The woman is new, part of Carter's hiring binge, and fits the feng shui of E-wing. Six foot, voluminous roan hair. A cream suit that belongs on a mannequin rather than a real person knitting her brow, standing right where I need her not to be standing.

Before her eyes lift from the stubborn envelope clasp, I sidestep to the desk of one of the office professionals—possibly her—and grab a paper stack. Any stack. The top page reads Regional Network Opt Proposal: Giga Telecom.

It'll work.

I saunter back toward Carter's office. The woman is still finagling her clasp. I croak idly from my throat until she looks up.

"Oh. Can I—" She breaks off seeing my face. "—er, assist you with something?"

I fill my lungs with air, hoping the floor's management essence will seep its way to the bullcrap-generating region of my brain. I need a story. But what story? She didn't use my name. She does not seem awed or on-guard, the two most common responses my presence invokes here. I don't think she recognizes me.

"Sorry about the gore-fest." I touch my throbbing lump. "I'm new, from the mailroom—they had me bike halfway across town to get this for Carter. Pothole on Folsom Street one, me zero. Least I got here. Now I just need to leave this on his chair."

I wag the papers, mopping my brow.

The tall woman looks downhill at me. "I'm new as well, relatively. Ashley Thimms."

"Hiya Ashley, Zaya," I say, recycling the name of my old Harvard RA.

Ashley initiates a handshake. "You said you biked? Isn't campus sealed?"

"It is, yeah, but this Giga Telco thing is so important Carter said we could." I cup my hands around my lips. "I'm not supposed to tell anybody they let me through. Hypocrisy and all."

She accepts this without flinching, which I take as proof hypocrisy is king here on E-wing. I'm tempted to engage her further, to cultivate an ally in this rarefied enclave of the company, but my window of opportunity may be short.

I continue, "So right then, I'll just leave this on his chair."

"I can do that." Ashley offers her slim-fingered hand, palm up.

"No I'm good, thanks, you keep working that clasp." I crinkle my face apologetically. "We have this sadist down in mail? He takes pleasure in overwrapping the things till they're literally impossible to open. I report him, nothing happens."

With all the self-assuredness I can muster, I breeze past to Carter's office. I've been here before for Susan meetings. The space is showy, over-prosperous. Armless blue-velvet chairs preen. An art deco chandelier looms over a tulipwood table. He's all set for Anne Leibovitz and Vogue to show up.

I go straight for his desk. A glass top and spare, drawer-less design do me no favors: Ashley can see exactly what I'm up to, if she's hanging around to watch. I don't want to peek and risk appearing furtive.

I need a few minutes on Carter's machine. This "leave it on his chair" ruse has gotten me inside, but it won't explain me sitting here typing furiously for an extended period of time.

Hmm.

I drop my pilfered packet on Carter's chair. I watch it land, then cock my head. I gnaw my lip. I glance quizzically to the hall—confirming that yes, Ashley is watching the performance—then manufacture a few more gestures to indicate my distress.

Ashley asks what's wrong.

"Different version," I say. "Downstairs they handed Carter the Q3 proposal to compare with this—what Giga marked up—but Giga actually gave me Q4. It's all different. None of the slides match. He won't know what the hell he's looking at."

"Should you ... call Giga? Could they courier over the Q3 proposal?"

I mime walls all around us. "Can't call out. And I want no piece of another bike ride."

Ashley looks all about for solutions, wincing up the hall, patting her blazer pockets. OPs are either like this, taking up the cause of whoever's in need, or else putting every last non-bigwig petitioner in her/his place, zealously enforcing the boundaries of their duty. I'm lucky Ashley is the first kind.

"Can we print out the other version?" she asks. "The Q4?"

"That's exactly what we can do. Where's your print-station?"

She points past Susan's office.

"Great, lemme just hop on"—gesturing to Carter's machine—"and find the file."

This dents Ashley's helpfulness. As she watches my fingers slide to the CFO's keyboard, her neck straightens. "I—I really can't let you use Carter's computer."

