Chapter 7 The Ultimatum

• "Zoe, uh, I'm coming, five minutes please!" Leo said, checking under the bed. "Where is it? She's going to kill me."
• "Leo, hurry up! I'm going to be late for work if you don't drag your ass down here!" Zoe said, sipping her morning cup of espresso. It was still steamy, and she blew air into the cup, letting the steam dance in the opposite direction. Her patience was starting to wane because her brother had asked for some five minutes, five minutes ago.
• Emily was waiting in the car, and she began honking for them to come out. Zoe groaned and went up the stairs to fetch her brother. She barged into the room to see him in a frenzy, apparently frantically searching for something.
• "Emily's waiting for us; what are you doing?" Zoe growled.
• "The voltmeter is missing!" he said sharply, checking a drawer he had already checked.
• "You have a voltmeter?" Zoe asked, sounding astonished.
• "You didn't buy one for me, and I decided to borrow Davina's!"
• Zoe felt a jab in the heart. Great! She thought. She couldn't even afford to buy her younger brother his tools for his science project. Emily had offered to, but she hated being a burden to people. Besides, she felt Emily was already doing so much for them by accommodating them and being their driver. The honk came once again, desperately blaring and jarring her thoughts.
• "Leo, I'll get you and Davina new ones; please, let's get going!"
• Leo strapped on his school bag and followed his sister like a lost puppy. They hurried down the stairs and met Emily outside in the waiting car.
• "Emily, I'm so sorry for the delay; Leo was looking for his voltmeter!"
• "It's fine; you are here now," Emily said, gearing the car into motion. She put on some music, and Zoe slumped lower into her seat in the front passenger side.
• They arrived at her office, Maga tech, and Zoe got out. She opened her purse to check for money and paused.
• "How much does a voltmeter cost?" Zoe asked Leo.
• "It's twenty dollars at the bookshop for the cheaper ones," he answered, picking at his fingernails. Zoe exhaled and decided to give him a hundred dollars.
• "Keep the change," she said.
• "Yes!" Leo said, pumping his fist in the air. He composed himself almost immediately. As much as he could, Leo always tried to subdue his childishness. And to him, being overly excited for being asked to keep the change was childish.
• Zoe looked at the gigantic building where she works. It was another day in paradise where the devil seemed to preside as their ruler. She exhaled sharply and put one foot before the other. In seconds, she began her walk, which she labeled as her confident walk into the building.
• Her confidence was thrown out the window when she saw the familiar head of Henry Arthur, the vice president of the company, talking with Andre, her departmental director.
• "You've got to be kidding me!" she thought aloud but inaudible to others.
• "Speak of the devil," Andre said, beaming up as he saw Zoe and pointed to her. Mr. Henry turned a full circle to see.
• Zoe looked stunning in her pencil skirt and tight-fitting sleeves. She had applied a reasonably fair amount of makeup to underline her beauty. Mr. Henry's mouth ran dry, and he licked his bottom lip.
• "Zoe, the director here, was filling me in about how you single-handedly made the hack possible without leaving any trace," Henry said with his Adam's apple vibrating as he did.
• "It was a piece of cake," Zoe said, hurrying past them.
• "I'm not finished!" Henry snapped, and her legs did an emergency brake.
• "Sorry, boss," she said.
• "It's not boss; call me Mr. Vice President!" Henry corrected rather harshly. "Anyway, I need you to fix this! It's confidential."
• Zoe took a single sheet of paper from Mr. Henry, bowed, and left. In her office, she perused through the sheet of paper and saw lines of codes. What the hell? She wondered. Why would he give this to me to fix? She lurched forward towards the keyboard and started typing in the code.
• "Hmm, so that's what he's developing. I wonder what Mr. Henry is up to with a code such as this. And why would he pick me to handle this error? Indeed, anyone else can deal with this! He also said it's confidential, but there's nothing unethical or secretive about this."
