push him, so they never made plans to meet outside of work. And they never talked about their love lives, though she'd assumed he was single based on the flirtatious tone of their conversations.
Until…
—
It was the monthly happy hour at a nearby bar called The Glass Pendulum, which was a flair and cocktails kind of place. Mavis only went because her boss pressured her to. Something about team morale.
That Friday, she was making small talk with some other women in IT. They were comparing notes on the creeps to avoid and commiserating about the latest virus that hit the company network.
She was aware of Leon even before she saw him. Had she caught a whiff of the warm cedar and salt smell that she’d come to love? Or maybe it was just an extrasensory perception, the prickling along the back of her neck that signaled anticipation.
Mavis met his eye from across the bar. He gave her a handsome half-smile. They continued the conversations they were having with other people, catching on each other's gaze occasionally. A frisson went down her spine with every touch of his eyes. The anticipation was delicious. She could tell they'd soon drift together, start talking about music, maybe she'd touch his arm, maybe he'd touch her lower back as he guided her toward a cozier corner of the bar…
But things did not pan out that way. Instead, he was leaving with another woman, holding the door open for her. His hand was gently on her elbow.
“Who's that?” she asked abruptly, interrupting the conversation around her.
Etta, one of the engineers, looked over. “That's Leon.”
“But who's with him?”
Etta squinted, then snorted in disbelief. “That is the VP of Strategy.”
One of the other women, Stacey, tittered. “He must be looking for a way to climb the corporate ladder.”
“Wouldn't be the first time he tried that,” said Etta caustically. “I seem to remember he dated Jan’s niece.”
“And the director of sales,” added Stacey. “Kelly McSomething.”
“Jeez. Who hasn't he slept with?” Etta said with a knowing smirk.
“IT’s own little man-whore,” Stacey said snidely, and Etta laughed meanly.
Mavis left soon after that, telling them that she had a stomachache, which was true.
She felt odd about what she'd learned. Why was she so upset with him? She and Leon weren't anything beyond colleagues—there was just the hoped-for possibility of something more. And fine, he could date whomever he wanted.
But why not her? He'd never even asked her out.
The attraction, she decided, must have been one-sided. He was stringing her along, consciously or not. She allowed herself to pine pathetically all weekend, but come Monday, she'd be over him.
—
Out of self-preservation, she began to avoid Leon. She skipped taco Tuesday; she took pains to avoid the hallway outside the IT offices; she did a double take whenever she saw a white man with dark brown hair at a concert.
He had noticed, of course, that she stopped going to the taco place. After a few weeks, he sought out her cubicle.
—
“Hey,” he said. “Going to the Garbage show on Thursday?”
Not anymore, she sighed internally. “No.”
“Oh. Okay,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Haven't seen you around lately.”
“It's the busy season for me,” she lied.
“Is everything… okay?” he asked carefully, and she hated that he looked so concerned.
“Yep!” she said with a tight smile. “I've got a meeting to prepare for, so…”
He took the hint—damn his social intelligence—and she felt a bizarre combination of relief and chagrin when he left her alone.
—
Now, though, with the new company policy around improving typing skills, they had to spend a full hour together. So there they were, in the windowless computer lab on the 28th floor of the Payne Enterprises building.
Jan, the CTO, said Leon had apparently procrastinated on his mandated typing test on the grounds that it was a “waste of time.” Privately, Mavis agreed—his dedication to the hunt-and-peck method of typing was a lost cause if she’d ever seen one.
“Place all your fingers on the keyboard in the starting position,” said Mavis, projecting All Business. They had been politely collegial, but Leon’s mood was souring fast.
“C’mon, Mavis,” he groaned. “Let me type it my way for the test.”
“And what happens when Jan passes your desk and sees you typing like a baby giraffe learning to walk? It's my job on the line.”
The flash of his blue irises under dark lashes was disconcerting. “For your information, Jan hired me personally and has had no qualms about my level of productivity.”
“Then you can explain to her, personally, why you failed the test,” said Mavis irritably.
“Fine.” He ran a hand through his hair, a tuft of which fell across his forehead in an annoyingly perfect swoosh.
“Thank you,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let's get this over with.”
