“It is a bit strange.” My eyes drifted out the window, following a helicopter as it flew across the river. “I’ve worked here for four years and I’ve never been called to your office before.”
“Well, there’s never been a reason to speak with you until now. In short, I’m very interested in what you’ve been doing with JerkAlert.”
I gripped the arms of my chair, afraid I might fall out, since Vijay’s drab brown office seemed to be tilting onto its side.
Maybe I’d misheard. “Excuse me?”
“Your website. JerkAlert.”
Okay, I hadn’t misheard.
In that case, maybe I could just play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb, Melanie,” Bob said. “We’ve got all the logs. We know what you’ve been up to.”
“Logs?”
“Do you think we can’t track everything you do on our computers?” Vijay said.
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant. I created JerkAlert at home, on my personal laptop. But, of course, I had logged in to the admin dashboard from work a lot to check up on stats. And there was all that time I’d spent tweaking the existing code to account for performance problems.
God, I was an idiot.
“After you started slacking off,” Bob said, “I decided to start monitoring your web activity. I also installed a keylogger on your system to see exactly what you were up to. Since you pointed out that it was sanctioned by the Code of Conduct, I figured it was the most efficient way to ensure you were adhering to company policy at all times. When I found what you were doing with JerkAlert, it suddenly made sense. You were distracted by boy trouble.”
“I wasn’t distracted by boy trouble,” I said. “I was building a website. One that’s become quite popular, by the way.”
“Yes,” Vijay said, grinning. “I’ve noticed how much publicity it’s received, which means traffic is increasing. However, I think performance would improve if it was moved to a load-balanced environment. We can make room on one of Hatch’s server farms.”
Unbelievable. Vijay had sat back for years, allowing the Hatchlings to treat me like garbage. Now that I had a successful side project going on, he expected me to jump on board and become a Hatchling myself, all so he could make a quick buck. Well, it wasn’t gonna happen.
“I don’t want to move it to one of Hatch’s server farms.”
His face was warm, his smile was kind. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
“Actually, I do. This is my website. I created it all by myself.”
“Using Hatch’s resources.”
“No. Maybe I tweaked it here and there while I was at work, but I built the bulk of it while I was home. Using my own personal laptop.”
He produced a thick stack of printed pages from his desk drawer, slapping it on the desk in front of me. “I suggest you read the Intellectual Property Agreement you signed on your first day with Hatch.”
I vaguely remembered my first day. It was a whirlwind of introductions and instructions and, yes, mountains of paperwork. I’d been ushered into Benny’s office and asked to sign contract after contract. I barely read any of it, and after a while I stopped even asking what it was I was signing. I was just so happy to finally have a paying job, I’d have probably signed away my firstborn.
Which, in a way, I guess I did.
“According to this,” he continued, “we own any software you’ve developed on a Hatch-issued device, at any stage of its development. Including small tweaks.”
“Well,” I said, “this is coming a little too late. Because I’ve already accepted an offer from Fluttr. They’re purchasing the database. It’s a done deal.”
“I’m afraid it’s not a done deal.” Vijay’s voice was so calm and good-natured, it was hard to believe he was threatening me.
“JerkAlert is mine.” I shot out of my seat. “You can’t steal it from me.”
“It’s not stealing, Melanie. You willingly signed that agreement. It’s legally binding. If you don’t believe me, consult your lawyers. You’ll need them if you try to fight us on this.”
Vijay smiled again. What an infuriating little man.
“This isn’t over.” I snatched the Intellectual Property Agreement from his desk and ran toward the door.
“Oh, Melanie?” Bob called. “One last thing before you go.”
With my hand on the doorknob, I paused and turned back, hunching my shoulders against whatever bomb he was about to drop.
“You’re fired for improper use of company resources.”
Boom.
26
I was not going to freak out.
Freaking out would not fix this.
What would fix this was a time machine. Some way to go back and erase the moment I decided to make those tweaks to JerkAlert on my work computer.
Or better yet, to erase the moment I decided to make JerkAlert at all. Because honestly, what good had it done me? It had brought nothing but pain to my life: a pink slip, a breakup. The worst part was, Hatch would now reap all the benefits of my hard work, and I wouldn’t see a dime.
Or at least, that’s what Vijay said. Who knew if I should believe him?
Since time travel wasn’t an option, there was only one thing left to do: sit down and read this Intellectual Property Agreement from cover to cover. I returned to my empty apartment, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and curled up with the pages I’d swiped from Vijay’s desk. I was sure I’d find a loophole in there somewhere.
Except I couldn’t understand a damn thing I was reading. The entire thing was written in legalese of the highest order. There were some scary-looking terms in there, though, like the whole section referring to “Prior Inventions” and “Future Assurances.” Did this mean Hatch owned anything I’d ever made or ever would make, in perpetuity?
The hell if I knew. The entire document was indecipherable.
I started wishing for that time machine again. Only now, I wanted to turn the clock back even further, to freshman year in college, to the moment I checked the little box on the form to declare my major. Computer science seemed like such a good idea at the time. It was fun (mostly) and I was good at it (mostly) and I thought I would make great money. I didn’t realize I’d still be drowning in debt four years after graduation, or be dealing with an endless parade of douches hell-bent on making my life miserable.