Alex felt like pulling his hair out. This wasn't as simple as he'd hoped. Coercion was something that had to be sustained. It was why when he got an assignment he worked on it until the goal was accomplished, but he couldn't do that in his search for information on Tristan. It could take up to half an hour to convince a node to give him access to it's routing information.

    At most he got ten minutes between projects. Then there was his lunch time, but he shouldn't be at his station during that time, if one of the supervisor saw him there, he would investigate, and if Alex wasn't finishing up an assigned project, he would be reported. Then they'd find out he was illegally coercing outside systems and he would be in deep trouble. He might end up back in that room.

    So he had to come up with a way to insert command lines in the node in a way they wouldn't be detected, or altered by that system's health regulating processes. It took him four days to come up with something he thought might work. A day to find a node that was sufficiently minor no alarms would ring if his tampering was detected, then two more to practice until he was confident he could pull it off on the major nodes his information hunt would take him to.

    Two weeks later, he was still on the trail, and he was starting to suspect he was dealing with a program and not a person. It was too good at staying one step ahead of him, the scrubbing was too clean, and too identical. If he was up against another coercionist the pieces left behind would vary, maybe enough he could reconstruct the information he was chasing.

    He was at the point where he considered using a more direct approach, a brute force one. That would get him caught, but maybe he'd find out what was being kept from him. He decided to wait a few days. he had to be better than that program, it was just a question of figuring out how it thought and using that against it.

    "Mister Crimson."

    Alex froze. He was in the middle of forcing another node to tell him where the program had gone to. How long had he been at it? He glanced at the bottom corner of his screen. his assigned project was waiting there, blinking green. It was ready for him to start on it. As he watched it turned yellow. Now he was noticeably late starting.

    He forced himself to stay calm, or at least look calm. he was sweating as he turned. The man was in a brown suit, very wide shoulder. He didn't look like any of the supervisors on this floor. He looked like someone used to violence.

    "Y- yes?" Alex's voice cracked. 

    "Mister Karson wishes to see you."

    Alex had no idea who that was, but he knew better than to resist. Someone had noticed what he'd done. This was it, at best he was out of a job, at worst....

    When the elevator went up, instead of down, he breathed easier. At least he wasn't going to be imprisoned again. When they went above the twentieth floor he frowned. They were going to the executive levels.

    he'd never set foot there. He'd never gone above the eighth floor. He might be in deeper than he thought. Executives didn't deal with menial folks like him. They were going to turn him over to the law; that would be the only reason to come this high, one of the lawyers was going to force him to confess to what he'd done.

    The elevator stopped, and Alex couldn't move. The were on the top floor. As far as he knew there was only one person on that floor. The company president.

    The man led him through a corridor without doors. The only one was at the end, and as he got closer, he saw the name on it. Emerill Karson, President.

    The door slid open to a reception area. The woman behind the desk nodded and the man left. Alex stood there, wanting very badly to leave too.

    "He's expecting you, Mister Crimson, please go in."

    Alex straightened his shirt before crossing the reception. The door opened as he stepped to it and he entered the office. The door closed behind him.

    "You wanted to see me, sir?" His voice didn't crack, much to his surprise, but it was strained. The office was large, as he expected it would be for such a powerful man. The back wall had shelves with various items Alex didn't recognize, the few he did were rocks,but that's all he could tell, rocks.

    The man behind the desk was the one who shook his hand an welcomed him back. He now wore a white suit and studied Alex. He looked much more imposing now then the previous time, Alex felt. He held his life in his hand, that was why.	

    But why was he the one to do this? Firing someone, even turning him over to the law wasn't his job.

    "Please sit down," the man said, indicating the one chair on this side of the desk.

    Alex did what he was told, what other choice did he have? You didn't disobey the company president. Hell, you didn't normally meet him, and now he'd done it twice. If not for the trouble he was in, he'd be a star among his coworkers.

    "First off, Mister Crimson," His voice was deeper than Alex remembered, gruffer. "I'd like to know how you've been doing since coming back to work."

    Alex stammered. He hadn't expected the question. the only question he'd expected was for him to justify what he'd done, which he couldn't.

    "I'm okay," Alex said. not trusting himself to say more.

    His emotions were conflicted about the company. He was grateful to still have a job, but he was angry they'd thought he could have been in league with Tristan.

    "Everyone has been treating you well?"

