She looked over her small audience of middle-aged, paunched, pig-skinned, golf-shirted white males. A wave of sheer terror washed over her.

Laurel was not used to public speaking. In fact, she loathed it, like any other self-respecting computer nerd. Give her a book, a painting easel, or a computer screen to hide behind, and Laurel would be as happy as ever. If being social was absolutely necessary, then maybe it could be an intimate discussion of Kierkegaard over coffee. But please, for the love of God, don’t give her an audience of blank stares in a windowless conference room halfway up the AIDA’s twenty-four-floor high-rise headquarters.

She supposed there was some good news. Most of these blank faces were being stuffed with food, a large portion of the crowd still congregating around the food table at the back of the room. The silver trays of segmented submarine sandwiches were a popular attraction. Apparently much more popular than whatever Laurel had to say, this babbling, stuttering, sweating mess at the front of the room.

“ . . .but then, of course, uh . . . the stronger the encryption, the slower the access. The data access.”

Despite her growing nausea, she envied the hungry crowd at the back. How lucky they were to be eating and not talking, to be far away from the center stage, to be doing anything but listening to her crash and burn. However, the people in the chairs—those too polite to pull out their smartphones like half the room—were the unluckiest of all. They were stuck in this situation almost as badly as Laurel. Almost.

“. . . and you can tell you’re a . . . that it’s a secure protocol, like TLS, when you see the S at the end of the htttp–”

Fuck, that was one ‘t’ too many . . .

“Anyway . . . So yeah, and you’ll also see a padlock. A padlock symbol. In the address bar.”

It took every last bit of energy, just grinding it out and getting her speech over with. One of the stipulations for heading the project was that she’d cover the client presentations. And for some reason, at the time, and in the comfortable surroundings of her office, she assumed that she could pull it off. For some reason, she’d imagined the whole thing to be a lot less formal. Just like a casual chat, something almost fun.

Fun?

She also wasn’t expecting Abe Hudson’s insinuations of AIDA’s corruption. She looked through the audience. Which of the bored faces were involved in whatever scandal he’d been so worried about? Could she see it? The evil percolating just beneath the surface?

Who was involved with what?

“Each time through a rather, um, a rather elaborate process . . .”

And what the hell was Abe even talking about?

“. . .browser sends out a public key, and a certificate, and checks three things . . .”

Three things . . .

And she was stuck.

The silence of the room overwhelmed her. There was this thick, oppressive force to it, a weight so heavy that–

Three things . . .

She looked around, searching for an answer. Over at the food tray, the eaters stopped chewing. Their little private conversations had ended, and now their eyes were on Laurel, to see what the hell was wrong with this chick, to see how much of an idiot she was.

Three things?

She knew this. What the fuck?!

“Um, excuse me . . .” She felt the sweat in her hair, the warmth of it, how its slow beads might finally crest her forehead at any minute. And then her heartbeat . . .

If given the chance, Laurel might have sold her soul for one measly cue card. Just one little scrap of information. A single word to jog her memory. And then she realized that she held a small piece of plastic in her hand, a remote control for the forgotten PowerPoint presentation that had been projected against the wall. It was an abandoned slide-show that had stopped sliding five minutes ago.

Laurel spun around to face the screen, and with her remote, speed-clicked through four slides. And then finally, a gift from the gods. Her cue card appeared.

“So, three things. Is the certificate from a trusted source? Is it currently valid? And does it have a relationship history with its origin site?”

Reading off the screen was so much easier. And as a plus, her back could be turned, hiding her face and how it was marred with embarrassment. Laurel clicked for the next slide, reading that, too, while pretending to be anywhere but the front of a conference room. Anything other than a shitty presenter. It was so much easier that way. She could even show off a little, taking a few little peeks back at the audience. But only just short little peeks, lest the whole thing go up in flames again. Such was her tightrope across the abyss.

The most horrible thing, though, was that she’d have to practice up and get good at this. That there were many more presentations in her future—that is, if she survived this one.

She could . . .

She would.

But just when she thought she had, it was time for Q&A.

Laurel froze up just thinking about it, her throat squeezing like a flattened straw and almost completely closing each time the moderator asked his crowd, “Anyone? Does anyone have any questions?”

Heads were moving again, the audience checking itself. Who would it be? Who would raise a hand?

“Anyone? Any questions at all for Miss Laurel?”

The room stayed quiet. And still, no hands.

And she relaxed a little.