Alex's Point of View
"Hit the gym last night?" Teri asked kindly. Her face was the picture of sympathy, the ultimate caring older sister. She reached out to help him as Alex hobbled to his computer at the Lockhole office.
Alex could use the help; he was definitely walking funny. "Something like that." He tried to sound as vague as possible. That would be best for everyone.
Teri frowned. "Well, I hope you take care of yourself, Alex. Just ask me if you want a drink or something. I'll bring it right away."
Alex smiled politely. "I definitely will!"
He definitely wouldn't.
Alice had been feral last night, beyond anything he'd ever experienced. She'd fucked him into submission and sucked him hard again three times. At the end of the last round he had a legit dry orgasm. People joke about draining men dry, but Alice had actually managed it. Was it guilt from letting her victim hit it raw? That would almost be preferable compared to where his thoughts were going. There was blood in her hair! Maybe she didn't notice, but Alex definitely did! He'd never known Alice to get that rough with a target before.
She'd assured him the target immediately pulled out and put on a condom at her insistence, but it was a pattern, a definite pattern. His girlfriend was taking risks, bigger ones than usual.
Does she need to keep escalating to get the same thrill? he wondered. It was a troubling thought, and a painful one.
Alex had never been completely happy with his girlfriend's "activities" but she'd always kept it rare and compartmentalized enough from their life together that he could usually put it out of his mind.
Wincing, Alex braced himself against his desk and eased himself into the cheap office chair in front of his work computer.
The pain in his hips reminded him of the pain in his heart. Would Alice ever get over her urge? Was this just going to be their life forever? Could he accept that?
Maybe, but it was getting worse. If it got too much worse he might break.
Mindlessly, he opened up his text editor and started slightly modifying variables and weights in their data set, not enough to matter, just enough to look busy. This was the other side of working at a place like Lockhole-Merlin. You couldn't take your work home with you so you had to come in every day, even just to look busy. Everybody was phoning it in with ANIS ready to ship. Hell, Chip Lackland hadn't even bothered to come back from lunch yesterday, not that it mattered.
The work of cleaning up their tactical reasoning model for deployment to physical systems was already done. Alex just tried to look like he was doing actual work until he could justify going home.
Terry visited him at his desk a little later, a physical packet in his hand. Due to security concerns, a lot of paperwork had to be done on real paper. "Hey man, have you seen Chip?" he asked.
Alex looked up, trying to conceal the fact he was reading a trashy web novel in one of his browser tabs. "Nope, haven't seen him all morning. Think he's cutting class?"
His friend looked uncharacteristically serious. "I hope not, dude. Chip is actually supposed to be making a presentation to the Senate Armed Services Committee later today! ANIS needs funding and he has the hookup with his dad. Our jobs are lowkey riding on this!"
Fuck...that was bad. Chip had always been a skater, touching base with the engineers just enough to justify his title of "manager". Alex started typing out an email.
"I already tried that, dude," Terry said when he saw what Alex was doing. "No response, for over an hour. I even checked the parking lot. Chip's car isn't there. I asked multiple people to text him, nothing. He hasn't been seen by anyone since yesterday morning."
Chip looked like he'd been having a pretty good time when Alex and Alice ran into him at the Capitol Grill, too good of time. If he picked now to go on a multi-day coke bender...
"Are we really gonna lose our jobs if Chip is found passed out on a park bench somewhere?" Alex asked, only half-jokingly.
"I don't know man. I really don't," Terry said worriedly. "I mean, we're MIT engineers, right? We should be able to get hired anywhere. But I've heard some horror stories about people looking for a job for over a year with no bites. No slouches either, real competent people, hard workers. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to be unemployed right now, not in this economy."
Alex grunted in agreement. "We'll think of something, bro. Even if I have to buy a used CNC machine and start making custom parts in my garage as a side-hustle."
Terry laughed. "My sister would love that shit, no lie. It's actually hard to find certain aerospace-grade parts that are made in America. The contract mandates it, but sometimes it's literally impossible. You should talk to her about it sometime."
"I'll think about it," Alex humored him. Terry wasn't slick. Terry was loyal, and he talked up his sister every chance he got. It would be cute if it wasn't so annoying. He wasn't leaving Alice, even if she came home with blood in her hair after killing a guy she fucked.
Lunch was an unusually somber affair as more as more people realized Chip was missing in action. Word got around about that Senate Committee meeting at two o'clock. They hoped Chip would show up to that even if he couldn't be bothered to show up at work. Turned out that was wishful thinking.
Two o'clock in the afternoon came and went, no Chip. Senator Lackland even called the office demanding to know where his son was.
What have you gotten yourself into, dude?
Alex didn't want to think about Chip "the asshole" Lackland anymore. Fuck that guy. It was way more fun to think about all that tea Alice spilled after she'd destroyed him in bed.
Aaron Hacker and Rebecca Rodriguez-Cooper, who would've thought? And Alice had seen them fuck with her own eyes! Alex didn't know whether he was disgusted or impressed. There was truly someone for everyone. It was a shame he couldn't share this juicy gossip with the Tsai twins. Terry would've loved the sheer messiness of it. One of these people was going to be the next president. Was America reality tv now? Maybe it always was?
What a dark thought. Alex found himself caught between his interest in the garbage fire that was the 2024 election and the dawning horror that there really was nobody at the wheel, no master plan, just chaos. Alice was close to the heart of it, too close. He hoped her next assignment was something more mundane. That risk-taking mood she'd been in lately would lead to nothing but trouble.