Page 12 of Sparks Fly
“Interesting,” she said. “I think let’s do it based on location, starting with New York, of course. Though don’t crowdsource it. We’ve been getting some backlash for that lately. Come up with your own places, and maybe ask around the office if others have ideas, too. We can see how this one does and then you could do other cities if it succeeds. Sound good?”
“Great,” Stella said, beaming. It wasn’t a personal essay per se, but it was personal, and maybe she could weave her own experience into the post as well. Without mentioning Max by name, of course.
Melanie glanced around the room. “Anyone else?”
The small room fell quiet, and Stella looked at Effie, who was still working on her post, clearly paying no mind to what was being said. Stella rolled her eyes. She obviously hadn’tneeded Effie’s support, but if she had, Effie would’ve been no help at all.
Melanie let the silence hang for a moment before clapping her hands and jumping to her feet.
“Alrighty then, meeting dismissed,” she said. “Fellows, don’t forget you have quiz training this afternoon at three. Everyone else, don’t forget about the all-hands at four. I expect you all to at least look up from your computers when Miles speaks.”
Melanie gave a pointed look to Effie, who either ignored it or simply could not feel the glare. Either way, Melanie rolled her eyes and then she was gone. Everyone else was standing to leave, and Stella had to nudge Effie in the shoulder before she finally noticed the meeting was done.
“Good job,” Effie said.
Stella raised a brow at her as they stepped out of the meeting room.
“Did you even hear what I said?”
“Yes, virginity and where to lose it,” Effie said. She smirked at what Stella presumed was a look of surprise on her face. “I can multitask, you know.”
Stella chuckled. “Apparently so.”
Stella could make fun of Effie’s singular focus, but the truth of the matter was, when Stella got hooked on an idea, she was the same way.
Excited about her new post, the rest of her day flew by in a blur, and by the time four p.m. rolled around, she’d completely forgotten about their big meeting happening at theend of the day. This was probably why it took her a couple blinks to realize what she was seeing.
There, in the middle of the office, at the demarcation line between Spark News and Yellow Sparks proper, stood her CEO, Miles.
And Max.
Eight
At first, Max didn’t see Cherry.
He was too busy trying to keep a straight face and not roll his eyes while Miles gave a flowery speech about how Yellow Sparks was a family that was about to grow. If this was AIX and Max was introducing a new partnership to his employees, Max would simply come right out with it.
“Good afternoon,” he’d say. “I’m excited to introduce a brand-new project that we’ll be doing in partnership with Yellow Sparks.”
Simple, straightforward, and to the point. It was, in fact, exactly what he’d said to the group of engineers he’d pulled to create what his brother insisted would be called Sparky, the new AI assistant for Yellow Sparks.
Despite a name that made their tech sound like a dog on a sitcom, Max had to say he was proud of what his team and his brother were able to create. AIX had already been working on a similar text-based system, but Max hadn’t been prioritizingit because they were having much more success creating voice-recognition tools and no one was able to compete with ChatGPT at the moment anyway. But when Miles asked if it was possible to use AI to increase Yellow Sparks’ writers’ output by taking their ideas and creating the content for them, cutting down on their writing time, Max liked the challenge of it.
It took work to get Sparky to understand the Yellow Sparks voice and then differentiate when it was making a list or quiz. Currently, that was all it could do. Max told Miles that while the AI could write an essay based on what someone put into it, it would take a lot of input from the writer, because their personal stories weren’t something Sparky could gather from the internet.
“Bringing Sparky into the Yellow Sparks family,” Miles was saying now, “is my own family! My flesh and blood. My big brother, Max!”
Miles started clapping, and a few people half-heartedly joined him, snapping Max out of his thoughts. This was his cue, but as he opened his mouth to give his prepared speech, he looked over and saw her.
Cherry.
He did a double take. She looked different. Her face was completely bare of any makeup, and she was, of course, wearing far more clothes than she’d had on the last time he saw her. But those were the same soft lips he’d kissed, and when her mouth parted slightly, perhaps in a gasp although he couldn’t hear it, he was sure it was her.
But what was she doing here of all places?
“Max.”
It looked like Cherry was saying his name, but it was Miles who elbowed him in the side.
