***
“So what did the board say, Drew?” As she sat in the war room, Sarah said, “Did they approve us trying to restore our systems?”
“They did,” Jerry said before Drew could speak. “They want us to go ahead and prove that he can do it by getting one system online first. We are still talking with Swan Systems but aren’t signing a contract with them for the rebuild yet.”
“That’s great!” Sarah beamed, hoping that the payroll system would be the first up. She looked around the room at her colleagues, who seemed to share her enthusiasm. Everyone except Drew. He looked like a child whose mother had just put him in time-out.
“The board wants us to get systems up and running in diagnostics and anything on the critical path to patient care first,” Jerry said, “Other systems, like the ones in pathology, etc, will come online after.”
“What about payroll?” Sarah said, looking around the room.
“Not critical,” Drew said, slumped in his seat. “We have a manual workaround we can do for now.”
“Exactly,” Jerry said. “Finance thinks they can cut physical cheques like they used to, so we’re going to go that route for now. ‘We can’t compromise patient care’ is the message from the board, so we have to focus our efforts there for now.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, racking her brain for the next steps. Her phone chimed, and she checked it, hoping it was Dan responding to her earlier text. She had asked when a good time to call and update him was, but he hadn’t responded yet. It wasn’t Dan who texted. It was Lester.
She opened the conversation and was greeted by a picture of Lester’s cock lying across a keyboard. She quickly closed her phone, mortified that one of her coworkers on either side of her would see it. She felt her face grow beet red and realized that the keyboard was the one in her office. Was Lester putting his cock on all her belongings in her office?
“If we’re moving ahead with Lester,” Sarah looked around the room, ‘Can we do this properly? Having him work in my office yesterday was fine, but perhaps we should set him up with a proper desk and place to get going.”
“Agreed,” Jerry said. “I’ve asked my team to clear a cubicle for him in our area. Sarah, now that we are going to put a contract in front of him for the work, I was hoping to take point in our relationship with him just like my department would other IT vendors. I hope that is okay and you understand.”
“Completely understood and agreed, Jerry,” Sarah said, flashing him her beautiful white smile, “I’m just glad I could make the connection.”
“Well then,” Drew said, standing up, “Now that everyone is happy and everything is squared away, I think we can call this for now. Jerry, give me updates.”
Before anyone else could respond or stand, Drew walked out of the room. The rest of the group began to gather their things and depart. Sarah leaned over towards Jerry, “Any idea what’s going on with Drew?”
“Not a clue, but he actively recommended against this solution in the emergency board meeting yesterday.” Jerry said, “So I think he is pissed we found a solution that didn’t include his buddies at Swan.”
“Huh,” Sarah said, “Oh Jerry, Lester is parked up in my office. I have a few things to attend to around the hospital. Would you mind sending one of your guys up to fetch him and show him where he’ll be working?”
“No problem,” Jerry said as he moved towards the door, “I’ll send someone up right now to get him.”
***
The train was pretty empty, so Dan was getting a lot of work done. He hadn’t felt this productive in months. Working on his own plan to improve his situation felt invigorating, much better than working on the crappy accounts Walt handed him recently. He felt like he was actually making progress towards a goal.
He checked the time on his laptop. It was just after lunch; he should be back in Middleton a few hours from now. Unfortunately, the train was doing the milk run, stopping at almost every station outside of Chicago. But Dan was somewhat thankful for the time to get things done.
Before leaving the city, he had squared away things with his current roster of clients. Nothing too pressing, and he felt confident he was up to date on everything. Now, he had spent the last hour or so writing up a content calendar of LinkedIn posts. His plan was to become a minor thought leader in his space and leverage that into something or get his posts in front of the right pair of eyes that could lead to an opportunity.
The onboard Wifi allowed him to schedule his first few posts, and he felt a renewed energy at what the future could look like. Sitting back from the laptop, he opened his phone and dialled Sarah. The line didn’t even connect. He looked at his phone again and saw that he didn’t have any bars. Sometimes, the train went through these dead zones in-network coverage. He would have to try again later. He was intrigued by her message and eager to hear the update she had messaged him about.
He wondered about what had happened the previous night. It was gnawing at him, knowing that Lester had likely been alone with her in his own house. Something had kept her from answering her phone, and he could clearly imagine what —
No. Don’t derail. Focus on your tasks. Dan set his phone down and returned to his laptop. He checked his to-do list for the train. Social thought leadership posts drafted. Check. Time to move on to read the emails from his old contacts that he had reached out to. His goal was to set up Zoom calls with as many of them as he could to catch up, get a lay of the land in their industries and companies and see if there were any opportunities for him.
After another hour of writing up email responses, Dan shifted gears and started looking for new jobs. He quickly found some industry-specific job boards that weren’t in his niche and wanted to search for new roles he could pivot into. He didn’t waste his time meticulously tailoring each resume to every opportunity. He wanted to make this trip as productive as possible and get as many applications out as he could. It just felt better to do it here than in the oppressive environment of the apartment.
Dan tried his phone again. It rang but went to Sarah’s voicemail. He should be back in Middleton soon. The train was scheduled to arrive just after Sarah finished up work. He would grab a taxi from the station if he didn’t get a hold of her. Part of him wanted to arrive unannounced and see what he walked in on.
After sending out close to two dozen applications, he closed the laptop and sat back to think. He felt good. He had momentum on his side today. Now he needed to figure out a plan to get out of Lester’s stranglehold on his relationship with his wife.
***
Sarah closed her front door behind her and kicked off her heels. Her work day had gone by fast, and her feet were incredibly sore. She had avoided her office all day, instead opting to visit different departments around the hospital to catch up on long overdue check-ins with staff. These discussions quickly spiralled into the frustrations they were experiencing due to the ransomware attack.