• Within minutes, Zoe finished fixing the errors she had found in the written codes and printed them out on a fresh sheet. She vowed to keep the finished work until it was about time to close before submitting it to the Vice President. Zoe lifted her head to see about five other colleagues clicking on their keyboards. Why did it seem like everyone else was working, and she wasn't?
• "Excuse me, ma'am," she said to the nearest colleague, a fairer older woman.
• "Yes?" the woman said with a frail voice. Zoe checked to see if there was a frown on her face, but she looked neutral.
• "I'm, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but why does it seem so busy in here?"
• "Oh shit, I've lost a life!" she said, turning her computer screen towards Zoe.
• "Oh great! Video game!" Zoe wondered if her colleagues were all engaged remotely in the virtual gaming world.
• Director Andre walked into the office in a serious-looking manner, and everyone stopped short to behold him.
• "Everyone to the lab now! Except for you, Miss Zoe, the vice president, would like to see you immediately!"
• "Sure, the Vice President wants to see me!" she whispered under her breath, snatching the finished work.
• She rode alone on the elevator to the top floor where Mr. Henry's office was. The inscription on the door bore the words: Office of the Vice President. She knocked softly, and there was no response. She wondered if she should turn back and go to the lab but not long, Daniel Thomas, Henry's bodyguard, opened up the door, gesturing for Zoe to come in while he stepped outside. He was a vast man compared to Mr. Henry.
• "Zoey James, thanks for coming immediately; sit down!" he said, gesturing at the seat in front of him.
• "I'm done with this," Zoe said, slipping the paper in front of him. Mr. Henry ignored it and leaned forward, interlacing his fingers on the desk, looking directly at her like a predator.
• "And how about the other documents?" Henry asked. There was something about his cologne that disgusted Zoe, or maybe she just hated being around him.
• "I left it at home, and I am still trying to make up my mind!" Zoe said.
• "And I told you not to spend so much time!"
• "With all respect, sir, it's been less than twenty-four hours!"
• "Were you deaf or something earlier when I asked you to refer to me as Mr. Vice President?"
• "I'm sorry, what?" she said, curling her fist as if she'd punch her boss any minute soon.
• "Oh, so you are indeed deaf?"
• "I can't hear you, and it would help if you spoke louder!" Zoe said. She was now really trying to rile up her boss. She heard him clearly, but she chose to act like she was deaf since she didn't like where the conversation was heading. Henry exhaled, gritting his teeth.
• "Anyways," he said, disallowing himself the chance to get riled up. "You have until tomorrow morning to call at my office with your answer; otherwise, I'll have Daniel throw you out. That's a request you don't wish to ignore! I'm done with you."
• Zoe did not waste a second later exiting the office. As soon as she had gone, Henry's brother, Jack, came out from an inner room still located within the spacious office.
• "My, my brother, why do you have to be so harsh with the girls you love, eh?" Jack said.
• "That's why you'll never have a girlfriend because you are a simp!" Henry said. "Women love dominant men."
• "Heh, don't come at me with such nonsense! If they did, how come none of them stick around with you?"
• "I'm just too much for them to handle, but it's better to be too much than nothing."
• Jack sighed and said, "I appreciate the advice but fuck it, I got my ways! Isn't this girl a little too young for you, though?"
• "You've got to be kidding me," Henry said, ignoring his younger brother. "You've really got to be kidding me right now!"
• "What is it?"
• "Andre just texted me that the company got a serious hack!"
• "I swear I could feel the devil following you when we left home this morning," Jack laughed. "And there goes your best staff, whom you just gave an ultimatum!"
• Henry wasn't listening. He was fixated on how Maga tech was hacked into, and all their future projects were being copied from their data storage.
• If there was still time to stop the hack, then maybe they could save the most significant project that hadn't been hacked! The billion-dollar company was suddenly in peril, and it was up to them to do something before they lost it all.