Chapter Text
“Life for you is just one big fucking party, isn’t it?” Darko spoke sharply through the eye of the flute as he sipped his champagne.
“Well I, for one, think a little celebration is in order. Don’t you?”
“I think we should not be counting our chickens before they hatch.”
“The tape is—” Nigel still uncharacteristically lowered his voice when it came to the topic of, “There is no fucking tape. And there are no fucking witnesses. It’s over.”
“Is it, now?”
“We’re not in Romania anymore, Dorothy. I think we are going to be alright.”
“With all due respect Nigel, I don’t fucking trust you. Not completely anyway.”
“I don’t blame you,” Nigel said with a shrug, drinking the rest of his champagne without a care in the world.
—
“Hello, my name is Adam. Nice to meet you.” He awkwardly held out his hand to be shaken. “I’m here to set up your network.”
Though the introduction was rehearsed and robotic, the man’s eyes were genuine.
Nigel stared Adam up and down with great curiosity before finally moving aside to allow him entry.
Then he led them into the living room, past huge sprawling windows that showed off a nearly 360 degree perspective of the city.
“One of the best views in New York,” Nigel bragged offhandedly.
“Are you sure about that?”
Adam peered out of the large windows only to see other buildings and the busy streets below them. He liked people-watching from his own apartment but Nigel’s penthouse was located in a crowded area with less people and more gray structures. The neighborhood was expensive and far fancier than Adam’s, but it somehow had less character.
Central Park South, renowned for its elusive “Billionaire’s Row,” was evident through its bouquet of tall, lifeless skyscrapers shooting up into the atmosphere like an affront to humanity. Adam likened the environment to a gilded cage — all of the illusions of luxury cemented in shades of concrete.
“What?” Nigel spat, clearly bothered by Adam’s dissent.
“I don’t know. The space feels cold.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion. I just need you to wire the place.”
“Uh, yeah. I can do that.”
Nigel had hired Adam to install a few servers on his new property, getting the contact information from Darko.
“This is where I’ll be holding my business meetings, mostly, so it doesn’t need to feel like anything. It just needs to look nice and sound good.”
“You don’t have furniture yet,” Adam observed.
“For your fucking information, I just moved in yesterday. However, I do apologize for not having everything tailored to your specific tastes.”
“Oh, right.” Adam blushed and busied himself by staring at the bland white walls.
Nigel suddenly felt a tinge of self-consciousness tugging at him. “If you must know, I have a fucking designer and all that. After I’m done with this place, it’s going to look like Mozart’s cocaine palace.”
Adam’s eyes opened like the blinds on a window. “I don’t know what that, uh, looks like.”
“Just get to work and mind your own fucking business.”
Nigel’s gaze never faltered.
“Are you going to watch me the entire time?”
“What do you fucking think? I don’t know who the fuck you are and you’re going to be alone with thousands of dollars worth of equipment.”
“It’s just that I get nervous around other people—”
“Better fucking get used to it.”
But after realizing that Adam wasn’t going to progress beyond rustling with his toolkit in Nigel’s company, he walked away to the kitchen to make himself a drink.
It was true. Nigel didn’t have any furniture yet, besides his desk and a fridge, but there was a box of liquor and a set of glasses on the counter.
“Could I offer you something to drink, Adam?”
“Alcohol? While I’m working?”
Nigel snorted. “This isn’t a traditional job and we’re both fucking adults aren’t we?”
Adam considered it for a moment, and then, “Yeah. Okay, I’ll have one. One drink.”
“Good choice. Are you a vodka man, Adam?”
“Sure.”
At least Nigel had the foresight to buy a fridge, if only for the ice cubes. He threw a few together inside two glasses with vodka, soda water, and a dash of lime juice, before returning to the room with his offerings.
To his surprise, Adam received the drink from Nigel and used his palm as strainer so he could swallow the liquid in two gulps. He then wiped his lips and handed the cup back to Nigel; face flushed.
“Thank you.”
Nigel wasn’t quite sure how to react. “Do you want another one?”
“No, one is enough. I needed something to calm me down because you said you were going to watch me and that made me nervous.”
