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Closing the folder, she pulled up the project she was supposed to be working on, but she couldn’t focus. Everything she’d told Freddy about her phone call with her mom the day before had been true, but it wasn’t all of it. The tree only made Sabrina worry more about her mother living in a double-wide trailer in tornado alley, but no matter how much she begged or offered to pay for it, her mother would not consider moving into an apartment, townhouse, or condo.
Climate change was making each tornado season worse than the one before, and forecasters were already predicting terrible weather for her mom’s area in the next few days. If TI did blame Sabrina and fire her for the leaks to appease Dynamic Solutions, there was no way she could continue offering her mom help. Hell, she’d probably have to move back home and join her in thatdamn trailer. Her list of problems was even longer than her list of questions.
“You okay?” Freddy appeared beside her and added fresh, hot coffee to her mug.
“Is Patrick going to fire me?” she asked bluntly.
Freddy’s brows rose and he dropped into his chair beside her. He set the carafe on the desk before turning to face her. “No. I won’t let him. I already told him that if you go, I go with you. It wasnotyou, and I won’t let anyone try to make you take the fall.”
“But what if it’s the only way to save your contract with Dynamic Solutions?” That was her real worry. The chaotic Taylor family might overwhelm her and stress her out with their drama, but they were all good people. She didn’t feel the pressure she’d experienced at her first job and felt secure in her position. But if Dynamic Solutions said they had to prove they’d stopped the leak… If Patrick were forced to choose, he’d be smart to let her go. If DS terminated the contract, she wouldn’t have a job anyway.
Sabrina lifted her head from the desk to see Freddy reading the email she still had up on her screen. His frown deepened with each line he read, and by the end, he was huffing and grunting. Turning to face his own screen, he pulled up his email and started clicking. “I got the same email,” he finally said. “I don’t think you should go to the meeting. Technically, I’m the lead for our department, so I should be able to represent both of us.”
Before Sabrina could point out all the ways her not being present could make the situation worse, both their computers dinged as another email came through.
All Hands,
As part of our preparation for the upcoming joint meeting between Taylor Industries and Dynamic Solutions, we need to do a full security audit.
While we continue to investigate the source of our leaked R&D test results, showing the other companies we contract with all the measures we take to secure information will go a long way to regaining their trust until we find the real source of the leaks.
Over the next few days, we will be checking everyone’s file storage, encryption habits, and firewall settings. We are also asking that everyone bring their security tokens by headquarters to confirm that they are all present and accounted for.
Finally, we will be rolling out procedural updates over the coming days and weeks. I am asking everyone to embrace them from day one.Change is hard, but we do not have the luxury of languishing in our implementation of them.
Taylor Industries has been at the forefront of AI technology to direct robotic work for more than two decades and each of you has played a role in that success. We will overcome this challenge the same as we have those who have come before: with integrity, hard work, and a steady focus on delivering the best software available to our customers.
Thank you,
Patrick Taylor
CEO, Taylor Industries
Sabrina felt the blood drain from her face, but when she looked over, Freddy was smiling.
“See,” he said cheerfully, “Patrick’s going to take care of it without throwing anyone to the wolves.”
He’d missed it. He didn’t see how much worse this made everything. Closing her eyes, Sabrina tried to imagine what kind of job she could get back in Nebraska. When she’d left for college, she swore she’d never move back, but here she was.
Feeling Freddy’s hand rest on her thigh, she peeked through her lashes as he asked, “Hey, what’s wrong? This is good, right?”
“Freddy, I don’t have my security token. I can’t take it to HQ.”
“Right, but that was because a tree fell on your house. I think that qualifies as extenuating circumstances. We’ll just report the loss to Veronica, and it will be fine.”
Sabrina picked at her brows the way she always did when she was nervous. “Freddy, don’t you get it? There are two names on the reports that leaked, yours and mine. Now, I have to tell them I also lost my security token but none of my other hardware was lost or damaged.”
She’d fucked up so bad. The tokens were new, and Sabrina hadn’t established a good home for hers yet, so she tended to carry it around and leave it in random places. When it hadn’t been on her desk with all her other work stuff, she’d just assumed it was buried under the tree in the kitchen or her bedroom, but she couldn’t prove it.
“Oh,” Freddy’s frown matched her own. “Where was it?” he asked. “In your house, I mean. If we know where it is, maybe we can cut down the tree to remove enough of it to make space for us to wade through the mess to find it.”
“I have no idea,” Sabrina confessed. “I don’t even know if it was in the kitchen or the bedroom. When it wasn’t on my desk with everything else…” she shrugged and trailed off as she tried desperately to remember what she might have done with it.
Freddy swore softly, “Fuck. Okay, where do you remember having it last?”
By the time they’d walked through her movements, their list of possible places for her to have left the token included HQ, the grocery store in town, her car, and the rubble of her home.
“I’m not letting Patrick fire you over this,” Freddy snarled.