She clicked the mouse a few times to wake up the Mac, then opened ClarisWorks. She explained that she was going to read a selection of text aloud (part of the Bill of Rights) and that Leon would have to type it into the document before the timer went off. He grumbled, but he set his hands on the keyboard and began. His shoulders were tense, and the hard line of his jaw was clenched in concentration.
The keyboard had a black plastic cover on top that obscured the letters, such that students would have to touch type accurately using only muscle memory. Looking down, Mavis saw that his fingers were each placed one key away from where they should have been. She smirked a little but said nothing. As she began to dictate, he typed all the wrong letters immediately.
“Slow down!” he complained. “Where’s the fucking ‘s’—”
Just as Mavis was opening her mouth to correct his position, all the overhead lights in the room went off. They were illuminated only by the glow from the Mac.
“Hey,” said Mavis and Leon accusatorily at the same time.
She toggled the light switch. No lights came on.
She marched over to the door and tried to pull it open in vast irritation—but it was locked.
“What on earth?” she murmured.
“What’s going on?” Leon asked, walking over to her.
“The door handle—I think someone’s messed with it,” she said. “It’s locked—by a key. I swear that it was only one of those twist-turn locks before.”
“You sure?”
“Uh… Yeah. I usually lock it when I’m taking a lunchtime nap.”
A huff that might have been a laugh left his mouth. He was close enough that she felt his breath on the back of her neck, which was… interesting.
“And I don’t have a key,” she added.
“Let me try,” he said, and she scowled. Typical man.
“Do you think I’ve forgotten how to open a door?” she queried.
He stopped jiggling the door handle and flashed her a look. It was too dark to make out his expression, but she knew him well enough to know he was both annoyed and defensive. Then he fished a keyring out of the pocket of his fleece.
“We’re in Lab 28C, right?” he asked, which she confirmed. She felt relief—thank goodness she was in here with someone who had access to all the computer rooms. But then—
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Filthy mouth, Mavis thought, before her own filthy mind went straight into the gutter. Stop it, she commanded herself. He’s a prick. She cast her eyes to the ceiling instead of his long fingers as they worked the key back and forth.
Leon squinted at the labeled key in the dim light of the computer screen. She peered at it, too—28C was printed on its label in neat handwriting. Again, he tried the key, but it wouldn’t turn.
“Let me call Andy,” she said, walking over to the phone.
“Andy?”
“Facilities.”
“Are you on a first-name basis with everyone in the building?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Archer,” she replied coolly. (Or flirtily? She couldn’t tell what her voice was doing.)
He did not reply.
“What on earth—” she said for a second time. “The phone’s dead.”
They frowned at each other.
“This is weird, right?” he asked in a low voice.
“It’s probably just a fluke,” she said unconvincingly. “Let’s make sure the phone jack is plugged in and everything…”
She was fiddling with the cord in the semi-darkness when Leon said suddenly, “Mavis.”
She looked. He pointed at the screen, which was no longer displaying ClarisWorks, but an application she’d never seen before. Across the bright white screen bordered with green, an all-caps message in scarlet text read:
WELCOME TO TYPING CLASS
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? Y/N:
The cursor was flashing.
“Should we… type ‘Y’?” asked Leon.
“You’re the computer security expert,” she countered. “Someone’s obviously tampered with this equipment and locked us in here. How should we respond?”
He considered this in silence, one thumb scraping along the short black beard at his jaw.
More text appeared on the screen.
YOU HAVE 2 MINUTES TO DECIDE THE FATE OF PAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC., AND EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING.
Y/N:
This was accompanied by a countdown clock.
“What the fucking fuck,” Leon growled. Then he patted his pockets and swore again. “Mavis. Do you have a cellular phone? Or a sat phone?”
“No,” she replied. She’d considered getting one, but they were expensive.
“Damn. I left mine in my office. Okay, look—I’ll stay at this terminal and press ‘Y’ and whatever else this jackass wants me to do. You go bang on the door to get someone’s attention.”
Mavis was glad he’d suggested this. She had wanted to yell and pound her fists against the door from the moment she had discovered it was locked, but she hadn’t wanted to overreact.
“Excuse me! Open this door, please! … Help! We’re locked inside! Hey, somebody!” she shouted, making a racket. After a little while, she held her ear to the door—but heard nothing. “I don’t think anyone’s out there,” she said to Leon.
“Must’ve found a way to clear the floor,” he said, concern edging into his rumbling voice.
She grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer and scrawled a plea for help on it, pushing it carefully under the door in hopes that someone would find it.
“Smart,” he said. “Hey—come take a look at this.”
He’d typed “Y,” and new scarlet text appeared.
LET’S SEE HOW PRODUCTIVE YOU ARE.
IT’S TIME FOR A TYPING TEST!
TYPE THE WORDS YOU SEE.
STAY ABOVE 50 WPM… OR ELSE.
“Or else what?” Mavis asked, just as new words scrolled onto the screen.
THERE ARE 3 TRUCKLOADS OF EXPLOSIVES IN THE BASEMENT.
“Oh, shit!” Leon exclaimed. Hurriedly, they switched spots so that Mavis could type, copying the threatening message. The letters she tapped out showed up below the scarlet text.
THE FATE OF THE BUILDING IS IN MY HANDS.
“Oh, no,” she murmured as she typed. “Leon—do something!”
“Do what?” he said, sounding strangled. “We’re trapped here in a lab with no windows and a locked door. It’s probably a prank, anyway.”
“If it’s a prank, should I stop typing?”
“No!”
PAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC., VALUES PRODUCTIVITY ABOVE ALL ELSE.
“So what, I’m—going to type—forever?” she asked. It was difficult to speak aloud while typing different words. In the corner of the screen, 52 WPM flashed warningly.
Leon tried to turn on a computer next to hers, but found that its power cord had been snipped neatly in two. So had the cord for every other computer in the lab.
“Damn. Okay, plan B. Let me see if I can find a way to get the door off its hinges,” Leon said, dusting off his hands. He had a focused demeanor that Mavis appreciated.
With thumps and muttered curses, he worked at the door behind her as she continued typing.
EMPLOYEE MORALE? NOT AS CRUCIAL AS OUR BOTTOM LINE!
GO ON AND KILL YOURSELF. JUST REQUEST PTO AHEAD OF TIME.
“What on earth…” Mavis murmured for the third time that morning. She typed quickly, feeling oddly curious to see what text would show up next.
HUMANS ARE RESOURCES. BLEED THEM DRY.
A clang sounded behind Mavis. Without letting up from typing, she called over her shoulder, “Everything okay, Leon?”
“Yeah—well, no—motherfucker—” Ominous thumping and cursing followed. Then he reappeared at her side. “Think you can fit into the air duct over there?”
She glanced up quickly. He’d removed the grate in front of a square vent near the ceiling, where a small, dark hole now was.
“Don’t think so,” she admitted. “My shoulders…”
Using the long cord of another workstation’s mouse, Leon measured her shoulders and held it up to the hole. “You’ll fit,” he declared. “A little tight, probably.”
“Um,” said Mavis, clearing her throat. “My hips are wider than my shoulders, though…?”
HUMANS ARE RESOURCES. GRIND THEM UP.
HUMANS ARE RESOURCES. WRING THEM OUT.
PAYNE — PAIN — PAYNE — PAIN
Mavis struggled to type the em-dashes while hovering above her seat as Leon, his blush evident even in the semi-darkness, held the mouse cord across her lower back.
“Sorry,” he muttered when his hand brushed against her.
“It’s fine,” she said, clearing her throat again.
The text on the screen was more of the same. Bitter complaints, violent but vague accusations.
“Well,” Leon called from the duct, “neither of us is making a daring escape through the air ducts.” Apparently her hips were too wide. Secretly, she was relieved. The prospect of wiggling through such a dark, confined space was unappealing, particularly if he were watching from behind.
“Try making noise through the duct,” suggested Mavis. “It’ll echo. Maybe someone will hear us.”
He cleared his throat and yelled a variety of things like “Help” and “We’re in Lab 28C” and “Get us the fuck out of here.”
There was no response.
“We need a new plan,” said Leon with a frustrated sigh.
“Punch through the wall?”
He huffed a laugh. “Not likely.”
“Just—drywall—right?” she asked haltingly, because she still had to tap out each word on the screen.
“And steel studs. They’re too close together for us to squeeze through—trust me, I installed the networking cables in this lab… Anything helpful appearing on the screen?”
Mavis described what she’d seen. “I can’t really think while I type,” she added.
“So he’s a bitter ex-employee, then,” Leon surmised. “He mentioned the phrase ‘kill yourself,’ you said? God, that’s grim.”
