Chicago, eleven am. Raphael was sitting in his apartment that sat over his workshop, having a bowl of cereal. He’d gotten up much later than he’d meant to, and not even coffee was going to fix this problem, so he’d just gotten himself a nice bowl of fruit loops for breakfast. He needed to go back over the nearby university’s website problem too. Someone had done something, was all he’d been told, and that they needed him to fix it. Their IT people were either on vacation, or couldn’t figure it out or something. Their email request hadn’t been all that clear.



He clicked through his emails again, double checking that he’d gotten all the information. Yep. They just couldn’t fix it. He didn’t know how the hell that school got on with the people that it had. Their website had been, mostly, fine before they asked him to clean it up but now some local kids kept hacking it? Did they even do any kind of checking? Raph had gone through that website every time that something happened and it was almost always the same change. They would alter one of the main links of the site so that it would send the clicker to some kind of porn site, it was a pretty juvenile hack, honestly.



Deleting that email, he began to go down his list seeing another person that needed more RAM, another one that wanted a graphics card replaced. He couldn’t help but groan at the other two. Could people really not follow a damned Youtube video? He ran his hands through his hair in annoyance. It was the same kind of annoyance that he used to have whenever the people came into his old teacher’s shop. After all, they didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t want to learn, they just kept moving forward as though they didn’t need to learn anything.

Hell, at least Raphael could change the oil and tires on his own car! At least he knew what charger his phone used and where his computer’s power cord was. It got on his nerves when he had to help people that just didn’t try to improve themselves, but that was the very nature of his job. He had to help them. And so help them he did. In the last week alone he’d made a fair amount of progress, and a rather healthy profit despite the parts that he was having to order.

He continued scrolling through his emails looking for something exciting, and were he just skimming through them like usual he would’ve missed something important. As it was, though, he received an email from his boss that someone important would be coming through the area and that Raphael should meet him, though the name wasn’t one he remembered. Avon de Grey? He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair a second time. What in the world was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to greet such a man?

Slowly, he got into his suit, only slightly annoyed that he was doing so on his day off. He didn’t mind dressing up nicely, as he did it a lot for meetings, but on a day off? It was more of a nuisance than anything. Plus this guy would probably want a specific greeting or title… His slowly put on his suit jacket, wishing that this meeting had been scheduled for later on in the week. He was supposed to meet the man out at a café? Well, it was better than nowhere.

The place where he’d been told to go was rather plain, not much to it. Some tables were inside, though the majority of them were outside for people to enjoy a nice day. He sat down at one of the outside tables and replied that he was waiting for someone here. As soon as the other member of his party arrived, he would be ordering something. The waitress smiled and thanked him before going off to help another customer. Raph looked at his watch and hoped that he wouldn’t be waiting too long.

Raphael was still sitting at the table, when a limousine pulled up. A well dressed man and two rather large men in suits strode past him and entered the café. Raphael looked up from his phone, briefly, paying the briefest of attention as they walked past him, and then went back to his phone. His friend, Mike, had been playing with the code at the company he worked for, but had messed up somewhere and was asking if Raph would take a look at it once he got back. Sighing, he began to ponder where in the hell Mike had gone wrong, where the coding could have gone wrong.

That was when he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up. One of the men in the suits that had walked past him had come back outside to speak with him. Yet before he could say a word, the suited man suddenly told him that the “boss” would see him now. Cocking an eyebrow in confusion, Raphael nodded slowly, and got to his feet before following the man inside. The man that he was guided to wasn’t exactly what Raphael had envisioned when he thought of his “boss’s boss”. The faintest hint of a tan, eyes of icy color, and white hair, definitely wasn’t what he was expecting. He wore a black turtleneck and a black coat that covered over it with a floral pattern.

“Greetings, sir,” Raphael said, bowing at the waist. “My name is Raphael Laurent and from what I was told in an email, you are Mr. Grey? My apologies for being a bit confused, but the email I was sent held very little details, just that I was to meet you here.” He stood a bit awkwardly for a moment and looking at the gentleman, gestured to the chair and asked, “May I sit?”

The man motioned for Raphael to sit down and he sat down across from the man and he continued to go over his phone for the next few minutes after Raphael had sat down. Finally the man spoke, apologizing for both the delay and unscheduled meeting. Not exactly certain as to why he’d been called out here Raphael didn’t say anything, just simply sat there watching.