"Oh I'll use my own credentials—see, the bossman isn't logged in." Actually he is. "See, I'm just using the terminal. His files and stuff're all secure, completely siloed."

As I'm saying them, I realize these terms are too sophisticated for a mailroom employee. Still, Ashley seems to accept the explanation. Must be the yellow-spiked hair, which is murder with hats but dandy for exuding generation-appropriate tech savvy.

I tell her I'll send Q4 to the printer as soon as I find the file. Few minutes tops.

She leaves.

I bang keys. Carter's desktop has a shortcut to the financials database, which I click. A blue/gray interface unfurls itself. Tables, charts, some cheesy speedometer gauge depicting current annual revenue versus the same period last year.

The speedometer is in the green. Dark green. Denoting "slow."

I navigate to Cashflow Dashboard, which confirms Paul's and my earlier discussion. The beginning of the year was rough; the April layoffs slashed cost but didn't improve incoming revenues; May was a mixed bag; in June, the coin came roaring in.

I drill into detail views to see what's behind the topline numbers, annoyed at these cutesy sportscar loading animations—which only bog the software down. I make a mental note to hack the analytics vendor's file structure and swap in that graphic I've seen around the internet of a turtle stroking her chin.

At any large credit or debit, I investigate. Each month shows a similarly-sized red block accounting for a hunk of cost. I click one. The sportscar materializes onscreen, tires spinning.

Yeah, look at you motoring.

Eventually the debit's name appears: CRAY XK7 DEPRECIATION. Makes sense. The Cray will probably haunt Codewise's balance sheet for another five, ten years.

I am squinting into the May report to see what changed when Ashley returns.

"I haven't seen any print-jobs come out." In case I was unclear on the laserjet's network location, she begins spelling out the ID.

"Thanks, but it's the file I can't find," I say. "I think I'm in the right directory, though. I'll shoot it over in one sec."

I hunch back to the financials hoping Ashley will go back to the print station.

She doesn't.

"You strike me as an honest person, but—" Her almond-shaped eyes pinch. "But I'm not comfortable with you being on Mr. Kotanchek's machine like this. I need to get his consent."

"Yes, do." Without cellphones, it'll take her some time to track him down. "I just saw him near Paul Bloor's office. Extension 2381."

She heads back to her workspace, the only place she can call from.

I refocus on the screen. Working two fingertips into my forehead, willing myself back to accountant mode. My brain feels shrink-wrapped. All these dollar signs are making Windows look greasy.

It's odd seeing all the projects I've led represented like this—in terms of their monetary contribution. Big healthy blocks of green from Universal Studios for my buggy dragonflies. A sickly sliver for that mind-blowing AI routing bot I wrote for Portland's department of urban planning. My level of effort and enthusiasm, I realize, bears no relation to these projects' actual value to the company.

I return to May. Okay, first two weeks ... look bad. Terrible.

The Boeing gig dropped out—that's right, I remember now, Paul and I walked them through final output at a 4/31 meeting. The joint-project with Dynamix scaled way back, the spend-level falling by 75%. We were getting paid that much to consult on basic neural-net architecture? I wonder if they got wise that half the information is available on Wikipedia.

The bosses must have been freaking. They had tried layoffs but were still bleeding. Did Codewise have some emergency line of credit? It must've been a challenge just meeting payroll, paying for the juice to pump water through Sempiternity.

What was I doing in May? Perfecting the carebnb user interface? Dreaming up a costume for Bay to Breakers? My girlfriend at the time wanted me to be verdé—she was going as molé—but I stuck with Mitch McConnell. I choose my own costumes.

On May 17th, a giant green mass appears. It occupies a full third of the screen's vertical rise, blowing away the Revenues scale. On the strength of this entry alone, May goes from unmitigated disaster to middle-of-the-road profitability.

I drag the date-range slider to June and discover two more blocks of identical size. Making June the company's best month of the year—of the last two years. Looks like these bonanza payoffs appear every other week, starting 5/17 and ending ...

Not ending.

The last one credited Tuesday.