“Any idea—who he is? Or she?” Mavis asked. Her stomach rumbled loudly, diluting the gravity of the moment.
Leon graciously ignored it, drumming his fingers on the desktop. “No idea yet,” he said thoughtfully. “But he—it’s probably a man, considering the threat of violence and the whining—he’s got to have a high degree of technical capability, to be able to shut off the lights and get a custom application to work on this computer. I think—I wonder if…”
He ducked down to examine the rear side of the Mac. Meanwhile, Mavis dutifully typed:
THE COMPANY HAS LOST ITS SOUL
THE COMPANY HAS LOST ITS HEART
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
Bitter ex-employee indeed, Mavis thought. Melodramatic, too.
“Aha!” Leon exclaimed, making her jump. He straightened up with a crooked grin. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What?”
“Let me see if it’s viable first…”
She glanced up at him quickly in between typing more bitter lines from their tormentor. Leon was unfolding himself from examining the computer. Then he slid a thick laptop out of his bag.
“What! Why didn’t you tell me you had that earlier?” she demanded. “You could send an—”
“No, I’d need a networking cable,” he said, interrupting her to save her from false hope. “The rest have been cut.”
“When will they invent cable-less internet?” Mavis grumbled, speeding up her typing as the corner of the screen flashed 55 WPM. Her stomach rumbled again. How many calories was typing this much burning, anyway?
“They just did, actually,” he informed her. “New protocol was announced. But commercial machines like this baby don’t have the capability yet.”
Leon heaved the laptop onto the desk next to her and booted it up, cracking his knuckles. His eyes gleamed in the light of the screen when it turned on.
PAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC., DOES NOT BELIEVE IN INNOVATION
PAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC., DOES NOT REWARD CREATIVITY
Well, that was true enough. Just as she was beginning to feel a bit of empathy for them, though, they became typographically mischievous.
APRÈS MOI—LE DÉLUGE
$10,204,913 IN Q1, 1990
{APRÈS}_{MOI}_{LE}_{DÉLUGE}
“Damn,” muttered Mavis as she sweated over the diacritics.
Leon looked over from whatever he was doing on his laptop. “Damn,” he said too. “Thank God you’re in here with me, Mavis.”
“Didn’t I tell you that touch typing is important, Leon?”
He glanced over, surprised and amused. “If this is some diabolical plan on your part…”
“If I planned this, there’d be more snacks.”
He fished around in his laptop bag and pulled out a smushed Clif bar. In a very thoughtful gesture, he unwrapped it, broke off a bite-size piece, and held it out to her. She snatched it up in between another line of French.
“Fanks,” she said through the mouthful.
He left the rest of the bar in pieces next to her mousepad. She ate exactly half; he noticed and commanded her to eat all of it, because he could hear her stomach rumbling “like a freight train.” She obeyed.
Meanwhile, he was busy connecting the two working computers with a thick, silvery cable. “Firewire,” he called it. Catchy name. He pulled up the command line on his laptop and began poking at his keyboard. Mavis dearly wanted to watch what he was doing closely, but she was busy typing up Payne Enterprises’ earnings for every quarter since the ‘90s began. Then:
THEY TAKE YOUR WORK AND CALL IT THEIRS
THEY TAKE YOUR IDEAS AND LEAVE YOU BEHIND
“How’re your fingers?” Leon asked after a long stretch of silent typing.
“Fine,” she murmured. “Hey—I think you’re right, that this is an ex-employee.”
“What do you think happened?” He’d stopped typing and was looking steadily at her.
“I think… Maybe he invented something and didn’t get credit for his work? And maybe—”
She froze for a moment.
The words on the screen read:
GOOD WORK, GIRLIE.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, typing it out. “He can—hear us.”
“Or watch us,” he whispered back, his eyes gleaming as he scanned the ceiling. “Fuck. This fucks everything up.”
Mavis clenched her jaw.
HOW DOES IT FEEL WORKING FOR A COMPANY OF THIEVES?
“Come closer,” Mavis said quietly to Leon, leaning toward him. “No, closer.”
With her eyes still on the screen and her fingers flying over the keyboard, she whispered as quietly as she could in Leon’s ear, “If it’s only an audio feed, he doesn’t know about the… item over there.” She chucked her chin toward the laptop.