He introduced himself as Avon de Grey, ordered another cup of coffee, and allowed Raphael to order whatever he liked. When the waitress came by he ordered a single cup of hot chocolate, and thanked her as she left.

The first thing that he did was to ease Raphael’s concerns. Raph wasn’t in any trouble, rather the opposite, he found out. The man said that he had Raph’s folder on his phone, a veritable resume of everything that he’d ever done, and had been going over it for the last few hours. Raphael felt his cheeks turn red and he looked around. After finishing his cup of coffee he sat his phone on the table and slid it towards Raph.

He picked it up, but it felt odd, it fit perfectly into his hand, had a rather wide screen and high definition. It was like nothing that was currently on the market and as he looked on it, he could see his actual full resume, the work on the school and his program, and the little IT work that he did.

Slowly, and with a bit of worry, Raphael put down the phone and looked up at Avon, eyes slightly wide. He listened, as Avon said that not only did Raphael interest Avon, but that he wanted to offer the young man a job.

“You want to offer me a job, sir? What could I possibly do for you?”

Avon smiled, though his eyes never left Raphael as he spoke. He reminded Raphael of the story of a crocodile with a silver tongue, but he was seemed kind at least. Though he did have a job for Raphael in his thoughts. Apparently Grey Corporation, that he himself had built, and the many bases always had one issue or another whether from one company or just general issues, which made sense. That was one of the reasons that he was constantly helping out that one school, stupid kids were always changing things.

He nodded as the man said that he owned the company Raph worked for. He was pretty sure that he did, considering the email that he’d received. And he nodded, again, as Avon talked about exactly HOW he owned the company that Raph’s company worked for. But when he offered to make Raphael the Head of IT, AND let him choose anywhere in the world to do his work from? Raph could feel his eyes practically bulging out of his eyes. Raphael sipped at the hot chocolate, as Avon took a sip from his coffee, and then he slid a piece of paper over to Raphael.

Curious, Raphael stopped sipping his hot chocolate and put it down so he could check the card and flipped it over. His eyes widened a bit more. This was a good deal more money than he’d ever expected to see on a card, or piece of paper…or really anything. Not that he made bad money for what he did, but this was more than he’d expected to see.

Slowly Avon offered him a cigar, which he turned down, but couldn’t help but smile as the man lit both. Though there was no considering what he was offering.

“In all honesty, sir, that’s an offer that I can’t refuse. I’ve been wanting to work my way up to such a level anyway, this just makes it a bit quicker.” He smiled, and began to stroke his chin. “I won’t lie, there are a few things I’ve thought about. Might need some new programs, but with a bit of tweaking I should be able to fix the firewalls. Might put a few retroactive viruses.” He drank some more hot chocolate and said, “You’ll understand my skepticism, I hope. I have friends that tend to play pranks. If this isn’t a prank, then yeah, I definitely accept this offer.” He took a sip from the hot chocolate. “I do want to ask if there are any areas you’d like me to focus on first. Optimization is always one of my favorites, but if you’d prefer patching up security I’ll run some things through your systems to see what’s weak.”

There was a small smirk that escaped Raphael’s lips when Mr. de Grey explained that he was, indeed, the real deal and not a prank. Raph was quite sure that he wasn’t a prank, but it was always better to be safe than it was to be sorry later. His next statement, however, was what shocked Raphael, as he stated that the actual company had very few employees. Raph pondered such a curious statement, before the man revealed that the people that were a part of Grey Co. were specific and hand-picked by Avon.

The rest of the companies that worked for him were just side businesses, places likely to increase revenue. Such a thing didn’t surprise Raphael, though it wasn’t something that he was entirely used to. A company like Grey Co. being more of a tight knit group that were pretty much trusted and that was the main reason for their existence? That was especially new to him; though it was more surprise as he had never really had such an inner circle before. He had friends certainly but he didn’t tend to keep them that close. They’d meet up for drinks here and there then go their separate ways.

A lady entered the café area and handed Avon a folder and she sat down a ways away from the two. Though he watched her curiously he made sure that Avon was constantly in his vision. Then he began to look over the papers in the folder and found, as Mr. de Grey had said, that everything was indeed in order. Slowly he smiled and pulled a pen out of his pocket, and slowly signed then looked up at Avon.

“You’ve got me more than intrigued, Mr. de Grey. I relish the opportunity to work with you.”