Chương 7: Chapter Six

By late afternoon I still hadn't moved for much more than the bathroom and a small trip to the coffee shop for an espresso just to make it through without more withdrawals. I spent the rest of the day perched on my couch staring at the portrait of Nicolas Cage. I pushed myself toward nausea and then backed off time and again. Finally I'd changed Nicolas' outfit. He'd been wearing a red coat and now he was wearing a blue one. I took the pens out of my 'getting fired box' and slowly changed each one of their colors.

Each change left my nauseated and exhausted but the recovery time was getting shorter. I was taking notes as I went trying to understand and learn. It seemed as thought the code did have a structure and syntax that I was beginning to track. I examined the wall next to me. The plain grey boring color that I'd been staring at for days. I found the color marker and pushed it to look more like the symbol from the last pen I'd just changed. A nice calming icy blue.

I tried looking at the coffee pot to fix it but one nudge and it turned off completely. Apparently fixing appliances was beyond my capabilities both with code vision and mechanical engineering. I continued to experiment finding something small in different colors and sketching the symbol next to the color. I discovered it wasn't quite that simple and was back to the drawing board when I'd attempted to turn my toothbrush a deep burgundy and it ended up closer to a light pink.

My stomach rumbled and I reached for my phone to order delivery. I was not surprised when I saw fifteen texts from Kate. Kate: I'll give you until tonight but I really need to check on you…. Kate: Did you really DND me??? Kate: Fine. But I'm calling you at exactly 5! Kate: I called twice!! and it went straight to vm! Kate: If you don't answer I'm going to stop over!!! Those texts were followed by a series of gifs and increasingly more annoyed gifs Kate: I'm on my way over!!! Kate: I'm on my way up!!!

I threw on a hoodie that was tossed haphazardly on the back of a chair as Kate began knocking. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to see my best friend and everything that would come along with it. I opened the door.

"Sam! Thank G– Holy shit what happened?" She said pushing past me and closing the door behind her.

"I don't even know where to start."

"Your eye. Do you know your eye is like–red?" I nodded.

"I was throwing up. I think it happened then." It could've been the truth. I hadn't seen my eye prior to throwing up to know for certain.

"It looks worse than it is. It doesn't hurt."

"Throwing up. I guess that explains your–" she gestured at me. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"You just gestured to all of me." It was at that moment that I realized my mistake. Kate had caught sight of the walls. In an open floor plan apartment it was easy to see the kitchen, living room and dining area all from the entry way where she'd been grilling me. Now, she turned away from me and touched the walls.

"You painted?" I looked around.

"Yeah. I changed the color of the walls. I thought it would help keep my mind busy." She nodded but her eyes remained narrowed.

"I'm okay really. It's been a long couple of days. I had a very bad migraine and got checked out in the hospital with a clean bill of health." I gestured to the discharge paperwork and prescription that was still sitting discarded on the counter. I watched her brain working as she tried to catch up with everything she had missed. She wrapped me in a hug.

"You should have called me. Are you okay?" I was almost a whole head taller than her and I mumbled into her hair.

"I think so." She pulled back worry dripping from her voice and face.

"Work has been crazy. Greg and Rebecca held a meeting to enforce to the team that the company has a zero tolerance policy for not 'maintaining ethical standards'. But everyone is talking, they know something isn't right. No one works early and late every day to take the easy way out."

"Daniel set me up. I don't know what he did, or how but it had to be him. Nothing else adds up." She stared into my eyes holding my face between her hands.

"I believe you." Three words was all it took to crack my resolve. My eyes filled and she wrapped me in another hug. We stood there, in that small hallway blubbering and sobbing over life's injustices until we were cried out. We moved into the living room and she flopped onto the right cushion of my couch.

"Hey Sam, I've had a horrible headache since Tuesday. Can I bum some headache meds off of you. I used my last two purse pills at lunchtime." I nodded and came back with an armful. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen or excedrin? She laughed and grabbed a bottle dumping two out into her hand before getting up and grabbing a glass of water.

"Always prepared." I shrugged, "You know me." Kate smiled, "That I do. So, what are we going to do about it?"

"We? About what?"

"Well, everyone knows that Daniel is lying and for whatever reason H&S is covering for him."

"Yeah?"

"Well if you think I'm going to work next to that slimy weasel while your career and reputation tanks you obviously don't know me." I laughed and was honestly so surprised at the warmth that flooded through me.

"I appreciate that I really do, but I think I need some more time to process through things before I plan some revenge."

"Well, time is of the essence for sure, but if you don't call by Monday, I'm showing up at your door with wine, blueprints, files, documents–""Blueprints?"

"I don't know. They always have blueprints readily available in like, heist movies or something." I laughed again. We ordered pizza and she insisted on staying to watch me eat a slice before she would leave. After she left, I stood at my window imagining that everything I could see was covered in universe code. How could I go on with a normal life, find a lawyer, fight for my career, and then go back to work?

How could I then sit in an office surrounded by people who may or may not be rooting for me to fail when I knew there was something beyond all of it. I should be worried about everything I'd been working toward. Processing out what I needed to so that Kate and I could attack the problem with Daniel. Tomorrow should be a day to gather evidence and get my ducks in a row. And I was thinking about evidence and planning–it's just the planning I was thinking about was how to level up again.

And the evidence well–I needed to figure out a way to show Kate without her freaking out and running away. For now I had a few hours until bed, and now that I had some pizza in my stomach it was time to get to work. My notebook of symbols and code vision were my paintbrush and this minimalist apartment would be my canvas.