    "Yes sir. After all, they just think I was in the hospital." The sarcasm dripped off his tone.

    The president squirmed. which surprised Alex, but also pleased him. "I'm glad no one has caused you trouble, and please, call me Emerill."

    Alex startled. first name basis? What was going on? "Alright, S- Emerill."

    The man smiled, it was a pained smile. He sighed. "I want to apologize for how you were treated. You should never have been treated like a criminal. I know this isn't going to change what happened to you, but the people responsible have been punished. How they treated you his horrible. The company is here to look after its employee, not incarcerate them. We're suppose to be a family."

    Alex had believe that, at one time. But he no longer felt like he was part of this family. He felt watched, observed, not cared for or nurtured.

     When he spoke he was surprise his tone was civil. "Thank you, sir, but why am I here?" When he'd entered, he'd been certain why he was here, but the apology didn't fit those expectations. "I mean, I do appreciate the concern, but you're the president, you have better things to do than see to my hurt feelings."

    Alex thought he saw pain on the man's face, but before he could be sure it was neutral again.

    "Mister Cr- Alexander, I don't want to be the type of president who is ever too busy to make sure any of his employees are being cared for." He sighed. "Which is why I wish you'd come to me. It's been brought to my attention you've been using company resources to illegally coerce outside systems."

    Alex looked away. There it was, now he was going to find out what his punishment was.

    "Don't you have anything to say?" The tone was as sharp as Alex expected.

    What could he say? What he'd done was illegal. he'd known it was, he couldn't claim ignorance, he got regular refresher courses and they all came with reminder that coercion without company approval was a major offense. Alex looked at this man, the president of the company that had imprisoned him, treated him like a criminal, and he thought about lying.

    He didn't. Alex didn't want to be that kind of man. He was angry, but this man hadn't done any of it. He'd taken over the position after he'd been imprisoned. For all Alex knew, he'd ordered his release. And the way Emerill was looking at him, there was sorrow in those eyes, not sterness.

    "I'm sorry sir. I had to find out more. I need to understand him, to figure out why he did what he did to me, how he could do it. I tried with my system, but there's nothing on the open net, it's been scraped cleaned. I have to know. I thought with the company's system I'd be able to find what I needed." Alex slumped in his chair. "I couldn't find anything." 

    "This is about Tristan, isn't it?"

    Alex nodded. "I've been accused of being his accomplice, when in reality he used me. He made me fall in love with Jack. I thought that I could understand how with more information."

    "Do you understand the kind of danger you put the company in?"

    "Yes sir." Alex looked at the floor. "I'm sorry."

    They were silent for a time, then Emerill slid a data chip across his desk.

    "What is it?" Alex asked.

    "It's what you've been looking for. All the information on the mercenary and criminal named Tristan."

    Alex couldn't believe it, no, he wouldn't believe it. "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

    "Because you are an employee who was wronged by my company. I owe you reparation. Before this incident you were a valued worker, and I want you to continue working here, but I can't afford to have you put my company at risk. If you take this chip, I want your promise that you will cease doing unauthorized coercion."

    Alex disbelief fought to remain. He'd been certain his job would be gone, maybe even his freedom, for what he'd done. Now, instead, the answers were within his reach. he searched Emerill's face. Not that he was any good at reading people, but he thought he was sincere.

    Alex reached for the chip.

    "Alexander, are you certain you want to see what is on that chip? He hurt you, but that's the least of what he has done in his criminal career. What is in here isn't pretty. It's all the horrible things Tristan has done. You want to get to know him, but if you do, you will not be the same."

    His finger was on the chip. How badly did he want to know?

    He took the chip. Very badly.

    "You have my word. From now on I'll only do what I'm authorized to do." He looked at the chip. "Thank you sir. You have no idea what this means to me."

    Emerill  looked at him, the sadness more profound. "Alexander, take your time with this. Don't worry about coming to work. Focus on coming to terms with what was done to you. I'll take care of your apartment, I'll make sure you can afford food. Take care of yourself and come back to us when you're ready."

    Alex nodded. he didn't understand why the president was doing this. This was more than he had to because he'd been wronged by the company. He didn't press, he had what he wanted, he didn't want to risk losing it by probing.

    "Thank you sir." Alex stood, and after a moment extended his hand. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take you up on that right now, and go home."

    Emerill shook his hand. "Be careful, Alexander."