It’s afternoon, the next day. The sunlight is streaming into my kitchen, where I’ve just lunched on a steak and a huge pile of potatoes. I worked out this morning, going beyond my normal max, so I know I’ve got to carbo load and get in my protein if I want to keep the gains going.

Lily fell asleep right after we fucked, and I drove her back this morning, to a beat up old house that she shares with a thousand roommates or something. She was still sleepy in the car ride back. We kissed and I said we should meet up again today.

Meanwhile, my cock still grows instantly hard at the mere thought of her.

She was incredible.

Except for a certain innocence about her, I would have never guessed she was a virgin. She was drawn to me, doing everything instinctually, sinking her mouth around my cock, for instance.

It wasn’t exactly slow like I’d promised myself, but it was fucking hot.

But there’s business to take care of today. There are things to do. I can’t be thinking about a woman all day, no matter how fucking sexy she is, no matter how hard she still makes my cock, just thinking about her.

I make a few phone calls, making sure that the new office is ready. Sounds like everything is set up.

I don’t bother calling Johnny, the black hat hacker, since I’ve gotten everything I need from him.

I grab another laptop and load up the information I need: the Simmons algorithm along with the unpublished research paper that Johnny delivered.

Lily said she was onto something, and not to insult her intelligence, but I’ve been in this game for years, and if she can find it, then I can too.

But an hour later, and a couple cups of strong coffee later, I haven’t found anything that she was talking about. Maybe she was mistaken.

But maybe she’s right. Sometimes it takes another programmer with a different mentality to find something you can’t. I may be a good programmer, but I’m not block headed enough to think that I can see everything, or find every solution. Some people are, and that’s what gets them into trouble.

I don’t regret, however, fucking her, feeling her sweet pussy gripping my cock as I plunged into her.

My phone rings. It’s Sheila, the secretary who’s now working as the de facto office set up person.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Hudson,” she says, nervous.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I wanted to let you know that we’ve gotten the office set up. The crews were here in the morning and the cubicles and phones and computers and everything were delivered… everything’s fine.”

I check my watch, turning my wrist slightly.

“Sounds good.” I paid good money for everything to be set up as quickly as possible, so that business can go on as normal. I don’t see the point in waiting around while the business flounders—that’s money that could be coming in.

“The thing is, Mr. Hudson, is that there aren’t any sales.”

“Well…” I say, dumbfounded for a moment. “How often do you expect sales?”

I realize now I don’t have a good idea of how much we’re actually selling or at what frequency.

“Usually there are some calls, at least… But today, there’s absolutely nothing.”

“Maybe it’s just a problem with the phones,” I say. “Check everything. Get a couple good people to do some tests and make sure everyone has our correct contact information… Although that all should be the same.”

“OK, Mr. Hudson.”

I hang up the phone just in time for it to ring again.

This time it’s Marty.

I groan. I don’t need to talk to him right now. He’s just going to want to tell me about some women he fucked at the beach or something.

“Marty, what’s up?”

“We’ve got to talk, Ryan,” he says. “Can you meet me at Lugino’s for lunch?”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“This is important, Ryan.” His voice sounds anxious. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him like this before. There’s a rare urgency in his voice.

“I don’t have time to listen to you brag about your beach trip,” I say.

“We’ve got to talk about your business.”

“Since when do you want to talk about business? I thought this was just a hobby for you.”

“I’ll admit that… well, I do feel a certain responsibility when things are going… well, poorly.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Marty? Could my business really be doing that horribly that you’re suddenly concerned about your own reputation?”

“Basically,” says Marty.

Shit, then it must be really bad.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” I say, hanging up the phone, not even waiting for a reply.

I drop what I’m doing and race over to the restaurant, one of these fancy lunch places that suits Marty’s taste. I doubt he knows of any other types of restaurants.

The waiter takes my order for a water and I pull out my phone to wait.

A few minutes later, Marty arrives. His suit is rumpled and his hair is messy and plastered down onto his forehead with sweat.

“What the hell happened to you?” I say.

“Don’t worry about that,” says Marty. “We’ve got a big problem.”

“An image problem or something? What? Did I run over some old lady and not even notice? You know, I paid her for the damages, plus a whole lot extra. She’s probably wheeling around in the Rolls Royce equivalent of a wheelchair.”

Marty makes a grimace instead of laughing. “No one’s buying your algorithm,” he says.

Something clicks… The phone call with Sheila earlier. She was saying there weren’t any calls coming through, but I figured it was just something to do with the office wiring or something.

“Yeah?”

“Seriously,” says Marty.

“But the Simmons algo isn’t even out yet. What are they using in the meantime?”

“That’s the thing,” says Marty. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard. His algorithm is already incorporated into a fully functioning enterprise system… it’s ready to go… boom, just like that.”

“What the fuck?”

I grab my phone again and hit the standard tech websites. They’re not saying anything about it, but that makes sense, since they tend to just focus on personal gadgetry. But I heard over to another site, one that focuses more on business tech…

…and there it is, staring me in the face.

I check this site almost every day, but somehow I must have missed it.

“Simmons’s Algorithm Packaged and Ready to Run,” reads the headline.

“Fuck,” I say. “How did they pull this off?”

“There’s something else,” says Marty, handing me his phone.

There’s an article with a picture of me at the top.

The headline reads, “Douchebag Billionaire Voted Douchiest in…”

I stop reading and hand the phone back to him.

“So?” I say.

“So?” says Marty. “This is huge. It’s not just this site. You’re everywhere. They’ve got all this dirt on you from over the years. Remember that time that you…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I get the idea. You don’t need to give me the whole history.”

“And that time that you fucked that waitress right on the table in the corner of the restaurant, right before the dinner rush…”

I wave away his words with my hand. That’s all ancient history at this point.

“This is a coordinated attack,” he says. “This is something they’ve been planning. They got all the articles out on the same day… And they’re all up to date and accurate.”

“It’s slander,” I say. “Let’s sue them.”

“It’s not slander if it’s true, and they’ve done their homework… honestly, I’m impressed… an incredible PR team.”

“Why do you care so much about this?” I say. “It’s just your own reputation, right? But when have you cared about that?”

“Uh,” says Marty, pulling at his necktie uncomfortably. It’s damp from his sweat. “I may be having a personal financial crisis.”

“Dad cut you off?”

“Something like that. I don’t want to get into details.”

“All I care about is whether you can get me out of this,” I say. “Or I’m finding someone new who can handle it properly.”

“Come on, man, we’re old friends.”

I just stare at him. “I need you to seriously do your fucking job,” I say, coldly.

“No problem,” says Marty, eager to agree with me. “I’m already on it. I even made a visit to the office…”

“You actually have an office?”

“Of course,” says Marty, trying to play it cool. But he knows too damn well that he’s been bragging to me about spending all his time at the beach with models.

“I need to work on the coding side of things. You’re going to have to handle this bullshit PR stuff. I need you to clean up my image so that my new product can destroy Simmons’s.”

“But do you have a new product?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I say.