He frowned at her, then leaned toward her again.
“But we talked about it. Out loud,” he whispered back.
“You called it this baby. We never said the name of it. He’d have said something about that, right? Whatever your plan was, I think you should still try it.”
“I’m writing a program,” he said, whispering into the shell of her ear. She suppressed a shiver. “To emulate your typing and buy us time to escape.”
“Escape how?”
“I don’t know yet. But you can help me figure that out once you’re not typing this asshole’s weird rant anymore.”
She nodded. They exchanged a quick glance—the plan was good. Leon turned back to his laptop and began typing as quickly yet quietly as he could, the green letters appearing against the black background. Every now and then, he’d pause and stare into the middle distance, working out some programming problem in his mind. Despite how silly the hunt-and-peck typing looked, Mavis admired the clever, cunning expression on his face.
Aloud, she said, “I think whoever I’m typing for must be really, really upset. To be doing this.”
This was a test. How much of a dialogue did their tormentor want? Almost instantly, new words appeared:
UPSET, YES. ANGRY, YES. FURIOUS, YES.
IT WAS MY WORK. MINE ALONE.
“Oh,” Mavis said aloud, once again feeling sympathy well up incongruously. “I’m sorry.”
This was the wrong thing to say.
SORRY DOES NOTHING, SORRY WON’T REPLACE MY SAVINGS
PAYNE ENTERPRISES, INC., TOLD ME “SORRY” EVEN AS THEY DEMANDED THE WORK I WAS GOING TO PATENT
THEY ENRICH ONLY THEMSELVES
“You don’t have to do this,” she said aloud to their unseen interlocutor. “You can stop now and walk away without causing other people pain.”
IT’S TOO LATE
Then he went back to quarterly earnings.
$13,099,230 IN Q4, 1994
“Fuck,” Leon growled in frustration after a long stretch of typing in silence.
“You okay?” she muttered.
“I’m almost done,” he whispered. “But there’s a bug somewhere in this code—probably just a typo I can’t find. I’ve read it over twenty times. But I, um… I have trouble reading sometimes. The lines all swim together. I usually pair-program when something’s wrong, but…”
“Can I help?”
He glanced at her in surprise. “You’re not a programmer, though. Are you?”
“No, but I’m good at proofreading.”
“What about…” he gestured at her keyboard.
She risked pausing in order to rip off the black plastic cover so that the keys’ labels were visible again. “We’ll switch,” she said, imbuing her voice with confidence. “Just for a bit.”
It took some convincing. But he explained how she had to make sure there were matching brackets and a semicolon at the end of each line of his script, and they agreed to switch back if Leon dropped below 55 WPM.
“One, two… three!”
They switched seats, and Mavis stretched her fingers gratefully as Leon began to hunt and peck like his life depended on it (which they had to assume it did). Amazingly, he stayed steady at 60 WPM.
“Proofread!” he hissed, and she spun back toward the laptop.
God, this is impossible to read, she thought to herself. This was what code looked like? It was horrible.
“First line doesn’t have a semicolon?” she said tentatively.
“Pound sign—at beginning?” he said, struggling to talk and type at the same time.
“Yeah.”
“Ignore.”
“Okay.”
She focused on the brackets and semicolons, dragging the scrollbar down bit by bit. Then—around line 90—she saw it. There was a square bracket instead of a squiggly one. She told Leon about it, and he instructed her to fix it and then click File > Run.
Nothing happened.
“It’s compiling,” he said, continuing to poke at the keys. “Just wait.”
“Switch back?”
“Yeah,” he said gratefully.
She took over typing. The man on the other end was spewing more complaints about company policy around intellectual property. It was getting tedious and repetitive. If she hadn’t been in mortal peril, Mavis would have absolutely been bored out of her skull.
“Stop typing for a second,” Leon said suddenly.
“What—”
“Just stop—”
She lifted her hands off the keyboard for a second… and then the words she’d been about to type appeared by themselves on the screen. Leon’s program was running.
“You did it,” she breathed, shaking out her hands. “God, Leon. That’s… I’m glad I’m stuck in here with you.”
They traded tentative smiles.
“Another Clif bar?” He held it out like an offering. She accepted.
