In Pieces

Chapter 29: A life that never was.

Just like that, Aidan was again in a body of a stranger. He still couldn't control his actions and felt more like a passenger with no rights besides watching from the sidelines. It didn't seem that the original owner even had any idea about the sudden invasion.

His name was A.D. And judging from his thoughts and memories, he was a kind and decent fellow. Albeit, a bit lazy. At this exact moment, A.D. was panicking – as far as Aidan could understand, the guy had almost screwed up an important task. Instead of working on the breach detection program, he had promised to deliver to the CEO of "Weinhardt and Sons" this morning, he spent the whole day and half the night fixing a stupid bug in his own point-and-click adventure game he wanted to present at the retro GamesCon.

He knew he was not going to win and probably wouldn't even get into the honorable mentions, but handing in a fully functional game guaranteed him a goodie bag. Nobody knew what was going to be inside the bag, but there were rumors that an out-of-stock add-on for a specific early 80's game might be included. And A.D. needed to have that. Obviously much more than he needed to keep his tiny company from going bankrupt.

As soon as he realized that it was already past 3 am, and he hadn't written a single line of code for this boring detection nonsense, all he could do was curse himself.

When he and a couple of his college friends decided to start their own software company, it was not supposed to be a long-term thing - just something to finance their studies and get some experience. But little by little, this enterprise started bringing in some real cash. A.D. had to admit to himself that he was more than ready to whore himself out for the money. And all it brought with it - namely, collectibles, retro games, out-of-print guide books, good quality merch, and tickets to all the conventions he always dreamed to attend.

Thus, fucking up an important "Weinhardt and Sons" project would not be ideal. Especially with the European GamesCon coming up, which was going to cost a pretty penny.

So, the night before, A.D. sighed and got to work. As with almost everything in his life that was not related to his specific field of interest, he did the bare minimum. Aidan suddenly felt that he and A.D. did have a couple of things in common.

At 7.30 in the morning, A.D. had one of the most horribly written programs on his hands - it lacked any kind of structure, he didn't bother to leave any meaningful comments for future developers and it looked like a barely trained blind monkey wrote most of the functions. But it did technically work.

At least he had something to present.

A.D. crossed his fingers, hoping that it would not be too obvious, that he was handing in a total load of crap. He packed up the flash drive and ran out of the apartment, feeling like he needed a big cup of coffee.

The car with the tinted windows took him to a fancy hotel. And as he stepped into the room on the top floor, he saw a familiar figure sitting at the desk. The man was wearing a tailored suit, his blonde hair was meticulously combed back, and his dark blue eyes expressed bottomless boredom.

"Kai? Is that you?" Aidan wanted to ask, but A.D. didn't recognize the man at all, so he just waved awkwardly and said "hi".

The blond man looked him up and down, and Aidan felt that A.D. was slightly self-conscious about his old hoodie with a silly dog on it. Aidan couldn't help but laugh – he also always felt underdressed next to that dandy.

"Do you have the program for me?" the man finally broke the silence.

"Yes, of course, here you go," A.D handed him the flash drive, his fingers slightly shivering.

The man suddenly took a hold of his hand. "Are you cold?"

A.D. shook his head. Aidan expected to feel uncomfortable from the touch, but to his surprise, he felt nothing. He guessed A.D. had no issues in this department. Lucky guy.