Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

Chapter 29

It felt weird. Sweet and sour. The taxi driver bringing me back to Ancien headquarters. It had only been a few weeks since the endless meetings with bankers and investors. Trying to convince them all that Ancien was the best investment of the decade. But something inside me had changed. I wasn't CEO anymore. This wasn't my company. Wasn't my building anymore. It was familiar, but foreign. A detached nostalgia.

Or maybe it was just the fact that I'd been sitting in vomit for the last twenty minutes. After the incident with Alex, the cabbie didn't speak again. He dropped me off at the back of Ancien headquarters, where Thor was waiting with two security guards.

I'd been saved every ounce of energy for this moment. Conserving it. I jumped out of the car, screaming, "What the fuck, Thor? Have you lost your mind?"

The two guards ran up and grabbed me before I could reach him. Thor's face expressed what looked like genuine concern, which caught me completely off guard.

"What's wrong? What happened?" he demanded. "Let her go."

I pulled myself out of their grip.

"Your goon drove me at gunpoint."

"What?" asked Thor. He seemed shocked. He knocked on the window, shouting shouted, "What the fuck?"

The driver rolled down the window and said, "There was a man with her. You told me to bring her alone."

"Who was the man?"

The driver shrugged. "I was told to pick up the girl. Bring her here. Alone. Now she's made a mess in my car, and it'll take me all day to clean it up."

"Idiot," mumbled Thor. "Luna, I'm so sorry. This was just a simple miscommunication. Where have you been?"

I thought for a moment. "I was shaken up by the attack. It got to me, you know? How close we came to death."

Thor crooked his head and nodded.

"Of course. I totally understand. I was very upset by it all, too. Please come with us. Let's get you cleaned up."

"I want to go home."

"Of course. First, please come with me for just a moment."

He touched my arm, but I pulled away instinctively. The guards flinched. Thor nodded calmly and they stood down.

"You have a posse now?"

"Oh, they're just here to open the back doors."

How big of an idiot did Thor think I was? Or maybe it was something else. Maybe he knew.

"Has anyone told you what's happened since you've been gone?" he asked.

Thor pushed the small of my back, urging me through the open door. His hand was cold, and I wanted to swat it away.

"No."

"While you took some, let's call it personal time, the board made me interim CEO. I've been talking with the bankers and investors. We're pushing to get the IPO done as early as next week. It's been a crazy couple of days. Projections had to be rerun. Lawyers had to redraft all sorts of provisions. Insurance contracts had to be rewritten. It's basically been a shit show."

"Welcome to my life."

"Your former life."

I scrunched my nose. He led me to the main elevator, then pressed the button to go down.

"I was hoping to go home to clean up and rest for a bit. I'm a bit jetlagged."

The elevator door opened, and the four of us stepped in.

"Yes, yes. There's just one pressing matter we need your expertise on. You can go home this afternoon." Thor sniffed the air. He looked at me and saw my vomit-stained pants. He shook his head. "This won't do. Go find Luna a fresh change of clothes, please? Meet us in the basement, room A112. And bring us a never-ending supply of coffee too, will you?"

One of the guards stepped out without saying a word. The elevator doors closed.

"So, what's so urgent you won't let me go home?"

"Don't put words in my mouth. You're free to go home at any time. It's just that one of our biggest clients has sent us an emergency support ticket. It's super critical, and if we don't deliver, it might mess up the entire IPO—again. At the very least, we would have to put it in the diligence documents. I bet it's something you can hammer out in thirty minutes, though, if you put your mind to it."

"Don't you have an army of programmers to do this for you?"

"Nobody knows Ancien like you do, Luna. Our team's been working on it all week and we keep hitting dead ends. I think your touch is just what's needed on this one."