—
They build a fort of sorts by the door, constructing something that might disguise their conversation without the microphone overhearing them. Their heads were close together, almost touching, and they kept their volume to a whisper. They were brainstorming escape plans, but nothing seemed viable.
“Morse code?” she suggested.
“To whom?”
“I dunno.”
“I still think our best bet is to try negotiating with him,” he said after a bit. “He’s responsive.”
“But he’s emotional,” she pointed out. “He got angry with me when I said ‘sorry,’ remember? We might push him to explode us.”
“What’s his end game, you think?”
She flopped onto her back on the carpet. “I dunno,” she said again, then quirked a smile at him. “Teach you proper typing, I think.”
He knocked her foot with his. “Joke’s on him, then. Better to know the value of coding in C.”
“As long as you use the right brackets, anyway.”
“Or have a stellar proofreader.”
“Right.”
They were quiet for a while, minds whirring.
Then he asked, “Why did you stop meeting me for tacos?”
She took a sharp breath. There had been an unspoken agreement not to talk about this.
Her first instinct was to lie, to smooth it over. But hell—they were probably about to die in a fiery explosion. May as well tell the truth.
“I saw you leaving the bar with another woman,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “After Happy Hour.”
He frowned in thought. “Alexandra?”
“I don’t know her name—she’s the VP of Strategy?”
“Alexandra, yeah,” he said, his frown deepening. “My cousin Alexandra.”
She leaned back to study his face. “Your cousin?”
“She got drunk and I wanted to make sure she got home safe. You didn’t seem to want to talk to me anyway—”
“You didn’t talk to me!” she insisted, her whisper reaching a higher pitch.
“And then you blew me off on Taco Tuesday!” He raised his eyes to glare at her. “I don't like playing games.”
“Well—well, I—” She couldn’t think of a way to say this that wasn’t mortifying. “I’d heard that you were, um… sleeping around.”
“Sleeping around,” he repeated flatly.
“That you’d dated a bunch of women in the company—”
“Jesus. One, Mavis. I dated one other woman in the company. We broke it off after a few months.”
“And Jan’s niece?”
“Christ Almighty, this place is such a cesspool of gossip. I took her on one date, and then I made the connection between her and Jan and didn’t see her again. I mean, I’m not a monk, but I’m not ‘sleeping around’ with a ‘bunch of women,’ Mavis!”
This was so deeply embarrassing. She groaned and ducked to hide her face in her arms. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Yes, you are,” he agreed readily.
“Shut up.”
She heard the unexpected slow rumble of his laugh and dared to peek up.
He met her eyes and said, “I cannot believe you were slut-shaming me.”
“I’m sorry!” she whispered, and as much as a whisper could be a wail, it was a wail. “I just liked you so much, and, like—I thought if you dated so many other women but didn’t ask me out, then that meant that—that—”
His eyebrows shot up. “That meant that maybe I was being careful? That I didn’t want a woman so far out of my league to break my heart?”
“Okay, so you’re an idiot, too.”
They grinned sheepishly at each other. God, he was handsome.
“If we get out of here,” he said, “will you go to the Red Hot Chili Peppers show with me?”
“Love to.”
—
Soon, Leon was out of Clif bars and starting to complain about missing lunch. Mavis was trying valiantly to ignore her bladder.
Then there was a scraping sound behind them. They turned simultaneously to see a sheet of paper slipping under the door.
“They got my note!” she said in a hissing whisper.
“Thank fuck,” Leon murmured.
The note read simply: Leon and Mavis—you still in there?
She scribbled back in the affirmative and described the situation they’d found themselves in: typing speed, ex-employee, microphone, explosives in the basement.
The response came quickly: Got it. Calling 911. Picking the lock now. —Etta
“Of course it’s her,” Mavis muttered to herself, earning a questioning look from Leon.
—
The lock was picked. They sneaked out of the room, warning Etta and the two security guards with her to keep hush near the lab so they didn’t alert whomever was on the other side of the microphone.
In the stairwell, as they clambered down the 28 flights, Mavis stumbled in her haste and Leon grabbed her hand to steady her. He did not let go. She focused on their intertwined fingers, her deep brown skin against his pale white flesh, and wondered at the unexpected direction in which the day had gone.
Into the basement—Mavis shuddered as they passed the door to the parking garage where the security guards had confirmed the trucks full of explosives were—then through the steam tunnel—out into a utility building—then finally, out into the sunlight.
