Olivia held his gaze.
Then she reached for a blank sheet of paper from the nearby desk, wrote a figure, and turned it toward him.
Andrew stared at it.
It was several times what he had asked.
“I’m not taking that.”
“Yes, you are.”
“For two hours?”
“For solving a critical systems failure two specialist companies failed to diagnose, preserving evidence of a hidden configuration dependency, restoring access controls, and preventing me from destroying the evidence while trying to repair it.”
Andrew almost objected again.
Olivia added, “You spent five years letting other people decide what your work was worth.
I’m paying for the work I just watched you do.”
The sentence unsettled him more than the money.
He looked away.
On the walk back across the street, the rain had softened to a mist.
Mrs.
Lane was leaving his porch as Andrew approached.
Through the front window he could see Zoe asleep sideways on the couch with her book resting open against her chest.
Andrew thanked his neighbor, carried his daughter to bed and tucked the blanket under her chin.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Did you fix the rich lady’s house?” she whispered.
“It’s working.”
Zoe smiled sleepily.
“I told her.”
Andrew sat beside her after she fell asleep again.
For years he had treated the loss of his engineering career like a room he was safest never entering.
Tonight he had walked into that room without meaning to.
Nothing terrible had happened.
He had not frozen.
He had not forgotten everything.
The part of him Halcyon had convinced him was finished had been waiting exactly where he left it.
The next morning Olivia knocked again.
This time there was no rain.
Andrew opened the door holding a mug of coffee.
“The system failed again?”
“No.”
She carried a folder.
Andrew’s shoulders tightened automatically.
Folders had not brought him much good in life.
Olivia noticed.
“This one isn’t a termination notice.”
He said nothing.
She handed it to him.
Inside was a written consulting agreement from Harmon Capital Partners for Andrew to conduct an independent systems review of Olivia’s property and several related building-control installations under the company’s responsibility.
The rate was professional.
The scope was defined.
His title on the page was not handyman.
It was systems consultant.
Andrew read the first page twice.
“Why?”
“Because last night I watched two expensive service reports become irrelevant in twenty minutes.”
“That doesn’t make me a consultant.”
“No.
Your judgment does.”
He closed the folder.
“What about Halcyon?”
Olivia’s expression became more careful.
