A refined code that would, somehow, take the Haberson Map from incredible to perfect.
They just had to figure out how to do it.
Impossible or not, Felix loved every minute. He hadn’t expected to ever feel like he belonged anywhere again after the NYPL, and he certainly hadn’t expected to ever feel like his work was his passion again, but he really did. His teammates were just as obsessed with their jobs as he was, and dizzyingly brilliant: Naomi had a background in programming, and Priya in urban design and UX. When Felix, chosen for his education in cartography and geography, had been brought in to fill the last knowledge gap, he spent the first few days living in terror of not being able to pull his own weight.
He got in early, ate lunch at his computer, and left late, and barely said a word to either of them that wasn’t strictly project related. It wasn’t until the end of that first week that he finally realized how fun they were, too. During an afternoon lull, when Naomi stepped out of their sleek, metal and glass office into the equally sleek, metal and glass hallway to make a phone call to her wife, Priya scrambled over to her desk as fast as she could, and to Felix’s horror and amazement, popped off all of her keyboard keys, rearranged them into a nonsensical pattern, popped them back on, and leapt back into her chair, hissing Shhhh! dramatically at him, before Naomi returned.
They all laughed so hard at Naomi’s confusion, Felix could hardly breathe by the end.
Back at the NYPL, he could not have imagined ever playing a prank like that on any of those stuffy, pretentious academics. But at Haberson, everything was so different, and so wonderful.
Especially his boss.
William Haberson was a legend in the industry, full of contradictions that made him even more intriguing than being the head of the biggest tech company in the world already did. He was old compared to most Silicon Valley executives, but his ideas seemed to grow only more visionary every year. He employed thousands of people, but would answer any email, at any hour, from even the lowliest of interns. He’d even been the one to personally interview Felix over the phone during his hiring process all those years ago, something Felix could still hardly believe. And his company had created some of the most important innovations in the last several decades, Haberson a household name everywhere—but almost no one knew what he looked like.
The media called William reclusive, but that was a vast understatement.
According to the official company biography, when William had formed Haberson Global, he struck a deal with Ainsley Simmons, his CEO: she would be the face of the company, and he would be, essentially, a ghost. Since the very first day, Ainsley and her team had given every interview, announced every product launch, and handled every negotiation and made every business deal, freeing William to go on creating behind the scenes, his genius safe from even the slightest hint of fame.
And he guarded that anonymity fiercely. Despite being the mastermind behind a corporation worth trillions, to this very day, only Ainsley—and now Felix, Naomi, and Priya—had ever seen him in the flesh.
At first, it had seemed impossible to Felix that, somehow, no one in the company had ever been able to figure out William’s real identity, or even tried to sneak into his office on the secure floor to take his picture, but after he was hired, after he’d seen the truly incredible things they were working on, the more believable it became.
But even more than that, William had hired Felix at a time when no one else in the industry would touch him, thanks to Dr. Young, and then given him a place on a project that not only was revolutionary, but also was being used to do real good in the world. For that alone, the man had earned his loyalty forever.
“Well, I think that was our worst attempt yet.” Priya sighed, to a round of dejected chuckles.
“There’s value in every failure,” a voice behind them said then, as if on cue. “It shows us what doesn’t work, and gets us that much closer to understanding what will.”
They all looked up from their monitors to see William Haberson himself standing at the entrance to their office, thoughtfully studying the mess on the big overhead screen.