Page 32 of Filthy Little Fix
I reach the door and open it without knocking. The ceiling light is off, and only the computer screen illuminates Nyx's desk. He is there, seated in the desk chair, facing the monitor.
He doesn't turn to me.
"Report," I demand. I need him to react, to give me something beyond that placid, tired stillness.
The swivel chair glides across the floor toward me. It stops gradually until it is facing me. Nyx leans back, tilting the chair's backrest, and looks up at me, upside down. He gives me an almost inconsequential smile, dangling a black USB stick in his hand.
"Here you go, boss," he says, his voice hoarse with fatigue. His dark circles are more prominent, but the pride is obvious.
At least, this one still looks like Nyx.
I take the USB from his fingers. He adjusts himself in the chair, turning to face me. He rests his arms on the top of the backrest and his chin on them, watching me with that smile bordering on amusement.
He's very confident. Either this USB would destroy what remained of all our systems, or he adhered to my impossible deadline.
I say nothing. I turn and leave the room—whatever is on the USB will dictate my true reaction.
I march straight to the main operations room, where Dmitry and Svetlana are already poring over new data.
"Any new developments?" Svetlana asks, without looking up.
I slam the USB stick onto the polished table. "He said he fixed it."
Dmitry looks up, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes, and then takes the USB. He plugs it into his high-security laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard, accessing the affected systems. Svetlana and I stand behind him, peeking at the screen.
He checks the reports prepared by Nyx. Detailed, in an organization that I find difficult to associate with him. All problems, access points, and vulnerabilities are properly listed and linked. Dmitry opens each of the scripts and modifications, each cluster of characters whose purpose I don't understand.
Dmitry's brow furrows more and more. He grabs his tablet, accessing real-time logs in a hurry, reviewing Nyx's files, and opens our graphs that had only plummeted in the last week.
Today and now, the red indicators are turning green. The casino payout numbers, the shipping manifests... they are stabilizing.
The bleeding stopped. In 24 hours.
That son of a bitch actually did it.
"Holy shit," Dmitry says, leaning back in his chair, almost breathless. "He... he fixed it. All access points were shutdown. All backdoors were patched. He even implemented new, stronger encryption protocols where the old ones failed." He looks at me with an admiration that is very rare for him. "Dante, this is incredible. We've been investing millions in this for weeks, and he did it in a day."
Svetlana runs her hand over her mouth, stunned. "Twenty-four hours. And you kept him locked up all this time? Why the hell didn't we use him before?"
Dmitry nods, and a rare, genuine smile breaks through his usual stoicism. "We need him, Dante. Permanently. Not just for this, for everything. We need to make him an offer, we can't let him provide services to the competition again. I'll draft an ironclad contract. We need to keep him working for us."
Dmitry is too excited, talking about contracts, about making an offer, about talking to him. He doesn't understand. He sees a tool. But Nyx is a ticking time bomb, a twisted reflection.
"He's... temperamental," I say. "He doesn't work with contracts, trust me."
Dmitry furrows his eyebrows. He knows my behavior is strange. "Temperamental how? We deal with volatile assets every day. This isn't just about the Malakovs now. It's about securing our future. A mind like that..." He looks at the screen, then back at me, with an admiration I haven't seen in him for a long time. "Do you think he needs to be...incentivizeddifferently?"
"He needs to becontrolled," I retort. I start to feel pressure in my teeth, my jaw too clenched. "He operates outside conventional frameworks. He responds to... clear directives. You're not getting it."
"I want to meet him," Svetlana says. "Properly. A genius who solves our biggest problem in 24 hours needs to be vetted. And I want to understand this 'specific approach' you're talking about."
I know Svetlana's inflexibility. She's determined. No matter what I say.
This makes me uneasy.
Dmitry, for the first time, seems to consider my words. He trusts my judgment on volatile assets, even if he doesn't completely understand my aversion to Nyx. "Alright, Dante. If you say so. But I'll still draft the preliminary contract details. Just for our records. A framework. For when he's... assimilated. And for when we understand exactly what kind of 'temperamental' we're dealing with."
Svetlana merely raises an eyebrow, saying nothing. She won't let it go. She'll find a way to meet him. I know it. Fuck.
