Things a Different Way {COMPLETE}

three // poe

 You know how you put together a decent outfit when you're blind? Everything is black and white. There's no way that you can fail. Matching socks can be hell though. Several times I've worn mismatching items. Sigh.

That's why I'm so embarrassed when Cameron sarcastically compliments them. I shrug it off and spin in my chair. He hasn't thought up anything for me to do yet, so I'm mostly just killing time.

"Cam." Pearls and a honeysuckle voice. It's introductory girl.

"Hello Kirsty," I say, in that way that I know melts people. Ahhh, so flirtatious. Oooh Poe! Just marry me now and you can see me in my wedding dress, oh wait. You can't see my wedding dress. I'll get one of those ones that's designed to look crinkly. Who cares? Let's get married!

"Hello Poe," She loves me. She finds my blindness oddly alluring. "I have to steal your intern."

"Aw, really? He was being so productive." Cam is one of those people who can actually meet my level of sarcasm. 

"I can see that. Sorry though, the boss has the interns all working together on the sub-code for the destruction of PIG Malware. Come on Poe," She says, resting her hand on my bicep. Great. Her nails are styled like stilettos and are sharp on the sides. I want to grumble, but that would be immature. Grummmmble.

I lean against the wall and cross my arms because I'm just that gangster. A well dressed gangster that tucks his shower-ironed shirt into his pants. Oh yeah, I'm super cool if you hadn't realized. Cooler than a possum wearing sunglasses. Well, maybe not that cool.

"All righty here, I'm going to put you guys into groups for this project. Jordan and Marco? Here you go, follow Noemi over there. And, uh, Rose and Poe you guys are with me." She can't get enough of me! "Follow me."

Rose rests her hand on my shoulder and shows me the way. You get touched a lot more when you're blind, and clean up your mind perv. Think about the last power outage. It's always like that. Reaching out for something that you can only guess is there. When someone touches you, it's just so much more reassuring. You're where you're supposed to be.

I sit in a bad chair. It's one of those plastic coated ones that you'd find in the waiting room of a doctor's office. The joys of what can only be found in a conference room. I hear whatever door we came in through shut. The an orb of dark gray in the sea of black that is my vision.

"Sorry Poe, I have a slide show. I'll read it off to you instead," Kirsty offers. Her voice could induce comas, and I don't mean because it's dull. I agree to let her sit next to me. I told you, she can't resist me.

"The PIG virus. Private Inquiries into Government. Targeting government computers, such as the ones we manufacture here. It causes no harm to the system itself, but the data it takes is irreplaceable. The virus is designed to find the files with the most security, decrypt them, and then \copy everything over into a private cloud. What we need you guys to do is create a virus that will hack their cloud, cut the files, and basically purge everything. You got that?" She spoke pretty fast, but I've gotten good at slowing stuff down for review. Almost like photographic memory, but with sound.

"Got it. I'll need a set of headphones to listen to the data, but otherwise whatever equipment you have I'll be able to use." One of the plus sides to being blind is the ability to center yourself, everything functions so much clearer in your mind. Being able to see, psh. It weighs your mind down with cobwebs in the gears. I can already see the equations scribbled out in my head.

"Alright guys, we need this room for a meeting at four, but there are some empty cubicles on the right. Work hard, this will show whether or not we look to hire you after college." I listen to her pearls rattle as she struts out of the room. She seems the type of person who would strut.

Rose leads me to the cubicle. I run my hand over the wall, the material is rough, like a bunch of tiny threads glued together. I wonder if the desk will hold my weight. Eh. It doesn't collapse or anything, so that's always a good sign. I begin to piece the bits together in my head, coming up with something substantial to offer.

"Okay, so we're supposed to create a anti-malware software." I know that. I listened to Kirsty explain it to me in her sweetie voice.

"Okay."

"Okay," she responds. This is so not a John Green novel. And don't question how I know that. I continue to sort numbers behind my eyes. It's not half as dull if you turn it into a song. Four goes here / five goes there / enter enter tab slash / boogie down with an underscore!

Voila, it's done. There's a soft noise beside me. Rose. Her breath quivers and hiccups, like she's crying.

"Hey, hey. Don't cry, are you alright?" I feel her eyes on me. I guess she's fine. The wire won't find it's place into side of my laptop. What is going on with my hair? It's dancing. No, wait. It's Rose. She's playing with the way I have it parted. Whatever.

I'm not quite sure what to make of her, she's kind of unpredictable. One minute she's crying, the next she's lost in thought, and then she's laughing. No matter how many girls I go out with, I will never understand them. I just know enough not to make them upset. That's when all hell breaks loose.

I'll admit, there are a couple of occasions when I said I'd call but had no intention of doing so... Oh well, oops.

"Rose, do you have the drive with the test software?" She doesn't respond, but I can hear her moving around. She picks up my hand unexpectedly and starts tracing something in my hand. P... H... O... N... E... D... E... A... D... Ah, clever. I could have sworn Kirsty handed it to her, because she sure as hell didn't give it to me. How can I run my program without it?

She's drumming her fingers. I don't even care if she's a nice person right now. She's doing nothing. Okay, so maybe she doesn't care about or like this job, but this is what I want and she's dragging me down. It's getting obnoxious.

"Could you stop that?" The words come out sharper than they should have. I feel everything tensing up as she continues, but slower. I've never smacked a girl before, except for maybe my cousin. I scoot closer, barely controlling the impulse to hit her.

"Could you just-" I grab her hands, the only way to quiet them. Finally, her body is still and I can continue with my work. I start typing a backup should the code I've written fail. A couple minutes in, she grabs my hand.

The drive. A half hour after I asked for it. I am so pissed, I could explode. Real spontaneous human combustion. "You found it," I force myself to say with false delight. There's so much tension in the air, it feels stale. Why isn't she doing anything? I want to scream. This is so great, such a great great way to be kicking this off. It's not until I feel my own fingernails digging into my own palm do I realize that my hands are balled into tight fists. Rose comes off the desk and I hear her walking around.

"Okay, you really need to do some of the work. It's unfair that I actually care and have to do double the work because of some grudge you seem to have against doing anything." The door slams in the distance. I don't even know how she heard that, she must be blinded with rage. Still better than being permanently blind.

Great. This whole situation is so great.

I continue to work by myself.