Earth, Omaha, Nebraska

  Violet Davis-Kobayashi, Data Scientist and CTO of Wellify

  Violet’s black combat boots clomped along the sidewalk as she made her way to the office. Her trusty trench coat, a la Trinity in The Matrix, staved off the morning chill.

  The mental image of herself as a badass cyberpunk heroine brought a smirk to her lips.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Probably the team checking in.

  Jason: Team’s all here, pizza’s on the way, boss-lady. Time to get up. =P

  Vi: Sweet. Be there in 5. Hey, let’s save the Nerf war for after the meeting today—spread the word.

  Jason: Roger that.

  It was working out to be an epic day.

  Now, if Tom would only fess up about the impending sale to Hope Pharma ...

  She should bring it up in their next one-on-one.

  Yeah. If he didn’t confide in her by next Tuesday, she was going to corner him, find out what was going on, offer to look things over, and make sure the team was taken care of.

  Mind made up, Vi popped in her earbuds and queued up her favorite podcast.

  ‘Hey, all my fellow nerds and nerdettes, you’re listening to Big Effing Questions with JJ Zimmer.’

  ‘Today we’ve got data guru Nate Gold and futurist Emily Tanzer on the show to talk about how fucked up and weird the world is lately, haha. Hey guys, great to have you on the show.’

  As Violet finished the short trek to the Wellify offices, the host and guests made obligatory small talk, and JJ poked fun at them as he always did. Both guests were good sports about it, and the dude Vi had just walked past probably thought she was a weirdo for laughing out loud.

  Meh.

  The podcast had barely gotten to the good stuff when Vi rounded the corner to Wellify.

  Dang.

  ‘So, level with me, guys—should I be worried about the shit I’m hearing in the news? Like, which one is it—are we gonna be overpopulated since people are living longer, or are we going extinct because people aren’t having babies?’

  People weren’t having babies?

  Something niggled at the back of her mind, her hyper-perception kicking in. But nothing clicked. She’d need to do some research.

  ‘—so, like, just how screwed are we? Will the economy ever recover? And what is this I hear about people getting superpowers—I mean, that’s total bullshit, right?’

  ‘Whoa, slow down there, JJ—how about we start with the long-term effects of Microbe X on lifespan and go from there?’

  With a sigh, Violet paused the podcast and put away her headphones. She wanted to keep listening, but the team was waiting for her.

  When she strode into Wellify, her team was already gathered in a semicircle in front of a whiteboard in the bullpen, laptops ready.

  Gigi had the Chaos Horn—a bullhorn she’d decorated with rainbow ribbons and puffy paint—ready to go in case the debate got out of hand.

  “Morning, guys!” Vi called out as she booked it over to her desk to drop off her things.

  “Lol, it’s almost lunchtime, Vi.” Gigi hollered back.

  “It’s eight o’clock somewhere,” Vi replied with a smirk. They didn’t have set hours at Wellify, and everyone knew Vi did her best coding in the middle of the night. Morning people were a strange breed.

  She went over to the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and turned to the team.

  “Okay, so you know why we’re here today. For those of you who weren’t on the team last year, some of us—you know who you are—couldn’t agree on the app’s coding standards, so we had to refactor basically every file to make it compatible with Jason’s code generator.”

  There were grumbles and groans around the room. That refactor had been a major pain.

  “Yeah—never again, amiright? I get that we each have our preferences, tabs and spaces and all that jazz. I don’t actually care what you all agree on, but we’re not leaving this room until you hash out the standards we’re going to use for the API.” She turned to write ‘REST API’ on the top of the whiteboard and underlined it.

  “This is some corporate bullshit,” someone muttered. It had to be the new guy, Bastion.

  Violet hated this part, but couldn’t let that comment slide, or it would poison the team culture. She froze with her back to them, then lowered the marker and placed it on the tray.

  “Uh-oh,” Jason said, voice dripping with mock severity.

  “Someone’s about to get schooled.” Gigi added in a sing-song voice.

  Violet turned around and then spoke in a calm, quiet voice. “I don’t know who said that, and I don’t actually care. But you’re wrong.

  “Corporate bullshit would be if someone you had never met who worked in another building sent you new company coding standards after your team had already finished an entire project and said you had a week to implement them.”

  “This?” She gestured to the team, to the whiteboard, and back to the team. “—this is the opposite of that. Every person who had to dig through the refactoring backlog last year is sitting in this room, plus the new hires—everyone gets a voice. I don’t even care what you settle on, because I trust you will agree on something brilliant.

  “This—” she again gestured to the team, “—is not corporate bullshit. This is having high standards, because we’re goddamn awesome. If you can’t tell the difference, you know where the door is.” Violet raised her hand lazily to the side, pointing at said door.

  “Damn right, we are!” Erika hollered.