Nigel’s brows furrowed. “I paid a lot of money for this equipment so I want to make sure you keep your word, especially with how fucking specific you were about the parts.”
Adam’s expression thickened. “Did you buy everything on the list that I sent you?”
“Someone who works for me did. And when I said there was no budget, I didn’t mean that fucking literally.”
“For the perimeters you requested, those were the best options available.”
“I don’t need to go to the fucking moon, Adam. All I need is reliability with a touch of showmanship to impress the investors. You know, make it look nice.”
“It will look very nice and function smoothly if you followed my exact instructions,” Adam stated matter-of-factly, walking over to inspect the dozens of boxes in the room so he could start organizing them into sections.
As he watched Adam unpack the server racks, Nigel tapped a finger under his chin thoughtfully.
“Curiosity has gotten the best of me — how the fuck did you and Darko cross each other’s paths?”
“I put in eighty-seven applications and letters of inquiry online and he was the only one who returned my call.”
Nothing more, nothing less.
Nigel clicked his tongue. “I see. I believe he said you were an electronic engineer or some shit like that, right?”
“I’m sorry,” Adam started gently, “I’m not trying to be rude, but could you please not talk to me while I’m working? It’s hard for me to concentrate and engage in a conversation at the same time, and I don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“Fuck. Fine, have it your fucking way.”
Instead of answering, Adam moved past him and went back to taking inventory. Nigel had to admit he respected the dedication to his work, even if it was at the cost of community.
“I guess I’ll be out here working on shit too, then.”
Nigel took out his phone and waved it in Adam’s face almost challengingly before stomping away. He did indeed have a lot of work to do, but Nigel knew he wasn’t actually going to get anything done.
Many hours later, when Nigel was finally bored of scrolling through his phone and yelling at various people, he stopped to listen to the tinkering coming from the server room. Wondering what Adam was doing, he followed the industrial sounds to the back of the apartment and knocked on the wall with his knuckles.
“How is everything going in here?”
Adam was sitting in a corner of the room with several server racks that he’d constructed nearly blocking him in, accompanied by a litany of screws, nuts, and bolts scattered across the floor.
“Everything is going according to plan so you don’t have to worry.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“A little,” Adam corrected, tilting his head.
“Well, maybe. It’s hard to not feel that way when this room looks like the sight of an explosion.”
“My brain works differently than others.”
“Clearly.”
When Adam stopped working and frowned, Nigel quickly added, “I meant that in a good way. You’re smart, like a fucking human computer. Always clicking, always thinking. Anyway, are you hungry? I was going to order some dinner.”
His face lifted. “No thank you.”
“Okay, whatever. Since it’s getting late, you can go home and finish this tomorrow.”
Adam nodded as he started putting away his tools and tidying up the room. Once he finished, Adam held out his hand again for Nigel.
“Goodbye, Nigel.”
“Likewise, darling.” Nigel shook Adam’s hand with a fanged grin on his face.
Adam turned around and stood silently in front of the door for what seemed like forever, finally prompting Nigel to inquire, “Forget something?”
“No. It’s uh…” Adam tried to conjure the words as he rubbed at his throbbing temples. “You’re a stranger, this is a new environment, and I just drank alcohol. I don’t think I have the energy to take the bus right now.”
“Well, I could give you a ride home if you’d like. It would be my pleasure.”
Adam shook his head. “I have certain accommodations so I can call myself a ride and text the driver if you let me borrow your phone. Mine just ran out of battery.”
Nigel shrugged and gave his phone to Adam. “Alright then, I’m going to take a piss.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as he heard the door close, Adam took an SD card out of his pocket and swapped it with Nigel’s. He then booted up in recovery mode and after installing a program and activating it, restarted the device and returned the cards to their rightful places.
—
An act of safety; security theatre to placate his paranoia.
Adam tucked himself into bed and performed a little due diligence on Nigel with his laptop.
From what he could find, it seemed Nigel was a transporter of drugs and weapons who laundered money through the strip clubs he and Darko owned. A career criminal with a checkered past, though no worse than his ex-girlfriend’s father who cooked the books for his own personal gain.
Adam also found some interesting messages shared between him and Darko.