The Love Algorithm - Vol. III

【16】Seeing the Light

It might have been stupid, but knowing these small things helped me trust them more. It made them human somehow, and gave me something real to envision. The more we spoke, the more confident I felt about giving them bigger tasks.

In all truth, it was easy to see they were as devoted to getting Lex out as we were. From everything I'd read, it made sense. They'd known each other for nearly ten years, and Lex seemed to have taken a very fatherly approach to their relationship, which led me to believe Death was much younger than I'd thought. Given their skills, I'd expected them to be his age at least, but I was now starting to think they were younger than me, even.

As this last week of full-time work unfolded, I was amazed to see how far I'd gotten in so little time. A month ago, I'd known next to nothing when it came to hacking, completely oblivious to that side of coding. But now, thanks to everything Lex had left behind, Oli's help, and even Death's, I was ridiculously familiar with all of it. Enough to pull off one of the greatest cyber-heists of the century.

My great motivation had pushed me forward, and I'd already had a great understanding of how coding worked, which was a blessing. Otherwise, none of this would have been even remotely possible.

On Sunday evening, at the very end of my month-long leave, the last hours of these insane four weeks, Oli and I were in the Lexcave, admiring our hard work. I was sitting cross-legged on my office chair, sipping on a beer, and he was sitting next to me with his, as we went through the countless scripts and files we'd compiled. The next few days would be dedicated to making it fail-proof and anticipating the problems we may encounter. But overall, it was nearly done.

Oli had spent a few evenings here this week in an effort to push our project as far as possible. Although he was confident about our success, I could tell there was still some slight doubt lingering on the back of his head. It was the same for me, but I kept muting these thoughts, needing to believe we'd make it.

"Thank you again for helping me so much," I told him, offering him a grateful smile.

"You're welcome, Dora. I'm sorry I couldn't help you more."

"Are you kidding? Oli, you did so much already! You were here as often as you could. And you taught me so many things. And you fed me. And you drove me to Sheridan. And you provided so much moral support. I couldn't have done it without you. Really, my only option would have been to wait for Lex's trial, and let the anguish and worry slowly destroy me."

"Still, I feel like I could have done more."

"Don't. You were here three evenings this week. You've abandoned Princess Twilight Sparkles enough as it is," I humored, forever amused by his cat's name.

"Oh, by the way. I had to tell the guys why I wasn't free lately, and since we're not supposed to hide it, I was honest and told them I was visiting you. You should probably know that Mace found it suspicious, and legit told me we better not be having an affair while Lex was in jail."

The mere notion had me grimacing, while a sickening feeling spread in my stomach. What the fuck sort of person would I be to do this to Lex? "That's a little insulting," I let out with a frown.

"I think he's just looking out for our boss. But it got me thinking that others might think the same. If the feds are watching you, they might believe we are... doing things."

His words got me thinking, and I reflected on the idea for a few seconds. In all fairness, I didn't care what the feds thought. And if they believed Oli and I were spending our moments together doing that, they wouldn't suspect we'd actually been working on a massive cyber heist. It didn't look good for me, but I truly didn't give a shit how they perceived me.