  Jason raised his fingers to his mouth and gave a whistle. Others laughed, whooped, and otherwise affirmed their quirky brand of solidarity. Vi had endeavored to foster a culture of working hard, playing hard, and having open communication. But sometimes, they got a little carried away.

  Gigi blew the Chaos Horn, and Vi gave a dismissive wave to get them to quiet down.

  “Seriously, though, it’s an honest mistake, right, guys? We’re not kicking anybody off the island today. Bastion, how about you take the marker and write down ideas as the team shouts them out?”

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  Bastion, still a bit red in the cheeks, shuffled up to the front of the room to take the marker.

  Violet leaned in so only Bastion could hear. “Shake it off. You’re not the first I’ve called out like that, and you won’t be the last. Welcome to the team.”

  Bastion took the marker, and the team started calling out ideas and arguing back and forth.

  Violet sat in the back and pulled out her laptop, hands shaking imperceptibly. It was way more comfortable back here than up there. Public speaking would never be comfortable for her, but she had learned to fake it for her role as CTO.

  Violet watched as Bastion recovered from his embarrassment, hamming it up with the team as he scribbled their rapid-fire ideas on the board. The minor hazing he had just endured would either cement him as part of the team or encourage him to find another job.

  Watching Bastion smile and joke with the team, she suspected it would be the first.

  She kept an ear out to make sure the team was fighting fair while they debated the finer elements of API design and naming conventions, but their team dynamic was so solid that Vi probably didn’t need to be in the room at this point.

  Violet pulled up the spreadsheet she was using to assemble the API and historical data export request for Tom and continued filling in her estimate—lovingly referred to by software geeks as a SWAG—Software Wild-Ass Guess. She was just plugging in the final numbers—

  And then it all went sideways.

  “Oh, great—you’re all here!” Tom, the CEO, walked up to the front of the room, all big-dick energy, and stood next to Bastion.

  He turned to study the whiteboard and raised his hand to rub his chin thoughtfully—as if he understood a damn word of it—then turned back to the team with an indulgent grin. “Doing great work, as always, I see.”

  What the fuck was this noise? Why was he bogarting her meeting?

  “Hey, son—why don’t you hand me that marker and take a seat?” He gestured to Bastion, who shot a nervous look in Violet’s direction, so she nodded, and he hurried back to his seat.

  That was when Violet noticed the receptionist standing behind Tom, an enormous stack of thick envelopes in her arms.

  Oh, hell, no.

  He was announcing this in front of the entire team without even giving her the courtesy of a heads-up? She leaned back in her seat, glad she was sitting in the back, because she was having tremendous difficulty keeping a furious scowl off her face.

  “I’m sure you all have noticed that we’ve had a lot of visitors in the office, and I’m sure you’re all curious why that is. Well, you’ll find out today, but first, we have a quick little NDA for you all to sign.”

  He turned to the receptionist. “Jeannie, why don’t you just set those down on that desk over there so you can hand out the forms?”

  Jeannie scurried around the room, beaming as she handed each employee a form and a pen.

  “Okay, all this form says is that what I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.” He gave everyone a stern look. “You’ll be able to tell anyone you want in a couple of weeks, okay?”

  The team members nodded, and a few threw ‘wtf?’ looks in Violet’s direction. She merely shrugged in response, but the struggle to keep her demeanor professional was an exercise in sheer will.

  It was a good thing Vi got super-perception and not laser eyes, or the ability to explode heads, or Tom would be the one having a bad day.

  She read over the paper, saw it was indeed a short-term NDA, and savagely signed the stupid thing. Jeannie collected the forms and checked that every person had signed.

  “We all good?” Tom asked Jeannie.

  “Yes, sir—everyone signed,” she said, swinging her legs cheerfully in front of the desk where she was perched.

  “Fantastic. I have great news to share with you. I’ve been itching to tell you this, but I couldn’t say anything until we hashed out the details. It’s the day all startups dream of, folks. Wellify is being acquired by Hope Pharmaceuticals.

  “And before you start to worry—I’ve negotiated it so each and every one of you has been offered a full-time salaried position with a raise at Hope. In addition, you will each be getting a generous bonus as your share of the profits from the sale in recognition of your hard work.

  “These packets have the details of your bonus and your compensation package at Hope. Come see me if you have questions. My door is always open.”

  Violet followed Tom back to his office and slammed the door shut.

  “What the hell was that, Tom?”

  “What the hell was what? This is wonderful news, Vi—I don’t see why you’re upset.”

  “Maybe because I knew about the sale and was waiting for you to bring it up. If not as your CTO, then as the first employee willing to take a chance on this company.”

  She caught herself when she realized she was pacing, then stopped.

  “I mean—fuck, Tom—I stood here in this office with you, and we talked about how Big Pharma was taking advantage of sick people, how we were going to change things. ‘Democratizing medicine’—you remember that? You said that.”