As Leon wrapped her in a hard hug—“we fucking made it”—a tactical police unit headed in.
Etta eyed them as they embraced, her eyebrow raised and mouth smirking, but Mavis didn’t care. His chest was warm and hard, and she could hear his rapid heartbeat.
An EMT hustled over and Mavis found herself being poked and prodded and wrapped in a foil blanket, which was unnecessary and far less comforting than his arms had been. They both had to stay to be evaluated medically and to give a statement to the police. Then finally—finally—they were allowed to leave. A cranky police officer offered them a ride.
“Leon,” said Mavis when they were briefly alone again in the backseat while the officer talked to his colleagues.
“Mavis,” Leon echoed her.
“I know we just went through a somewhat traumatic experience,” she started.
“Yes…” he said encouragingly. The look in his eye told her he already knew what she was about to ask.
“Well, I’m wondering if maybe you actually haven’t had too much of my company for one day?”
“What are you offering, Mavis Beacon?”
“Dinner and a private typing lesson,” she replied.
“You know,” he said, taking her hand again, “I’ve come to see the value in touch typing.”
The police officer heaved himself into the driver’s seat and looked at them in the rear view mirror. He addressed them gruffly. “I’ll drop whoever’s closer off first.”
“Actually,” said Mavis, as Leon nodded, “we’re going to the same place.”
—
They talked as they ate pad thai, sitting on her living room floor next to her stereo and her pride and joy: massive towers containing her CD collection. Ramsey Lewis played in the background.
“I can't believe you don't have any Stevie Wonder,” he was saying, shaking his head woefully. “What's wrong with you, woman?”
“Where do I start?” she joked, but he was too wrapped up in his lecture to hear her.
“He's like the musical heritage to everybody in the whole section!” he said. He stood up and waved a hand around the tower labeled R&B and Funk. “Seriously, Mavis. And where is Bowie!”
“Okay. Leon,” she said sternly.
“No James Brown?! I—”
“Jesus. Come here, Leon,” she said, pulling him by the arm around the corner to show him the rest of her CD collection. “I organize by genre and decade. Older stuff’s in here. Happy, you big snob?”
She watched his silhouette and enjoyed how the apples of his cheeks plumped up as he grinned. “Very happy,” he said. He turned to her, his eyes warm as they raked across her features. “I’m very happy to be here with you.”
“Same,” she admitted, then, unable to take the building tension, she added, “I’d rather not be blown to smithereens on a Monday, thank you.”
“‘To smithereens’ is the worst way to be blown,” he agreed.
“And what is the best way?” she asked like the naive thing she was, then blushed deeply as his smile turned lascivious. “Don’t answer that.”
“Fine,” he rejoined. “No comment.”
A pleasant tension thrummed between them, too thick to be swept away by a joke. Their confessions to each other in Lab 28C echoed in her mind. She watched as her hand reached out to his of its own accord. Their fingers intertwined, and it felt just as right as it had before.
“Mavis,” he said in a low voice, “I have wanted to kiss you since the moment we got free.”
Her heart flopped over wildly in her chest. “Okay,” she breathed.
He bent his head down, his eyes falling closed just as hers did. His lips were warm and soft, and the kiss was gentle and perfect. A zing went down her spine at its rightness.
They pulled apart, and his heavy-lidded gaze skewered her. He leaned in again—she kissed him back, and a soft noise left her throat. That made him groan, and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close as the kiss deepened. Her tongue swept along his lower lip, and he groaned again as he granted her entrance. She licked into his mouth—he tasted like sweetness and spice, like anticipation and resolution.
“God, Leon,” she whispered as his lips traced along her cheek. He planted soft kisses all along her throat, interspersed with gentle love bites. She barely knew what she was saying. “God, you’re so…”
He slipped his hands under her shirt just above her waistband, the surprisingly rough skin of his palms and fingers scraping erotically along her lower back. Whatever she’d been saying disappeared into a pleased moan.
He pulled his face back to look at her again. “Maybe we shouldn’t go too fast,” he murmured. His hands settled in the dip of her waist.
“We can stop, if you want,” she said, hating the idea but willing to pull away from him.
“If you want,” he corrected her.
She shook her head. “I’m fine with this,” she said softly, thinking, I’ve wanted you for so long.