  “I did say that.”

  “So what the fuck, Tom?” She shook her head, then exhaled, calming herself.

  She sighed, then changed gears. This wasn’t the end of the world. “Whatever. I have some money saved up—I guess I can just dust off my resume and find another—”

  “—What are you talking about?” Tom’s voice had an edge, a little panicked, the pitch a bit too high. “You wouldn’t quit—you love this team.”

  “Tom, you know how I feel about corporate crap. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’ll get you my letter of resignation tomorrow, and we can work out the transition plan—”

  “You can’t.” There was a finality in his tone that didn’t compute.

  She cocked her head at him. “Um, yes—I can. Watch me.” She turned, intent on stalking out of the room.

  “No, I mean—the deal is contingent on you.”

  The ground dropped out from under her as her heart plummeted. Tom couldn’t possibly mean ...?

  Violet slowly raised her head as she turned back to face him. “I’m sorry—I must have misheard you. Perhaps you should elaborate.” Blood thrummed in her ears, and her cheeks heated. This couldn’t be happening.

  “I, um, well—Hope—had a bad experience acquiring a software company without the architect a few years back, so they refused to move forward without you on board.”

  That was pretty smart on Hope’s side. But she still fucking hated them. And right now, she hated the man standing in front of her.

  “But I’m not on board, Tom. You would have had to ask me for that to be true.” Violet’s voice dripped with venom, and she didn’t care.

  Tom fidgeted, his eyes darting around the room. He was cornered, and he knew it.

  His voice took on that wheedling quality of someone who is covering their ass. “Of course, I countered by saying they would need to hire your entire team. I said you would never take the offer if they didn’t keep the team together. They wanted you so much that they agreed to take the entire team, and I even got them to bring the salary offers up by 5%.”

  He continued in a rush, apparently trying to get every last excuse out before she could cut him off. “And Hope didn’t want to cut the team in on the profits, so I did it myself—I split 50% of my own earnings with the team, to make sure everyone got a piece of the pie.

  “I even set up a meeting for you with one of their people, someone named Audrey or something, so you can talk team culture. She wants to work with you. You can keep the Nerf guns ...”

  She tuned him out as he continued to ramble on. This was beyond the pale. Did he seriously want credit for keeping his word that he’d share profits with the team if they were acquired? What a douchebag. Vi glared daggers at him, calling on her martial arts training to slow down her heart and find her center. It wasn’t working.

  “... If you walk, Vi, this whole thing falls through.”

  Now, there was an idea.

  She hated the idea of the Wellify data going to Hope, and here was her chance to nuke the entire thing. Tom had handed it to her on a silver fucking platter.

  “Maybe I should do that, then.”

  His eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t do that to your team ... they’re all out there celebrating. I mean, Jason—his mom has all those bills from her cancer treatment. Annie’s six months pregnant. You wouldn’t do that to them.”

  Violet glared at him and took a step closer to the desk. “Maybe I’ll just pay their bonuses myself, Tom.”

  He laughed. Laughed, as if she had just said something stupid.

  “It’s sort of a lot of money, Vi, there’s—”

  “—Remember what you call me? ‘The data whisperer’? Did you honestly think Syndrome Q was the only market trend I’ve ever predicted? Of course, maybe you’re right, and I don’t have the money—”

  She leaned in and put her hands on the edge of his desk, never breaking eye contact. “But maybe I do.”

  Tom’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, his eyes widening in realization.

  “I thought you would be happy about this. I’m keeping your team together, and—”

  “—you want to stop talking, Tom.” She took a beat to calm herself, looking down at her hands on the desk. “If you thought I would be happy about this, then you wouldn’t have felt the need to manipulate me.”

  She lifted her head, and her response was deadly calm.

  “Fuck this. I’m out.”

  Violet walked to the door, and as she opened it, she heard Tom call out in a cheery voice, “Okay, great talk, Vi—take the rest of the afternoon, and we’ll chat tomorrow!”

  She tried to look as normal as possible as she gathered her things. The team was in high spirits, everyone talking about what they were going to do with the windfall.

  Annie, leaning against her desk, said to Jason, “I mean, Hope Pharma is one of the best employers in Omaha, especially for working parents. I think it will all work out. Vi won’t let them mess with the team dynamic.”

  “This will cover my student loans and most of my mortgage.” That was Gigi.

  “I mean—fuck, guys—this is like a 40% raise or something ...”

  Violet felt an ugly twist of guilt and rage and knew she had to get out of there before she lost it. She let the team know something had come up and asked them to continue the REST API meeting after lunch and show her what they came up with the next day.

  She couldn’t quite suppress her scowl as her eyes locked on the whiteboard.

  No. What Tom had just done to her—

  Now that was some corporate bullshit.