His lips curved into a smile, and as he kissed her thoroughly, she backed him toward the bed behind him. He had been so caught up in her CD collection that he hadn’t noticed that they were in her bedroom. Her walls were white (rental) but she’d done her best to create a cozy haven for herself. Her periwinkle sheets were neatly made, her sun and moon throw pillows were perched against her brass-barred headboard, and above, a calm celestial scene was spread across a wall hanging that she’d tacked to her ceiling.
With a flump, Leon fell down on her bedspread, his eyes wide. “You are so pretty,” he said, then stammered, “I mean, beautiful—I know girls don’t always like being called—”
“Shut up, Leon,” she murmured, doing him a favor by covering his mouth with hers once more.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said against her lips.
—
At 3am, after a second round, they padded into her kitchen, seeking hydration and sustenance. Mavis switched on the small TV she’d tucked into the corner of her counterspace—and she gasped. The logo of Payne Enterprises, Inc. was displayed prominently on the news channel.
“What?” asked Leon sleepily, wrapping a hand possessively around her hip as his eyes focused on the screen.
“—caught minutes ago by police officers who swarmed a quiet San Jose neighborhood,” the newscaster was saying on screen, holding her hand to her earpiece. “The man, whose name is being withheld by police at this time, was a former employee of Payne Enterprises who claims that their most popular software application was written by him without fair payment. Payne CEO Brian Tylon disputes this claim.”
“So it was a bitter ex-employee,” murmured Mavis.
“Oh, shit,” said Leon, straightening. “I know who it is. It’s Virgil.”
“Who?”
Leon’s face screwed into a grimace. “The guy who had my job before me,” he explained. “My cousin told me about it. He was fired right after he finished building WavLengths.” This was Payne Enterprise’s new best-selling transcription software, which used audio inputs to generate text outputs. It boasted an impressive accuracy rate.
“Why was he fired?” Mavis asked, frowning.
Leon rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Virgil developed WavLengths on his own time because he was bad at typing—he had terrible arthritis and he kept blowing past deadlines. He wanted to use the software to do his job better. But Jan had already given him a bad performance review, and she used the new touch-typing initiative as a catalyst to let him go. But not before he’d demoed the software to his boss, who thought it showed promise.”
“But… shouldn’t WavLengths have belonged to him, if he made it outside working hours?”
“He used the company laptop to write it,” Leon said. “There’s a clause in our contract. I’m not saying it’s fair—he obviously got a shit deal—but Payne was legally in the right.”
Mavis frowned, continuing to watch the news channel, which was showing footage of armored police officers surrounding a quaint bungalow illuminated with a spotlight from a helicopter. Then there was a blurry image of a man exiting the house, limping with his hands over his head.
“I’d feel sorrier for him if he hadn’t tried to blow us up,” Mavis said.
“I wonder if he knew it was us in that lab,” Leon mused. “Me, his replacement, and the hot typing instructor hired to weed out guys like him who couldn’t type.”
Mavis sipped her water, still frowning. Then a shiver went down her spine. “Maybe he installed that microphone in the lab when he was fired, before he was asked to leave the building.”
“Oh, God,” groaned Leon. “When they hired me, they gave me a new set of keys. Virgil must have taken the whole keyring, and Facilities probably didn’t bother to change the locks.”
“Ugh. Andy,” said Mavis with real anger. “Lazy prick.”
They watched the news for a while longer, but the newscasters were just rehashing the information they’d already broadcast. Mavis clicked the TV off.
“Will you stay?” she asked Leon softly.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving,” he said, setting his cup down and wrapping his arms around her again. He kissed her forehead, and that simple gesture was somehow more dizzyingly romantic than all the physical grappling they’d done before.
“Good,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”
“On one condition,” he murmured.
She raised her eyebrow.
He pressed his lips to the shell of her ear. “Tell me I passed the typing test.”
Mavis let out a peal of laughter and led him by the hand back to the bedroom. “You doofus,” she said, and they curled up together in her bed like two nested brackets. Then: “Yes, you passed.”
“Good. And what’s my prize?” he said into the back of her neck.
“I believe you are holding it, Mr. Archer.”
His chuckle was a low rumble against her back. “Excellent, Ms. Beacon. You’re just my type.”
~The End~